Ritchie reared back like he was going to punch him, but Robert grabbed his arm.
“Did I tell you to hit him?” he asked in a dangerous undertone.
Ritchie gave Chance a hateful glare before facing his boss. “No. Sorry.”
Robert clapped him on the shoulder. “All right.” Then he turned his attention to Chance. “They told me you had a smart mouth. Okay, smart mouth, we’re going to take a walk. And then we’re going to take a ride. You got a problem with that?”
“If I did, I suppose Bowling Ball and Smelly would just shoot me again,” Chance drawled.
Robert shook his head. “Not them. You know what they say. When you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.”
Chance let out a bark of amusement. “My thoughts exactly.”
They led him at gunpoint to the far end of one of the finger piers where a boat was moored. Robert waved, and a man on board waved back, powering the craft to life.
Chance was rather impressed that Robert had arranged to have another getaway from the docks. The Salucci brothers hadn’t had that foresight. They seemed more brute muscle than operative brains. In a straight physical fight they might win, but if it was a matter of strategic planning, Robert would prevail. Not that Chance cared. The lot of them could drop dead and society would be far better off. In fact, he’d probably be helping society very soon when it came to that. Just not before he had his questions answered.
Chance went aboard the boat, surmising that this was an excellent opportunity to get Robert to himself and dispose of Paul’s body, if he did decide to indulge and eat him. When the four of them were clustered around the back of the boat, the driver sped off without much consideration for the waterway’s “no wake” zone.
Ritchie and Paul gestured with their guns for Chance to sit on the aft bench, which he did, stretching his legs before settling down comfortably.
After about twenty minutes of glaring at him while the boat navigated the waterway, Robert spoke.
“So, what’s your name?”
“Chance.”
Robert grunted. “Bullshit. What’s your real name?”
“Ask your men. Didn’t they find any identification when they rummaged through my pockets the other night?”
“You know fucking well you didn’t have a scrap of ID on you that night. Plus, Paul and Ritchie tell me you must’ve been wearing Kevlar, on account of you bein’ here instead of resting in plastic under six feet of dirt. What I want to know is, what kind of a man walks around with no ID while wearing Kevlar? Seems pretty paranoid to me.”
Chance shrugged. “If you say so.”
Paul leaned in and shouted in Chance’s face. “Answer the question, asshole!”
“Quit pissing me off,” Robert said in a more mild tone. “In my current mood, I have no intention of letting you off this boat alive, so you’re gonna need to work to change my mind.”
That was meant to scare Chance, but he found it ironic instead.
“I can personally guarantee that I won’t be getting off this boat alive,” he replied.
“He’s insane,” Ritchie said in wonder. “Look at him. Thinks he can smart-mouth his way out of anything.”
Paul held up a length of chain. “See this?” he asked, rattling it for effect before he began to wrap it around Chance. “We bought this in case things went south with the Salucci brothers. This is fifty pounds of steel. I’m going to tie you up with it and then lock it around you.”
Chance glanced down at the chains as Paul began carrying out his threat. If it made them feel more secure…and the more time they wasted trussing him up, the further along the river they were getting. How convenient. He wouldn’t have to worry about anyone overhearing screams.
“You’re tryin’ my patience,” Robert growled. “Now, I’m gonna ask you again, and you’d better cut the shit. What’s your name? Your real name?”
Chance did have another name, of course. The one he’d been born with well over a hundred years ago, but even though it would be of no use to Robert, he still refused to utter it.
“Chance is the only name you’re getting out of me.”
Robert jerked his head at Ritchie, who left his position looming over Chance to go around the side of the boat. When he came back minutes later, he was wheeling a large bucket on a dolly filled with something gray and grainy.
Chance closed his eyes, but only so the others didn’t see him roll them with annoyance. Couldn’t they do anything original?
