On Midnight Wings

Silver had to admit she was good, damned good. She had him convinced and he knew she was lying. Yet all Giovanni had to do was slip inside her mind and ferret out the truth for himself—just like Lucien had done.

Just like that shape-shifting fallen angel did to you, kissing you with lips like Dante’s, peeling back your defenses.

“She’s right,” Silver said, the hard edge in his voice shifting Giovanni’s penetrating gaze away from Annie and to himself. “You ain’t gonna score points by accusing us of lying. And if you ever hope to meet Dante, you need to be talking to me, not grilling Annie.”

Giovanni blinked, raked a hand through his hair. “Ma naturalmente. Ti prego di perdonarmi. I meant no disrespect”—his expression soured—“I’m afraid my dealings with Guy Mauvais have left a bad taste in my mouth. My apologies.”

Silver shrugged. “There’s your problem right there—dealing with Mauvais.”

“I was supposed to bring Dante Baptiste a gift,” Giovanni said with a sigh. “But Loki’s presence aboard the riverboat made that rather impossible.”

“What gift was that?”

“The head of Guy Mauvais.”

“Forget it, man. Find something different. That bastard belongs to us.”

“Seriously?” Annie asked, staring at Giovanni. “A motherfucking head as a motherfucking gift? Nightkind are just plain weird. Or maybe they’re cats. How is that different from a tabby magnanimously dropping a mouse butt at your feet? Well, okay, yeah, a person’s head is way different from a mouse butt, but still . . .”

“No, not so different, bella,” Giovanni murmured. “Perhaps we are cats.”

Silver sipped at his beer, wondering what he should or shouldn’t tell Giovanni, wondering if he could risk trusting him, when he saw two men in jeans and light jackets walk into the tavern, paper to-go coffee cups from Cafè du Monde in hand. Authoritative strides and posture. Clean-cut. Com sets disguised as Blue Tooth units curving around an ear on both men.

Undercover agents.

Those Shadow Branch eyes and ears that Giovanni had mentioned earlier.

And they’ve been right across the goddamned street this entire time. Watching. Listening. Recording. Maybe even eating chips and drinking and taking notes while Heather’s father did his thing.

Maybe they even knew who’d grabbed Dante. It couldn’t have been an SB snatch, otherwise Giovanni’s sister—SB assassin and Dante’s spy—would’ve passed the word along to her brother. Or to Von or Lucien or someone.

Unless she’d been dropped from the info loop. Or been made.

Silver stared, blood pounding through his veins, as one of the men, tall and dark-haired, pulled open a door marked TENANTS ONLY near the restrooms. Both men stepped inside. Before the door swung shut, Silver caught a glimpse of a shadowy staircase leading to the apartments above. Footsteps thudded against wood risers, the sound a faint and temporary zydeco back beat.

The tavern’s front door opened, then Silver smelled nicotine and cloves as Merri walked inside. She stopped beside the booth, her gaze also on the door marked TENANTS ONLY.

“You see them?” she asked, voice tight.

“Sure did.”

“What is it?” Giovanni asked, his words followed by a knowing, “Ah.”

Gaze still fixed on the door, Silver said in a low, flat voice, “You knew, right? Because your sister told you the fuckers had rented a room upstairs.”

“Sì. It was information I’d hoped to hand over to Dante. But,” Giovanni added after a thoughtful pause, “perhaps ending this particular little problem will make an even better gift than Mauvais’s head.”

Feeling a gentle nudge against his shields, Silver thinned them enough to admit the Italian’s sending.

<Shall we hunt, fratello? Spill blood together?>

Hunger, sharp as a straight razor, gleamed in Giovanni’s hooded hazel eyes. Silver’s own hunger awakened and, judging by the knowing smirk on his lips, the Italian saw the same straight-razor gleam in Silver’s eyes.

“Bad idea,” Merri said, scooting into the booth beside Giovanni, effectively blocking him in. “You take these guys out, the SB will know that their surveillance op has been blown. I can guarantee you they won’t shut it down. They’ll simply move it to a different location. And amp up their security. You won’t solve anything. Right now, you know exactly where your enemies are. Better to keep it that way.”

Giovanni sighed, the hunter’s fire in his eyes dimming. “She’s right, bello.”

“Those bastards upstairs might know where Dante is,” Silver said, holding Merri’s gaze. “Hell, maybe they watched the whole thing unfold. I can go up there and rip it right out of their minds.”