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“Now you’ve gone and run off with another man,” Brodie’s growling voice wasn’t amused, but she laughed.
“That’s funny ‘cause it’s kind of true,” she said and sat down on the floor to look up at Tuck. “This loser can’t afford another hour. I need you to meet me. Bring your wallet.”
“Tell him to ask for room thirteen,” Tuck muttered.
Thirteen, ironic she thought, but it wouldn’t be an unlucky number for them. The Kindred worked best when they were focused on a common goal, and she was finding her fire again. Brodie didn’t argue when she gave him the address or explained the setup. Zave had probably found the data that had brought her and Tuck here anyway, so Brodie would understand what was going on.
Brodie wouldn’t take long to get here, this was where the mission was centered, and there was a chance of action, which was her love’s specialty. There was no way he’d want to miss out on observing Kahlil, and that she was present for him to chastise was another bonus to hurry him along.
She waited in the mouth of the blackened alley for her love to come into view. He hadn’t asked her many questions. He listened to her spiel and had spoken to Tuck for a minute before they hung up. She’d waited with Tuck as long as she could before leaving to stand in an alley just around the corner from the hotel.
Kahlil wouldn’t be able to see her from here even if he looked out his window. But her revealing apparel and thigh high boots weren’t standard CI uniform. So even if, by some miracle, he did happen to see her, he would never recognize her.
Thick red lipstick stained her lips, and her hair was backcombed into a voluminous style that would take her an hour to calm when they got home. Then again, if this was Kahlil’s safe house, they might be spending a lot of time here until they got what they needed. Gaining the upper hand would rely on them finding something out that Kahlil didn’t want them to know.
Brodie could arrive at any minute, sooner would be better for her. She didn’t like being on the street alone in this garb. Her shoulder maintained contact with the alley wall as she twisted to fall against it. This wasn’t a great neighborhood, but she had her gun in her purse, as she always did. With a panic button on her phone too, there wasn’t anything to worry about. If something happened to her, Tuck could be downstairs and at her location in less than a minute.
A laugh deep in the alley made her push away from the wall and straighten up. That wasn’t Brodie, no way, but there was something familiar about the sinister tone of that satisfied sound.
“You have come a long, long way, Miss Bandini.”
“Fuck,” she exhaled and folded her arms just as his face was lit by the light coming from the street. It cut a harsh diagonal across his face at almost the same angle as the gnarly scar on his neck. “Griffin Caine.”
“At your service,” he said, dipping his head in a false sign of civility.
If she took that statement as truth, she’d tell him to go and jump in the Atlantic, preferably from a ship that was a thousand miles off-shore. His intention wasn’t to serve her, he had his own agenda and always had a reason for popping up when he did. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“You know me,” he said. “I like to pop up at inconvenient moments, when you’re at your weakest.”
When he took another step toward her, she opened her arms to hold up her hands, indicating to him that she wanted him to stop. “Don’t you come near me.”
“Oh, you’re not afraid of little me, are you?”
There was nothing little about the tall, muscular man with the blue eyes so cold they could turn the warmest heart to stone. “The last time we met, you held me at gun point.”
“I don’t have a weapon,” he said and showed her his hands, turning them front to back.
“Then you’ve made a major mistake because Raven is on his way here; he’ll be here any second.” Just because Caine wasn’t holding a weapon in his hand didn’t mean he wasn’t carrying one somewhere on his person. She wouldn’t relax based upon his unreliable word.
“A reunion. Excellent.”
It couldn’t bode well that Caine was being so jovial tonight. “We left you in Sutcliffe’s place with Leatt, how did you get out of there? Was it you? Were you the one working with him?”
“No,” he laughed.
It amazed her how he could be casual, yet so terrifying at the same time. She was scared of him because he was the type of loose cannon that could explode at any second, and she didn’t want to be in his path when he did. But she wasn’t scared enough to pull her gun, because they’d met several times and he could have killed her on any of those occasions. Some part of him didn’t want her dead, and he’d have his own, probably demented, reasons for that.
Using the chance he presented by showing up, she wanted to know what he knew. “Who was? Do you know that?”
“I do now,” Caine said, strolling closer. Zara kept herself tense but wouldn’t weep or run. Caine was a sadist, he just exuded that kind of psychopathy. A doctor didn’t need to diagnose his evil. It shimmered around him, warning the world that he was the devil’s blood relation.
“Who?”
He stopped and leaned back as he put his hands in his pockets and tipped his head back a few inches. “You think I’ll tell you just like that?”
“Maybe.” If it caused aggravation for the Kindred, he would. Sometimes Caine was funny, sometimes he was threatening. The lone certainty was that no one could predict his next move.
“Tell you what, I’ll be fair. If you get down on those sexy knees, wrap those shiny red lips around my cock, and give your boyfriend a real show to walk in on, then I’ll tell you.”
