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Over the next hour, I found and cracked three safes in the study and living room. I found blueprints for new building proposals, blackmail material that was so juicy I considered making copies simply for light reading purposes, and more cash than my dad could gamble in a week. I found no sign of the stupid files.
Placing my hands on my hips in thought, I flinched as a particularly hard gust of wind caused the house to shake. The lights flickered.
Shit. Things were getting bad out there. If I didn’t know for sure failure was a death sentence for my dad, I’d have aborted and regrouped long before now. Second chances were a luxury for people who didn’t have my shitty luck. As the thought passed through my head, the house rumbled ominously, and it took a moment longer than was safe for me to realize the home owners had returned.
As Nick’s excited voice filtered down the hallway, I ducked into the first open door and found myself in a bedroom. The box bed was no help, and as the voices drifted closer, I opened the closet to find it stacked so tightly with containers that I couldn’t fit even if it weren’t a recipe for getting caught. I needed somewhere out of the way. Somewhere I could move around and hopefully get an idea of an exit strategy. Dropping my head back on my shoulders in a desperate attempt to solve the problem at hand, a small square in the ceiling gave me my perfect answer. With a prayer that whatever Christmas miracles Mom thought were available could help a girl out when her life was on the line, I scrambled onto the bed, climbed the bookcase beside it, and pushed the manhole cover aside before lifting myself silently into the void in the ceiling. Nick’s voice echoed just outside the door as I slid the cover over, leaving a small slice of a gap so I could see and hear what happened below.
A scruffy head of brown hair walked into my line of sight and flopped onto the bed with a heavy sigh, causing my heart to seize in panic. I couldn’t move the cover without making noise, but if Nick opened his eyes, the manhole was directly above him. I was directly above him.
“I’m bored. Someone come suck my cock,” he called, folding his arms behind his head.
“Suck your own damn cock.” Noel’s voice came from nearby. “Fuck, that’d be sweet, wouldn’t it? Not going to lie, I’d do it all the time if I could,” Nick said, rubbing the front of his jeans with a grin.
“If you wanted to get blown by a guy, you should have asked Satan’s dad. I’m sure he would have sent someone right to you. He was awfully accommodating tonight, wasn’t he?” Noel’s voice was closer now, right at the door I guessed, as Nick lifted a hand to flip him off.
“Not into dudes, just bored and horny. It’s not gay if it’s during a snowstorm where you’re stuck in an all-dude house.”
“You’re an idiot,” Noel mumbled, the tap of his shoes moving further into the house signaling he had given up on the conversation. I silently agreed with Noel’s assessment of his friend and froze as two things happened simultaneously. The mention of a snowstorm registered in my mind, conjuring images of me trapped in this roof for days on end, and Nick’s green eyes locked onto mine through the gap in the manhole.
“Hello, little rabbit. Who’s that, hiding in my roof?”
CHAPTER 2
A SHARP WHISTLE DROWNED out my gasp as I wheeled around searching for a place to hide. The angled beams promised to make it difficult for the large men to catch me, but impossible for me to find cover. Taking off for the far corner anyway, I begged any god of Christmas or Yule or anything that would fucking help that I could hide in the darkness and Nick would give up the chase. Had he seen me? Maybe he had just assumed someone was up here? Just in case, I kept my footsteps as light as possible to avoid giving myself away to anyone below. Reaching the far end, I curled into a tight ball beside one of the supports, tucking my beanie into a pocket in hopes my dark hair would disguise me better just as a head popped up through the manhole.
“I know you’re up here, little rabbit. Come out and play. You won’t like it if I have to come find you,” Nick teased, the glee in his voice making it clear he was no longer bored.
Thunk.
The wood behind my head vibrated with the force of the impact and I knew without looking that I would find one of Nick’s throwing knives buried on the other side of my hiding space. One shot was all I could expect for a warning. The next would cut through something vital. With a deep breath and a major fuck-you to any deity that hadn’t bothered to help when I desperately needed that Christmas miracle, I injected as much confidence into my voice as possible. “Is that any way to greet a guest?”
Nick barked a laugh. “Kitty cat! What are you doing creeping around up here? You gonna come down?”
“You gonna throw another knife at me?”
“I’d never throw a knife at you, kitty.”
It was possible Nick was crazier than the last time we met, but I knew he’d always had a soft spot for me so it was on a calculated risk that I moved out from my hiding spot and pulled free the knife he had literally just thrown at me. Nick, picking up on my movement, laughed again. “That doesn’t count. I threw that at the little rabbit hiding in our roof. Now that I know it’s a kitty, my arsenal is out of play.” As though to back up his words, a muffled thump came from the bedroom below.
“Is there a particular reason you’re hanging from the roof?” I froze at the sound of the new voice below. While Nick was too crazy to hold a grudge against someone he’d already decided he liked — not that he was ‘forgive and forget’, he generally killed people before he moved on — Chris was a different story. Beautiful as the angels painted by renaissance artists, Chris was the silver tongue of the group. Wicked smart, with a wit sharper than anyone I’d ever met, he had a way of convincing people to bring about their own ruin. And he had never forgiven me for choosing my dad’s life over my relationship with Satan.
“Found a kitty. Sssh, go away so I can coax her down.”
“Then why the fuck did you call us? And what’s a cat doing in the roof?”
Nick’s head disappeared as he dropped out of sight. “Fuck off, Christian.” His voice was hard as nails. Uncompromising in a way that scared me more than anything. Nick was a killer, and I needed to remember that.
With a loud snort and a, “Whatever you crazy fuck,” Chris stomped away, and a moment later, Nick’s face reappeared.
“Come on, Joyful. Time to come down, kitty cat burglar.”
“You realize he’s going to kill me the second he sees me, right?” I asked, unwilling to move any further. Nick made a pshaw sound, shaking his head, then hoisted his body up through the hole. “He might want to rough you up a bit, but you’ll survive. Now, are you coming to me? Or me to you?”
I flipped the knife in my hand idly, weighing up my options. Regardless of what Nick said, I knew Chris would want to kill me. If he didn’t, Satan would.
Before I registered the switch to survival mode, my body was moving. Lunging for the closest part of the roof, I drove my knife into the silver foil covering the insulation foam. How many layers were there in a roof? Hacking at what I hoped could be an escape route, I redoubled my efforts at Nick’s sharp curse. The knife hit something hard, and in a panic, I threw my shoulder into the barrier.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
