Page 2 of Encore
“Did you get that off eBay? It looks real,” she snarled.
I was so not in the mood to deal with a snooty banshee who saw tutus and rhinestones and didn’t think ballet was brutal.
“Call Kaine Dragovich. I report to him, and I’m here on assignment because the ballet we are doing has a history of killing people. Bellatrix pulled a gun on me. She had problems with me being her understudy and tried to run me off. I sent a simple disarming spell to get the gun out of her hand, but she had a real evil eye around her neck, and the spell backfired.”
All the guys came up behind me to have my back. Arden forgot about beating Marsden because Bellatrix was high profile, and this agent wanted to arrest someone for it. Especially since our studios were in the middle of touristville and tons of people witnessed the accident.
“It’s true,” Bevan said. “Bellatrix was terrible to anyone she felt threatened by. She put glass in Beyla’s pointe shoes and tried to plant drugs in her dance bag to get her fired. We’ve been here longer than Beyla has and have been watching her back.”
Arden was scowling at the agent.
“Bellatrix pulled the gun when our backs were turned. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to her in time, but if I had, I would have happily thrown that toxic bitch out the window for trying to kill my mate.”
Marsden finally swooped in but avoided standing too close to Arden.
“I can confirm Beyla is here undercover at my request. I needed an agent who was proficient at ballet. It was a tall order, but Beyla is perfect. Bella has always been high-strung and fighting against time and her body. This ballet has been brutal for her. She didn’t like some of my casting choices for the male leads, and she wanted her friend as her understudy.
“I’m usually adept at managing her moods, but her friend Julian was wrong for Bevan’s part. I needed Beyla as the understudy to protect the leads. It was just luck that Beyla happened to be an amazing dancer and an agent at the Paranormal Investigation Bureau. I was expecting some tantrums, not a gun. I don’t even know where she got it. Supernaturals don’t use them. Even if she had shot Beyla, the men here have bonded with her and would have killed her. If Beyla had gotten the gun without harming Bellatrix, her career would have been over.”
“I’m Agent Graves. Norwood, bag that gun for evidence. Beyla, you need to check in with your handler and report this. They are going to make you talk about your feelings with someone. That’s pretty much standard with this kind of thing. Whether they pull you off this case and make you do it now or when you get back is completely up to them.”
“No,” Marsden said. “That doesn’t work for me. I need Beyla here to pull off this ballet.”
“You’re a real shit. You know that?” Agent Graves said. “I don’t know the first thing about ballet, but I’m told that woman on the pavement is famous. Even if she wasn’t, one of your dancers just died. Just because agents are trained to kill when needed doesn’t mean it’s easy for us. You have several reasons to cancel that fucking ballet. It’s not worth it.”
“The show must go on, Agent Graves. I’m not sitting here telling you how to do your job. I’d appreciate you not telling me how to do mine.”
“Someone needs to,” Arden growled. “If you’d had your deranged girlfriend fired the first time she hurt one of your dancers, she wouldn’t have thought she could bring a gun to rehearsal, shoot her understudy, not lose her job, and you would protect her from us.”
Arden had a fantastic fucking point. Bellatrix had been continually escalating, and he already knew she had no problem hurting people.
“Unless you wanted this,” Nicolai growled. “Where’s Santiago, Marsden?”
“If that’s all, Agent Graves? Beyla needs to go home and check in with her handler. I need to insist that you tell them no if they want you to come home. I need to do damage control, but the ballet will go on. Classes and rehearsals will be canceled for two days, and then I expect you all back and ready to work. So, do what you need to do to be able to do that.”
Agent Graves was looking at me a little differently now. If it was a high-budget movie and the lead died under controversial circumstances, the money people usually pulled their funding, and the film got canceled. It wasn’t like that for live theatre and ballet. Shows rarely got canceled, and the cast only had a few days to get over it when it was a castmate’s death.
Given the history of this ballet, Marsden should have canceled it. He should have done many things but didn’t, especially since he knew damned well who gave her that pendent that backfired.
I opened my mouth to unload on Marsden and demand to know his part in all of this. He would tell me where Santiago was and get his Unseelie ass in front of me because all this just reeked of manipulation.
Bevan swooped in and guided me out of the room. I had been about two seconds from breaking down ever since Bellatrix flew out of the window, but I was furious now.
“Leave it. Arden could dangle him out of the broken window, and he still wouldn’t tell us the truth. We’ll regroup after we’ve helped you deal with this.”
“I need to be pissed, or I’ll break down.”
“Talking to him is just going to make you angrier,” Nicolai said.
They were right. I’d already accidentally killed Bellatrix. I didn’t need Marsden on my list, too.
“Get me out of here,” I said.
Chapter3
Arden
Iliterally didn’t give a shit there were two agents with the Paranormal Investigation Bureau here. If Beyla wasn’t leaving and Marsden ever let down that shield, I would havehappilytossed him out of that window on top of his awful girlfriend.
