Chapter Four
Cady focused stonily on his chest, refusing to look him in the eye. “Get out of my way, I said I’m not interested.”
“I seem to recall otherwise. I seem to recall you being very, very interested.” Claudio took a step closer, and Cady immediately backtracked.
“Only because you did something to me, and you know it,” she scowled. “If you knew me at all, you’d know I’m not the type to leave the club with some greaseball I just met. And I definitely wouldn’t be down with a little three-way action.”
“That is precisely why you interest me.” His steps halted and Cady resisted the urge to look up at him to see if he was full of bullshit. “I want to know you, Cady, very much.”
“Well, I don’t want to know you, so if you’ll excuse me…” She took a sideways step to move around him, but faster than she could wrap her head around, he had her pressed up against the dirty building, the edge of the window digging painfully into her ribs. Her mouth opened to suck in a breath, and before she could scream, his hand covered it, effectively silencing her.
Twin lights of an approaching car gave her the hope to struggle for all she was worth, screaming impotently against the heat of his hand, but the car didn’t so much as slow. Maybe all they saw was the intimate embrace of two strangers, or maybe they saw more but didn’t want to get involved. All that mattered to Cady was she was about to become a statistic.
It was exactly what they warned you about. You leave a club alone or with a good looking guy and they find your body raped and mutilated in a dumpster the next morning. Wide eyed, she whimpered as he dragged her away, her feet flailing, unable to gain any purchase on the ground until he pressed her against the side of a car in a cramped parking lot. Cady squinched her eyes shut, concentrating on evening out her breathing to stop the burning in her lungs from lack of air.
“Shhh, it doesn’t have to be this way,” he crooned at her ear. “Open your eyes and look at me.” That only doubled her resolve to keep her eyes tightly shut. Somehow she knew it would be worse if she gave him that satisfaction. “You’re being childish.” Claudio lost some of his amusement, frustration creeping in.
Tough titty, her mind screamed at him with juvenile glee as she dug her fingernails into the side of his wrist as hard as she could.
“You will obey me!” Something sharp jabbed her in the stomach and her eyes popped open of their own volition. Instantly his face swam before her, blocking out all else. “There now, relax. I don’t want to hurt you.”
The tension drained away, even as a secret corner of her mind wailed in protest, preferring to hold onto the terror to this easy capitulation. “You don’t?” she breathed as his hand let up on her mouth.
“No.” His fingers stroked the side of her cheek tenderly. “I only want to know you.”
That didn’t sound so bad. It actually sounded pretty good, and Cady’s head dipped in a slow nod. Something nagged at her sub-conscious though. “Why?”
“Why?” he repeated, his head tilting to one side.
“Yes, why do you want to know me?”
A low chuckle rumbled through him and she felt it everywhere his body pressed against hers. “Can’t you guess?” His fingers brushed down the side of her neck, tracing the line of her collar bone and continued down over the swell of her breast.
Naked desire shot through her like a bolt of electricity, but Cady fought it, clinging to the mistrust of her response. “I don’t want to.”
“Your body tells another story. Listen closely…” His hand snaked around her waist to catch hold of her hair, tugging gently, effectively tipping her head back. Before she could protest, his lips covered hers, taking and giving in the same breath. And then she didn’t want to protest anymore. She didn’t want anything but to give him everything he sought and more.
His fingers probed under her top, splaying over bare skin and Cady arched under his touch, no longer caring where they were. The tug on her hair grew sharper and she moaned against his mouth, pleasure mingling with pain until she realized he’d stopped. Stopped kissing, stopped touching, stopped everything. She opened her eyes, only to see him frozen in a rictus of pain. The handle of a dagger protruded from his back, low, near the kidneys. Cady stared at it stupidly, not understanding where it had materialized from.
Claudio made no move to pull it out, he made no moves at all, scarcely breathing. “Help… me…” escaped from his lips, mutated by lack of movement. Without pause, she grabbed hold of the hilt, surprised at how easily it slid from his flesh.
