28 Seconds: A House of Valentine Novella (8 page)

“It looks like my old high school chemistry lab.”

“Then your school must’ve been a hell of a lot more fun than mine was.”

I frowned at them but then understanding washed over me. I shook my head at my own idiocy. “They’re all illegal.”

“No. Some are legal, even if just barely,” Cole explained. “But, yes, they are controlled substances.”

“So, are you guys throwing a party or what?”

They were laughing again and warmth swelled inside me. They were so easy, so relaxed and fun. How had I missed this side of all of them? Is that what having a family was really like?

“Like I said, we need your help.” He motioned to the men. “Your tolerance or immunity or whatever the hell it is has everyone confused and your ability to discern recipes has put us all on edge. I’m not really going to explain why it’s so important so I need you just to accept that it is.”

I shrugged. I didn’t care at all why they were worried about it. I was holding firm to the idea that the less I knew about the Valentine family, the less I had to admit what type of bad things they were involved in. “Okay, so what do you need from me?”

“There are 216 different substances here. I want you to tell us what they are.”

“I am not stupid enough to ingest random drugs on your whim. We went there already...it didn’t end well, if you remember.”

“She’s got you there, Cole.”

He sent a strangling look that stopped the man cold. “Tell me what you can
without
ingesting them and then we’ll see what’s left.”

“Just so you know, I excel at tests.” I dropped into the first chair and sat my coffee down. “Are there any I can’t taste?”

Cole opened his mouth but one of the men stopped him. Grinning, he handed me a vial. “You tell us.”

“You, Tony, are having way too much fun with this.”

“Guilty as charged,” he laughed. “We have few diversions these days.”

I examined the vial...shaking it, pouring a tiny amount into my hand and pushing it around. I sniffed it and immediately recoiled. “I will not be tasting that,” I grumbled. “White gunpowder.”

“No, it’s-”

“Potassium nitrate and powdered sugar also known as white gunpowder. It was used in the Civil War when supplies of regular gunpowder ran low.”

“Well, shit,” Tony grumbled but gave me a wink. “I’ll refill that coffee for you.”

Cole’s eyes lifted to the other man, the quieter one. “Al, is she right?”

“Yeah, she’s right.”

I was ten for ten before one finally stumped me. No matter what I tried, nothing about the substance stood out to me. I put it aside, frustrated, but determined to come back to it later. Every answer I got right earned praise from Al and Tony while Cole’s mood grew darker and darker. As we hit seventy-five and another drug I couldn’t identify, Cole shot out of his seat, startling us all. The other men took a step back, recognizing his emotions instantly, but it took me a moment to place it: fury. He was fucking livid.

“Lunch. DeSalvo’s.” Clipped orders that the men followed without question. Al and Tony each took one of my arms, a light touch to direct me. They led me in silence, out of the house and two blocks down the road. Cole was there, paces behind, never saying a word. We entered the tiny restaurant and were greeted with an onslaught of hugs and kisses on the cheek. It was obviously their regular hangout and they’d been missed while they were babysitting me.

Al and Tony lightened the mood, flirting with the waitresses and sharing stories of misadventures they had at the place. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten and I devoured everything, earning a friendly ribbing from them. Through it all, Cole’s silence bore down on me, a weight that wouldn’t lift no matter how they made me laugh.

When we returned to the house, I headed back to the dining room, taking my seat. I was determined not to let Cole’s mood infect the rest of us and I clapped my hand on the table. “Bartender, another round!”

Al and Tony laughed but, as one handed me a vial, Cole’s hand blocked them. “Stop. There’s no point. She’ll know them all.”

“But-”

Cole checked the list and searched the table before pulling out a single vial and handing it to me. I took it, felt a confusing sense of pressure to identify this one but somehow knowing I wouldn’t be able to. I tried, longer than I’d given any of the other vials, and he finally took it out of my hands.

“Except these.” He laid it out perfect in front of me, taking the time to straighten it and align it with the edge of the table. “Rohypnol.” He picked up the first vial I’d saved for later inspection and laid it next to the other. “Ecstasy.” He reached for the third, lining it up, but I felt the knot well in my stomach.

“Modafinil,” I whispered.

“Modafinil,” he hissed. His arms swung wide, sending vials flying across the room and shattering against the wall. When he realized he’d missed a few, he did it again. When the table was clear except for sprinkling of powders, he gripped the edge, his muscles twitching as his temper raged out of control. Al and Tony had taken up protective stances on either side of me but it was unnecessary - Cole was calming himself with every breath. When he had settled enough to drop into a chair, Al and Tony did the same.

“You are certain that all this time, all these years, it’s been just you and your mother?”

“I’m certain.”

“Do not lie to me. Not now.”

I fought down the indignation of his question. “I’m not.”

“Ariana,” his voice was a low gravel, the one he used when we were alone, “look at me.”

I obeyed just as he knew I would.

“There’s been no one else? A friend, a regular visitor, a lover?”

“No, Cole. No one.”

His hands went to his hair, raking through it twice. They moved to his face, rubbing his jaw - a personal tic of his I’d already memorized. It meant nothing good was about to happen and I curled my legs up into the chair, waiting.

He exhaled in a last effort to calm his voice. “No human is born to know these things, Ariana. We have hundreds of highly educated pharmacists in our employ and none could do what you just did.”

“Like the Valentine drug, I’m a freak. Thanks.”

