And then I gasped with tears in my vision as Nixon closed his eyes and then grabbed my hand and placed it where I’d slapped him. “I deserved that.”
“No…” I felt like complete shit. “…you didn’t.”
“You,” Nixon whispered, “I trust.”
“And Chase?”
“Complicated,” Nixon finally said, his blue eyes locking on Chase as he lay still against the hardwood floor. “I’ll get him upstairs. Why don’t you look around for his new employee, make sure she knows he’s passed out. I’m not letting you play nurse.”
I rolled my eyes. “So the new girl gets the honors?”
Nixon’s mouth curved into a smile. “Remember when that was your title? New girl?”
I stood up on my tiptoes and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Remember when I mooed in front of the entire student body, and Phoenix drugged me, and you pushed me away into that one’s arms?” I jerked my head to Chase. “Or how about the time that—”
He covered my mouth with his and kissed me hard then pulled back. “Okay, you made your point. We all have shit.”
“We’re a freaking reality show, Nixon,” I sighed. “And Chase is clearly the producer’s pick, the one who stirs up trouble to get ratings,” I said, making light of the situation so I wouldn’t crumple against my husband’s chest.
Nixon kissed the top of my head. “It will get better. I promise.”
They were the words I needed to hear. “How do you know, though?”
He pressed a finger to my lips. I parted them, tasting his skin. “I have to believe that we’ve been brought to this point, not to just collapse from within, but to grow, to become greater than before. The legacy our parents left behind was one of complete brokenness. I think we deserve to give our children something more, don’t you? I think the universe owes us at least that.”
I nodded silently.
“Come on,” Nixon sighed. “I’ll heave him up to his room. Damn guy still weighs a ton, even with a diet of wine and whiskey.”
I made a face while Nixon knelt and grabbed Chase’s body.
“Go grab Luciana and fill her in.”
I saluted him and made my way up the stairs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Money talks. And so do the dead, just not in the way you think.”
— Ex-FBI Agent P
Luciana
I rubbed my eyes.
Then stared at the number again.
Payroll and finances for the last year couldn’t be right.
Could they?
I stared at the tax forms and investments then stared down the rest of the numbers; nothing financially made sense.
There were fifty different companies, all owned by a Chase Abandonato Winter, and every single one of them had money circulating through each other.
Money laundering wasn’t a new concept, but the way he did it was… fascinating.
And the way he paid to get it done…
Unheard of.
He was able to clean his own money because he owned banks, not just small branches, but one of the biggest banks in the United States.
I frowned harder.
If the numbers were correct and not a typo, the guy had pulled in almost two billion last year, and paid out close to nineteen million to people in his different companies, mainly his bank, and a few people named associates.
Associates?
Like business associates?
My fuzzy brain tried to put everything together, but the stomach cramps, mixed with my exhausted eyes and the fact that I was staring at more money than I’d ever seen in my life, had me a bit thrown off.
I wasn’t stupid. People who shot people, or were attacked like he was, didn’t just get paid blood money. Either he was Jason Bourne, or they were part of a crime organization that apparently even the government turned a blind eye to, if the whole scenario with the cop was anything to go off.
My chest felt heavy.
I pressed a hand against it and jumped out of my seat when a knock sounded on the door.
It opened.
Trace, the woman from before, the one who did nothing but aggravate Chase more, the one who seemed to deny him everything, was standing in the doorway and, for some reason, I felt anger.
And an unholy protection over the man who’d kept me from getting wrongly arrested, from the man who was more foe than friend.
But so broken that if I didn’t defend him…
Who would?
Who?
I glared.
She seemed taken aback, and then her pretty, deep brown eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “Do we have a problem here?”
I licked my lips. “No, just working.”
She crossed her arms and looked around the room. I knew what she saw, tons of folders open, papers scattered. It was chaos, but everything had its place, and only I knew the way.
“Nixon sent me,” she said, just as Nixon walked by with Chase hanging over his back. “We need to add another fun job to your description.”
Great, just great. The last thing I needed was to be next to the guy for an extended period of time. I didn’t trust him.
And if I were being completely honest, I didn’t trust myself.
I clearly had some major Stockholm Syndrome going on if I felt any ounce of protectiveness over the guy, but there it was.
My stomach sank when his head fell over Nixon’s shoulder in a deathly sleep, his face pale.
I tried to move past Trace, but she held her arm out, blocking my path. “If you hurt him…”
The threat was there.
And rather than scare me…
It just pissed me off. “Look…” I clenched my teeth. “…I don’t know who you are, but from what I’ve seen so far, I’m not really that impressed.”
“You don’t know the hell that guy’s been through,” she hissed, her head ducking toward mine.
“I know that seeing you,” I whispered harshly, refusing to back down, “isn’t making it better.”
