Now that she considered it, she had to admit they could have caused her quite a bit more damage. In fact, they seemed to pull their punches, as if they were merely testing her or attempting to wear her down. Nevertheless, the battle that ensued left her bruised, bleeding, and terrified. The noise they made drew even more people out of their homes, and at some point, Rhiannon realized she had to set the warehouse behind her on fire to destroy any further evidence that might help to lead authorities her way. As soon as she saw the opportunity, she called lightning where she knew it would catch fire, and she ran once more, this time into the night.
The men grew wings and flew after her. She’d been forced to stick to the shadows, limiting her escape to alleyways. But in the end… she’d managed to get away.
“Well, seeing as how it seems you’ll need a bulldozer to defeat these particular creatures, now that we know what to look for, we can do our best to avoid them in the future.”
“You mean by steering clear of old buildings with faces on them?”
“Every one of them, Rhiannon,” her employer said, and his expression became very serious. “Don’t think I missed the bit in here about the fact that gargoyles never give birth to females.”
Rhiannon swallowed hard and averted her gaze. She’d actually hoped he had overlooked that part.
“They reproduce by transforming human females into gargoyles,” he continued. “And they can only do this when a female notices them. The ability to see them supposedly signals something special. Apparently, humans are incapable of noticing them. To humanity, gargoyles are invisible. Nonexistent. Yet you noticed them. And they noticed you noticing them.”
Rhiannon smiled at his play on words, but her stomach was churning. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“You must be more special than you realize, Miss Dante.”
Rhiannon didn’t say anything. Mostly because it was already pretty obvious that she was special. She was a goddamned superhero. But to think of herself as something other than human… was too uncomfortable for some reason.
She also didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to lend credence to what he was hinting at.
“And they marked you,” he said, nailing her coffin shut.
He picked up his iced tea, took a long drink, and set it back down again. “I think it would behoove you to not take it for granted that they’re giving up their search for you. I doubt this is over yet. By a long shot.”
Once more, Rhiannon didn’t say anything. Also, because she once more agreed. Which was why she had gone to the trouble of renting an apartment in another part of town. If someone came for her, she didn’t want them anywhere near Verdigri. He could hold his own against quite a few bad guys. The security in the apartment complex was top notch, and he had guards tucked away everywhere, unseen, unheard, but deadly.
Yet, someone had managed to bypass every bit of it the other night. The stranger in black.
And now there were gargoyles with a vendetta on the loose. Things were getting a little too cozy in this neck of the woods. It was time to draw attention away from Verdigri and his home… and his butterflies.
“Did any information leak out last night?”
“Not that we were able to find. That we’ve counted so far, fourteen people were awakened by the commotion, six others were already awake and out on the street in that location at that time. It’s Manhattan, after all. However, to our fortune, as of yet we’ve found no phone recorded evidence, and nothing has shown up online. Hopefully you’re in the clear.”
“There were cameras in the warehouse,” she said, “but they were the first to go when I got there. It was the bystanders I was most concerned about.”
Verdigri nodded as if that were the end of it, and then took a deep, tired breath.
“You need to get some sleep,” she said, standing to take her leave of him. “I’ll check in tomorrow afternoon.”
Verdigri met her gaze and deep, emerald green pierced her soul. “Ah yes, you’re heading off to your new apartment now.”
Rhiannon’s brow twitched, but she did her very best not to appear as surprised as she felt. She was aware of her employer’s resourcefulness, after all.
“Not much gets past me, Miss Dante,” he chuckled. “To that end, I know you won’t mind that I have assigned a few of my more trusted employees to keep an eye on you. And of course, Frank is waiting downstairs to take you to your building.”
Now Rhiannon smiled and shook her head. “I bet you even know what my blood pressure and pulse rate are.”
“No,” he said. “You’re too stubborn to have them checked on a regular basis. Otherwise, I would.”
Chapter Nine
Rhiannon almost slipped on a puddle on the bathroom floor trying to get to the phone on time. She slammed the bathroom door open, scrambled across the hall to the living room, and grabbed it out of the bowl she normally tossed it into along with her apartment key and lip balm. Breathless and dripping, she checked to see who was calling.
The readout said only, “Alex.” Rhiannon immediately attempted to answer it by swiping her finger across the green bar, but it didn’t work. The carpet beneath her began to get damp from the drops of water sliding off her body. She tried to answer the phone again before she realized her finger was too wet for it to be picked up properly by the phone’s sensors.
She swore softly and dried her finger on the edge of her towel, but not before the call ended.
Now she swore a little more loudly, and her grip on the phone tightened to the point of frustrated pain. But then it rang again, and this time, she managed to answer it immediately.
“Miss Dante, are you well?” asked a very serious voice. Alex, or Alexander, as Mr. Verdigri called him, was one of her employer’s most trusted bodyguards, an enormous, superhuman, no-nonsense ex-Navy Seal whom Rhiannon had never once seen cracking a smile. However, the two had a silent rapport, which Rhiannon could only assume existed solely because of her own rather superhuman abilities. Most likely, a Navy Seal could appreciate a woman who could take care of herself.
