He locked his gaze with hers until she looked away, but the suspicion had left her eyes. There was still confusion, yes, and a healthy dose of wariness…but no more angry accusation.
Isa flounced on the side of her bed. "So…you can walk up to Robert and um, hypnotize him into telling you where Frazier is?"
"Yes," Chance said simply.
She chewed her lip. It had been over two weeks since her brother last contacted her. Even if he had managed to sneak away to make that phone call, maybe he'd been caught and dragged back. All the uncertainty over her brother's fate made Isa reckless. She couldn't just sit back and accept Robert's assurances that Frazier was okay. If all she had on her side right now was a trespassing honor-bound hypnotist—well. She'd just have to make the best of it.
"Assuming you can do that, Frazier's got to be guarded. You're pretty good with your little trick one on one, obviously, but up against several mini-gangsters with guns? You'd get shot before you even got near Frazier. Or the two of you would get shot before you managed to get away. We need to coordinate when this is going to happen. Robert's house is huge, and he likes to keep things close to him, so you should check for Frazier there first. I can go over to Robert's and leave a door open or something. Then I can, um, distract him while you sneak up on him and try your David Copperfield act."
"Isa…that's very brave of you, but it's not necessary. I can get in Robert's house with very little effort, and neither he nor his men will be able to keep me from leaving."
"Your arrogance could get my brother killed!" she snapped. "Excuse me if I'm not comfortable with that!"
He met her gaze very steadily. "I've done this before. My sire trusts me. Your grandmother trusts me. You're going to have to trust me as well."
She gave him a hard look. One that said she wasn't used to trusting anyone but herself. Chance could appreciate that. He'd lived with it as his credo for most of his human twenty-seven years.
"Look at it this way," he urged her next. "Where are you now? Dependent on Robert's very questionable mercy that he won't kill your brother, that's where. You're using the only bargaining chip you have—yourself—to ensure Frazier's safety, but Robert still holds all the cards. You need to have an ace up your sleeve that Robert won't expect. Well, Isabella, I am that ace, and you can trust that Robert will never expect me at all."
"I'm doing okay," she replied with obvious defensiveness. "I didn't see you at the restaurant earlier deflating Robert's hard-on!"
A grin touched Chance's mouth. "Ah, yes. Your galloping yeast infection. A very clever move. I'm sure Mini-Mob won't be able to get it up for days."
"Mini-Mob?" Isa laughed. Chance enjoyed seeing her face light up with it. "An Austin Powers fan, are you?"
"Guilty as charged."
"Wait a minute." Isa's laughter cleared at once. "How did you know that? You weren't there. How could you possibly know that?"
Because I'd been on the roof of the building across the street, listening to you all night. And I almost swooped down and ripped Robert's balls off with my bare hands when I heard him suggest that you were going home with him. Robert should thank his lucky stars you had your fake yeast infection as a shield, or he'd never become a father.
But Chance couldn't say that, of course. He couldn't tell Isa that he'd been watching her long past what his initial reconnaissance had required. Or that while she'd been in the shower earlier, he'd lain in her bed just so her scent could wrap all around him.
Yes, whatever word applied to Chance's condition, he had it bad.
"I was following Robert for a chance to get him alone," was what Chance settled on. "So I was near enough to the restaurant earlier to hear what happened. None of them ever knew, and neither did you. I've had some practice with this, Isabella. You can trust me."
He so very much wanted her to trust him, because his deliberate vagueness and these multiple unfinished sentences were wearing. If there was one thing he'd learned in his century-plus of living, it was that honesty was a cornerstone in a relationship. Women would forgive many things, but lies were at the top of their list for unpardonable sins. If Isa demanded more direct answers from him, Chance would give them to her. No matter if she was ready to hear them or not.
She chewed on her lip again. Chance watched her and wanted to do the same.
He might be having that "so I'm a vampire," conversation sooner rather than later with her. Inhaling the fragrance of her arousal earlier had almost outed him from his coffin, because he'd felt his eyes start to change and fangs press lustfully against his gums of their own accord. Even now, his blood wanted to rush to a particular place, and Chance had to concentrate to send it elsewhere. He pitied human men who had no control over that. The ability to direct his blood where he wanted it to go was just another perk of being a vampire. It beat the hell out of walking around trying to conceal a hard-on, and on the flip side, no vampire ever had to worry about impotence.
"Okay," Isa said finally. "I'll let you try to work your mojo on Robert to locate my brother, but if you find out where he is, you call me, understand? Because if something goes wrong—"
"Nothing will," Chance interrupted her firmly.
She gave him that look again. The one that said plenty of things had gone wrong in her life. Chance remembered reading that her parents died in a small plane crash while vacationing in the Bahamas when Isa was just thirteen. Her grandmother had been the one to raise her and Frasier. Yes, Isa would have learned young that life promised no happy endings, but in this case, Chance could at least promise he wouldn't make any mistakes with Frazier.
If he was even still alive.
Chance pushed that thought away. He'd assume Frazier was alive until he was shown his dead body. The fact that Ritchie and Paul hadn't known where he was when he asked them the other night—not that they remembered the body they'd wrapped in plastic had sat up and interrogated them, of course—concerned Chance. He would have thought Robert's top two meatheads would have been privy to that info rmation, but maybe Robert played things closer to the vest. It would be smart of him, considering how weak-minded Smelly and Bowling Ball were. Robert himself was made of sterner stuff. Chance figured he'd have to drink his blood first to get what he wanted out of him, whereas Ritchie and Paul only required the light in his gaze to spill their secrets.
"Nothing will go wrong," Chance repeated, and meant it. If Frazier Spaga was still alive, he'd bring him back that way to his sister. If he was already dead…then Chance would see to it that everyone who'd had a part in his demise met the same fate as well.
Isa gave him a level look. "I'm going to hold you to that."
Chapter 4
Isa sat across from her grandmother and watched as she made tea. It was their Saturday afternoon ritual that Isa would have gladly done herself, but her grandmother was still fiercely independent and wouldn't hear of it. Her only capitulation to Isa's concerns about her health was to wear the LifeCall alert Isa had gotten her. Isa noted her thinness and the translucence of her flesh that was common with advanced age, and had to blink back tears.
She'll be gone soon, Isa thought with a stab of grief. It was doubly hard, since her grandmother had been both mother and father to her since Isa was thirteen, and Frazier even younger at nine. Then a mere five years after her parents had died, Isa's grandfather passed as well.