Rachel smiled, just a little, which was probably the best I could hope for, considering she’d nearly been shot by an enemy of mine.
“Thank you, Helen,” I said, as she guided Rachel to the stairs.
I let them get a head start—giving Rachel a bit of distance—then started up after them.
“What’s next?” Luc asked, falling into step beside me.
“I have to go to New York. If I don’t, this will never be over. I go there and I face this, or Rachel has to look over her shoulder for the rest of her life.”
“You haven’t told me everything,” he said in a tone that allowed no argument, no possibility he was wrong. “Tell me the rest. And no skipping the good parts.”
I waited until we were back in my room, and then I closed the door and locked it.
I moved toward the closet and grabbed a duffel bag from the floor, which I put on the bed and unzipped. On my way back to the closet, Luc took my hand, stopping me.
“Hey,” he said softly when I resisted. “Talk to me, Linds.”
Making eye contact with him felt too intimate. The call at Rachel’s house had been too close, and I was walking a high wire of fear. One wrong move, and I might not be able to keep myself together.
“She’s my last relative,” I said. “The only daughter of an only daughter of an only daughter. I have to protect her.”
“Protect her from what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lindsey,” he began, but I shook my head, finally looking at him. There was concern and fear in his eyes, and it scared me. Those emotions were heavy, and they weighed on me more than any others. More than happiness, more than joy. I didn’t want the weight of his fear; I couldn’t bear it.
“It’s the feud, I think. With the girls.”
He nodded, crossing his arms. “Okay.”
“Violet—she was the youngest when she was turned. Only nineteen. She fell in love with a human gangster named Tommy DiLucca. He ran booze throughout the city, and he owned the Sapphire. He was in a feud with another gang over territory, over the liquor supply. That group was led by a guy named Danny O’Hare. He was a vampire, and a brute. Violent. Casually so. Tommy torched a truckload of booze from Danny, and Danny got even.”
“He killed them all?”
I nodded. “Humans and vampires both. We—the girls, I mean—were all at the bar. O’Hare kicked open the door, started shooting. Danny was angry. He was offended. He kept shooting until bodies were hardly recognizable. Until the girls couldn’t regenerate.”
“How’d you get out?” Luc’s voice was quiet now.
“The speakeasy had a priest hole, accessible through a trapdoor. That’s how I knew about the spring gun; they were illegal, but the crews used them for protection, to keep the booze safe. There were bottles down there—the old stuff. The good stuff. The pre-Prohibition stuff. I was nicking one when Danny and his men came in the door. I looked out—just enough for a peek—but stayed there until the shooting was done. I knew there was nothing I could do.”
“Of course there wasn’t,” Luc said, and his tone changed. “You think Danny saw the magazine, found out you’re alive, and wants to settle an old score?”
I pulled the coin from my pocket and held it out for Luc’s inspection. He looked it over.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a coin from the Green Clare, Danny’s pub. He gave them out to people he liked. Like a chit they could redeem for a favor. I found it in the bottom of the closet. I think he wants to finish what he started. That’s the only explanation. He thought I was dead, but realized I wasn’t when he saw this.”
“But the magazine came out months ago,” Luc said.
“And it would have taken time for him to figure out how to hurt me. And to find Rachel.”
Luc nodded, pressed a soft kiss to my lips, and released me. “What should I bring with me?”
I didn’t understand the question. “What?”
“What I should pack?”
“You aren’t going. I’m going alone.”
I felt his jarring concern. “What do you mean, you’re going alone? You need backup.”
I didn’t want to talk about backup. I didn’t want to talk about anything, so I didn’t.
I walked to my closet and grabbed clothes from hangers, which I stuffed blindly into the duffel. It didn’t really matter what I packed. It just mattered that I was going, and going alone. There was only one goaclass="underline" keeping Rachel safe.
“This is my battle. I’ll fight it alone.”
But his emotions only spiked further, driving the headache deeper into my brain.
“Bullshit, Lindsey.”
I froze and slid him a glance. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re a good guard—a smart guard. You know better than to head off to New York to deal with someone who obviously is crazy and wants to kill you.”
“It’s too dangerous,” I said.
“And I call bullshit again. You know I can handle myself, and I’d be an asset. You’re shutting down. And that’s cowardly.”
I stared back at him, absolutely furious. “You’re calling me a coward?”
“I wasn’t, actually, but now I am. You know why? Because that’s exactly what you are. A coward. You’re pushing me away because you’re scared. Scared you’ll lose me. Scared you’ll lose yourself. Scared you’ll lose our friendship.”
“That’s a decent reason to be cautious.”
“You aren’t being cautious. You’re in denial.”
“We’re going to fight about this right now? Right now?”
Luc threw his hands into the air in obvious exasperation, the move sending a shock wave of magic through the room.
“When else would we fight about it, Lindsey? I thought we were over this. I thought I’d finally managed to scale the wall you’ve built around yourself. But apparently not. Because you want to go to New York—knowing you’ll have to face something big and nasty—by yourself. Because you don’t want me there with you? No,” he said. “No, you expressly want me to stay. You can’t even fathom taking me with you.”
“This isn’t about you. It’s about me.” I slapped a hand on my chest. “Me.”
“No,” he said, sadness in his eyes that made my stomach ache. “It’s about us.” He looked down, the pressure in the room changing so quickly I nearly took a step back from it. “I’ll tell Ethan you’re leaving.”
“This isn’t about us,” I persisted, but once again, we both knew I was lying.
“Good-bye, Lindsey,” he said. And then he turned and walked out of the room, leaving the door ajar.
I blinked back tears, and blew out a breath to compose myself. It didn’t matter what happened here, with him. Getting back to New York and taking care of business—that’s what mattered.
I crouched, flipped back the rug that covered the hardwood floor, and pulled up a board I’d loosened many years ago. In the cavity, I’d kept a few mementos from my time as a vampire, including a folder containing information about Danny O’Hare and the Rookery, the neighborhood where he and Tommy DiLucca had held court. The Rookery held a good chunk of the city’s supernatural populations, and according to my research, it hadn’t changed much over the decades. Whether because of the sups’ magic or the humans’ fear, the Rookery and its occupants had been left to their own devices.
The neighborhood still housed the Green Clare, which according to state records was still owned by “William Daniel O’Hare.” It’s not that I’d expected O’Hare or anyone else from the Rookery to look for me after all these years—they hadn’t known I was alive, after all—but I was a Cadogan guard. Luc had trained me to anticipate and prepare, however unlikely the threat might be.
Tears threatening again, I zipped up my duffel and pulled the strap over my shoulder. “Take care of business,” I murmured to myself.