I put the phone on the table and tapped the text message. A picture of me and Mad Rogan circling the tower. In the picture, my face was pale, my mouth pressed into a hard line. I looked like I was trying not to cry, which was so strange, because at the time I wasn’t anywhere close to crying. Mad Rogan’s face was turned away from the camera, his head tilted as he looked up at the second-story windows.
A second text popped under the first. It said, “Whos the guy?”
Rogan focused on the phone. “Pierce.”
I texted back, “Where are you?”
“Outside ur house.”
My heart hammered. Mad Rogan leaped up and took off for the door. My mother moved. I hadn’t seen her go that fast since she left the Army. Grandma Frida dashed to the motor pool, Bern ran to the Hut of Evil, while I chased Mad Rogan. I caught up with him by the door, slipped into my office, and tapped the keyboard. A grey thermal camera image filled the screen, split into four parts, each section of the screen showing the view from a different side of the house: the parking lot and street in front of the motor pool at the back of the warehouse, the trees to the right, the street to the left, and the front door, with Mad Rogan’s Range Rover parked next to my car.
I held my breath. Nothing.
Mad Rogan leaned over me. His chest brushed against my right shoulder.
On the screen the night spread outside the house, a charcoal painting came to life. Nothing moved. No cars passed the house. If my mother put a bullet through Adam Pierce’s heart, we could kiss the agency good-bye. If he came to burn us to death . . . he shouldn’t be able to burn us to death. Hellspawn was a higher-order spell. It would’ve tapped him out the way Mad Rogan was now tapped out. At least I hoped it had.
The intercom on the phone flashed white. I pushed it.
“Three people in the building across the street,” Bern said quietly. The image on the monitor zeroed in on three white human silhouettes on the roof of the warehouse to the north. One of them lay in the familiar sniper pose.
“Those are mine,” Mad Rogan said quietly.
We waited. Trees rustled gently in the night breeze, barely visible on the screen.
My phone buzzed. Another text.
“Ma’am, this is the police. The call is coming from INSIDE YOUR HOUSE.”
Asshole!
“Did I freak you out?”
Gaaaah!
I pushed the intercom. “Just got another text. I think he’s screwing with us.”
“Sit tight,” Mom said.
I typed “Asshole” on my phone.
“Heh. Tell your new friend I said hi.”
On the screen the Range Rover exploded. Thunder punched the door and wall with a huge, invisible fist. The warehouse shook.
The intercom lit up. “Do you have the kids?” Mother asked.
“Yes,” Bern said. “They’re with me.”
Flames billowed out of the Range Rover’s metal carcass, bright white. Going out there was out of the question. We’d all make lovely targets silhouetted against that fire.
We sat, and waited, and watched the Range Rover burn until the fire department barreled down our street in a blaze of glory, lights, and sirens.
“Take your shirt off.” Now there’s something I never thought I’d say to the Scourge of Mexico.
Mad Rogan pulled his shirt off, and I tried my best not to stare. Muscles rolled under his tan skin. He wasn’t darker than me, but I tanned to a reddish gold, while his skin had a deeper, brown undertone to it. He was perfectly proportioned. His broad shoulders flowed into a muscular, defined chest that slimmed down to the flat planes of his hard stomach. Handsome or athletic didn’t do him justice. Dancers or gymnasts were athletic. He had the kind of body that should’ve belonged to a man from a different time, someone who swung a sword with merciless ferocity to protect his land and ran across the field at a wall of enemy warriors. There was a brutal kind of efficiency about the way muscle corded his frame.
I hadn’t even realized how large he was. Because all those suits streamlined him and his proportions were so well balanced, he looked almost normal-sized. But now, as he sat in my kitchen chair, dwarfing it, there was no way to ignore it. The sheer physical power of him was overwhelming. If he grabbed hold of me, he could crush me. But I didn’t care. I could look at him all night. I wouldn’t go to sleep. I wouldn’t need to rest. I could just sit there and stare at him. And if I looked long enough, I’d throw caution to the wind, reach out, and slide my hand over that powerful muscle. I would feel the strength in his shoulders. I would kiss . . .
And that was about enough of that.
Underneath all of that masculine, harsh beauty was cold, the kind of cold that could stab a helpless man with a knife, feel the tip of it scrape the bone, and do it again and again and not be bothered by it. That cold scared me. Mad Rogan, unlike other people, rarely lied. I didn’t know if it was because he knew I would call him on it or if it was simply his way. When he said he would kill you, he meant it. He didn’t make threats or promises, he stated facts, and when he wanted something, he’d do whatever he had to do to get it.
I opened the med kit and pulled out gauze and medical tape.
The fire department was gone, having drowned the sad remains of the Range Rover in fire-retardant foam. It was almost surreal how quickly their questions had stopped after Rogan had given them his name. My mother insisted on staying in the crow’s nest she and my Grandmother had installed while I’d gone to talk to Bug. The kids had gone to bed. Grandma Frida had too. One of Mad Rogan’s men had come to personally take responsibility for failing to prevent the explosion. When Arabella was about two or three, she didn’t like to be in trouble. She didn’t want anyone to be mad at her, and the suspense of waiting until the exact nature of the punishment was decided always proved too much for her, so when she would do something bad, she would announce, “I’m going to punish myself!” and march off to her room to be grounded. I saw that precise look on the man’s face as he stared at Mad Rogan in quiet desperation. He would totally punish himself if he could.
He was gone now, and the warehouse had fallen quiet.
I crouched to take a better look at Mad Rogan’s so-called bandage. “I’m going to pull it off now.”
“I’ll try not to cry.”
I rolled my eyes, sighed, and yanked the duct tape off. He winced. A shallow gash cut across his ribs on the right side, more of a scrape than a deep cut, but it was three inches long, and it had bled. At least it wasn’t a gaping wound, so we could get away without stitches. I got the saline solution and clean rags.
“Sorry about your car.” I squirted the saline solution into the gash and blotted it.
“We agreed on full disclosure,” he said. “When were you going to tell me that Pierce is obsessed with you?”
“He isn’t obsessed with me.”
“He called you to let you know he was starting his fireworks today. He claims he’s in lust. Then he texted you to make sure you saw him blow up my car. That’s twice he notified you before he did anything he views as impressive.”
I smeared antibiotic ointment on the cut and placed a gauze pad over it. “Adam is a flake. He’s impulsive and he likes people to reassure him he is cool and awesome. I’m a young woman, I’m attractive, and I indicated that I wasn’t impressed by his shenanigans.” I began to tape the cut. “He discussed bringing me home with him to meet his mother just so he could see the look on her face. He got a giggle out of it. It’s not obsession, it’s . . . passing fancy, or whatever people call it.”
“These are things I need to know,” he said. “I can use this. If I’d known this, I would’ve handled today differently.”
“Funny how it’s always ‘I’ with you. It’s never ‘we.’” I taped the other side of the gash.