“I asked you a question.” Adam Wu bookmarked his page with a red ribbon sewn into the binding.
“I got three hours of sleep last night.” Kapoor rubbed his face with his hands. “That’s on top of the two I got the night before.” His eyes stung from the effort. “Protecting your girl is running me ragged.”
The book snapped shut and was set aside. “How is Luce?”
“Running on autopilot.” A lesser woman would have shut down hard after last night, but Luce was about as human as the man staring at him through predatory, golden-brown eyes that reminded him of a hawk. “Harold Trudeau was family, and she pulled the trigger. That leaves a mark. Losing her aunt is going to scar too. She’ll blame herself for both deaths.”
Wu had no ready answer for that. “Are the security measures in place for the rest of her family?”
“We have units assigned to Mrs. Rixton and Mr. Boudreau. We’re pulling strings with CPD to get one of our guys paired up with Detective Rixton so he has backup while on duty.” Kapoor crossed his legs. “We’re going to keep tabs on the Trudeau boys while they’re in town. We’ll coordinate with local LEOs to arrange for nightly drive-bys once they return to their homes. Their distance from the nexus ought to take care of the rest.”
“Excellent.” He reclined on his pillows. “Are there any other updates?”
Kapoor let the other shoe drop. “There’s a new addition to the zoo.”
Wu titled his head, the angle six degrees past human. “Who?”
“Sariah broke into the farmhouse this morning and threatened Miller. Luce stabbed her with a poisoned blade, the same make as the one Famine used on you.” Kapoor had double bagged and tagged the thing after the medics pried it from her gut. The lab had it now, and he wished them luck isolating the venom used so that a stronger antivenin might be created. “Sariah is an independent operator. War might not notice her absence for a few days to a few weeks, but when she realizes what happened, she’ll go nuclear.”
Wu began peeling surgical tape from his hand and arm. “Tell the doctor I’m ready to leave.”
“Are you sure that’s smart?” Kapoor winced as Wu removed the IV then started on the leads stuck to the bare expanse of his chest. “You couldn’t breathe on your own yesterday.”
Hands spread wide, he inhaled until his ribs creaked then gusted out an exhale. “See? Good as new.”
Nothing on this guy had been new since dirt was invented. “Are you sure you ought to be cozying up to her?” Luce Boudreau might be good people, but the thing under her skin was an apocalypse waiting to happen. “I figured you’d take on a more administrative role in her care.”
Kapoor had done as he was told by insinuating the NSB had an Otillian agent who could open Luce’s eyes to her culture, to her past, to the legacy handed down to each charun who took up the mantle of Conquest. But clearly, he had underestimated the depth of Wu’s fascination with Boudreau.
Their new recruit would want to meet their “Otillian” agent, and how the hell did he explain she already had?
Never in a million years had he expected Wu to twist their predicament into an excuse to partner up with her. That had been his first mistake: underestimating Adam Wu. A consultation, a quick Q and A, would have sufficed. Now they had an extra alias in the mix, another cover to maintain, and all for what?
So Wu could play with the toy his father had broken? Gods forbid the old man find out what junior was up to these days. What he was up to. Then it wouldn’t matter if Boudreau was pissed enough to end them over their deceit, odds were good they would already be dead.
“I don’t tell you how to do your job.” Muscles fluttered in Wu’s cheek. “I suggest you show me the same courtesy.”
The splash of violence over his face confirmed Wu was too invested to remain objective, a recurring theme where Boudreau was concerned. Too many folks wanted a nibble, just a little taste, but there was only so much of her to go around, and that was before Wu cut himself a bigger slice of the pie.
Kapoor had considered putting a bullet in Boudreau’s head to end the problem before it got started. Some days he still considered pulling the trigger. History set a precedent for targeting Conquest first, and for good reason. Without her, the cadre could climb no higher. Their ascension would dead-end. The upper terrenes would remain intact, unblemished by the Otillian blight, and that was all the man doctoring himself ought to care about.
Earth was a battleground, and Kapoor was too damn young to be so tired of fighting.
“How do you deal?” He hadn’t meant to ask the question. It popped out all on its own. “You’re stone-cold over there, and I’m burning up with fever thinking about what’s coming.”
Wu remained quiet for so long Kapoor figured the guy wasn’t going to answer.
“I have no home, no people, no…” The thought trailed into nothing. “What is there to fear when you have nothing left to lose?”
Bleak. That was… bleak. “You could die.”
He gestured to the room at large. “Apparently not.”
“That’s why you’re fixated on Boudreau,” he realized. “She’s a fighter.” Fate had steamrolled her, but she kept popping up like one of those hinged targets on a midway game. “You like that she’s got teeth.”
The man smiled, and it was a cold, vicious thing. “You have no idea.”
Skin prickling, Kapoor excused himself from the room under the guise of flagging down a nurse. The truth was, he could only handle so much quality time with Wu before his inner monster started nodding its head in agreement. There was a reason Kapoor had made a great hunter, and it was the same reason driving him to make a more permanent mark on society before the beast at his core gnawed through his gut and burst out Aliens-style, snapping the fragile threads of his fraying humanity.
The predator in Adam tracked Kapoor’s hurried exit with interest. He wasn’t hungry. He had eaten six forty-eight-ounce rib-eye steaks raw and sopped up the blood with the buttered rolls on his plates. And, he reminded himself when his stomach attempted a half-hearted growl, Kapoor was an asset.
Expanding his lungs to full capacity made his chest burn, and the rest of his body was riddled with aches and pains too. After lowering the bedrail, he swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and let his feet brush the cold tile before allowing any of his weight to settle on them. His knees cracked against the floor before he registered them buckling, and he hissed out a vicious curse.
All too soon War would discover her daughter was missing, presumed dead, and heads would roll.
Call him sentimental, but he preferred Luce’s exactly where it was.
A quiet knock preceded a nurse dressed in pale yellow scrubs. The smile she wore screamed I can do this. I am a professional, but her heart hammered against her ribs, her instincts warning her to keep her distance even as her training demanded she rush to his side and attempt to wedge her shoulder under his arm.
“Thank you,” he said, polite though her heave-ho routine was making him twitchy, “but your assistance is unnecessary.”
“Let me call for one of the aids,” she panted. “How did this happen?”
Ignoring the question, he focused past her shoulder. “What is that?”
A plush teddy bear dressed in a black thong, matching assless chaps, his mouth plugged with a ball gag and his chest crisscrossed with studded leather strips, clutched a fistful of colorful balloons emblazoned with a variety of mundane get-well wishes. His other paw clutched a pale blue envelope with squiggles that resembled water doodled across the flap. The contrast was… jarring.
“Oh.” The nurse appeared to recall the purpose of her visit and flushed fire engine red. “You got a delivery.”