It didn’t stop him from doing his job, however. She’d been in the apartment three full days, and he’d been watching over her the entire time.
“I’m fine. I’m just… indisposed.”
Alex paused, no doubt digesting that and making the shower connection, before he continued. “You are about to have company. There’s an NYPD officer crossing the street to your building right now. He’s coming from an unmarked car.”
A thrum of fear went through Rhiannon. There was no point in asking how Alex knew it was a cop. Alex was good at his job. “How do you know he’s coming to see me?” she asked instead. There were thirty-one apartments in the complex, after all.
“I can tell.”
Rhiannon squeezed her eyes shut and tried to run a hand through her hair before she remembered it was soaking wet and her fingers caught on a knot. She winced, yanked her hand back out, thanked Alex for the warning, and hung up the phone.
Then she ran to the bedroom. She had managed to pull on a pair of jeans without underwear and a t-shirt without a bra and was in the midst of putting her hair up in her towel when the knock came at the door. It was firm, but polite. If you could tell such a thing from a knock.
Rhiannon experienced a full range of frustration at the sound. She hadn’t been able to put on lotion or any garments, or even completely dry off, and she hated being interrupted in the middle of a shower. She wasn’t even sure she’d gotten all of the conditioner out of her hair, and from the strong smell of the soap coming from her body, she most definitely hadn’t rinsed it all off her skin. Whoever he was, the cop at her door was probably about to get an ear full.
Rhiannon strode to the door on long, angry legs, grabbed the handle, and swung it open wide.
She was about demand, “What?!” when she froze, her hand on the door and her breath caught in her chest, while the world came to a grinding halt around her.
Blue ey
es….
“Miss Dante?” the man asked, his voice deep and melodic and sensual – and all too familiar. “I’m sorry to disturb you.” Those blue eyes shot to the towel on her head, then down to her chest, where her nipples were so hard, they were scraping the inside of her t-shirt. “You were obviously busy.” He pulled his badge out from under a brown leather jacket and held it up for her to see. “If you’d like, I can come back at another time.”
Rhiannon didn’t respond. She couldn’t respond. It was him.
It was him.
It was the man from her dreams.
And it was the masquerade gala stranger in black.
Shock ramrodded through her system, at once making her wonder whether she’d slipped and fallen in the shower. Numbly, and from far off, she heard herself reply, “Yes, that’s me. And no, now is fine.”
But it’s not fine! she scolded herself. You’re half dressed! You’re soaking wet! You can barely form whole, coherent thoughts! But she had zero control over her motor skills at that moment. It was like she was right back on that dance floor, allowing a complete stranger to lead her into oblivion.
“I’m Detective Michael Salvatore with the NYPD,” he introduced himself with that bright, white, killer smile. He slipped the badge back into his jacket and said, “I was wondering if you might have time for a few questions.”
The two halves of Rhiannon’s consciousness had split the moment she’d opened the door. The responsible, mature, and somewhat proud half of her brain was on one side of her skull yelling at her to snap out of it, put on a passive mask, and deal with whatever was going down. But the other half was firmly planted in dreamland, comparing the man before her to the figure she’d seen in her sleep, standing at the edge of that abyss all bruised and bloodied and beautiful, with a massive sword in his hand. That same half of her brain was also currently out on the dance floor, remembering the way his hand had felt at her back, the way he’d moved her so expertly, his hard body pressed against hers, and the way his breath upon her throat had caused her to call lightning from the skies.
Fortunately, the first half of her brain was still more or less in control. It forced her to think rationally.
Rationally, there was no way this man before her – a police officer, and therefore the enemy as far as she and her very secretive career were concerned – was the man from the dance floor, the man who had turned pennies into pure gold. He was a cop, for crying out loud.
“Concerning what?” she asked, almost as if she were challenging him. She wasn’t a redhead for nothing. No doubt, he hadn’t failed to notice that she had yet to let him into her apartment, badge or not.
Those blue eyes of his flashed, stark and unyielding, and butterflies, probably swallowtails this time, alighted in her stomach.
There was a warning in those eyes. She was playing with blue fire. The hottest kind of all.
“I’m afraid there was an incident downtown a few nights ago, and an eye witness turned in a video recorded on his phone.” He paused, allowing the words to sink in for her.
Which is exactly what they did. They sunk in so deep and so low, she felt them hit rock bottom – just before she felt herself do the same thing.
This is it, she thought. Oh my God, this is it. They’ve found me out. It’s over.
“Miss Dante, do you mind if I come inside? I do have quite a few questions to ask you and I doubt you want me to conduct the investigation on your front porch.” He gestured to the yard behind him, where one of the neighbors, who’d been walking his dog, was already slowing down to eaves drop.
Still, she hesitated, feeling as though if she allowed him passage across her threshold, there would be no going back.
Detective Salvatore leaned in a little. “Miss Dante, let me make myself very clear. I’m afraid the woman in the video very strongly resembles you.”
Rhiannon felt the blood leave her cheeks. The way he’d said that hinted that there could actually be no mistake. Imaging technology these days was often quite good at matching faces.
Someone had caught her on film.
It was her worst nightmare.
