Page 9 of Hero & Villain
My heart was tingling again. Was this the heart attack I was waiting for? I took a deep breath. Okay. Maybe they were the same person. No big deal. Not like I actually knew Dirk Dagger. He was just a crush I’d had when I was sixteen and then accidentally kissed when I was eighteen. For twenty minutes. Plus the elevator.
She dropped the handcuffs on the papers and crouched to my left, slinging her arm over my shoulders. I wasn’t a physical contact person, at least not usually, but Toni refused to get the memo. She needed hugs, so everyone else needed hugs. Also, if she needed hugs, I could do that for her. There was a shortage of perfect minions. Not that this whole taunting me with the reality of Dirk Dagger being behind the company that had just ruined my life felt very supportive. It was, though. Denial never helped anyone.
Except how could I face the reality that I’d been successfully blocking out for years? It made sense that in this cruel world, the one man I’d let down my guard with and hadn’t gotten screwed over by wouldn’t eventually destroy everything I’d built. It was inevitable.
“It’s so romantic! Your first kiss is responsible for sabotaging your engagement. Do you think he’s getting revenge for you leaving him on the roof, or do you think he just wants you available so you can date?”
“He wasn’t my first kiss,” I muttered as I went through the rest of the papers. The trail was thin, but it was there. Dirk Dagger and James Prescott had too many ties for it to be a coincidence, and the photos clinched it.
I shook my head because I needed to think. “Why would a blue blood become a show horse, as much of a prostitute as I am? There’s nothing respectable about MMRW.”
She squeezed me so tight that it would probably leave a bruise. “You aren’t a prostitute; you’re a supervillain whouses seduction as part of your arsenal. Seduction is perfectly respectable as far as villainy’s concerned. And now that you’re over this fiancé thing, you can focus on what’s important: revenge!”
I grabbed her in a tight hug and couldn’t breathe through the tears that clogged my throat. “Thanks.” I held her even tighter until she squeaked, and I let her go, once more completely under control. “Did you figure out why Prescott’s made my business his?”
She shook her head as she picked out a printed picture she’d sent me on my phone of the funeral I hadn’t been able to make, Nitro’s funeral.
It was a selfie of her, Dirk Dagger, and a few other team members. Toni had aqua hair streaked with purple and some little bolts and nuts tied in it as a nod to Nitro’s usual style. He looked rough. That was his last season running a team. He’d disappeared from the limelight for a few years, apparently building up Geotech, the company that screwed me over, and being drunk.
The next picture showed Dirk laughing with someone, him in all black, her in Barbie hot-pink. Girlfriend? He looked happy with her. Maybe I could destroy her while I was in the neighborhood.
“His sister died right before Nitro,” Toni said, touching the picture.
Sister? Why did I feel relieved and guilty? I snarled back at her. “So I should be gentle with him because he’s hot and has a tragic backstory? If he didn’t want to play with tigers, he should have stayed out of the lion’s den.”
I froze while she stared at me, both of us paralyzed by the awfulness of that mixed metaphor.
Finally, she burst out laughing and squeezed my shoulder. “I’m saying, use his wounds and weaknesses against him.Obviously. You don’t owe him anything just because he’s your first kiss.”
I made a face at her. “He wasn’t my first kiss.”
“CPR from your cousin doesn’t count. You spent hours trapped in that elevator with him before you got to the roof and made out with him for real.”
“Fifteen minutes in the elevator. It only felt like hours.”
She gave me a smug smile. “So…you know the target in a way I can’t download no matter how much research I do on either of his identities. What’s his weakness?”
I chewed on my bottom lip, then stopped abruptly when I had a tactile memory of his lips against mine. No. I wasn’t remembering that. Not any of it. I’d worked through my fear and moved on. Except that didn’t seem to be true, not if the way my heart was tingling was any indication.
I scooped up the papers and the cuffs and headed for the basement.
“You can run, but you can’t hide,” she sing-songed after me.
I gave her a look over my shoulder. “Yeah? What do you wanna bet?”
She grinned at me. “That’s right. You can’t run from your past, but you can hide from it.”
I rolled my eyes and took the papers down to the experiments room, where I’d come up with devices for various diabolical purposes. Like that can opener, which doubled as nail clippers. Very diabolical.
I sat down on the bottom step and started laying the papers down on the steps in what looked like a mess but was how my brain thought. Patterns. Motives. Character. Who was Dirk Dagger Prescott, and what weaknesses could I use to scoop out his intestines and leave him for dead? Metaphorically. Probably. I hadn’t stabbed anyone in years. Unless you counted that guy in the bar, but I used my shoe. Shoe stabbings didn’t count.
It had been so long ago, I shouldn’t have been able to remember, but the second I opened the door to the past a crack, it all came rushing back.
Me sniveling in the elevator, clinging to the bar for dear life, and him wrapping his arms around me like he could block the fear with his sheer muscles. The thing is, he literally could make everything bad disappear in his hug.
I could still smell him- he had smelled like cherries and chocolate so strong I could almost taste him; cherry schnapps and dark Belgian.
I curled my fingers to keep them from shaking. I’d been so terrified- not an altogether illogical reaction if you think about it, but then again I made a point not to.