“Cement,” Robert supplied, though Chance already knew that. “You keep it up with your smart mouth and that bucket’s gonna be your new pair of shoes. There’s no getting out of this one. You talk, or I’m gonna shove your chained, cemented ass off this boat. Hell, I’ll even let Paul shoot you in the head first, ’cause I know he’s itchin’ to.”
Chance winced. Head shots hurt like hell, silver or no silver. He knew he’d have a terrific headache for about ten minutes while everything knit back into place. Damned melodramatic mobsters, he thought irritably. He was eating every last one of them before this whole mess was finished!
But first things first.
Robert watched him with an inscrutable expression. “There’s only one thing that’ll stop all this unpleasantness from becoming a reality.” He leaned forward until his nose was almost touching Chance’s. “Tell me where Frazier is, and I’ll let you live.”
Chance’s eyebrows went up. Well. He hadn’t been expecting that.
“You’re the one using Frazier to blackmail Isabella into marrying you, and yet you’re telling me you don’t know where he is?”
Robert whipped him across the head with the butt of his gun. Chance’s fangs nearly popped out on their own accord with the desire to bury themselves into Robert’s oh-so-deliciously close jugular, but he controlled himself. As soon as he got off this boat, he’d find a nice tasty person to score a pint off of. Hell, maybe even two nice tasty persons. After all, he’d owe himself a treat after getting his brains rearranged.
“Don’t fuck with me,” Robert said in a menacing tone. “Right after Frazier went missing, you showed up in town shadowing Isa. No one knows you, you don’t have no record, no ID, no nothing. It’s like you’re a fucking ghost. But I don’t believe in ghosts, so you know what I think? I think you’re some kind of loose-cannon mercenary the Salucci brothers hired to break Frazier out. Isa’s a bit shy, so she needed a little persuading to agree to marry me. But if her brother’s on the loose, it’s a potential issue for me. Makes me look bad, which then means the Saluccis get the syndicate support, and I don’t.”
“That’s an interesting theory,” Chance noted. “Go on. I’ll tell you if you’re getting warmer.”
Robert glared at him but continued. “I figure you got greedy. Began playing both sides, since if the Salucci brothers had Frazier, they would have taunted me with it every time they’d been around me. Guess you thought you could drive up whatever price they’d agreed to pay you, because you thought you was holding all the cards. Well, guess what? I call your hand, and you got nothing. In fact, you’re about five seconds away from a horrible death, and the only thing that’s gonna save you is if you tell me where Frazier is. Otherwise, I’m gonna to let Paul shoot you in the head, and then we’re gonna throw your dead ass off this boat. You’ll spend the rest of eternity rotting on the bottom of this river, understand? So what’s it gonna be? Life or death?”
Chance met his gaze with absolute coldness. “Even if I knew where Frazier Spaga was, I would never tell you, so you may as well have your man shoot me and stop wasting my time.”
Robert straightened. “You stupid fuck. Those were just your last words.”
Chance let a smirking Paul finish wrapping the chains around him before securing them, as promised, with a solid lock. Then he let them press his feet into the cement, piling the gray substance up until it encased his lower calves. He let them lead him to the edge of the boat, the three of them supporting him, since he could
n’t very well walk with his feet immobilized in the bucket.
“One last chance,” Robert said, pointing at the churning dark water before them. “You talkin’ or what?”
Chance smiled icily. “I’ll talk the next time I see you, and that’ll be sooner than you think.”
“Stupid mook,” Robert muttered. Then he nodded to Paul, who grinned as he placed his gun to the side of Chance’s temple.
“Fuck you,” Paul said, and pulled the trigger.
The resulting explosion made Chance unaware of the exact moment when they shoved him in the water. He came to with his feet—still in that bucket, of course—on the river’s bottom with his head hurting just as much as he knew it would.
Oh yes. He was going to eat every last one of them and use their veins as dental floss!
But first things first…
Chance kicked free out of the bucket and ripped the lock off his chains with one hard tug. Then, after a few minutes of unwinding and shaking the last of the cement globs from his feet, he began to ascend toward the surface.
