Eternal Hearts (49 page)

She nodded. “Yeah, you did.”

“I ain’t exactly proud of it, mostly ‘
cuz
I take a certain amount of pride in
workin
’ with my own hands, but I’ve inquired about his services before. Now, don’t get all judgmental over there, because I never used him. But somebody owed me a lot of money once, so I asked Oktober about him and he told me the guy had already been marked so he couldn’t do anything.”

“So you’re telling me someone put a protection contract on me so that Oktober couldn’t take a different contract to kill me?”

“Somebody knows exactly what’s
goin
’ on here,” Dominic said as he stood up and began pacing, “and you’re on this investigation for a reason. This shit didn’t just fall in your lap. I just can’t figure out if Locke has anything to do with it. I mean, yeah, he put you on it, but that doesn’t mean someone didn’t tell him to.”

Toni shook her head.
“No way.
Christian runs the city. There’s no one here who could make him do anything he didn’t want to.”

Dominic just stared at her. “You still got a lot to learn.”

“Then we have to go tell Christian that Stryker’s the one behind the werewolves,” Toni said as she jumped up from the couch. “Proof or not, if what you’re saying is true – he needs to know.”

When she moved for the door, Dominic grabbed her arm. “We gotta get proof first, and we gotta find out who her target is before we can even think about
goin
’ to Christian. I wanna bust the bitch as bad as you do, but Murdoch said we gotta follow the rules on this or you’re gonna get kicked out again. Now, why don’t you take a minute to calm down then we’ll go check that alley, all right?”

Toni fisted her hands as anger rolled through her. She didn’t want to wait to tell Christian what they’d learned. Her gut instincts told her everything led back to Stryker, and she just wanted it all to be over so she could get on with her life. But Dominic was right. If she didn’t follow the rules this time, she’d lose her home for good.

And Drake’s here, too.
She took another deep breath in response to the thought. “Okay, I’m good. Let’s go.”

***

Toni followed closely behind Dominic as he pulled into an abandoned parking lot about a block away from the alley. She watched when he got out of his car then walked over to hers and opened the door for her.

“Your alley is the one between Mutt’s Pub and that redbrick warehouse next to it. At least that’s what this piece of paper says.”

Toni pressed her lips together when she realized she’d been in that alley. At first she hadn’t recognized it because they were on the opposite side, but it was the same alley that she and Drake had…

Heat burned her cheeks as her mind flipped through the steamy memories of what she and Drake had done there.

“What’s wrong?” Dominic asked.

“Nothing,” she said as she twisted her fingers together. “I was just thinking about Drake.”

Dominic rolled his eyes. “And you called me the moody one. Fifteen minutes ago you were pissed, now your
fuckin
’
smilin
’ and
thinkin
’ about your mountain of a boyfriend. After this, don’t ever call me a girl again.”

She shoved him forward. “Just shut up and walk.”

He shoulder blocked her as they walked down the sidewalk behind Mutt’s pub. “You’re in
looooove
.”

“And you’re a
duuuuumbass
.”

She meant to follow up the comment with a smile, but frowned when she saw a scowl cut deep across Dominic’s face. And before she even had the chance to ask, he pushed her back against the building, his strong arm like a steel bar across her chest.

He pressed his index finger to his mouth.

Toni nodded, and then strained her senses to hear whatever had gotten her brother’s attention. The voices were distant and muffled, but after a few seconds she picked up on the conversation.

“Now that the device is set, has everything been secured?”

Toni growled low in her throat. She’d know that smarmy, high pitched voice anywhere. That voice belonged to Stryker.

“Yes. All we’re waiting for is the mark to arrive.”

Toni leaned closer to Dom. “Is that one of the wolves?”

His fingers closed tight around her hand as he slowly inched towards the corner of the building. He leaned forward then jerked his head back.

He looked at her and nodded. “Thomas,” he mouthed.

Toni closed her eyes and concentrated on the voices again.

“Excellent. This is going far better than I planned. And as I said before, the northern woods will be returned to you and your pack as payment for your service.”

“Were you able to secure your back-up plan?” Thomas asked.

“Oh, yes,” Stryker laughed. “If something goes wrong tonight, he won’t make it past daybreak. Oktober will be waiting for him.”

Toni shivered. She wasn’t so sure that Oktober was the bad guy anymore. She still hated him for what he’d done to her family, but Stryker was becoming worse and worse by the minute.

“Then we should leave. Whoever’s been investigating us is getting close, and I don’t want to be out here any longer than we have to. We’ll go back to the zoo and wait to hear from you.”

“Very well then,” Stryker purred. “Just think, when he ventures out to the Planetarium tonight, he’ll see more stars then he ever dreamed he would.”

Toni slapped one hand over her mouth and used the other to pull Dominic back from the alley. She broke out into a run, practically dragging him behind her, and didn’t stop until they were half way back to the parking lot.

“I know who the target is, Dom,” she said. “It’s Christian.”

