You Are Here (30 page)

“I’d love to see you try,
chica
,” Charlotte said with a laugh.

I slipped into my sandals by the door and followed her out. Charlotte snapped at Drew to “get his ass in gear” as we charged down the stairs. Hopefully someone pulled the door shut, because in my head, I was already miles away looking for Grey. My heart soared above us, filtering the air for a hint of him, the magic that binds us. I needed to believe that in the end, he would come home to me. That we would be okay …

… Unless I’d been wrong all along.

My chest threatened to collapse under the anvil of doubt—a cold, crushing weight on weakening bones, surrounding the chasm that half my heart had left empty in the early hours of the morning three days ago.

~

“Holy fuck, Andrea, shut up!” Nash barked at Drew, who kept giving directions anyway.

We had gone straight to the garage where Vivi and Nash’s Land Rover was stored. Half an hour later, we were still stuck in Midtown traffic. Nash argued we should have just called the police, but Drew was sure that wouldn’t do any good. A massive level of tension had built up in the car. I could tell Nash and Drew were both terrified we would be too late. I was, too.

Between the boys’ jawing at each other and Vivi’s and Charlotte’s coordinated attempts to rein them in, I was at wit’s end.

Leaning into Vivi’s shoulder, I searched for calm. The kind of calm Grey gave me. His touch, his kiss—he gave me such peace. We needed each other. My heartbeat stumbled at the memory of his face as he left, and I volleyed between all-consuming love, heartbreak, and extreme anger.

“Don’t overthink it, babe,” Vivi said, distracting me from my overwhelming thoughts. “It’s gonna be okay, ’kay?”

I picked up my head and smiled at her, thankful. At that moment, the front seat circus came to a head.

Drew shouted something at Nash, who then smothered Drew’s face with his hand. “Stop. Just stop before you really embarrass yourself. Please. It hurts me to see you do this.”

Drew knocked Nash’s arm away just in time for Vivi to dig her nails into it. “Would you curb the teasing for
ten minutes
?”

“It’s what I do when I’m nervous!”

Vivi squeezed forward to wrap an arm around her husband. She whispered in his ear and kissed his earlobe. He was quiet until he grabbed her hand from his arm and kissed it.

“Sorry. I’m sorry, I-I’m keyed up.”

Drew sighed and leaned back in the passenger seat. I rubbed my temples. Aftershocks echoed the hollow pain in my chest. I forced some deep breaths.

We still had to get out of Manhattan.

Grey

False

I had once been an engine, fueled solely by the job. Lucie had changed it all irreversibly. I was flesh and blood. And heart. And soul.

Each thump of the pulse in my ears seemed to confirm that I could not go back to the shell I was. But in this potentially suicidal mission, the demand of emotional disconnection—or at least the pretense of it—was vital.

When I turned onto the broken road leading toward Fort Tilden, I felt the adrenaline surge. I wasn’t far now, so I leaned back into my seat. Breathing.

Before I knew it, I had found the street that forked widely to the south. A few dilapidated houses speckled the landscape, but the area was a ghost town.

I spotted a ramshackle bar a few hundred yards off and felt a tickle on the back of my neck. Reese loved places like this. I pulled into the gravel lot and parked on the side.

I swept my eyes across the landscape from the left, but found no evidence of anyone around save some remnants of homeless beds and trash. Traversing carefully toward the front, I nearly combusted when I heard his familiar, condescending tone meander out the open door like a drunken socialite.

“Have a last drink with me, Ellicott,” he demanded jovially, clinking what sounded like shot glasses to a bottle.

I stared across the façade of the building, watching its lines warp and curve like a carnival funhouse in hell. I knew exactly what I was walking into and had no misconceptions about coming out alive. As long as Lucie was safe, none of that mattered.

Checking around the corner by the car one last time, I moved quickly in the door and removed my sunglasses. As I let all my senses expand into the room and analyze the space—empty, but not alone, he poured as if I hadn’t even walked in.

“You always did have a thing for shitholes,” I commented dryly. “This is certainly up to par.”

He said nothing but held up a shot glass, tossed it back, and slammed it on the bar. Three glasses sat next to the bottle, full. I settled my back against the doorframe.

