Dark Descendant (12 page)

with great authority. “Something other than a car accident. What is it?”

Great. I hadn’t even opened my mouth yet, and already Steph saw through me.

I considered trying to bluff my way through it. When I was on the job, people always

seemed to believe whatever pretext I made up, but Steph and her parents knew me too well, and I

was rarely able to slip a lie past any of them.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “I’ve got some stuff going on. But it’s not anything I can talk about.”

Not without getting carted off to the loony bin, that is.

Steph uncrossed her arms and began tapping the table with her perfectly manicured nails.

“I mean it, Steph. I can’t talk about it. I’m not willfully holding out on you.” Well, not

too much, anyway.

She continued tapping her fingers and staring at me, not saying a word. I recognized the

ploy for what it was: she was hoping that the pressure of her silent scrutiny would make me blurt

something out. It was a tactic she’d learned from her mom, and under normal circumstances, it

might even have worked.

The waitress interrupted our silent standoff to take our orders. Neither one of us had even

consulted the menu, but then we’d memorized it years ago.

“Are you in some kind of trouble?” Steph finally asked when the waitress was out of

earshot.

“I can’t—”

“Talk about it. Yeah, I heard you. I’m not asking for details. I just want to know if you’re

in trouble, and if there’s anything I can do to help.”

My throat tightened briefly. There were times when Steph bugged the hell out of me, but

she was one of the nicest people I’d ever met. She could have resented me for inserting myself

into her family when she’d had thirteen years of being an only child, but she’d been nothing but

supportive even from the very beginning, when I’d been a sullen, sulky troublemaker.

“Thanks, Steph,” I said, my voice a bit gruff. “But there’s nothing you can do.” I forced a

grin. “Except stop setting me up on blind dates with assholes.”

For a moment, I thought she was going to resist my attempt to deflect the conversation.

Then her shoulders slumped in defeat.

“What’s wrong with Jim?” she asked, though her heart wasn’t in the question. “He’s nice,

he’s handsome, he’s successful, and he’s single.”

I rolled my eyes. One of the reasons everyone likes Steph is that she’s so good at turning

a blind eye to peoples’ flaws. Which is why I should know better than to let her set me up with

anyone.

“You honestly think he’s a nice guy?” I asked. “Have you ever
talked
with him?”

She looked annoyed. “Of course I talked with him. I wouldn’t set you up with someone if

I didn’t know him well enough to think you’d get on.”

I bit back a caustic response, realizing that Jim might not have shown Steph the side of

him I’d seen at dinner. After all, Steph was a sexist jerk’s idea of feminine perfection, so she

wouldn’t have elicited the kind of reactions I’d gotten. She was beautiful, and put a lot of time

and effort into keeping herself that way. She was sweet-natured enough that people who didn’t

know her might think her weak or submissive, though they’d be wrong. And because she didn’t

have my hang-ups about living off her trust fund, she’d never had a career to inconvenience a

man who wanted her full attention.

“The problem with you,” I told Steph, “is that you like everyone. I’m a little more

particular.”

She laughed. “To put it mildly.”

“No more blind dates, okay? It never turns out well.”

“You never give it a chance to.”

“Please, Steph,” I said, suddenly feeling exhausted again. “I don’t want to fight.”

Steph leaned across the table and squeezed my hand, smiling gently. “We’re not fighting.

I’m trying to give you sage, older-sister advice.”

The advice might have been more convincing if Steph’s love life had been any more

successful than my own. Beauty and wealth attracted a lot of men, not all of them for the right

reasons. Not to mention the men who made the mistake of thinking that because she was nice,

pretty, and blond, she’d be a pushover and put up with crappy behavior. The door hit those guys

on the ass pretty hard on their way out.

“Since when has giving me advice been a productive use of your time?” I asked,

returning Steph’s smile with a wry grin.

“Good point.”

The rest of the meal was much more relaxed. Steph and I stayed away from sensitive

subjects and just enjoyed our food. Steph talked about her upcoming charity project, a dinner and

auction to support the American Cancer Society, and extracted a promise from me that I’d be

there. Steph might not work a paying job, but with the stable of charities she actively supported,

she worked a hell of a lot more than most of the nine-to-fivers I’d ever met.

Things didn’t go to hell until we were sipping our after-dinner coffee and picking at the

remains of the slice of cheesecake we’d shared. Steph’s phone rang, and she frowned in

annoyance.

“I should’ve turned the damn thing off,” she mumbled, but I knew she couldn’t quite bear

to do that. The big auction was less than two weeks away, and she had to be available for crisis

management at the drop of a hat.

I smiled as I took another sip of my rich, dark coffee. “Don’t mind me,” I assured her. “It

could be important.”

She acknowledged my point with a nod, then dug her phone out from her tiny designer

handbag. She looked at the caller ID and frowned.

“I have no idea who this is,” she said, but she answered anyway.

Her frown deepened at whatever the caller said. I don’t know what it was about her

expression that made me sit up and take notice, but the hair on the back of my neck prickled.

“Who is this?” Steph asked, her voice tight with what sounded like alarm. Our eyes met

over the table, and the prickle at the back of my neck turned into a chill of fear.

Steph lowered the phone and covered the microphone with her thumb. “He says his name

is Alexis, and he wants to talk to
you
.”

My hands clenched so hard it was a wonder I didn’t break the coffee cup I was holding.

How dare that bastard drag my sister into this? Even without talking to him, I knew his decision

to call on Steph’s phone had been a deliberate threat. I used my cell phone for business all the

time, so if he’d learned my identity—which he obviously had—he’d have had no trouble finding

my number.

I put my cup down so hard that coffee sloshed out and spilled on the table, but I didn’t

care. I reached for the phone, ignoring the combination of alarm and curiosity on Steph’s face.

