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“Only about the important things.”
The cab dropped us off in midtown Manhattan. We were a block from Times Square, and the streets were crowded with tourists, street performers and peddlers hawking New York souvenirs. On the skyscrapers, video walls streamed ads for everything from Broadway musicals to smartphones. Horns blared, and a clown on stilts walked past.
I inhaled a lungful of exhaust fumes and hot asphalt. Welcome to New York.
My mood lightened. New York wasn’t home, exactly—I’d grown up in a big country house in Maryland—but the Kral Syndicate’s headquarters were in lower Manhattan, and me and my brothers all had apartments in the city.
And right now, New York felt like home. We were in my territory now.
I hefted my new backpack which we’d purchased at the same flea market as my cap, along with another T-shirt (this one a plain black), three pairs of socks and a change of pants—and thought longingly of the loft I owned a few blocks away in the Meatpacking District. Actually, I owned the whole building for security purposes, the top floor for me and the middle floor for my security team. The bottom floor I rented for a dollar a month to a local nonprofit.
Right now, I’d give a dozen cases of my favorite blood-wine to take a hot shower in my own bathroom and then get dressed in my own clothes. Not to mention grabbing some cash.
I was a rich man, even if I gave most of my money to charity, keeping only ten percent of the interest from my trust fund for my own needs. But ten percent of the interest on a billion dollars is still a shitload of money. I wasn’t used to someone else paying for everything, even my goddamn underwear.
“This way.” Ridley moved through the crowd with an easy, ground-covering stride. “I know a squat where we can stay.”
I spared a last thought for that hot shower and fell in beside her. I trusted Xavier, my chief of security, like I did my brothers. But my dad would’ve asked Xavier to keep an eye out for me and I didn’t want to put him in the position of being forced to choose between us.
“A squat. Right. So where is it? And does it have bedbugs?” I added to make her laugh.
I didn’t get a laugh but her cheek creased. “The Bronx. And don’t worry, bedbugs don’t bite dhampirs. Much.”
I grinned down at her, happy to have drawn even a small smile from her.
She’d pulled back into her emotionless-badass shell after that night in Père Lachaise when she’d told me her real name and I’d responded that I thought I could like her, and her face had twisted with yearning.
And I hated it; I missed the Ridley behind the badass, the Ridley I had barely glimpsed but wanted to know better.
So I’d chipped away at her, encouraging her to tease me as a way to break through that flat, businesslike wall she’d erected between us.
I told myself I did it because I needed her on my side, but hell, really it was because I liked seeing her smile.
We headed into the underground maze of the Times Square-42nd Street Station. I didn’t expect to see any of my dad’s people—not in the middle of the day—but I tugged my cap lower and amped up my glamour.
Ridley bought two MetroCards at a kiosk. We joined the crowd fast-walking through the white-tiled tunnels and caught an uptown train to the Bronx. We came out in a neighborhood I’d never been in, a mix of low-rise apartment buildings, and brownstones, mostly well-kept although old. The signs were in both Spanish and English, and bodegas were side-by-side with Italian bakeries and hipster coffee shops.
“The squat’s down this street.” Reaper turned down a side street that gentrification hadn’t reached yet. She stopped in front of a three-story brownstone that was in serious need of some TLC. The doors and windows were covered with plywood, and the roof was missing shingles and bowed in the middle.
We circled around to the backyard. Ridley glanced at me. “Can you keep that human look?”
“Yep. Don’t worry, they won’t recognize me.”
She pursed her lips. “The beard helps, at least. I don’t know how it fools anyone, but it seems to.”
The back door had a cinderblock as its only step. Reaper stepped on the block and knocked: Two short raps, followed by a pause, then another rap and a pause, then another two short.
Footsteps sounded on the other side. “Who’s there?” asked a gravelly voice.
“Tina,” said Ridley.
I eyed her. How many aliases did the woman have?
The door opened. The gravelly voice belonged to a skinny man with wiry black hair. His skin was smooth but his eyes were old. He could’ve been any age from forty to sixty.
He jerked his chin at me. “Who’s that?”
“Kevin.”
