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ChapterTwenty
The restaurant was ownedand operated by humans. The agents had researched it all day, and apparently, all the people who ate there regularly were human, too. It wasn’t as fancy as I’d expected. It wasn’t big, either, but the lights were low. Small lamps were turned on in the corners only, and candles were lit atop each of the round tables. The low music completed the mood, and the waiters dressed in black shirts and pants fit in with the dark colors of the interior perfectly. My hand was in Dominic’s, and he held onto me tightly while the bodyguards spoke to the dark-haired hostess, who smiled at Dominic a little too widely and looked at his body a little too intently, then licked the gloss off her bottom lip like she was imagining his lips there.
Not that I could blame her—I’d been in her shoes countless times, but I still hated her guts three seconds in. It was ridiculous because Dominic wasn’t mine by any means, but I was relieved when the bodyguards told her that we wouldn’t need to be escorted, that she could just point the way to our table.
A little disappointed, she showed us a table to the right of the restaurant, one at the very corner, where three men and one woman were already sitting, their eyes on us. The bodyguards led the way. We followed, and the closer to them we got, the more real it all became.
We were here. There was a good chance that these people were the same ones who’d killed Michael Bennett, the same ones who would kidnap and even kill me for the necklace I wore. I swallowed hard and urged my heart to calm down. I had this. We were in a restaurant, and we weren’t alone. Twenty ODP agents were around us, inside the restaurant and out in the street, waiting for the moment they’d make the wrong move. Not to mention I had a gun strapped to my thigh this time, perfectly hidden under the dress. Nothing was going to happen. I was safe here.
With that thought in mind, I put on my brightest smile again, and we finally were in front of the table.
They all stood up when our bodyguards stepped to the sides. Dominic didn’t let go of my hand and didn’t offer his to any of them, only waited for them to speak.
The second guy from the left did. “Noah Bennett,” he said with a tight smile. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us. Please forgive the secrecy—I imagine you out of all people understand why we can’t trust technology nowadays.” He had a slight accent, and it sounded European, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it yet.
“Of course,” Dominic said. “Nothing to forgive. I would like to know the names of the people who’re going to pay for my food, though.” And he let out a strange laugh that wasn’t him at all. Not that I’d ever heard him laugh—it was Dominic—but I just had the impression his laugh would sound different.
And the men—and woman—laughed with him. It was all so fake, it hurt my ears. “Of course. My name is Freddie Olsen, and these are my associates: Mark Kennedy,” he said, pointing at the first guy to the left. “David Reynold, and Margaret McCaffrey.”
“It’s nice to meet you all. You already know my name. This is my girlfriend, Aurora.” Then he turned to me. “Say hi, baby.”
My smile widened and I raised a hand. “Hi!”
They all held back their laughs, and instead waved at me, too, smiling politely, before inviting us to sit across from them.
Dominic pulled out my chair and waited for me to get comfortable first before he sat down himself. I cooed, “Thank you, baby,” and batted my lashes at him accordingly, and he rewarded me with one of those fake Noah Bennett smiles.
The men and woman in front of us analyzed every inch of us, and we did the same. The one who’d spoken—Freddie, who didn’t look like a Freddie at all—was the biggest out of all of them, still half a head shorter than the real Dominic. His hair had begun to turn grey around the ears, but there were no wrinkles on his face. His small eyes were an icy blue, almost grey, and his smile was effortless, which said he’d been faking it for probably decades. He didn’t feel like a high fae. They commanded the air around them, and it was the kind of energy that coated your tongue and pressed against your skin, impossible to miss. But he was most definitely not human, either. There was the way he moved his hands—slowly, precisely, like he’d thought about every small movement beforehand. Maybe a werewolf? It would take anger or some other intense emotion to get the beast inside him to respond and turn his eyes golden, but until I saw it, I couldn’t be sure. The other to his left, Mark Kennedy, was a bit shorter, on the skinny side, with hollow cheeks and hair a dull brown, so fine I could see his bald spots clearly. His eyes were almost glazed over, like half his mind was wandering somewhere else. I couldn’t tell what he was either. There was no specific energy about him.
David Reynold had a much more threatening presence. He held his shoulders back and his pointy chin up, and he almost looked down at us with his light brown eyes. His skin was smooth, flawless, a bit greyish, even though the lights were too dim to be able to tell properly. The way he moved—rolling the napkin between his fingers mindlessly and fast—spoke clearly about his nature. He was a vampire, and the realization fell like a sack of ice cubes down the pit of my stomach. Vampires were no joke. They were some of the most powerful Gifted supernaturals in the world, with their enhanced senses and abilities, plus the venom that leaked from their fangs when they were hunting. It was worse than a drug, worse than anything plants could make, and it could become addictive, too. That was why so many people waited in line for their fix of a bite in plenty of places back in Manhattan. Probably in all parts of the world.
But vampires did have a weakness. Sunlight, or any ultraviolet light strong enough, could burn their skin and absorb their powers quickly, so that’s why the ODP hunted all fanged troublemakers during the day only. Fewer casualties that way.
Finally, I looked at the woman—Margaret McCaffrey—and found her eyes on me, too. She analyzed my face with a wide smile that strangely seemed genuine, and there was a spark in her amber eyes that could have been a trick of the lamps behind her, or it could have been real. For some reason, it made me uncomfortable, so I looked down at my hands for a moment, then remembered to take the phone out of my purse. I was supposed to pretend to be bored and not listening in to their conversation, sigh and look around as if waiting to be saved for as long as the meeting lasted. But in the meantime, while I pretended to be texting someone, I would write down every single detail of these people that I could catch.
And that’s exactly what I did.
The waiter came and took our order. When he was gone, we were all more relaxed being left alone.
“Please accept our deepest condolences on the death of your father, Mr. Bennett,” Freddie said after clearing his throat, an earnest look in his eyes. “We were so shocked to hear about it. Our company is small still, but we’ve been wanting to work with Michael Bennett for years now.”
Dominic spoke with such ease, I was sure none of them had a chance to notice anything off—not even the vampire with his sharp sense of smell. We both smelled like what we said we were—a pixie and a werewolf.
“I appreciate it—and please, Noah is fine,” Dominic said. “Who is your company, anyway? My father never mentioned a Freddie Olsen before. I’ve been involved with the company for years now, and I know all the people he’s worked with.”
I scrolled through Instagram, pretended to be focused on the images sliding through, but I didn’t really catch any details.
“No, I’m afraid we never had the pleasure of meeting your father. We’ve gone through a rough few years, so it took us some time to create the budget we need to break through in this overcrowded market, if you know what I mean.” Freddie laughed. The others did, too.
“Overcrowded, indeed,” Dominic said. “Did you hear about that British guy who claims he’s going to expand his business to the States and even Asia, too? What does he think—that we’ll just let him stroll over here and stain our holy land with his pathetic creations?” And they all laughed some more.
Damn, I had to hand it to him. He’d played his role perfectly at the car show, but right now, it was a different level. He was so good I was tempted to believe everything he said myself.
And he kept on going.
They made small talk, talked about weapons and markets, and eventually, dinner arrived. Dominic pulled his handkerchief out from his pocket and left it in front of his plate. I checked it myself, just out of habit, but you couldn’t see a single thing staining the white fabric, and the way none of the others even looked at it twice confirmed that the germin powder was still holding strong. Thanks, Mom.
I ate with one hand and held my phone with the other, eyes on it most of the time. My Notes app was open, and I wrote down every detail I’d caught from these people—even the three rings shaped like snakes on Margaret’s fingers. You never knew what could mean something with people like this.
