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“Players work for months on their costumes. They build suits of armor, create custom-made character outfits, and forge their own weapons. My court all has matching vestments that I designed and sewed. I’m a textile designer, so it’s not that much of a stretch to create a vestment.”
Cam pointed at his plain black T-shirt. “This is about as design as I get. What’s a textile designer do?”
“I work with fashion designers to create textiles that they’ll use to take their designs from paper to real life. They imagine it, and I make the perfect pattern happen.”
“So how does that translate into these costumes?” Tony asked.
“I get fabric at cost because of all of the designers and textile wholesalers and importers I work with, which allows me to produce the patterns for less than my court could on their own,” she said. “The vestments are a deep aubergine purple with threads of real silver sewn in to form the Silver Queen’s crest. That’s what the thief keeps taking. He leaves the rest of the costume.”
“Real silver,” Cam said. “Could he be targeting them for that?”
“That’s a lot of work for minimal payout.” Tony looked down at the initial police report she’d filed last week before turning to Cam. “You know who we need on this.”
“Not sure if he’s gotten here yet.” Cam gave her a pointed stare. “He had an exciting night. I’ll go look.”
The blond giant stood up and strutted out the conference room door.
“You’ll like this guy. He’s one of our lead investigators,” Tony said. “With his background, he’ll be a perfect fit for your case.”
“What kind of backgrou—” The word died on her lips when Carlos walked in the room, looking just as delicious in the black T-shirt and dark-wash jeans he wore now as he had this morning with his white sheets twisted around his lean hips.
Tony stood up and handed the case file to Carlos. “Mika, this is Carlos Castillo.”
If her brain had hiccupped when Carlos had walked into the room, it went into hyperdrive when Tony said Carlos’s full name. Anyone with the slightest affiliation with Magic Battledome knew exactly who he was.
“The Carlos Castillo?” She nearly fell out of her chair. Every community had its heroes, its best-of-the-best. For Magic Battledome players and LARPers, that person stood before her. The guy’s legend had grown even larger when he’d suddenly vanished a year ago. She’d spent the night with him and hadn’t known… Of course, it wasn’t like they’d done much talking. Shit, she hadn’t even known his last name. “You’re Zephyr?”
“Not anymore.” His jaw hardened and he turned away as if he’d never seen her before in his life. “Tony, Cam, can I talk to you outside?”
Ouch.
She flinched as if he’d slapped her, but she wasn’t about to sit quietly and politely like he obviously expected.
“Is this because of last night?” Mika sipped her steaming cup of coffee as if her temper hadn’t gone from zero to a bazillion in the past eight seconds. “You don’t have to worry, I’m not a stage-six clinger or anything.”
“Last night?” Tony asked, a confused wrinkle forming between his eyes.
Cam jerked his chin toward the door. “It might be better—”
“We had sex,” she interrupted. “A one-night stand. It was hot and fun and not something that’s going to cloud my ability to work with Carlos. You’re right, not having to explain every aspect of the LARP world would be helpful for the investigation.” She stared at the trio of men, refusing to kowtow to the muscle-bound bros packing heat. “Look, I have bigger problems to deal with than any kind of weird funkiness you three want to put on a woman who is perfectly comfortable with her sexuality. I’ve seen his dick, but that’s not going to blind me to what we really need to be focusing on: finding out who’s stealing my court’s costumes. The police aren’t taking it seriously, but I thought that you would. Was I wrong?”
Carlos was fucked.
He’d known it as soon as he’d walked into the conference room and spotted Mika looking sexy as hell in last night’s shirt, her hair twisted into some kind of messy bun thing. Of course, he should have realized who she was last night when he’d used his tongue to trace the intricate sword tattoo down Mika’s spine. If he’d been thinking with his big head instead of the little one, he would have recognized Dyrnwyn, the legendary sword of Rhydderch Hael. It was the most coveted treasure in Magic Battledome and the symbol for his very real brush with death in the real world. He’d turned his back on that world, and case or no case, there was no way in hell he was getting dragged back into it.
“No, you weren’t wrong, Maltese can help,” he said. “But I’m not the best choice for the case.”
Mika raised her chin, the look of disgust written in the arch of her dark eyebrows and the twist of her red lips. “Then who is? Because I’d like to speak to him or her instead of sitting here wasting my time.”
Tension stretched between them, a taut electric wire stinging his fingertips where he had stroked her soft, smooth skin only a few hours before. He shoved his hands in his pockets, the scratch of denim minimizing the buzzing need eating away at him to touch her again.
“It’s not your choice to make, ’Los,” Tony said, jerking his chin downward in a nonverbal order. “Last time I checked, I signed your paycheck.”
Carlos sat down in the chair farthest from Mika, which gave him the distance he needed but also provided an unobstructed view of her as she sipped her coffee. She didn’t look like a cold-blooded killer, but neither had Ivy. The reminder of the redheaded supermodel turned his gut to lead.
He tore his gaze from Mika and turned toward his boss—the very man whose life he’d saved by shooting Ivy. “You know exactly why I’m not right for this.”
“What I know is that you’re the only one here with the background necessary to work this case the way it needs to be done,” Tony said. “Are you really willing to walk away from a case just because of a little ancient history?”