There wasn’t anywhere I could talk truly privately, but I got up from the table and moved a few

paces away anyway. I was painfully aware of Steph’s eyes boring through the back of my head

as I tried to calm myself down enough to talk. The last thing I wanted was to let Alexis know

he’d gotten to me.

“What do you want?” I asked, and despite my best efforts, no one could have missed the

fury in my voice.

“We didn’t get to finish our conversation this afternoon,” he said, and I could hear how

much he was enjoying my reaction.

“I was finished with it even before Blake showed up.”

“But I wasn’t, and that’s all that matters. You are not living in Anderson’s mansion,

therefore you’re not covered under our agreement with him. I tried playing nice with you this

afternoon, but you made it clear that playing nice wouldn’t work.

“Meet me tomorrow at twelve noon in the lobby of the Sofitel. Konstantin requires your

services. If you cooperate, you’ll be rewarded more than generously. I doubt you’ve ever had a

client who can pay you the sums we can.

“But make no mistake, Nikki Glass: you
will
do what we ask, whether it’s to gain the

financial rewards of cooperation, or to avoid the consequences of refusal. Are we clear?”

I wanted to crawl down the phone line and kill him right then and there. This afternoon

when I’d shot Blake, I’d felt bad about it even though Blake was a jerk. Right now, I wouldn’t

have hesitated a moment to shoot Alexis. And no, I would not have felt bad.

I couldn’t help sneaking a quick glance over my shoulder at Steph. She was chewing her

lip with worry as she watched me. If Alexis or one of his cronies laid so much as a finger on

her…

I must have been taking too long to answer, because Alexis spoke again.

“Your sister is truly a lovely woman,” he said, his voice oozing slime. “I’m sure

Konstantin would be delighted to make her acquaintance. He can be a little rough with his

women, but I’m sure she’ll still be at least marginally attractive when he tires of her and passes

her on to me.”

My blood boiled in my veins, and I bit down, hard, on my tongue to keep from giving

him any more satisfaction than I already had.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at noon?” he asked, back to using the pleasant, friendly tone he’d

first tried on me, as if he hadn’t just made such an ugly, revolting threat.

“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth, because what else could I do? I had no clear picture of

what Alexis and the Olympians were capable of, but I knew they had more power and resources

to draw on than I did. I was under no illusion that I could single-handedly protect Steph.

“I knew you would make the right decision. I’ll look forward to chatting with you again,

without the interruptions.”

Luckily for me, he hung up before I said any of the stupid, vitriolic things that came to

mind.

NINE

I stood with the
phone against my ear, my back turned to Steph, long after Alexis hung

up. I needed time to regain control of myself, to tamp down the toxic combination of rage and

fear that bubbled in my gut. I wished the earth would open up and swallow every one of the

Liberi
. With the exception of myself, of course.

Eventually, I could stall no longer, and I turned around to face Steph.

What the hell was I going to tell her? I couldn’t possibly pretend nothing was wrong, but

I couldn’t tell her the truth. And I knew there was no way in hell Steph was going to let me go

without an explanation of some sort.

I returned to the table and sat down, handing Steph back her phone. She took it from me

in silence, tucking it back in her bag without looking. It must have taken a lot of willpower, but

she managed not to question me, instead giving me a little more time to pull myself together. She

could obviously see I wasn’t ready to talk yet.

The problem was I would
never
be ready. I usually think pretty fast on my feet—again,

an important trait for a P.I.—but I couldn’t think fast enough to keep up with this mess.

“I’m … sorry about that,” I said, figuring that was a safe place to start.

Steph raised her delicately curved brows. “Care to tell me who that was? And why he

was calling
me
when he wanted to talk to
you
?”

Steph sometimes likes to play the spoiled, rich socialite, but there is a sharp mind under

her fluffy exterior. I could see in her eyes that she’d made a number of assumptions—including

the one that she’d just been subtly threatened. I didn’t want to scare her, but I supposed it was

better that I tell her something so she’d be extra careful. Alexis obviously knew Steph and I were

together right now. I was damn sure no one had followed me here, so either someone had

followed Steph, or the Oracle was more reliable than Blake had led me to believe.

“It was a wannabe client,” I told her, which I supposed was something close to the truth.

“I turned down his case, but he’s not taking no for an answer.”

“Have you called the police?”

I swallowed the urge to laugh. Somehow, I didn’t think the police were going to be much

use against the
Liberi
.

“He hasn’t done anything the police would be interested in.” Which was also true, even if

it wasn’t really the reason I didn’t call the cops.

Steph frowned and chewed her lip. “You could report him as a stalker, couldn’t you?”

I dismissed that with a wave. “He’s being a pain in the ass, but he’s not technically

stalking me.”

She leaned forward, resting her arms on the table and dropping her voice. “I know you’re

not telling me everything, Nikki. Come on. Spit it out.”

“I told you before, I can’t.”

Anger sparked in her eyes. “That man just threatened me, didn’t he? That’s why he called

my phone instead of yours, right?”

I winced, which pretty much precluded the possibility of bluffing my way out of this.

“If people are threatening me, I have a right to know what’s going on, don’t I?”

I rubbed my eyes as a headache threatened to form behind them. “It’s complicated, Steph.

Please trust me that I have good reasons for not telling you more.” I forced my hand back down

to my side and met my sister’s angry stare. “I won’t let anything happen to you. No matter

what.”

She shook her head and looked disgusted. “That’s not good enough.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s the best I can do.”

Steph glared at me, but I was unmoved. I wasn’t in a position to tell her the truth, and in

all honesty, I didn’t know if the truth would have done her any good. I didn’t know a whole lot

about the
Liberi
and what they could do yet, but if even half of what I’d been told was true,