Faithless (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (74 page)

I draw a single sheet of paper from its envelope with a shaking hand. I smile because the gold seal of the certificate peeks out at me from its manila home.
Warmth flushes across my skin. I did this. No matter the score- I really did this. I started something and saw it to the end. I could make a small impact on someone’s future. Just saving one life will erase the one I took, because that life may give back more to this world than what Lara would have given during the hours she breathed on borrowed time.

“Well, I know I passed. There’
s a certificate in there, too,” I proudly announce. “Let’s see what I got.” Wide-eyed, I gaze over the paper, not really reading, just looking for that number.

I shuffle the paper back into the envelope never saying what I got. I sit quietly, waiting for Wil to blow a gasket… and he doesn’t disappoint.

“Give me that,” he growls, trying to snare my results. “What the fuck did you get? It’s good, I can tell. You can shield your emotions, but not from me.”

“Syn looks just like she did five minutes ago. I see no change,”
Rex murmurs as he walks up to stand behind me. His eyes latch onto the paper, as if he can burn through the envelope and view my results.

“Guess,” I taunt, “better or worse than yours?”

“You’re smarter than me, Pixy. There’s no contest. But you shouldn’t be in competition with me- you should be in competition with yourself.”

“Says the man who got a ninety-four and probably gloated to Cory,” I grumble.

“What the fuck did you get?” Wil finally snaps. He tries to crawl over the counter, but Rex keeps shoving him back off. Rex’s maniacal laughter mixes with Wil’s impatient grunts and my giggles.

“Ninety-seven,” I answer to put him out of his misery.

“No way,” Wil says in awe as his feet slide back to the floor. I hand him my envelope and he doesn’t even look, proving how much he does trust me.

“Yes, way,” I grin. “What’s next?”

~Chapter Sixty-
Two~

“Quelle heure travaillez-vous?” Bianca’s childlike voice sounds like music when she speaks French. She’s been obsessed since she first learned her ‘boyfriend’ is French. She wanted to be fluent for their fairytale future. After a year of flashcards and language CDs, the side-affect is that I’m now fluent, too.

“I’m on call,” I reply in my native tongue. It drives Stanton batshit when Bianca goes days without speaking English. She thinks it makes her a better ballerina if she speaks in a frilly language. The girl is priceless, so I just grin and bear it.

“Quelle heure est-ce?” she sings as she rotates like she’s on a lazy-susan. I close my eyes so I don’t get dizzy. The girl can twirl, that’s for sure.

“It means that when my pager goes off, I go to the station,” I explain for the billionth time since I became a paramedic. “Some days I sit at the station waiting for emergencies, and then there are days that I’m on call. On call means that I’ll only be called if more emergencies arise than can be handled by those working. Once a week, I’m left in peace. You should understand this by now. It’s almost been two months,” I practically whine, sick to death of explaining it.

“Je comprends,” she breathlessly murmurs, completing her eighth perfect pirouette. When she fucks up, she starts again… and she counts aloud… in French. I swear I count sheep at night in French. I pray for my pager to go
off and save me from this repetitive insanity.

“God, I hope so,” I sigh, “because I’m not explaining it again- like ever.”

“Expliquer ce?” a foreign voice flows, and I don’t mean just foreign, as in French, although his accent is so perfect that he must speak it daily- foreign within the four walls of our apartment. A ball of fear coils in my gut and explode out my mouth when I realize who is standing in my living room- alone- with just Bianca and me. I never heard the elevator, meaning he came up the service steps- our private steps that are keycoded with Bianca and Caleb’s birthdays.

“Hello,” I pleasantly say, because I don’t want Bianca to know I’m upset- or doomed. “Jon,” I flatly say.

“Lovely,” he sings, “it’s so much easier since you know who I am.” Wil takes after his grandfather- handsome, with bright, clear eyes that glow white because they are immense pools of crystalline blue. The difference is the air of evil that radiates off the older man.

“Who are you?” Bianca switches back to English now that a master of French is in our living room. She wouldn’t want to embarrass herself by messing up the conjugation.