“No, don’t!”
Head snapping up, she caught sight of her neighbor, approaching at a dead run. She stared at him in shock, not comprehending why he could have possibly thrown a dagger at another man. And then it hit her like a cold slap in the face as Claudio’s influence slid away and her free will returned. In that same instant, he spun her around, using her as a human shield, one hand fisted tightly in her hair and the other at her throat. The cop slowed, approaching warily.
“Let her go,” he demanded, hands coming up slowly.
“I could end her now. That would be more blood on your hands.”
“My hands are clean, yours are the ones stained with souls,” her neighbor scowled, and Cady licked her lips, finding her voice.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Shh,” Claudio purred in her ear. “It will be over soon.”
But Cady found no comfort in his words, the spell broken. She gripped the dagger loosely, her hand slippery with his blood. Should she do something? Did the guy have another weapon? Why didn’t the cop draw his gun?
“Don’t take another step,” Claudio growled. “I would hate to mark this tender flesh.” Cady felt a sting at her neck as his middle finger scraped across her collarbone, drawing blood despite his words.
Heedless of the warning, the cop continued his advance, producing another blade. “I’ll go through her if that’s what it takes to stop you. You know I will.”
“How prettily he defends you,” Claudio chuckled. “You may kill this body, but you can’t stop me. Haven’t you learned that by now?”
“This is crazy…” The world began to spin and Cady sucked in a greedy breath, realizing she’d been frozen in place with fear for far too long. It started to look like she was dead no matter what happened, whatever feud between the men too all encompassing to care about a little thing such as her safety. All at once she remembered she had the knife in her hand, and Cady plunged it into Claudio’s thigh. At the same instant she let all of her weight crumple to the floor, as if her legs wouldn’t hold her any longer, and slid from his grasp. Expecting pursuit, she was stunned to find him completely frozen again.
Not so was her neighbor, who closed the distance faster than she thought possible. Cady expected him to kneel at her side to see if she was okay, or to call for back up or even handcuff Claudio. He did none of those things. The black blade of his second dagger flashed once and Cady watched in horror as he impaled Claudio’s hand through his own. The blade pinned them both to the car, palms pressed together, their blood mingling to run down the hood.
“Oh my God…” Her lips moved, but no sound came out as she stared at them in a shocked stupor.
The blonde grunted against the pain, but kept them steadfastly pinned together as he began to chant. “Immundus spiritus, audite et scire timor.”
“What are you doing?” Cady’s scalp ached from the pulls to her hair, and the scratch on her collarbone oozed blood, but other than that she’d managed to escape relatively unscathed.
He ignored her, continuing to chant. “Hostis humani generis, vitae raptor, tu malorum radix vitiorum seductor hominum…”
Whatever he was doing, Cady saw real terror in Claudio’s eyes. They beckoned to her and she quickly looked away, not wanting to get caught up in his spell again. A flash of movement caught her eye as she trained her gaze dow
n; Claudio’s fingers scrabbled at the hilt of the dagger buried in his thigh. “His other hand is still free,” she called out in warning, but her neighbor gave no sign that he even heard her, continuing to speak in the strange language that reminded her of being in church. “The knife,” she managed to squeak only seconds before Claudio pulled it free with a lurch, immediately plunging it into the cop’s unprotected side.
He sank to his knees with a groan of pain, the black dagger still trapping both their hands against the car. No longer frozen, Claudio tried to free his own hand, but the cop somehow found the strength to fight him. Their hands worked free of the car, still pinned together, and the blonde man’s lips moved, resuming his chanting.
With a cry of anguish, Claudio reversed his struggle, clasping the other man’s hand and pulling instead of pushing. It sent the tip of the dagger against his own unprotected neck. The blade cut through sinew and tendon, and the dark man didn’t stop until it sliced through the thick artery at his own throat.
Cady watched in horror as Claudio’s blood spurted in a great arc, landing at her feet by his own design. “I didn’t choose this,” he rasped, his voice thick and burbly as he settled his shadowy gaze upon her. “Remember that.”