He scowled at her. “How do you
fuckin
’ know that? She didn’t say anybody’s name.”

Toni grabbed his shoulders. “It’s Christian, trust me.”

He studied her for a moment, then took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. I say we go down to Prudential Plaza. We’ll stop him before he leaves his office.”

Toni shook her head. “We have to split up. You go to Christian’s office. I’ll go to the Planetarium.”

Anger flashed behind his eyes. “No! We need to stay together.”

“We don’t have time, Dom. If Christian isn’t at his office…we’ll never make it to the Planetarium in time. And if he isn’t at the Planetarium, we’ll never get to his office in time. We don’t really have a choice. And I’m not gonna let Christian die because we picked the wrong place to go!”

Dominic growled then slammed a fist into the concrete wall next to them. “Fine, I’ll head to Christian’s office. But do you even know what to do with a bomb?”

She nodded. “I know someone I can call once I get there. Now go, we gotta hurry!”

When he snatched up her hand and made a break for their cars, she offered no resistance. Once they were in the parking lot, he pulled her into a tight hug before he got in his car and drove away.

Toni jumped into her own car and headed for the Planetarium. She stomped down on the gas as she raced through the snowy streets of Chicago. All she could think about was saving Christian. She wanted to stay in the city so bad it almost hurt, but at the same time, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she didn’t do everything in her power to stop Stryker. She may not have always liked Christian, but she’d never wished death on him. And especially not after hearing what he’d done with her family home.

She shivered as she considered how easily the situation could have gone horribly wrong. Had she not taken the time to stop and talk to Robert earlier, she would have never known who Stryker was after, and by the time she’d found out another way…it would have probably been too late.

As she neared the Planetarium, Toni eased her foot off the gas. She approached the front of the building at little more than a crawl, looking to make sure that no one was there. The only car in the parking lot was a black Viper, but it was parked in the back of the lot and it didn’t look as though anyone was inside.

She pulled into the lot and parked her car about fifty feet from the front doors. She didn’t want it to be too close, but just in case the wolves were there, she didn’t want it to be too far away either.

Toni reached into the back seat, grabbed her katana, and then stepped out of the car. She shivered as the sensation of pins and needles shot down her arms and into her fingers. She’d never dealt with a bomb before, and if she wasn’t careful…she didn’t even want to think about the outcome.

She quietly approached the glass frontage and peered inside. She didn’t see anyone. No silhouettes. No shadows. The sign on the door stated the building was open twenty-four hours, so she wasn’t exactly surprised to find the door unlocked.

As she inched down the hallway, she tried to think of where she would put a bomb if she wanted to blow the building up. It made sense to her that if Stryker wanted to kill Christian, she’d put the bomb in the room he’d be in. But which room was that?

Toni crept into the main stargazing room then frowned. Not only was the room completely dark, but there were rows upon rows of seats that someone could easily stick a bomb under…

And at that moment, she was extremely happy that she’d convinced her brother that they’d needed to split up. She had no idea how long it would to take to find the bomb, especially considering she didn’t even know what one looked like.

When Toni bent down to start searching, a searing pain shot through her skull while a cracking sound thundered in her ears. Unable to respond fast enough, she lost her balance and fell forward. Her face smashed into the pavement. Her sword went skittering across the concrete floor.

She groaned as bright white lights flared in her field of vision. Her nose was broken, her right cheek felt like it would explode at any minute, and her teeth had cut the inside of her lips to ribbons.

Toni flipped over when she caught the click of a heel against the floor, just in time to see Stryker swinging at her again with a wooden baseball bat. She rolled to avoid the blow and called on the power of her blood for extra strength and speed.

“You’re not going to get away this time, you little bitch!” Stryker squealed. “This time you’re going to die!”

Toni braced her hands on the floor behind her head and kicked herself up to her feet. Her head hurt like hell, but there was no way she was going to miss her chance to finally put an end to this feud.

She dodged Stryker when she ran at her with the bat, and then whipped her leg out. She connected with Stryker’s shins, sending her crashing face first into the floor.

“I’m not running this time,” Toni spat down at her. “This time I’m gonna make sure I finish the job I stared three years ago.”

Toni tried to steady herself as the room burst into a brilliant shade of crimson framed by obsidian shadows. The beast inside her roared at a nearly deafening level in her ears, but there was something else…another sound, another presence behind it. Almost like an extremely low, but steady rumbling growl that wasn’t hers.

Finish her.
Toni turned and drove the heel of her boot into the back of Stryker’s blonde head. But when she reached down to grab Stryker’s hair, she threw her head back into Toni’s face.

Toni stumbled back, and before she had the time to prepare, Stryker lunged at her and slammed her back into a row of seats. She groaned as pain raced down her spine. Mere seconds passed before she felt Stryker’s sharp fangs sink deep into her neck. Toni fought to bend her knee then kicked Stryker in the gut, sending her flying back into the wall.