“Was it that bad?” he asked.
“I think you broke his nose, but we reset it before we sent him back.”
“Dude deserved it not to be reset,” Tony said. “Thinking he could impersonate us.”
“That’s not why we do this,” Mary reminded him. “We’re not in the torture or revenge business.”
Parker ignored the two of them. “Sloan is keeping an eye on the tracker as we speak.”
“So she’s not coming?” Liza asked.
“I figure at least she’s helping out with something, so let her out of this one.” Parker stood up and gave them all his Hollywood smile. He rolled his shoulders as though psyching himself up for something. “You got your plugs, Griff?”
Griffin patted them in his pocket. “Yes, why?”
“Because shit’s about to get real in here.” Parker signaled for the DJ in the cage to wind up the music. A fresh electronic beat started thumping. Base vibrated the walls, the floors and the table, making Griffin’s teeth tingle.
“Now,” Parker shouted over the music, looking impish. “Tonight is going to be hard on some of you with all the sin in the air, so have the night off and enjoy yourself. That’s an order.”
With that, he stepped from the booth with grace that belied his size, entered the dance pit and slotted himself between two women he knew.
An hour later, Griffin still hadn’t moved. He’d held off with his plugs so he could hear the conversation at his table. But then Flint and Mary excused themselves, and Liza and Tony joined Parker on the dance floor. They came back once or twice to hydrate. Evan sat with him for a while, but seeing his girl down in the pit with the other beautiful women, and a growing circle of ogling men had him eager to get there.
“You sure you don’t want to come?” Evan asked.
Griffin shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Your loss.” Evan bounded down the steps, merging into the crowd, leaving Griffin alone.
Easy for Parker to say—have the night off—but greed was always there, niggling at Griffin’s periphery. Tony and Liza had it worst. Every club patron wanted a drink, to consume. Tony had already begun to dull his pain with alcohol and God knew what else. Liza, on the other hand, seemed to be affected by lust in a different way. He’d long suspected she felt her sin differently to the rest of them. They got a sick feeling in their gut when near sin, Liza… he caught sight of her grinding suggestively up against some tall, handsome man. She looked fine.
The music pounded, and he felt awkward sitting on his own. Perhaps if he put his earplugs in, it wouldn’t be so bad. After another ten minutes of psyching himself up, he decided to visit the restroom. When he finished with that, he would walk right up to Lilo and ask her to dance—just like Liza had suggested. He didn’t exactly know how he was going to dance, but he figured, there were many people around, so he could just go with the flow.
The restroom was the modern, unisex type with stalls on the outskirts and mirrors and basins in the middle. Naturally, it seemed as though the women shifted to one side, and the men the other. A bouncer stood watch at the door, making sure that everyone behaved themselves. Griffin quickly saw to his needs, sidestepped a few handsy drunk women and went straight to the center of the dance pit where he’d seen the girls last.
When he got there, he found only Grace and their blond friend. No Lilo.
He shouted in Grace’s ear. “Where’s Lilo?”
Smiling and red-faced, Grace replied: “Maybe she went to the restroom.”
A dark, insidious doubt crept into Griffin’s mind.
He’d just been in the restroom. He’d seen the girls, and not one of them looked like Lilo. Perhaps she’d been in one of the stalls. He rushed back to speak with the bouncer.
“Have you seen a woman wearing a long blue dress come in here?”
“Buddy, I get hundreds of women coming through here.”
“Short brown hair. Olive skin. She’s got a BMI of about twenty-one.”
The bouncer shook his head. “Still can’t help you. Take a look if you want.”
Griffin went into the communal restroom.
“Lilo?” he asked and banged on each closed stall door. His voice echoed off the tiled walls. “Are you in here?”
“I can be Lilo if you want,” a female replied. A woman at the mirror laughed and winked at him suggestively.
This was not helping.
Maybe she was having a drink, or maybe he’d passed her on her way back from the restroom. Maybe she was on another level…
For the next five minutes, Griffin searched the crowded nightclub and came up with nothing. It wasn’t until he went behind the bar that he felt a flare of greed prickle in his gut. It was stronger than the club’s mob. It stood out. He stood up straight to focus on it, rotating, trying to get a better sense of direction. It twisted and gnawed until the feeling became a cramp. The sensation grew as he approached the backdoor exit. By the time he pushed through to the cold alley outside, the sin raking his gut was an insatiable beast.
Lilo’s trembling voice stopped him in his tracks. “I told you, I don’t have your pictures.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lilo squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the disaster unfurling in front of her. Only minutes ago she was having the time of her life, letting loose and dancing with her two best friends in the whole world. She’d only gone to the bar for a quick drink of water and had suddenly found herself accosted by a man. He’d painfully pressed a gun into her lower back and urged her outside, past the bar staff, and through the rear exit that led to a deserted alley.
It was one of the men from the warehouse, the ones who’d kidnapped her father. She recognized the brown leather jacket. Not the same face, but his Irish accent made it too easy to assume he belonged to the same gang. When the man asked for the pictures that were in her father’s safe, her suspicions were confirmed.