She jerked as though I’d just slapped her, and tears filled her large eyes, threatening to spill over any second.
Nixon’s voice interrupted our exchange. “She’s right.”
Trace’s face fell more as a tear streaked down her right cheek. “I can’t lose him, too.”
“Too?” I asked, looking between the both of them.
“She was my friend, too,” Trace admitted, staring down at the ground. “Guess you don’t really know who your real friends are until their loyalty is tested, huh?”
I had no clue what she was talking about.
Nixon just sighed and pulled her into his embrace, studying me over the top of her head. “Make sure he doesn’t suffocate from his own vomit, and if he wakes up screaming, try singing.”
“Singing?” I repeated dumbly. “How’s that going to help?”
Nixon, for the first time since I’d met him, looked ashamed as he kissed the top of Trace’s head and whispered, “His mom used to sing.”
“Okay.” Used to being the key phrase.
Because she was no longer here? Or because she was out of the picture?
They both turned.
I clenched my hand into a fist and called after them, “What are you?”
“Vampires,” Trace called back with a completely straight face, about the same time Nixon said, “Zombies.”
They shared a smile.
I huffed in annoyance.
“Follow the trail, Luciana,” Nixon finally said, not so helpfully, and they made their way back down the stairs, leaving me with the devil himself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Inaction is sometimes the greatest action one can choose.”
— Ex-FBI Agent P
Chase
“I love you,” I whispered into her hair, ducking my head against her neck, only to find a speck of blood. I retreated. “Mil?”
She sighed and wrapped her arms around my neck, then sucked my lower lip. “Make me forget
.”
“That I can do,” I said in a hollow voice. It’s what I’d been doing for the past six months.
Making her forget.
When all I really wanted was for her to remember all the reasons we were good for each other, and all the reasons to fight for what we had. In a world full of ugly, sometimes all you had were the broken pieces of love to cling to. But if you ignore them too long…
I shuddered.
And she let out a moan as I gripped her ass.
I loved sex as much as the next guy.
What I didn’t love?
Was a one-sided relationship where she gave me her body.
And I gave her my everything.
I tossed and turned as the memory faded to black, as blood started dripping from my hands, her emotionless eyes looking up at me, gone.
She was gone.
Gone. Gone. Gone.
I squeezed my eyes shut and wrapped my arms around my body, if I held on tight enough it wouldn’t hurt so bad, if I could just squeeze out the pain. If I could just find peace.
From anything.
Suddenly a small voice filled the room. It was pretty, soft, the melody made my breathing all but pause, and then there were hands on my face. They matched the softness of the voice. I wasn’t used to soft.
I was used to harsh realities.
Darkness.
Being used.
Tossed aside.
The big joke.
Ignored.
But this, this touch, it felt… more like giving than taking.
I didn’t understand that concept.
The one where I wasn’t the one always emotionally empty, physically exhausted, mentally on edge.
I clung to the wrists that belonged to those hands as my thumbs caressed the soft skin beneath her fingertips and on the backs of her knuckles. And when she sang a little louder, I gripped a little bit tighter, as the nightmare faded into the darkness. I squeezed my eyes so tight I saw flecks of light.
Maybe I was finally dead.
Maybe she was an angel.
But for the first time in years, I wanted to be the taker, the one who stole all the light, all the good and kept it for himself, for just one second.
Maybe I’d have peace.
Maybe she’d let me, this angel.
So I pulled her closer to my chest and inhaled the air around her neck, and when it wasn’t enough, I tugged that hair, wrapping it around my right hand, exposing the softness near her collarbone, and pressed my face against the warmth.
A heartbeat.
Steady.
And the song that fell from her lips.
About a man finding love where it was once lost, right in front of him, I’d heard it before, one of those sappy romantic love songs that made me scowl.
But when a woman sang it.
It sounded perfect.
Like it could happen.
I didn’t realize a tear had fallen from my face as wetness hit me on the chin, and then I realized.
I wasn’t the one crying.
My angel was.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“We mobilize after the commission… when they are at their weakest.”
— Ex-FBI Agent P
Luciana
I didn’t sleep a wink.
He was heavier than he looked, if that was even possible, and every few minutes he’d stir and say, “Emiliana.”
I wanted to believe it was his mother’s name.
But I knew that was foolish.
It was her.
His dead wife.
It had to be.
I didn’t want to ask, but so many questions burned in my brain; if he missed her so much, why did he say he wished he could have killed her?
I didn’t know.
Maybe I didn’t want to know, considering he was this torn up about her and still wished her dead? It didn’t really bode well for letting his personal feelings get between him and his murdering jobs.
I shuddered just as he clutched my wrists tighter and moved to his back, pulling me on top of his body so I was straddling him.