“Come on, old friend,” he teased, a prelude to a threat. He held out one of the remaining glasses. “To the women that anchor us.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. I didn’t move, though, until I sensed someone approaching and spun to see. I squinted from the sting of the late morning sun. I could barely see the woman’s face before she brushed her chest against mine on her way through the door. The knife hidden at my back and the gun at my ankle burned against my skin as if to remind me I was armed.

“I struck the match,” she whispered conspiratorially before continuing around the bar to Reese. She kissed him on the jaw. “I started the fire. I wanted to stay and watch those traitors die, but sirens were getting closer and Paddy was badly hurt.”

“He’s not fucking Irish,” I snapped.

I noticed the ugly divots and purple scarring down one side of his neck from some serious, poorly treated burns. Not to mention the lobe of his opposite ear was just a scab—looked like it’d been bitten off.

Reese didn’t bother to react to the woman preening and pressing herself against him. His irises expanded with blackness. I wondered if he had ever been human.

My skin went cold as I studied her. I recalled Lucie’s description and realized who she was. Her hair was a different color now. And the tits were fake.

“Nina.”

Incited by the reaction she tried to hide, I used the surge to display confidence.

“Well, ain’t this a twisted pickle?” I asked with an accidental laugh at hearing my granddaddy come waltzing out of my mouth. Before I turned ten, I spent a few summers with him in his rickety shack of a place in Bayou LaFourche before he died. Until now, I’d forgotten I’d ever had a familial ally besides Drew.

I eyed Nina as she tried to decipher the southern turn of phrase. Reese’s lips curled in the subtlest smile, fake amusement to mask the apathetic monster within. It was familiar, to be sure, but somehow alien to me now—like seeing yourself from the outside.

I slid my boots farther inside along the dusty wood floors. Rage and loss bolstered me in my mission. This was for Lucie, first and foremost, but it was also for the Grey I used to be. My teeth ground together, and I inhaled sharply, proud and sick that I couldn’t wake up the numb fucker who’d taken over for the past ten years.

“So what the fuck happened to
you
, kid?” Reese asked, slathering on a coat of disappointment. “I taught you everything I knew, sculpted you into the perfect killer—other than myself, of course.”

“Such an honorable legacy,” I replied monotonously.

“Now look at you,” he continued, ignoring me, “chasing the tail of whatever animal they tell you to.”

One eyebrow spiked, and I nodded. “You are a bit like a coyote.”

He considered it, pursing his lips. “Yeah,” he agreed with pride. “I can see that. A
coyote
is a beautiful predator. No remorse, no mercy. It cannot stop until it’s killed its enemy, or is dead itself.”

“You don’t have enemies, Reese; you have targets.” My chest tightened. Lucie’s face passed in front of my eyes. I had to fight to keep my rage in check. The need to make sure this subhuman cancer never touched her again surged through me. I’d never felt more dangerous.

He pushed Nina away from his side, forcing her to play off the surprise. I watched angst corrupt the calm of her expression.

“True,” he admitted with a chuckle, leaning onto the bar. “And I heard about the contract on me after the Gideon job.” He added in a stage whisper, “Word travels fast in our circles, no?”

My expression turned to stone. Nina propped herself on top of the bar and smiled arrogantly at me. I held her eyes and waited. An awkward look washed over her and she shifted minutely.

I could still intimidate, so there was that.

I heard Reese cough a laugh behind her. She swallowed thickly. The woman who had once lived to protect Lucie, helped those who tried to kill her. For money she must have thought she was owed, I’d bet.

I began slowly advancing until I was a step in front of Nina. I beckoned her off her perch with a crooked finger, offering a whispered confidence. She looked me over, warily sliding down from her spot. She threw a look over her shoulder at Reese, but he simply pressed his lips together in lazy fascination.

She leaned in, her body vibrating with apprehension. I lifted my hands to grasp her chin. She jumped, ever so slightly. My words at her ear were quiet. “He would have killed you if I hadn’t.”

Her neck was broken before the fight could root in her limbs. As she dropped, I locked eyes with Reese. He scanned me for a reaction, but I wouldn’t let him see it. On the outside I looked bored, but the effort to appear so was titanic. Breath shuttled in and out. Blinking felt like slow motion, but beneath the surface, it was bedlam.