He shoved her into the cold alley wall hidden in between two red dumpsters overflowing with trash. Three men glared at her from across the way, and the muffled thumping base of the nightclub reminded her that no one would hear her scream.
“We’re getting paid the big bucks to collect that envelope, girly,” said the man with the gun to her head. He had a row of hoop piercings along his ears, a ring in the septum of his nose, and one through his tongue. When he spoke, it glinted, reflecting the flickering fluorescent tube somewhere above them.
His friends watched casually, lounging against the opposite wall. One had a cigar in his mouth, blazing away. Another wore a Baker Boy cap, and the third chewed on a toothpick. All were rusty-haired and wearing the same brown, shapeless leather jacket that the kidnappers had worn.
“Look at me, girly,” said Piercings.
Lilo met eyes that reflected violence and pain.
“Not going to say it again. Where is the package?”
“I told you, I don’t have your pictures.” She wanted her voice to be steady, but it betrayed her fear and wobbled.
“I have them.”
Griffin.
She’d never been more happy to hear his voice as he walked from the direction of the nightclub. His hands were in his pockets, but he looked tense, tight, and furious.
A nod from the pierced man pushed the three men off the wall. The one with the Baker Boy hat flipped open the switch-blade in his hands. His friends went straight for their guns inside their jackets.
Griffin never took his eyes from the pierced man. “Get your hands off her.”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to be telling me what to do,” he replied, nonchalant.
“There’s four of us. Only one of you.” Baker Boy laughed, flashing the metal grill on his teeth.
Griffin calmly assessed the situation, taking note of the men and their weapons, the surrounding alley, and then his eyes landed on Lilo. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” But her heart slammed against her rib cage.
“So, unless you have the pict
ures,” the pierced man said. “This is between us, and the girl. Push off before you’re hurt, ya tool.”
“I don’t think so. You see, I know things.”
The sound of guns shifting, aiming, getting into position was the most horrifying sound Lilo ever heard.
“Griffin, just go,” she begged. She couldn’t believe she was dragging him into her mess again.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said calmly, looking into her eyes, then he turned to the man with the Baker Boy hat. “As I was saying, I know things. Like, for instance, that grill in your mouth is a cheap one. It looks like silver, but on the inside, its stainless steel cast with iron.”
“He’s insane,” Baker Boy joked with his friends. “What the fuck does it matter what it’s made off, tosser?”
“And you.” Griffin cocked his head to the side as he inspected the pierced man. “It’s the same for your jewelry. Cheap knockoffs instead of the surgical stainless it should be.”
“For fuck’s sake. Get rid of him.” The pierced man lost his patience, waved with his gun at Griffin, and then turned his back, dismissing him.
Bad idea.
It all happened so fast after that. Lilo barely registered what happened. The man with the grill in his mouth suddenly jerked toward the wall as though an invisible hand gripped him from the teeth and smashed him face-first into the red bricks. He lowered, bloody faced, moaning and groaning.
His friends lost their guns—the weapons flew along the alley as though they had wings—just like the way her cattle prod had gone flying when Greed carried her the other night.
Something inside her grew unsettled. She looked around for Greed, but no one else was in the alley except them. Except a savage-eyed Griffin running toward the two men, arm extended, reaching for each throat. When his fingers closed around their thick necks, Griffin used his momentum to push the men back against the wall until their heads hit bricks and bounced.
Damn, he was strong.
They fought back with dirty, street-style moves. A kick to Griffin’s groin, a punch in the kidney, but no matter what they did, the two men weren’t enough to escape his fury. He sliced and jabbed with his fists, punching in maneuvers too fast to decipher. Suddenly Griffin stood back, glowering at them. His fingers splayed apart. He gripped invisible air. As he clenched his fists, the fire-escape platform above their heads rattled and rumbled and shook, and then Griffin stepped back again. The platform came free from its supports and fell.
No. It didn’t fall. It glided, as though being controlled—
Lilo gasped.
He was controlling it.
Griffin was moving the metal… just like… just like…
Her vision swam.
Griffin was Greed. The real one.
It had been him all along.
The platform spun and pinned the two men against the wall, trapping them in its iron grasp.
Griffin faced Lilo’s pierced attacker, eyes wild behind his spectacles.
Did he even need those glasses?
A vein pulsed in his forehead, his nostrils flared, and a low growl erupted from the base of his throat, scaring the shit out of Lilo.
“Let. Her. Go,” he bit out.
The man nudged Lilo’s chin with his gun, but when cold metal hit her skin, the gun soared across the alley to skid across the floor, splashing through the puddles of old snow.
“What the fuck?” The guy still didn’t get it. He still hadn’t made the same connection Lilo had.
The man with the business-like blue shirt and black-framed spectacles was dangerous and deadly. He was the majestic beast come to life. He was a mythical warrior who had no scruples or ethics. He was the bastard who’d left Lilo alone in that dark stairwell…
She held her breath, wanting to close her eyes but too afraid to look away.
The piercings in the man’s face began to rattle.
“If you don’t back away from her, I will pull those from your face, one by one.”
As Griffin advanced, he made a grabbing motion above his head. More metal pried loose from the rusty fire-escapes—ladders, pipes, gutters…. Long metal bits creaked and arched into the alley, as though being drawn by a magnetic force.