“No,” Tony offered me a half smile. “A heroin addict will know heroin but not meth. A cocaine addict will recognize his drug but have no clue about another you set in front of him. He’ll know it’s not his but that’s it.”

“I can assure you, I’m not addicted to any of this shit.”

“No one is saying you are,” Al interjected. “But you have been trained, conditioned, whatever word you want to use, to recognize hundreds of mind-altering substances.”

“No, I-”

“If you walked into a bar and some guy tried to drop something in your drink, you’d know. No one would have a chance to get one over on you.”

Tony snorted. “If she bothered to check anyway.”

“Say that again,” Cole commanded, leaning forward.

“If she walked into a bar-”

“No, the last part. What did you say?”

“No one will have a chance to get one over on her.”

He laughed, a deep throaty laugh that caused us all to face him. “I’ll say it a thousand times. Teresa was fucking brilliant.” He smiled at me, still chuckling. “It wasn’t someone else.”

“I told you that.”

He gave me an apologetic grin. “It was her all along. She conditioned you to know them. She was protecting you, Ariana.”

“From what?”

“The families,” Tony answered. “When everyone moved into pharmaceuticals as a main business, each took their own spin on the drug trade. All of these we had in front of you are components used by different families, including ours. Since you can recognize them, they’d never have a chance to slipping something to you that would allow you to be kidnapped.”

“Or killed,” Al added.

“Well, unless they decide to give me the ever popular and readily available date-rape drug, as we’ve already established. Then, I’m just shit out of luck.”

Cole nodded. “She has a point. She can recognize the Valentine drug components when they are mixed but not separately.”

“She,” I grumbled, “is right here.”

But Cole was in his thinking mode and ignored me. “Why would she do that?” he asked himself. “What did she hope to accomplish?”

“Maybe she thought I didn’t need to be protected from my own fucking family?”

The men exchanged glances but it was Al’s quiet voice that finally responded. “Teresa, of anyone, knew better than that.”

Irritation and frustration washed over me at the cryptic discussion. I hopped out of the chair, treading to the other room and then coming back with a bottle of whiskey and a stack of glasses. I spread them out, pouring some for each, and then circled the table to deliver them before settling in the chair next to Cole.

Al gave me an apologetic smile. “On duty, but thank you.”

“Valentine, right?” I growled, pointing at myself. “Put someone else on duty and have a damn drink.”

“God, I love her, Cole,” Tony laughed and downed his drink in a swallow before pouring himself another.

“Stupid name has to be good for something.”

Cole nodded to Al. “You heard the lady. Make it happen.”

Al nodded, and swallowed his drink before slipping out the door to order more troops. Or whatever he intended to do. I didn’t even care any more.

“What’s the street value?”

“You mean before Cole busted it all to shit? $2.3 million.”

Millions?
I lived in a world of fast food burgers, city bus transport, and store brand Keds. They had just destroyed something worth more than everything I’d owned in my life. I shook my head. “Valentine. What’s it’s street value?”

“It’s not sold in market,” Cole answered.

In market…
.as if we were talking about the grocery store. “But if you knew the recipe. How much would the components be?”

I could see Tony squint as he tried to do the math in his head. “Two hundred, maybe? For a half dose not including the labor to make it.”

“That’s one hell of an expensive habit.”

Tony nodded. “A hundred grand a year, easy, considering the fluctuations in supply and demand of the component drugs.”

Cole’s eyes were on me, evaluating. “Why?”

“Just curious.”

“Your curiosity is a frightening thing to ponder,” Cole mumbled. “Tony, you want to get someone in here to clean this up before you drink us all under the table?”

“Yes, sir. Be right back.”

“Sorry for being bossy,” I mumbled as Cole and I were left alone.

“It
is
your birthright. Sexy little girl bossing around grown men. They loved it.” His hand moved to the back of my chair, his fingers drifting across the back of my neck. “Just don’t think about trying that on me.”

His touch was feather light against my skin, dipping along the curves of my shoulders and trailing up each side of my throat.

“Are you doing that on purpose?” I purred.

His eyes darted to me at the sound and his movements stopped. “No, I hadn’t realized. My apologies.” He drew his hand away, wrapping it safely around his glass. “Like a fucking magnet,” he grumbled, low under his breath.

I decided it was best to let that comment pass. “You seem to trust them.”

“I do,” he nodded, sipping his drink. “They loved your mother.”

As if that answered everything. I shook my head and decided drinking was a much better avenue than conversation.

“So it’s not just tequila you love,” he said. “Any alcohol will suffice?”

“These days? Yes.”

“You can’t drown away the truth, Ariana.”

“A drug dealer is not allowed to give me advice on substance abuse. Do
not
lecture me.”

He nodded. “We develop and traffick not deal, but fair enough.”

“You were so angry.”

“I’d apologize but I did warn you about my temper.”

“It’s not that,” I said, shaking my head. “I still don’t understand why.”

“It never occurred to me that your mother had been drugging you. I assumed someone else, someone not a Valentine, had been in your life.”

“My mother did not-”

“Ariana.”

“She wouldn’t have,” I protested.

“You can’t have it both ways. Either there was someone in your lives, with regular access to you for over a decade and you are lying about it, or it was Teresa.”

“You think I’m lying to you?”

“No, Ariana, I don’t,” he said, his voice patient and soothing. “I think you’ve lost your mother and you desperately want to believe that she had no dark side.”

“My mom was a good person.”

“Yes, she was, but everyone has a dark side. That she used that to protect you? It’s nothing to get defensive about.”