If he had his choice, he’d swim after Robert’s boat and drink them all until his stomach bulged, but there were more pressing matters at hand. Someone else had Frazier Spaga. Could Robert have guessed correctly? Was it the Salucci brothers, and they hadn’t bragged about it because they were more disciplined than Robert realized?
There was only one way to find out.
Robert’s boat was moving at a good clip. None of the men were on the aft side anymore, thus they missed seeing Chance’s head pop out from the waves as he began to swim back toward the city.
Chapter 7
Isabella looked up as the door to her restaurant banged open. Her heart sank when she saw it wasn’t Chance. She’d stayed up all night, but there had been no word from him. Her stomach seemed formed into a perpetual knot of anxiety, and the look on Robert, Paul, and Ritchie’s faces as they strode inside only made it worse. It was just a few minutes after two. Her place didn’t open until five. Whatever they were here for, it wasn’t dinner.
“Frank, Steven, Ed, get outta here,” Robert ordered.
Her three chefs gave her an apologetic look as they exited out the back. Isa straightened her shoulders, trying to calm her sudden onslaught of fear. Where was Chance? God, had something happened to him? Had he gotten caught trying to get Frazier away? What if they’d both been hurt—or worse?
“What’s going on?” she asked, glad her calm voice belied the lurch in her stomach.
Robert smiled as he came across the room. Ritchie and Paul took up flanking positions on either side of the restaurant’s entrance. Robert gave her a kiss on the cheek, and it was all Isa could do not to wipe it away with her butter-smeared hands.
“Just wanted to see my wife-to-be, is all. Nothin’ wrong with that, is there? You workin’ hard, baby? Not for long. Once we’re married, you’re quitting this job, but don’t worry. Paul’s taking over runnin’ the place, so you won’t have to slave here anymore, but your family’s restaurant will still stay in business.”
Anger blossomed in her. Oh, she could just imagine how Paul would take over the running of this place. More laundering would get done here than across the street at the dry cleaners. If Isa would have had a gun at that moment, she’d have shot Robert where he stood.
“This is my restaurant, and I’ll work here as long as I want to.”
Robert slapped her. It wasn’t a hard blow, but enough to make Isa’s cheek sting.
“You listen to me,” he said, voice low and resonating as he seized her shoulders and pulled her near. “I’ve been real patient with you, Isa. A true gentleman, because a man needs to be considerate of the future mother of his children. I let you work here when you should be with my sister planning our wedding. I let you tell me we’re not having sex until we’re married. I let your miserable brother live when by all rights, I shoulda put a bullet in his head when I caught him snooping around my house. I let all those things happen, but I will not let you disrespect me in public. You got spirit, kid. I like that, but there’s a time and a place. Don’t make me remind you again.”
Isa touched her cheek, almost abandoning her promise to Frazier right then, because she would not, could not pretend to be this man’s fiancée—his property—a single moment longer. She even opened her mouth to say the words, but then a voice stopped her.
“Take your hands off her.”
Relief flooded through Isa. It was Chance! He wasn’t hurt, thank God, and…why did Paul just drop his gun?
“You’re dead,” Paul breathed. His face was stark white, and his hand shook as he made the sign of the cross. “I shot you in the head and threw your weighted-down body in the river!”
Isa’s eyes bulged at that.
“I am dead,” Chance agreed calmly behind her. “And yet I’m still standing here. Makes you wonder how, doesn’t it?”
Ritchie seemed equally shaken. He crossed himself too, and Isa heard him mutter the familiar Latin incantation: “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti…”
Even Robert looked like he’d seen a ghost, which sent a chill up Isa’s spine. No one was denying Paul’s statement that he’d shot Chance in the head. That wasn’t something you’d walk away from afterward, but here Chance was, announcing that he was dead and yet he still wasn’t going anywhere. Could he have hypnotized them into thinking Paul had shot him? Was such a thing even possible?