The cop chanted faster, his words tripping over themselves, but as the light faded from Claudio’s eyes, he lost his steam. “No…” he pounded weakly on the man’s chest. “Goddamn it, not again…”
“Is he… dead?” Cady asked in a small voice, not sure if she should remind him of her presence or not. His comment to go through her to kill the guy still loomed in the back of her mind.
“I lost him,” he replied dully, rolling onto his back with a groan. “I lost him,” he repeated.
It was a struggle to comprehend what he’d expected when bringing knives into the equation. One moment he’d seemed hell bent on stabbing the guy to death, the next he looked ready to weep at his demise. So much blood… part of that was her fault for stabbing him in the leg. Her own involvement in the struggle made her feel queasy, the adrenaline still pumping through her veins lending a tremor to her hands. For the moment, she decided to forget about trying to process it all. Just because Claudio was dead and gone, didn’t mean the danger had passed.
“You’re bleeding pretty badly, I think we should call an ambulance,” she suggested, pushing up to her knees to get a better look at his side. Anything to avoid looking into Claudio’s sightless eyes.
“No ambulance,” he grunted, pulling the black dagger free of their hands and wrapping a strip of cloth around the wound.
“Are you kidding me? You have not one but two stab wounds.” The puncture of his hand might even need surgery depending on the thickness of the blade.
“No ambulance,” he repeated, lurching to his feet with more resolve than she would have thought possible. “And no police. Have to get out of here.”
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I thought you said you were a cop?”
“I said… something like that.” His lips twitched into a smile that quickly became a grimace as he coughed painfully. “Leave now, before he comes back…” He took two staggering steps forward before he went down on one knee, swearing against the pain. Cady rushed to his side, insinuating herself under his arm.
It didn’t make sense… before who came back? The dead guy? Or did Claudio have a partner out there waiting for him to bring home a girl or two? But what was she supposed to do, leave him there bleeding in the deserted parking lot after he’d saved her life?
“Okay, we’ll leave,” she agreed without further argument, helping him back up to his feet. “What’s your name?” She couldn’t keep calling him “the cop” in her head, not anymore.
“Sh-Shaw. Ethan Shaw,” he murmured, his jaw growing slack.
“Nice to meet you, Ethan, I’m Cady,” she replied, gritting her teeth as she took on more of his weight. They wouldn’t get far on foot. “I don’t suppose you have a car?” she asked glibly. Nobody had a car in their neighborhood, not unless they were willing to have it broken into on a regular basis. Maybe if he was from one of the richer neighborhoods to the north where people could afford to rent a private parking space, but not around the Tenderloin.
“Black Challenger one block over. Keys in pocket.” His head lolled forward, and it was all she could do to keep them moving. Thank goodness they wouldn’t have to go far. Cady managed to keep them both upright, her arms wrapping around to hold him tightly.
“I’ve got you, you’ll be okay.” She repeated little reassurances to him softly, over and over, in an effort to convince herself as much as him. He looked bad, his skin waxy and pale, like he might pass out at any moment. What would she do then? Drag him the rest of the way to the car? “Come on, stay with me. I see your car, we’re almost there.”
Finally reaching the car, she propped him against the passenger’s door to fish inside his coat for the keys. “See, it’s okay, we got here.” She kept the steady litany of comments coming. Digging the keys free, she awkwardly got the door open and tried to help him inside as painlessly as possible, but she knew every movement had to be an agony for him.
Cady laid him across the back seat, tucking his legs in after him. The black dagger clattered to the pavement from the movement, and she realized he’d been gripping it the whole time. As an afterthought, she tossed it on the floor by his feet, blood and all. His upholstery was screwed enough with the steady flow coming from his wounds.
Safe in the cocoon of the driver’s seat with the engine running and the doors locked, Cady took a deep, cleansing breath. “You can do this,” she said aloud, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror.