Enemy Mine (4 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Lost Souls Night Club, South Beach, Miami

A
gitated with her “guest,” Selena paced the small space in her office. “I don’t have it,” she said for the fifth time.

Miguel Ramos, muscleman and messenger for Joran Cadiz, the half-Dutch, half-Cuban reigning lord of the Miami underworld, grinned like the arrogant man he was. Ramos wielded his machismo like a sword. He liked to draw blood and often did; but while his tactics as Cadiz’s enforcer worked on most souls, they didn’t work on her. In a throwdown, she’d win and they both knew it.

“What do you expect me to tell Joran? That you lost the serums on the way home?”

His disdainful sneer made her bristle, but she simply shrugged. “Tell him whatever you want.”

Narrowing his eyes, he grabbed for her. Hissing like a cat, Selena turned on him, tossing her long, black hair behind her squared shoulders. “Mind your manners,
señor
. You forget I do more than bite.”

He stayed in her space, but dropped his burly hands, his gaze wary.

Good. He wasn’t as stupid as he looked.

“You’ve been paid,” he pointed out.

Selena moved around her desk, yanked the top drawer open, and withdrew a corporate checkbook. She scribbled a check, tore it out, and handed it to him. “Consider Joran reimbursed.”

“Cash isn’t the only way you’ve been paid.” Ramos shook his head and tore the check in half, letting the pieces fall to the floor. “The serums,
señorita
, or I am afraid I will have to damage you.”

Selena studied him. He was built to fight. Barely six feet tall, broad-shouldered, thick-necked, with bulging muscles, and mean as hell. She had seen him in action. Although she knew she could best him, she wasn’t in a mood for a fight at the moment. Since her return from Kyrgyzstan, she felt off center. Confused. Anxious.

Seeing Johnny after all this time had thrown her for a triple loop. Then she had done the ultimate in stupidity—given him the very thing she had been prepaid to deliver to Joran. But what was she supposed to do? Let him die?

Sure, he’d left her for dead once, and as much as she’d wanted to return the favor, something had stopped her. Something she didn’t want to analyze too closely and certainly not right now.

She looked sideways at Ramos. With a weary sigh, she said, “Do you really want to do this, Miguel?”

He peered back at her, then shrugged. “I would rather fight you than return to Joran empty-handed.”

She nodded in understanding. Joran was not a man you said no to, even when the no came from another. Still, she could not give him what she did not have. “Joran is no fool. He needs me. Besides, how do you think he’d feel if you told him his fast track to the serums had dried up because of you?”

Ramos stood silent and contemplative for a long moment, then strode toward her office door. When he opened it, the cacophony of the club downstairs burst into the room, disturbing the quiet like a Category 5 hurricane.

She welcomed it, the sense of familiarity and contentment it brought. Good or bad, this was home. She was tired of Miguel Ramos and tired of running from one end of the globe to the other, extracting the specialized serums from their specialized hosts so that Joran could produce mere drops of the coveted and outlawed Rev. But she would not be serving Joran unless it also served her own agenda.

Theirs was a simple arrangement. In exchange for vital information on her father’s movements and his demonic world, she extracted the ingredients for the life-restoring Revive. The perk was, she had her own personal stash and was not above using it. The Rev kept her in top fighting form, and outlaw that she was, fighting kept her alive.

Joran’s intel had been crucial to her. He’d never steered her wrong, moving her ever closer to her goal: the collection of all seven Hellkeeper hearts. Once she possessed them, there would be no need for the Rev. The combined energy of the heart stones would create the ultimate power source. She would be invincible, and she needed to be that if she was to have any hope of destroying dear ol’ Dad and finally living a normal life with her daughter.

She’d sleep with the devil if it meant one more heart.

Selena threw her head back and laughed, causing Ramos’s brows to furrow.

How ironic.

“You have failed. Now Joran will listen to me,” Ramos said over his shoulder. “Despite your lineage, you’re as useless as the pathetic humans who gather here. You’re more like your mother than we thought.”

Selena stiffened. Ramos’s big mouth was his undoing. Nobody talked trash about her mother.
No one
.

Selena sauntered toward him. The four stones in the necklace she never removed warmed. Like thousands of tiny pinpricks, the power surged into her body. Slowly, she inhaled, drawing it deep into every cell.

Realizing he had awakened a sleeping tiger, Ramos turned fully toward her, his eyes wide. Being the macho asshole he was, he didn’t run. Instead, he lunged toward her.

Perfect.

Selena thrust out her hand and shoved the air. Ramos’s chest compressed, forcing the air in his lungs outward with a loud whooshing sound. He stopped dead in his tracks as if he had hit a wall.

Selena closed her fingers inward one by one until she made a fist. Ramos gasped, tearing at his throat.

Selena tightened her fist and lowered her arm. As she did, Ramos dropped to his knees. His eyes bugged out of his red face; saliva ran from his rubbery lips.

She savored the power. Felt it threatening to overtake her.

As quickly as she’d made the fist, Selena opened her hand, and Ramos fell to the floor, gulping for breath. Holding her own breath, she almost closed her eyes, swamped with relief.

She had to be careful; a daemon had the power to move air, but only because of the stones she’d taken from the daemons did she have the power. If she allowed it to control her, she would be no better than those she hunted.

Standing over Ramos, she nudged him with the toe of her gold Gucci sandal. “Get up. Tell Joran if he wants to talk, he knows where to find me.” She nudged him harder and he rolled out of her office. With an imperceptible flick of her wrist, the door slammed shut behind him.

Selena let out a long breath.

The embedded stones in her necklace continued to warm her skin. Absently, she stroked the jagged orbs as well as the necklace’s empty settings. Once they were filled, she would have the power to see into the next world and beyond. Right now, though, she felt dirty, the way she always did when she came back from one of her serum runs. The feeling didn’t go away simply because she’d come back empty-handed. In fact, it seemed to have amplified.

While Joran Cadiz was a means to one end, her work for Los Cuatro was a means to another. But more pressing was the daemon king’s desire for nukes. How on earth was she going to stay ahead of that? Was she supposed to ring up Rurik and tell him what was up? If she did, he’d know who she was, what she had done. She was an outlaw among immortals.

She’d killed four Hellkeepers and more than a few low-level daemons.

There were no gray areas. It was forbidden, under any circumstances, to hunt your own kind or Other kind. There was no opportunity to defend one’s actions. Punishment was immediate death.

Restlessness broke through her fatigue. She strode out to her balcony. It was an unseasonably balmy night. Warm air brushed across her cheeks, tender as a lover. Her nipples tightened as a sizzle of electricity rippled through her. She set her jaw and closed her eyes, not wanting to think of the only man who had touched her so intimately.

The man who’d tried to kill her and nearly succeeded.

Her kryptonite.

Johnny Cicone had been as hot-blooded and as hot-tempered as they came. Their passion had been unquenchable, their arguments epic, and their end a Shakespearean tragedy.

She pictured him lying on the side of that mountain road, his chest ripped open, his heart bleeding out. As strong as he’d always been, she couldn’t have imagined him surviving those wounds. Even as he lay dying, he’d scorned her.

He had hardened. Hardened to impenetrable. And she knew she was the cause.

From the moment she’d met Johnny, she’d known how it would end. But she couldn’t help herself. She’d fallen hard. Toward the end, she’d tried to fool herself that maybe it could work, but when she’d gotten pregnant, she’d had no choice but to face reality.

Her father’s rage that she would not join him in Hell knew no bounds. After he drove her mother to suicide, he’d gone after Johnny. When her father discovered she was pregnant, he’d vowed to take her child. The only way to save the man she loved and her child was to make a preemptive strike. So she’d made it impossible for Johnny to forgive her and, in so doing, ended their relationship, so that Paymon would no longer use her love for him against her. Then she’d hidden her child in a place where even her father would not dare go. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t loved Johnny. She would always love him. Her actions didn’t mean she didn’t miss him. Or that seeing him lying on the ground, his blood draining from his body, hadn’t almost destroyed her.

Maybe it had. By shooting him up with the Rev, she’d risked not only Joran’s wrath, but Johnny’s as well. He would know she was alive, and if she knew Johnny, she knew he would turn the world inside out until he found her. Then her father would think they had reunited. She could only hope Johnny believed he’d hallucinated her. And why wouldn’t he? He’d killed her. Or at least thought he had.

Selena rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms, gazing out at the marina and the softly bobbing sailboats and luxury yachts, including her own,
Black Widow
, illuminated beneath the silvery moonlight. The spicy scents of the night combined with the crisp salt of the ocean to create a familiar perfume, one she greedily inhaled. The vibrations from Lost Souls reverberated through her body. Thick, hot, urgent. It reminded her of who she was and how things had to be.

She shook the thoughts of Johnny and their daughter from her head. It didn’t matter who he was or had become. She could not turn back time. She could not stop what she had set into motion.

She was like a wounded shark, and the minute she stopped moving, she’d drown.

So she would continue to swim. And destroy anything in her path that tried to keep her from her goal. That included Johnny then and it included Johnny now. It had to.

Turning, Selena sauntered back into her office. With an imperceptible flick of her hand, the carved paneling behind her sleek black desk opened, revealing a bird’seye view of the manic bodies gyrating below to the Latin salsa beat. As far as clubs went, hers was
el punto caliente
. Sleek, dark, with subtle jewel tones embedded throughout the place. The glass-and-ebony bars glowed from soft underlighting, highlighting bottles of upscale liquor behind them. Private rooms circled the second level much like luxury boxes at a stadium. They opened to a full view below; for more private affairs, the smoky-glass doors could be closed. Soundproof.

Lost Souls was known as a safe haven to those of less than impeccable reputation. Just like her. The cacophony of the music’s percussion combined with the seductive scent of sex, lust, and power was as potent as the Rev. She inhaled deeply, the energy giving her strength. The club amused her, kept her in comfort, and fed her in a way neither the Rev nor the stones at her throat could. The effect of the Rev was like steroids, temporary and intense and always edged with the threat of addiction. The stones gave her power when she needed it, but they, too, were a threat. The club, however, and those it attracted, fed her true self in a way she could relish, without fear of losing control. For her kind, the more sexual energy that thrummed around her, the more her natural power surged. She closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and listened. “Yes,” she whispered. “Drink, dance, make love.” Her lips tilted up into a smile. “Open your lonely souls. Let me in, tell me your secrets.” She smiled and then laughed. “And I will tell you lies.” How could she not? Everything about her was a lie.

Gather lost souls. Lure the daemons. Hunt them, kill them, and take their power.

It was amazing how much effort it took to get an audience with Daddy.

Her eyes flashed open. “Soon, Father, I will reveal myself,” she said softly. When she did, he would pay for raping her mother and holding her hostage. For letting her go only to repeatedly come back until she was finally driven to take her own life. He would pay for the threats against Selena’s daughter and the attempts on Johnny’s life. He would pay for what he’d forced Selena to become and what he’d forced her to give up.

He would pay for it all.

Even as she held the thought, a dull throbbing began in her temples caused by the pounding pulse of the music. Then the air in her office chilled exponentially, almost as if the doors to Hell had been opened. She froze, barely stopping from whirling around.

Few things on earth caused Selena concern, but one of them was standing behind her now, framed by the French doors that led to her balcony. Slowly, as if she hadn’t a care in the world, she turned to face him, walked around her desk, then made a show of leaning back against it. She pressed a button on the underside of her desk and the window to the club closed softly behind her. Imperceptibly, she nodded, acknowledging the supreme ruler of Miami’s notorious underworld: Joran.