As if controlling her body through a swimming pool, she saw herself step to the side and allow the detective entrance to her apartment. She closed the door behind them, and heard it echo in her head like a portent.
“There was a bullet casing found at the site of the fire. Do you by any chance happen to own a Colt 1911, Miss Dante?” Detective Salvatore moved into her living room and began surreptitiously looking around. She could feel him taking everything in – every tiny detail. No doubt, he noticed that everything was perfectly clean and organized, and the carpet was brand new. The apartment screamed “new tenant.” She wondered if he would figure out that she’d only been there a few days. And then she wondered if he would think that was important.
Her body replied for her, her mouth producing the words that her mind couldn’t quite get straight fast enough. “Yes, I do,” she told him, “but a lot of people do. It’s the second most popular weapon in the US.”
Detective Salvatore faced her and smiled, his blue eyes pinning her to the floor where she stood.
Rhiannon’s skin flushed. That smile said a thousand things. It said he was smart; he knew her response was practiced and automatic. He knew she’d probably chosen the weapon for exactly the reason she’d quoted. He also knew that she was worried.
And his smile hinted at all kinds of hot, sweaty, unmentionable things that were just impossible, because he was a cop and he was on to her.
“I’m assuming it’s registered.”
“Of course.”
He nodded, waiting a beat. Then, “Miss Dante,” he said, touching his chin thoughtfully and moving in close enough that she could smell the leather of his jacket and the aftershave he’d used that morning. It smelled a little like sandalwood, and it made her head spin. “Can you tell me where you were Thursday night at around one a.m.?”
Rhiannon was prepared for this particular question. You didn’t do what she did on a regular basis without setting up alibis.
“I was with my boyfriend,” she said, raising her chin. “We went to see the latest Avengers movie.”
The detective’s brow rose, and his eyes sparkled. “Really?” he asked softly, and utterly disbelievingly. “I’ll be wanting to speak with him of course. And the theater you attended. For verification.”
“Of course.” Rhiannon moved to the kitchen bar where a pad of paper and a cup holder of pens waited. She wrote down two phone numbers on a sheet, tore it out, and handed it to Salvatore.
The detective took it slowly, and as he did, his fingertips brushed against hers. A zap of something warm moved between them, but Rhiannon forced herself to ignore it.
“Thank you,” he said smoothly. “Would you mind if I had a look at your weapon while I’m here?”
She was ready for that too. She’d had it professionally cleaned, as usual. “Not at all,” she said. Then she slid past him to head toward the hall. She could feel him following her. She should tell him something. She should tell him to stay where he was, that he had no right to venture further into her home without a warrant.
But that would be as good as admitting she had something to hide.
So she said nothing and continued to the bedroom, all the while with his blue eyes boring holes in the back of her body.
She left him standing in the hallway; the detective had enough manners not to traipse into the privacy of her bedroom after her, and made her way around her bed to the safe on the other side. She placed her hand into a print reader, waited for it to scan and verify that it was her, and listened for the click. It unlatched, and she pulled the door open to extract her Colt handgun.
When she returned to the hallway, making sure to carry the weapon by its body and not its handle so that she would appear thoroughly unthreatening, it was to find the detective had disappeared.
“Detective Salvatore?” she called quietly.
??
?In here,” he replied from her laundry room.
Few apartments in New York came with a washer and dryer, and even fewer came with actual laundry rooms, but it was the one thing she had insisted upon when locating the apartment, and fortunately her employer paid her enough that she could afford the extra expense. She hated walking all over her dirty clothes because there was no actual place to put them before washing them. And the truth was, she was usually just too busy or tired or lazy to get around to washing them that often.
Rhiannon moved down the hall to the laundry room and peeked in. He’d turned on the light and was standing near the lidded laundry basket.
He raised his hand so she could see what he held.
It was a pair of jeans. It was the pair she’d been wearing Thursday night. A series of tears and a massive red bloodstain marred the left leg of the denim garment.
What was left of the blood in Rhiannon’s face quickly drained away.
Detective Salvatore didn’t miss a beat. “You know, it’s interesting,” he said, looking from her to the jeans. “The woman on the video that was turned in also appeared to have been injured.” He looked back up at her. “In the same manner.”
“That was a shaving accident,” she said coolly, even while her heart hammered away at light speed.
The detective smiled a very small smile that lit up his eyes with mirth – and something like admiration. “If I were you, I would consider switching to an electric.”
Salvatore popped the lid of the laundry basket with his boot, dropped the jeans into it, and strode toward her. She froze as he closed in. “You look like you could use a laundry service,” he told her, stopping less than a foot away and towering over her. She felt him take the gun from her hands, but she couldn’t look away from his eyes. They held her as if by chains. She was drowning, happily, in an impossible sea of blue.
“If you don’t mind, I will borrow this for a night or two, have forensics run some tests on it, and bring it back when I’ve finished.”
Rhiannon still couldn’t move. The truth was, she could barely breathe. His presence was wrapping around her, teasing her senses in every possible fashion, from the scent of him to the height of him to the sound of his deep, sensuous voice. Her nipples were so hard against her shirt now, they almost hurt, and she was fairly sure she was trembling underneath the thin layer of clothing she wore.