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“Interesting,” Nicole said slowly, and she wasn’t even being sarcastic. That was probably why Kat had learned to fight. She knew a fight was coming, sooner or later.
“So? Is that enough? Will you give Jay his meds?”
Nicole considered it as they crawled down the roadway. “Well, he’s not completely off the hook, because you were not at all timely in updating me,” she said.
“But I only just found—”
“Shut up. I won’t break any more bones, but no morphine today. Be grateful.”
She hung up on Mick as she saw a sign for the rest area. “Pull up now.”
Maynard muscled himself in front of a car so he could pull up alongside the back of the bus. Nicole checked out the cars nearby in her mirrors. The guy driving the van behind her was busy arguing with the woman in the passenger seat. Perfect.
She rolled down the window, poised her body, and in one swift, seamless gesture, she shot the nail gun at the tire.
“Let it pull ahead,” she instructed.
The bus shuddered, wavering on the road. Maynard braked slightly, and they followed the big vehicle as it lumbered forward, slowing down. The turn signal went on, which gave her a pleasant little thrill of anticipation.
This was going to be fun. By all accounts, Kat Banner was a worthy opponent. Nicole seldom had an adversary that stimulating, and particularly not a woman.
Freya had been an unwelcome surprise. No one had warned her about Freya. But oh, was she ever primed for a rousing catfight with this uppity blonde bitch.
“Maynard, just so we’re clear. This should be obvious, but it’s you, so I’m triple-checking. Kat Banner, Ethan Masters, Holly, Freya…when we do take them, they have to be unharmed. Not killed or maimed. We have plans for them. Is that clear?”
Maynard rolled his eyes. “Yes, I did grasp that,” he said sourly.
“Good,” she murmured.
They pulled into a parking spot not far from the bus, and watched the whole scene as the driver stomped his big, swag-bellied frame to the blown-out back tire.
He kicked the good tire, and got on his phone. His conversation degenerated into shouting. Clearly, this asshole was not going to attempt changing one of those monsters himself. He needed a repair truck, a replacement bus, or both, and that would take time.
That gave her a moment to process this new information, which reverberated in her mind. That data was significant. A secret weapon of some kind. So improbable, it had to be useful. She just wasn’t sure how yet.
A tragic backstory. A fake name. A fake life. Violence and trauma. She loved that stuff. She was an artist, and violence and trauma were her favorite medium.
The bus was at a standstill. She had all the time in the world to run Kat Banner down.
CHAPTER27
Kat
For real? Come on. Too much shit luck all crowded together could not be a coincidence, at least not today. My bus, blowing a goddamn tire? What were the odds?
My body hummed with battle readiness, revving me up, but I had nothing to use the energy on, so it just cycled, making me jittery and breathless. Everything around me looked normal, dingy, tired. Nothing out of place, nothing I could beat to death.
Then again. Tony Petruzzi had looked normal, too. Just your standard rich, spoiled, good-looking guy, a little too in love with himself. You couldn’t tell he was a psychopathic mafia princeling by looking at him. Raffi certainly hadn’t seen it.
Monsters were good at being invisible. It was what made them so dangerous.
The bus driver was cursing outside my open window. I overheard snippets of his conversation. “…an hour? You gotta be fucking kidding me, Paul. I got all these passengers with tight connections in Portland, and I need someone here now!…Yes! Send another bus if the repair truck is too…goddamn it, Paul! You’re killing me!”
In many ways, battle mode was better than moping misery mode. I’d been torturing myself by thinking about the long, empty years that lay ahead. Years of avoiding friendship, love, sex. Years of avoiding caring about anything enough so that it could be used as a weapon to hurt me. It had put me in a dark place, and I’d defaulted to a standard Kat Banner fantasy—that of draping myself with massive firepower and taking a wild, pre-emptive run at the Petruzzis some fine day. The Angel of Justice, taking out as many as I could before they cut me down. Suicide by mobster. Bam, pow.
But my mom was still in my mind, shaking her head, and clucking her tongue.
Don’t you dare take the coward’s way out, Francesca. You have a job to do in this world.
