Page 18 of Hero & Villain
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know anything, but her influence is questionable.”
“You think that she’ll corrupt Trix? You are so irrational about that woman. She’s not a delicate flower, and she never leaves her vehicles out where someone can tamper with them.You should ask her out, maybe after tomorrow’s big fight against Nix. She loves it when you’re beaten bloody.”
He scowled at me. “You should have made certain that Daniela ended up in your care. Why didn’t you press the issue? I suppose it would have looked unnatural, but she wants to get close to you. What is Haversham up to?”
I smiled, and a rush of adrenaline went through me. “You don’t know? That makes it more interesting.”
He frowned at me. “You still aren’t stable enough to play this game. She needs a good influence if she’s going to consider turning on her family.”
“Sorry, what? I’m supposed to be the hero? I never signed up for that. I’m here for revenge. The only way for me to get my revenge is to let her ruin me. That’s something I’ve always been more than capable of handling.” I tossed back the rest of my glass, tossed it to him and headed for the door.
I had things to do. Like breaching the fortress walls holding my ball of cotton candy.
I left the Providential Hotel, winking at the valet when he brought my pink hybrid around. It had been twenty-four hours, and it would be reasonable to go check on Daniela, particularly since she was Nitro’s cousin, who I’d offered a place to if she needed one. The fact that she didn’t move, speak, or look like Toni was hardly comment-worthy. If I hadn’t been watching Toni for the last two years, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the differences, particularly with Daniela’s swollen cheek.
I grinned at myself and gunned the engine as I peeled out of the drive, making an impression as the unbalanced Dirk Dagger that I absolutely was. I was going to kill whoever hurt her. I was going to hurt them first. Particularly if it was Philippe. I needed to develop more torture instruments. Maybe nanotech that would melt his organs from within, slow enough that it didn’t kill him. That would hurt more than ripping off his nails with tongs,right? I didn’t have much experience with torture. Daniela could help me with that, so I could build up from least painful to most. Or the opposite, whichever was most psychologically damaging. Or I could just touch her hair and pack her in ice to keep down the swelling.
What was Jezebel doing with her behind those walls? I was on her team, but that didn’t mean I trusted her not to hurt Daniela. The only thing that you could count on was that she’d follow Nix’s lead. He liked me running his drones. His views had been up since I’d joined the team because I knew what I was doing. He also wasn’t going to deal with the legal tape that a kidnapping would bring.
No, I didn’t think Jezebel would actually hurt Daniela, but what if she had internal bleeding? Jezebel wasn’t a doctor. She didn’t understand how to deal with delicate females. One thing my sister had been was delicate. She wouldn’t have survived growing up with the Havershams. Daniela wasn’t delicate. I knew that. But her hair looked so soft.
I drove up the winding canyon towards Jezebel’s ranch, hidden behind a three-foot wall of reinforced concrete. I parked out front and walked to the gated courtyard. Those gates were not decorative. They were also electric.
I buzzed the intercom and waited two minutes, then held down the buzzer until Jezebel’s voice drawled back along with a glimpse of her face on the screen.
“Look at what the cat dragged in. What do you want, Dagger?” Her Texas accent was thick this morning, like her makeup.
“I’m here to check on Toni. You’re the one who dragged her in. Have you gnawed off her face yet?”
Jezebel gave me a hard smile. That’s the only kind of smile she had. “She’s got a good face. It’ll be even better after the swelling goes down. Do you think she’ll want to be candy?She’ll need some plastic if she wants to achieve true Las Vegas proportions, but the face doesn’t need anything but false eyelashes. She looked real pretty in your arms. Maybe we could do a racing the train stunt and use her as emotional leverage.”
I ignored all the poking and kept to the point. “I’m here to see her.”
“She doesn’t want to see you.”
I smirked. “I doubt that.” Daniela was here for the sole purpose of ruining me; ergo, she’d get as close to me as possible. I hadn’t thought she’d end up in my arms so soon, but I wasn’t complaining. I mean, the fact that she’d actually had sunstroke and possible internal bleeding made me want to kill things, but complaining never did any good.
“She’s unconscious. She could be dreaming about you, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
Unconscious? I scowled and took a threatening step towards the com. “Why is she unconscious? What are you doing to her?”
She cocked her head, eyes getting brighter like she wanted me to start something, but there was technology between us. “I’ll tell you that right after you tell me what you want with her.”
I crossed my arms and took a step back. I wasn’t here to fight with Jez. Nix would be irritated, and I liked working with him. Mainly because it irritated Horse. If I were working for someone, it should be him. Yeah, no. Not when all of his associates ended up on his couch. Therapy. He couldn’t leave anyone alone, had to fix them. Nix didn’t fix anything, even if it was broken. He just let it be.
I forced a polite smile. “I’m concerned about my racer’s relative. She’s my responsibility.”
She snorted. “If that’s Nitro’s cousin, I’ll eat my hat, and you knew her much better than I did.”
I took a deep breath and tried to channel my confident calm. I used to have one of those. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but if I did, what difference does it make?”
“What difference does it make if you play nice to someone who’s been recently broken in half?” It was her turn to move towards me threateningly, framing the screen with her face and flaring nostrils. “You want to know why I stepped in? You’ve been in the menagerie, right? You know how I take in strays and nurse them to health before I send them on their way. This girl’s a feral cat that got ran down by a coyote. I’m going to make sure she’s in fighting condition before I release her into the wild.”
I scowled at the camera. “Like Minx and Felicia? I know what you do to your human strays, and it’s not what she needs. She’s not stripper material.”
She laughed, a rumble that gave me goosebumps. “Oh, but she is! Or rather, she would be if she weren’t nursing two broken ribs. You must have noticed what a nice package she made when you were carrying her around like a helpless doll. She’ll be a perfect addition to our girl’s night.”
I rubbed my forehead. Only Nix knew how to get what he wanted from Jezebel, but she did rehabilitate injured creatures no one else would touch, and they always recovered. Like Marcus Licinius Crassus, the most devious mountain lion in the world. Wish he hadn’t recovered. “Nix invited her onto the team. You’re going to let me check on her, or I’m going to get him to talk to you.”