“Perhaps you know my granddaughter, Gretchen? Her friends call her Greta?” Jon slowly steps closer to me, as if I am the threat in the room- not him, the sociopath that invaded our private space.

“No,” Bianca mumble, shaking her tiny head- ponytail bobbing back and forth. “I’d remember that name.” She sounds unsure, as if she
can feel the tension riding the air.

“I also have a grandson,” Jon says, sounding uber-helpful and
oh-so friendly.

“Maybe,” Bianca narrows her brown eyes at the intruder. “How’d you get in here, anyway?”

Ignoring her, Jon says to me, “his name is Leviticus. I thought you’d like to know that- call the information a small boon for your retrieval.”

I close my eyes as I
fight to swallow the bile that rises in my throat-
retrieval
.

“I don’t know a Leviticus. I’ve never even heard that name before,” Bianca says, edging her way towards the hallway to the bedrooms. Her instincts are driving her to hide as I stay frozen on the sofa.
But then again, Jon’s appearance proves I have nowhere to hide.

“Ah, well… my grandson gets physically nauseated when I say his birth name,
sometimes when our family calls him Levi, he will actually throw up,” Jon says with great pleasure. Marcus named my propensity to enjoy other’s pain, sadism. I don’t think that is accurate- Jon is a sadist, an evil one.

“Why?” Bianca says in horror.

“Because I can,” Jon answers my unspoken thoughts, not Bianca’s question. “Since Leviticus can’t go around regurgitating, his friends call him Wil. Do you know Wil, little one?”

“Yeah, I know Wil,” Bianca says, halfway down the hallway. I don’t have the energy to tell her she is perfectly safe. This man would protect Bianca to the death because of her
boyfriend
.  No, Jon is here for me. The life I’ve built over the past year ignites into flame. These bastards are collecting me for the game- I have a play that is left unfinished- and we can’t have that, now can we?

“Did you bring friends?” I reluctantly ask, praying he is alone. I
could take out a man in his seventies without breaking a sweat. Since Bianca is involved, I could do it viciously with a grin on my face. I protect what’s mine.

“Of course, my dear,” Jon purrs. “My allies await us on the ground floor. A large
, young man is on standby to watch the little one. I believe he is your babysitter.”

As if on cue, Julio shuffles out the stairwell, with an escort- a panther of a man that I’ve met on one other occasion, Devlin Conrick- Jon’s partner. Devlin and Jon are somehow related, something I’ve yet to figure out. I wonder if he’d give me that information as a boon if I agree
d to go quietly.

“Hello, Mr. Conrick,” I politely say in a tight voice.

“Miss Simpson,” Devlin says with a nod of his chin. The twenty-something male is nearly seven feet of tightly coiled muscle. But he looks frightened- either for me or of Jon, I don’t know which. Those eerie eyes glow from his face, as they do from Jon and Wil, as they used to from JJ. I can’t wrap my mind around how this black as night male fits into the pasty-white Wilson family tree.

Julio notices the tension
in the hand resting on his shoulder, but he relaxes. Most people wouldn’t think bad shit was going down if the lady of the house was playing the part of a polite hostess.
Bad Julio
- this is a mafia family. Julio should know better. But my sister isn’t stupid, or maybe she is clairvoyant, because she’s now edging towards the sideboard- the sideboard with the gun. Every room has two guns strategically placed… and Stanton made sure we all knew how to use them.

I have to stop her. “Bianca,” I softly say. She snaps her head to look at me. “These men are friends of Dalton Fontaine, sweetie. Be at ease,” I breathe.
Intrigued but suspicious, she steps away from the table. “Julio can take Bianca to her room.”

“Are there more goodies lurking in there as well?” Jon’s voice is laced with humor, like he’s silently laughing at us.

“Bianca,” I say to gain her undivided attention, because her room has an arsenal of weapons, and Julio is proficient in each and every one of them. We’re all being oh-so careful of our movements. An ordinary man wouldn’t notice the murderous intent in the eight-year-old girl. But Jon isn’t a normal man, and he knows what I’m capable of. Why would my sister be any different?