Isa swung around to look at Chance, and there was something in his gaze that froze her. She remembered the cool feel of his skin on hers, the way his eyes seemed to change colors, and how he’d gotten into her five-story-high home through the window when there wasn’t any fire escape. There was only so much skill or hypnotism could account for. So if it wasn’t that…
Chance met her stare levelly, as if he knew what was brewing in her mind—and wasn’t denying any of it. Once again, her grandmother’s words rang in her head. Don’t think the world contains only what you’ve been taught at school. Oh no, my dear. That’s just the first layer of it… Or Chance himself, when she’d asked him what he was. You’re not ready to know what I am, so don’t ask me that question when you don’t really want a truthful answer to it…
Robert drew out his gun. “Fuck it, I’m shooting you until you stay dead!”
Isa heard multiple pops, saw a blur of motion…and then she was swinging from Chance’s grip. Noises seemed to coalesce into one loud murmur, and her stomach felt oddly hot though the rest of her was chilled. She tried to look down, but Chance’s arms blocked her. He had them pressed to her stomach even as she realized with shock that they were somehow outside. On rooftops. Moving at speeds that defied any logical explanation.
Then there was a jarring suddenness as they stopped. Chance loomed over her, his face very close…
Oh God, his face!
Isa screamed. Or tried. It only came out as a wheezing cry of denial. Chance ignored that, whipping a knife out from somewhere on him. Those glowing eyes, his fangs…he’s some kind of devil, she realized dully. Cold slithered further up her limbs. In nomine Patris…
Chance stabbed her in the side. Isa did scream this time, a high-pitched wail of agony that wrenched out of her soul. There was another horrible, spine-bowing pain as Chance wiggled the knife, and then mercifully, gray encroached her vision. The pain started to fade even as the cold increased. Isa could barely make out Chance’s transformed face as he slashed the blade across his wrist next, and then pressed the cut to her open mouth.
Chance took Isa to her grandmother’s. It wasn’t far, considering he traveled in a beeline by leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Up here, traffic definitely wasn’t an issue.
Isa hadn’t spoken a word to him since he’d made her drink his blood to heal her gunshot wound. Digging that bullet out of her side had filled Chance with rage, regret, and fear. He hated hurting her that way, but if he hadn’t, her flesh would have knit back over the wound soon after she swallowed his blood. Drinking that sm
all amount wouldn’t turn her into a vampire—Chance would have needed to mortally drain her first, and then have her drink far more deeply from him—but it would heal her internal and external damage from the gunshot wound. He wouldn’t risk her life by taking her to a local hospital; the bullet had torn through her liver. So close to losing her forever.
As soon as she was safely at Greta’s, Chance was going to hunt down the two shooters and kill them. They wouldn’t live out the next hour, either of them.
Chance didn’t bother going to the front door, in case Greta was being watched. He leapt from the top of the roof down to the side window with Isa clutched in his arms. To anyone casually looking up, he’d appear as nothing more than a hazy blur. Vampire speed defied human ability to track with the naked eye, so he wasn’t worried about 911 calls about a rooftop-jumping superman.
One hard jerk broke the lock on her window. It slid up and Chance maneuvered them inside with one fluid motion. Isa blinked at her surroundings for a second, as if she couldn’t believe where she was. Then she shoved against Chance’s chest. Hard.
“Let go of me.”
She had more force behind the push than she normally would have. Her head bobbed around, listening to noises she wouldn’t have heard an hour ago. His blood had done more than just heal her. In the quantity he’d given her, almost a half pint, it had also heightened her strength and senses.
Chance let her go. She backed away from him at once, her gaze flicking around like she expected him to attack. For the tenth time, she rubbed her stomach, feeling the smoothness where there had so recently been a bleeding hole.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Isabella,” Chance said quietly.
She let out a derisive bark that stated she didn’t believe him. Meanwhile, Chance heard Greta stir in the other room. She must have been taking a nap.
“You were shot,” Chance told her, knowing with the instant shock her body would have gone into, she might not have realized that. “I had to dig the bullet out. That’s why, with the knife…”