How was he doing this?
The Irish gang-leader hesitated. He glanced at his pinned and groaning friends, then back at Griffin’s rage.
Her attacker’s piercings dangled out—presumably gripped by Griffin’s unseen power—hovering away from his body, and the man hastily moved with them to avoid having them ripped from his flesh. He stepped away from Lilo until he pushed up against the opposite wall with his friends.
“What the fuck are you?” The pierced man cried, wincing at the pain of his piercings being pulled to the limits. “What do you want?”
“I want to know why you want the pictures so badly.” Griffin’s hands were like claws in the air. The metal above him creaked menacingly for effect. “I want to know who you work for.”
The pierced man held up his hands in surrender. “Fine. I don’t care. We’re not getting paid enough for this. I don’t know why they want the pictures, but I can tell you it was a woman with white hair and that’s all I know.”
Griffin’s eyes narrowed. He was silent for so long, Lilo almost said something, but then he let go of his metaphysical hold on the metal above him, and pulled the fire-escape from the wall where it pinned two of the men.
“Get out of here before I change my mind.”
The pierced man helped his Baker Boy hat friend from the ground, and together, all three scrambled away, footsteps splashing loudly through puddles, echoing against the walls.
When Griffin turned to Lilo, all menace melted and was replaced with pure misery.
“Please.” He held his hands up. “Let me explain.”
“You!” She hugged herself. “You humiliated me.”
Tears burned her eyes. She didn’t know what to think. He’d saved her life. He was Griffin. He was Greed. He was someone she knew nothing about, clearly.
“I can explain.”
“You can explain?” she hissed. “How? What possible explanation can excuse you leaving me in that stairwell like that?”
Anguish twisted his features and he reached for her, but pulled back and fisted his hand. “I’m sorry I left you. It was the worst moment of my life. I hate myself for making you feel like that, and I want to tell you everything. Will you let me?”
Frustrated, Lilo’s gaze darted around the alley.
What the fuck should she do?
Was he safe to be around? The man could bend metal to his will. He could shake the world with his incredible power. She looked at the nightclub backdoor exit, heard the thumping base, and knew Grace was in there dancing… with Evan. If Griffin was Greed, then Evan would be one of them too. And the rest of his family. Parker, the billionaire… Tony, the fricking movie star!
“Oh my God, I feel sick.” She patted her clammy forehead.
“I won’t hurt you, Lilo, but I can’t keep this a secret from you anymore. You’re very special to me. Come inside, and I’ll explain everything. I’ll tell you about me, about my family. Everything. Please.”
Shit. Fucking shit! She bit her lip.
He was one of them.
Clearly.
He had morals, she knew that. He wasn’t a murderer like the fake Greed.
If he said he’d not hurt her… was that enough?
The Deadly Seven.
She had to go. This was the story of a lifetime. It was her unicorn—the one she never thought she’d actually find. Stamping down her fluttering heart and rolling nausea, Lilo agreed. “I will give you ten minutes.”
Griffin exhaled. “Good.”
She walked back to the nightclub exit. She’d need a stiff drink to get through this.
“This way,” he said behind her.
When she turned around, he’d opened a cast-iron door she’d not noticed before. A glance inside showed her steps leading into a dark
space. It reminded her too much of the dark stairwell he’d left her in the other night. A glance back at him showed him hopeful, and sincere.
She had to decide right now if she trusted him.
“It’s a direct path to”—he bit his lip, pausing—“our headquarters. It’s safe.”
His words echoed in her mind.
Safe.
Holy crap, she was doing this? He was one of them, and he was going to show her everything. Every journalistic instinct inside her wanted to uncover the truth, but every human instinct in her was fearful of finding the truth. Then again, could she really use what she found to write an exposé that outed the deadly heroes?
Not only would it hurt Grace, but the truth would hurt the heroes, and the city would be without them again. As if to punctuate her point, she heard a police siren wail in the distance.
All she knew was that she was a strong woman, a proud reporter, and she wasn’t going to let him win by showing her fear. Get the information, then decide what to do with it later. Without hesitation, she stepped through the door, and down the deadly rabbit hole.
Chapter Twenty-Four
He didn’t speak while he led Lilo into the headquarters basement. Sensing his arrival, the ceiling halogen lights illuminated as he walked, casting the walkway into light. AIMI would be watching from cameras, cataloging the new intruder, filing away information for later use. That’s the way she was designed, to take the lead from the seven. To watch, record, and leave it up to them to discern.
The magnetic build up in his body still thrummed, and he couldn’t shut it down. Each day since he’d developed powers, he’d felt it in his bloodstream, in his organs, and in his mind, changing him on a molecular level. He hadn’t trained enough with it, like his family suggested. He could control his power well enough during battle, but afterwards… it still rode his system like a drug. It made him edgy, wired, and in need of release—as though the magnetism bottled in his blood and wanted out. But he didn’t have time for that now. Lilo walked beside him.
He stopped at an intersection of hallways where four doors led to different rooms. “This is the workout room.” He pointed to a room on the right. “That’s the tech workshop. Med room is there and—”
Greed Page 20