“I’m fine. They won’t hurt me.”
Physically
I add in my mind. “They’re here to take me to our mother and grandfather. Will I be back?” I direct to Jon.

“Yes,” he evilly hisses like a serpent. “We have no wish to interrupt your life. But time runs short
. You will be gone for seventy-two hours after completion.”

“Fuck,” I breathe, lips not moving to form the word. “When is Stanton’s punish
ment?” I ask, knowing that the elders always punish.

“Happening as we speak,” Jon smirks. I notice Devlin freeze
, and it scares me to death. “We aren’t to enter the Meyers’ residence until it’s over.” Jon’s snicker turns my stomach. I have to swallow back the vomit that fills my mouth.

“
Stanton… will he be back this evening or will he be… detained?” I try not to say hospitalized- either in a room or in the morgue. I don’t believe this was an executable offence- it would have been if I made it to Ezra’s fast approaching eighteenth birthday without one final attempt of conception.

“Stanton didn’t go willingly. He had to be punished for that- nothing that will have lasting
effects. Now, what is happening as we speak…” Jon raises a sinister eyebrow and maliciously smirks. “It should exacerbate his issues,” which seems to delight the older man, judging by the giddy cadence to his voice. I really start to worry when Devlin looks ill.

“We should go,” I abruptly say, standing up from the sofa. “Now.”

Jon makes a show of looking at his watch. “Oh, we have plenty of time- no need to rush. I’m sure Stanton was having difficulties.” That evil smirk twists Jon’s lips again, and I didn’t think it was possible for a man’s skin as black as Devlin to turn a ghastly death-pallor.

“I’ll wait on their front steps until they are through, but we are going to Crestview Drive right now.” I grab my coat and boots from where they rest near the elevator doors. I don’t bother with a bag or a change of clothing. No doubt I wo
n’t be leaving Meyers Manor of Terrifying Delights until the elders get what they want.

“As you wish…” Jon trails with laughter.

“Julio, stay with Bianca until I get back. I don’t know if Stanton will be mentally available to meet Bianca’s needs.” I don’t say that I probably won’t be either when I get home, but one crisis at a time.

“Syn,” Julio croaks out, “what’s going on?”

“Nothing I can or care to explain. Nobody is dead.”
Yet
.

I have a
feeling that the instinctual side of me will be very practical, indeed. The evil aura surrounding Jon makes me put the bastard on my list- he needs put down like a feral animal.

I squeeze my sister, silently vowing that I will make her tenure in the game, a smooth one. I
now understand Stanton educating Bianca in certain areas. It’s so she can hold onto her dignity and sanity while she completes her play. Stanton has always known that he couldn’t circumvent Bianca’s or my fate. Even our allies believe a play made is a play completed- there is never a play left on the board.

“I love you,” I murmur against Bianca’s forehead.

~Chapter Sixty-Three~

“Wait here,” Jon orders, pointing at the center of the foyer floor. “I have to check on them.”

“Why am I not surprised,” I mumble, causing Devlin to give me a
what the fuck
look. It makes him look younger, somehow- closer to twenty than twenty-five. He shifts nervously and leans against the wall.

I answer his look. “All the houses on Crestview Drive are the same- inside and out- even the wallpaper. Leave it to Mitchell to be unique,” I say with grudging respect.

I was here on that fateful night, but it was pitch-black. I hadn’t gotten a lay of the land. The rooms are in the same places, but not decorated the same. Mitchell’s environment is richer, warmer, and a heluva lot more expensive. The walls are gilded in real gold leaf. The furnishings aren’t reproductions and the art isn’t prints. Meyers is old money. This house is in the center of Crestview Drive, not up on the hills like ShadowHaven and Whittenhower Estates. Mitchell sacrificed dreams of a huge mansion for a micro-mansion in the center of his minions. He wanted to keep an ever-watchful eye on his game.