Page 19 of Hero & Villain
“Mm hm. Calling on Nix because you know when you’ve been licked. You want to see Sleeping Beauty? Here ya go.”
The screen panned, showing a bed with a sleeping Daniela. Her bandage-covered body looked so small, her arm so delicate and breakable hooked up to an IV.
Seeing her like that, she looked like the victim, not the villain. How could I play her if she wasn’t playing? What if she’d really come here to get away from her family? Impossible. And yet…
“What are you putting in her?”
“Didn’t you hear? She wanted a vet. I’m giving her vet medicine.” The screen went dark, and I was left more wired than I’d been earlier. It didn’t help that Jezebel made Horse nervous. I backed up and went over to my car. Once I’d gotten in, a gunshot went off as Jezebel peppered my back fender with buckshot.
How could the most feral woman I’d ever met have the slightest idea how to rehabilitate anyone? Jez had done that just to be irritating, like I’d chosen that color of pink, just to irritate the other team members. Nix’s team was too serious, the best at what they did and they acted like it, at least publicly.
I adjusted my mirror as I drove away, catching a glimpse of the pink shirt I was wearing. No, I didn’t do pink to be annoying, but to remember. Funny that Daniela showed up with that hair, making me remember more than vengeance, how she’d felt kissing me with all the emotion she usually kept pent up, the same emotion she poured into her music. It was beautiful, irresistibly complicated, like her. It was a good thing that I didn’t have to try to resist her. I was really looking forward to being thoroughly seduced by her. Unless she really was here to be saved. I wasn’t a hero, but I could play the role if necessary. I wasn’t going to let anyone else play hero for her.
Chapter Eight
VILLAIN
Iwoke up in a large room with diffuse sunshine and walls covered in Impressionist paintings that looked priceless. The frameless bed was modern, chic, simple, and there wasn’t any other furniture, just that gorgeous art.
I swallowed with difficulty and pushed back the white sheets and duvet. We’d gotten into the long ranch house on the edge of the Las Vegas suburbs late last night. Jezebel had given me some painkillers and shown me to the guest room without giving me a tour of the rest of the house.
I felt better as I climbed out of bed, still sore and exhausted, but not as dizzy and weak as I’d been. I was thirsty and hungry, which meant that I was feeling better. Feeling better had the unfortunate side-effect of bringing to mind all the humiliating and idiotic things I’d done in my moment of weakness. Moments. Had I actually let him carry me? Maybe he carried strangers around all the time and wouldn’t think it was pathetic. I’d also kicked out the guy’s knee, because that’s a logical way to get hired—beat up security.
I groaned and put my head in my hands. I could go back home, pretend that none of this ever happened, but facingmy grandfather and Philippe would be worse than facing Dirk Dagger again. Maybe.
I left the museum room and entered a hall lined with bamboo plants and trailing vines from the high shelves beneath the skylights. In breaks of foliage, African masks and authentic-looking ancient weapons hung. I studied a particularly grotesque mask for a long time before continuing on to where it seemed the main living spaces should be. A large steel door broke the vibrant greenery. I turned the knob, but wasn’t surprised that it was locked. It looked like a safe. What Jezebel Whiskey, show rider, would lock up, I didn’t want to know. Fine, I wanted to know, but since that wasn’t my goal, I wouldn’t focus on it.
“That’s my secret lair,” she said from behind me.
I didn’t jump and whirl around, because that would make me look guilty. “It should be covered in vines then. It looks like a safe.” I turned to smile, but forgot to when the woman looking back at me was so different from the Jezebel Whiskey from the night before.
She wore no makeup, and she was stunningly beautiful without any cosmetics at all, which meant that she used makeup to camouflage her beauty. No wonder she didn’t use a makeup artist. It would be difficult to turn her into the hardened superstar she wanted to show the world instead of the aristocratic beauty she came by naturally. “Could you pick the lock?” she asked.
I glanced back at the door. I’d seen doors like this before in my grandfather’s warehouse. “I’d use explosives.”
“Really? You’re that kind of girl? The direct, no-holds-barred, go-for-the-throat?” She cocked her head as she gave me a thorough perusal.
“Or I’d convince the person with a key to open it for me.” I tried to put on a sweet smile.
She smiled brightly. “How would you do that? Never mind. You got Dagger offering you shelter when he never lets anyone infringe on his precious isolation. The man’s an island.”
“Why didn’t you let me stay with him? Not that I want to, but is he creepy?”
“I didn’t let you stay with him because you look like his sister. When he thinks about her, he starts drinking. When he starts drinking, the cameras go to pot. I am at heart a truly selfish monster.”
If he thought I looked like his sister, why had he looked at my lips like that when he handed me the water bottle? “She had pink hair?”
“No. You said had. You know that she’s dead.”
“Nitro mentioned it, how he was getting…” I licked my lips and glanced away. “She killed herself, right?”
“That’s what they say. Anyway, Dagger’s always been on the shy side, not self-aggrandizing egos like Horse and Nix. Bless their hearts. If they had hearts. All they have are egos. Dagger’s more delicate because he still has a partial heart, just waiting for some enterprising young maiden to crush it. Are you going to be that maiden?”
I opened my mouth. Closed my mouth.
Her smile got even sharper. “You should, but not until after the season, otherwise, he’ll do creative weird things with the drones and we’ll get scenic vistas instead of the perfect shot when I come out of the back of Trix’s truck on Dewdrop and shoot Horse with a tazer. Do we understand one another?”
I frowned. “If I’m planning to break Dagger’s heart, do it after the season?”
