Her mom and brother looked around Hale’s apartment, taking in the photos on the wall with distaste. Her dad, on the other hand, was more interested in the fact that Karissa was clearly wearing Hale’s T-shirt. And from the scowl on his face, he knew exactly why—and he wasn’t happy about it.
Karissa followed her family into the living room, waiting to see which of her parents was going to start yelling at her first. She didn’t have to wait very long.
“I can’t believe you let yourself get sucked backinto Hale Delaney’s toxic orbit,” her mother said with a shake of her head. “He almost destroyed your life ten years ago, and now he’s trying to do it again.”
Karissa had to admit this was exactly how she’d expected the conversation regarding Hale to go. In fact, she would have been disappointed if her mom hadn’t badmouthed him. Even though she wanted to go off on her parents about everything they’d done to Hale, she bit her tongue and forced herself to stay calm.
“Mom, stop,” she said. “Hale was never toxic, and he never did anything to destroy my life, and you know it. When I got my gifts from Athena, I was a confused, scared sixteen-year-old who had no idea what was happening to me. And when I needed my family to be there for me, all I got were manipulations and lies. Instead of you and Dad caring about what I needed, all both of you cared about was retaining control over me—and the potential money I could make for you.”
Her dad snorted. “Delaney’s entire family were criminals and he was no different. We saved you from that.”
Karissa had to close her eyes and count to ten to keep from losing her cool. How could her father completely ignore every word she’d just said?
“You want to talk about criminal?” she shot back. “You mean like sending my three adult brothers tobeat up a seventeen-year-old boy so badly that Hale ended up in the hospital? That seems pretty damn criminal to me.”
Her mother, father, and Lorenzo all opened their mouths at once, but whether it was to deny what they did or justify it, Karissa didn’t care. She was done listening to them talk crap about Hale.
“Enough!” she said firmly, holding up her hand. “You said you came here to talk about Bagley. If we’re not going to do that, you might as well leave.”
Lorenzo sulked at that, while her parents exchanged looks. She cut them off before they could say anything. She wasn’t playing this game with them.
“Thomas Bagley is the most dangerous person I’ve ever faced,” Karissa said. “If we don’t come up with a way to stop him, he’s going to kill our client—right after he kills me.”
The blunt words seemed to finally shock her family out of their obsession with Hale and the fact that the two of them were back together.
“Are you certain Bagley is Deimos?” her mom asked. “When Deven called and told us about it, he failed to explain where he’d gotten his information.”
Not really sure why the source of the information mattered, Karissa nevertheless knew she needed to tell them about STAT. She didn’t like the idea of revealing the existence of the secretive organization, but her parents would be more likelyto believe what she had to tell them if they knew it came from a federal agency.
So she told them how Hale’s SWAT team had put her and Deven in contact with STAT while downplaying SWAT’s involvement with the supernatural, knowing her family would only try and twist that around and use it against Hale. But she made sure they all understood how much information STAT had provided on Bagley, especially about how many other Paladins he’d already killed.
It was striking how differently each member of her family reacted to what she said. Her mother muttered something about Karissa and Deven using outside help of such adubious nature, while her father got this weird look on his face, like he wasn’t sure if he believed her. Only Lorenzo—of all people—seemed concerned about the fact that Bagley had killed Paladins before.
“So what these feds told you makes you think Bagley will be coming for you before he goes after Patterson?” Lorenzo asked.
“That certainly has a lot to do with it,” Karissa said. “The man has killed at least five Paladins and he had no problem telling me that. But I have to admit that hearing Bagley tell me to my face that he’s going to kill me first was more persuasive.”
Her father crossed his arms over his chest with a frown. “Why didn’t Deven say anything about Bagley threatening you when he talked to us?”
“Because he didn’t know.” Karissa sighed. “It happened yesterday when Bagley lured me to the roof of Patterson’s hotel for the express purpose of trying to kill me. If Hale hadn’t been there, he probably would have succeeded.”
No one said anything. In fact, the silence stretched out for so long that Karissa started to think that her parents didn’t believe her. At least Lorenzo seemed suitably alarmed.
Her mom glanced at her dad. “Is there any way we can save this situation? I mean, we could simply walk away, but there’s still a lot of money on the table here.”
Karissa looked back and forth between her parents, trying to understand what they were talking about. Lorenzo looked just as baffled.
“I could try calling him again,” her father answered. “Offer an incentive to stick with the original plan. But I don’t like the idea of giving in to blatant extortion. It doesn’t sit right with me.”
“What are the two of you talking about?” Karissa interrupted.
Her parents didn’t answer, instead leaning closer to each other to whisper urgent words that Karissa couldn’t make out. She threw a questioning glance at her brother, but he merely shrugged.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” her mom finally said, turning back to Karissa. “We hoped this job would catapult the company intothe highest echelons of private security. No more small-time clients and their dangerous supernatural killers. No more risking your life for minimal payoff.”
Karissa opened her mouth to tell her mother that she’d never done this job for the money, that it had always been her connection with Athena calling to her, urging her to protect those who needed her help. But her father interrupted before she had a chance to say anything.
“None of that matters now,” he said, shooting her mother a sharp look. “I’ll call Patterson and tell him that we’re dropping him as a client. Walking away from a job is going to be damaging to our reputation, but we can’t risk the alternative. You fighting Bagley was never part of the plan.”
