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"Yeah. Can I come in?"
"Um, sure. Just a sec," she called out, trying to sound casual as she threw a dry work cloth over her sculpture and quickly checked her face in the reflection off one of her putty spatulas.
Oh, lovely. She had a slightly crazed, starving-artist look going on. Very glamorous. That'll teach him to do the pop-in visit, she thought, as she padded over to the door and twisted the dead bolt.
"What are you do--"
Her question cut off as she opened the door and caught a glimpse of him. He was drenched from the rain, his dark hair spiked where it clung to his forehead and cheeks, leather coat dripping onto his black combat boots and the tattered welcome mat in the hall outside her place.
But that wasn't all he was dripping. Splotches of blood mingled with the rainwater, falling at a steady clip from an unseen injury.
"Oh, my God! Are you okay?" She moved aside to let him in, then closed the door behind him. "What happened to you?"
"I won't stay long. I probably shouldn't have come at all. You were the first person I thought of--"
"It's okay," she said. "Come in. I'll go get you a towel."
She ran down the hall to her linen closet and pulled out two towels, one to dry the rain off him and another for his wound. When she came back into the living room, Dante was in the process of taking off his coat. As he reached up to unzip it, Tess saw that his knuckles were bloodstained. There were splatters of the stuff on his face too, most of it diluted by the water that was still running off his chin and wet hair.
"You're pretty banged up," she said, concerned for him yet more than a little unsettled to see him looking like he'd been in some kind of nasty street fight. She didn't see any cuts on his hands or face, so maybe most of the blood there didn't belong to him. But that wasn't the case elsewhere.
As the heavy leather came open in the front, Tess sucked in her breath. "Oh, Jesus... "
A long laceration ran across the width of his right thigh, clearly a knife wound. The injury was still fresh, soaking his pant leg with blood.
"It's not a big deal," he said. "Trust me, I'll live."
He peeled off the coat and Tess's sympathy turned to ice.
Dante was armed like something out of an action-movie nightmare. A thick belt went around his hips, studded with several different kinds of blades, not the least of which were huge curved daggers sheathed on either side of him. Strapped across the chest of his black long-sleeved shirt was a gun holster sporting a deadly looking brushed-stainless monstrosity; she didn't even want to imagine the size of hole that thing could blast into someone. He had another gun secured around his left thigh.
"What the hell... " Tess instinctively shrank away from him, holding the towels against her like a shield.
Dante met her stricken, uncertain gaze and frowned. "I won't hurt you, Tess. These are just tools of my trade."
"Your trade?" She was still inching backward, movement she wasn't aware of until the backs of her calves came up against the coffee table in the center of the living room. "Dante, you're dressed like an assassin."
"Don't be afraid, Tess."
She wasn't. She was confused, concerned for him, but not afraid. He began taking off his weapons, unfastening his leg holster and holding it like he didn't know where to put it down. Tess gestured beside her, to the squat coffee table.
"May I have one of those towels, please?"
She handed him one, watching as he carefully placed his weapon on the table like he didn't want to add another nick to the already well-worn wood. Even armed to the teeth and bleeding, he was still considerate. Polite, even. A real gentleman, if you could get past all the deadly hardware and the aura of danger that seemed to radiate in visible waves off his huge body.>"No. They gave me a disposable cell phone. It's got a single number programmed into speed dial, but they encrypted it, so I don't know where I'm actually calling."
"Let me see it."
Sullivan reached into his vest pocket and pulled out the device, then handed it to Dante. "What are you going to do?"
"We'll hang on to this for you. Right now you need to come with us so we can continue this little chat someplace else."
"What? No." He got to his feet, looking around anxiously. "Fuck that. I'm not sure I should trust you guys either, so thanks but no thanks. I'll take care of myself--"
Dante crossed the room and had the human's throat in his hand before the guy could blink. "It wasn't a request."
He released the Crimson dealer, shoving him toward Chase. "Get him out of here. Find a back way to the SUV and drive him to the compound. I'm going to go down and deliver his regrets to the assholes waiting at the curb."
As Chase took hold of the human's arms and started moving him out, Dante slipped through the doorway to the hall. He was on the rainy street in no time, coming to a halt in front of the idling sedan and glaring through the windshield at the two humans seated inside.
