“I thought it might have something to do with Patterson, even though it was miles away from his hotel,” she continued. “Instead, I ended up stumbling across five supernaturals shooting up a nightclub.”
“What kind of supernaturals are we talking about?” Deven asked.
“I’m not sure. They looked like your typical mercenaries—big, muscular, and intense. They were also inhumanly strong, superfast, and almost impossible to injure.”
“Do you think they’re connected to the hit man? Maybe he called them in as backup when he realized he was up against a Paladin?”
She considered that for a moment. “I don’t think so. They might have been eager to kill people, but they were about as subtle as a brick to the head. I don’t see the hit man working with anybody who would draw so much attention to themselves when he seems to go out of his way to be subtle.”
Deven stood and grabbed the shoulder harness she used to carry her throwing blades from the back of the couch. The weapons she couldn’t call into and out of existence whenever she needed them. “Maybe. But then again, I could see it playing to the hit man’s advantage to have a group of highly visible killers out there running around, drawing law enforcement’s attention away from him.”
Karissa had to admit she’d hadn’t considered that angle, but now that she thought about it, the idea made sense. “I guess it’s something worth looking into. It might actually help us figure out who this contract killer is, assuming they’ve worked together before.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” Sitting back down, he took out the first blade and began cleaning it with a cloth he took from his pocket. “I’m guessing you got into a big fight with one or more of these new players. Is that why you looked so shook up when I came in?”
She sighed. “I did get into it with one of them. It wasn’t the fight that was making my head spin.”
Deven must have picked up on the fact thatshe needed a minute to get her thoughts together because he didn’t push. That was her brother. He might be younger than she was, but he was the most patient person in her family.
“I saw someone I know,” she said, feeling a weight slipping off her shoulders. “Or at least someone I used to know.”
Deven stopped cleaning to look up at her. “Who?”
“Hale Delaney. A guy I dated in high school.”
Her brother’s eyes widened. “Seriously? Crap.”
“Tell me about it,” she muttered. “I didn’t know it was him at first. I was tracking one of the supernaturals that attacked the club and was shocked to see this SWAT cop in thirty or forty pounds of tactical gear not only chasing after the guy but actually catching up to him. It wasn’t until the cop and the supernatural started fighting that I realized it was Hale. I was so stunned that all I could do was stare…until the guy stabbed Hale in the chest.”
“Wait. What? Hale’s dead?” Deven gasped. “Man, no wonder you were so messed up tonight. I know he was your ex and all, but I’m sorry.”
Karissa held up her hands in a placating gesture, trying to prevent her brother from going full-on meltdown. “Deven. Stop! Hale’s not dead. At least, I don’t think he is. I mean, he was okay when I left.”
Just saying those words out loud had Karissa on the verge of hyperventilating all over again. A fact that her very observant brother clearly pickedup on. Replacing the four throwing blades he’d cleaned back into the sheath on the shoulder rig, he reached out and took her hand.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but I know that you and Hale were close when you were going out in high school,” Deven said softly. “I remember you telling me once—more than once, actually—that he was special.”
Karissa squeezed Deven’s hand, glad that he was on this job with her and not one of her other brothers. None of them would have cared how she felt. Lorenzo, the eldest, especially would have snorted and told her to stop whining so much.
“Yeah, Hale was special,” she admitted. “Just between you and me, he was the only man I ever considered giving up my gift for.”
Deven did a double take at that. “Why didn’t you?”
Karissa shrugged. “Because one day he told me that he loved me, and the next he disappeared out of my life without so much as a word.”
Chapter 3
“So, how bad was it?” Hale asked, sipping his coffee as he joined his pack mates at one of the tables in the break room at the North Central Patrol station house.
Since it was the closest division to the site of the shooting at the club, North Central had taken lead on the investigation, at least until headquarters officially tied this shooting to the previous two attacks. The connection seemed obvious to Hale, but the bureaucrats at headquarters liked to take their time with situations like this, especially with all the press coverage it was getting.
“About as bad as you could imagine,” Trey murmured from across the room, where he stood gazing out the window at the four a.m. darkness beyond. “Three dead, including one cop. Eighteen injured, a dozen of those in critical condition.”
“The numbers would have been higher if we hadn’t gotten there when we did,” Connor added from where he sat on the other side of the table. “If we’d been ten minutes later, there would have been dozens of additional people in the hospital.”
To Hale’s right, Carter nodded. His blond-haired pack mate’s blue eyes were grim. “Or the morgue.”
Hale had missed the rest of the fight in the club but silently agreed. Tonight had been bad, not to mention damn near incomprehensible. Those five supernaturals hadn’t been interested in robbing anyone or stealing anything from the club. This hadn’t been about claiming territory or sending some kind of message to a potential adversary. No, as far as Hale could tell, what happened tonight had been about nothing more than causing a scene and then waiting for the cops to show up so the bad guys could engage law enforcement along with the gang members in the club. It was like they were looking for a challenge. Which was exactly the same thing the five men had been doing for weeks.