I wasn’t the same nameless ghost I’d been a month ago. I was raw and alive, unlike the past ten years, and it killed me to go backward. Literally. The pain was shocking and immeasurable. Remorse was not sadness. It was a wound to the soul that at its freshest felt as if it will never heal. I couldn’t comprehend how Lucie could love a cold bastard who could do what I’d just done, let alone the years up until we met. How could I be worthy of her?

I
had
to kill Nina. Not because I wanted to, and certainly not because it would matter to Reese, but because he was going to do it. The only way to dictate some command in this unholy clusterfuck was to make the first move. That meant eliminating complications.

“More tequila for us,” Reese muttered.

I stepped to the bar, grabbed a shot glass and threw it over my shoulder. His eyes followed its arc until a tiny splash preceded the sound of shattering glass.

He halfheartedly scowled at me. “You don’t like tequi—?”

“Cut the shit,” I snapped.

His cheek twitched with surprise. He threw one more shot back, mimicking me by tossing the empty glass over his shoulder. It bounced off the wall behind him and fell to the floor, cracking like an egg.

“I been waiting for you, kid.”

I rolled my eyes. No matter how sure of himself he acted, Reese was never as good at reading people as I was.

He leaned forward, peering over the bar at Nina’s crumpled form. He pursed his lips in an arrogantly amused pout and threw me a look of pride.

“I’m surprised at you, Ellicott,” he said, settling himself on his elbows. “Falling for my mark? That’s just sloppy.”

As if I needed a revelation about myself at the moment, I was nearly paralyzed with the realization that my love for Lucie drove me harder than repressing it. Love was a weapon, not a weakness. This was all for her.

“Sloppy is becoming the mark,” I replied, confident. “Like you have.”

He smiled, slimy and base. “I caught that. But you see, word got around.” He waved a hand around theatrically. “Your people told my people … yada yada.”

He was really grating my patience. At the edge of the bar, I stood with my left hip flush to the molding and twisted his shirt tight in my fist. After pulling him over the counter, I dropped him flat on his face. I shoved my knee into his back and twisted his left arm—and dominant hand—behind him until I heard a heavy snap. He shouted a foul slew of nonsense. When he spoke, it was only to patronize me.

“I see you’ve gotten faster, son,” he said, gritting his teeth.

With a snap of my free hand, I grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head back before slamming his face against the grimy tiles. Reese flipped and knocked my hold loose. His foot stomped at my chest, kicking me backward. It wasn’t enough for me to totally lose my balance, so I pulled the knife from my belt. My footing wasn’t solid, so the hasty flick of my wrist buried the blade high in his side. But not high enough.

He grunted and fell to a knee. Pulling the short blade free with his right hand, he wrapped his fingers around the handle, tucked his broken arm to his chest, and lunged for me.

Too quick for him, I sidestepped his attack. I knocked the knife from his hand with the pop of an elbow, and it landed in front of the bar.

He grappled at my calves to pull me down. I brought my elbow down on his spine, which forced him to the ground. I turned and slipped on the blood pooling beneath him and then fell forward onto my forearms. His boot met my ribs, and I felt a crack.

When I looked up, he was almost to the back door. He turned to sneer at me.

“Running away?” I ground out as I got to my feet.

His upper lip curled. “Having a little fun,” he insisted.

I launched myself and rammed my shoulder into his injured side, his arm knocking against the door. He howled in pain as we broke through the door. Something sharp sliced my shoulder. He must’ve picked up a shard of glass. It wasn’t deep, but enough to force me to the ground.

“Your move,” he whispered, sickeningly close to the shell of my ear. He kicked my broken rib, sending another jolt of pain through me.

Staccato breaths hashed out a rhythm as I pushed to my feet. I followed the sparse trail along the back of the bar that led to the Battery. I heard car doors slam from the other side of the building. Maybe people actually worked at this shithole, but I didn’t have time to worry about what was left behind in there right now. I wasn’t going to kill Reese in plain sight of randoms, though, so I hurried to catch him.

Pressing a hand into my side, I bent over carefully to retrieve the gun inside my boot. As quickly as I could, I made my way along the path. I turned the corner with my weapon ready. Reese wasn’t there, but a blood trail was steps ahead. I followed it.