At least I was in pajamas. I’d been too afraid to leave him alone, so I’d grabbed one of his old t-shirts and a pair of Nike sweats and tossed them on before singing him back to sleep.
The only time he looked peaceful was when I was singing.
I sang until I was hoarse.
And then tried singing some more.
When I finally lost my voice, I started rubbing his face and down the sides of his sharp jawline. A person could cut steel with a jaw like that. He had such perfectly sharp features it was intimidating to stare straight at him, almost like my eyes couldn’t take in everything at once and needed a time out.
I stilled across his chest when he shook his head and then opened his eyes.
I was on top of my employer.
With his clothes on.
In his bedroom.
Straddling his body.
I was so going to get fired.
“You.” He jerked up then winced as he placed a hand to his temples.
I quickly reached for the water on the nightstand, along with the medicine, and held it out to him.
With a curse, he grabbed it out of my hands and swallowed both pills dry before chugging the entire glass and setting it back down on the stand.
This was not good.
His blue eyes were crisp.
Angry.
I seriously could do nothing right with this guy.
And I was still stupidly straddling him because I was afraid to move.
“Choose your next words carefully…” he rasped.
Damn him, he had no right to sound sexy after being hung over and passing out last night. He didn’t even smell! It was bordering on ridiculous, inhuman. Of course, vampires made sense now.
“Did you sing to me last night?”
I wish I was a better liar. Then again, lying didn’t necessarily mean he’d let me live. I hung my head and gave him a slow nod.
“How long?”
“What?” I whispered nervously.
“How long,” he repeated, “did you sing?”
I self-consciously pressed my hand to my throat. “Whenever you needed it the most.” All night. Words left unsaid.
“So the angel sang the devil to sleep…” he whispered, closing his eyes. “…at the risk of her own damnation.”
Was he still drunk?
I frowned, tempted to feel his forehead for any sign of a fever.
“Luc.” It sounded like Luke; I wasn’t sure I liked it. “I’m going to need you to get off of me before I take it as an invitation.”
I scurried away so fast I took every blanket with me.
Of course he would be naked.
Of course.
That was just the kind of luck I had.
He didn’t seem to mind, just laid there with his eyes at half-mast, a smirk crossing his harsh features, and a body straight out of Mt Olympus.
“You’re staring,” he pointed out.
I looked away and pressed a hand to my face. “Sorry, I just— I’ll just go get back to work then.”
I jerkily walked toward the door, only to have his hand reach out and gently grasp my wrist. “Thank you.”
I was so shocked my jaw nearly came unhinged from my face. “For what?”
He dropped my arm, turned away, and whispered, “For the peace.”
“Anytime,” I said over the golf ball lodged in my throat.
“Luc?” He turned to me, eyes sad. “I won’t hold you to that… Better not to make promises you can’t keep.”
There was more to it than that, more meaning, something deeper. I opened my mouth to pry, but he was already turning his body completely away from me, as if he was putting that invisible barrier back up between us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“Predators stalk their prey. The good ones are patient for hours, days, months. I have been patient for years.”
— E
x-FBI Agent P
Chase
The sound of my text messaging going off woke me up from another dreamless sleep, one where I felt music surround me, rocking me off to sleep.
I gripped my phone and stared down.
Nixon: You alive?
My head throbbed. I remembered Trace coming over, leaning in, oh shit, I groaned into my hands and then fired off a quick text.
Me: No bullet holes, and it’s not like you to miss.
Nixon: I didn’t.
I checked my body for blood, not one of my prouder moments, and came back empty.
Me: So you poisoned me?
Nixon: The thought crossed my mind at least a dozen times when I grabbed that glass of water — but I decided it would be too painless.
Me: So does that mean torture is on the menu?
He added Tex to the conversation, then Sergio, Frank, Phoenix, and, of course, Vic. Apparently the guy was getting closer to everyone though I barely saw him on my own property.
Tex: Catch me up. Who poisoned who?
Me: I’m alive.
Tex: I’m suddenly disappointed…
Phoenix: Nixon should have killed you.
I growled and gripped my phone in my hand so tight my fingers turned white.
Me: I was drunk.
Dante’s name popped in on the chat.
Dante: You’re always drunk.
It stung.
The entire conversation stung.
And lately I hadn’t given a shit, so why did it matter now? Was it because I actually got a decent night’s sleep without nightmares? Is that what sleep did to a person? Make them more human? Or was it the single tear from the most deserving to the least of them all?
She’d cried.
I remembered that much.
And I wasn’t threatening her.
Which meant something was making her sad.
And all fingers pointed at me.
Me.
I was making her cry.
Or they were tears of pity.
And for once I didn’t actually care, because pity was, first and foremost, grown out of a deep-rooted longing to care for another human, and I couldn’t ignore the fact that one tear was more emotion than I’d been given in a very long time.