Vigilante 01 - Who Knows the Storm (10 page)

No, thank you. Some modeling turned into more modeling, which turned into an offer from the Iron Butterfly.

“A
RE
YOU
a
virgin?” the man in the nondescript black suit asks, and Cade laughs.

“Yeah—no.”

“Do you enjoy casual hookups?”

Cade looks around the Wilmington, North Carolina hotel room, searching for secret cameras. “Is that an offer?”

“As you might have heard,” he continues on without looking up from his tablet, “the state of New York has come to debate the issue of legalizing prostitution in the District.”

He laughs again.

Twenty minutes later, as Cade snickers and thinks what a killer story this will be at the bar tonight, the man writes a number on a slip of paper, and Cade stops laughing.

“H
ERE
. I
can’t go any further,” the driver snapped, pulling Cade out of his daydream. They were close enough for Cade to spy the vague outline of the grocery store he’d passed the day before. “And don’t take too long—we miss curfew and you’re paying the ticket.”

Cade stuck a wad of bills through the small opening. “Thanks.”

“Oh. At least it’s a safe neighborhood,” he said suddenly, his tone changing as Cade opened the door.

“Why do you say that?” Cade paused for a moment.

The driver pointed at the red spray-painted words—
portus tutus
—on the wall of an abandoned apartment building. “That means they got protection. Keeping the dealers out. You’ll be okay.” He turned in the midst of counting his money. “You call me, I’ll come pick you up.”

“Oh—thanks. Give me, like, two hours.” Cade’s mind clicked and whirled; he thought about the hooded man keeping him from getting jumped by the street gang.

The driver jammed the money in his jacket pocket, dollar signs in his eyes. “You got it. But don’t be late.”

Cade was prepared for the weather this time—this wasn’t his first winter, and even when the rest of the models were in hiding, he liked to get out and breathe real air once in a while. Heavy boots, layers of his warmest clothes, gloves, and a jacket he’d nicked from one of the designers. It wasn’t usable inside the casino, but damn, it kept him warm.

No one was on the streets—most construction sites were closed due to the storm, and the lack of plowing kept everyone inside. He made his way to Ninety-First, down the side street, and over to the gate in front of the church house.

This all started when he delivered Mr. White’s letter, so Cade figured it was the best place to start. With any luck, he’d run into the asshole (protector?) in the hood and ask him a few questions.

And see if his theory was correct.

The gate opened easily—the stairs were neatly cleared, with pocks in the leftover snow where someone had dropped deicer. He knocked and waited.

No answer.

The anger started to build again; he took it out on the front door, pounding until pain radiated up his arm.

Maybe they were at work.

Cade turned to see if there was anyone on the street he might be able to ask. Some hint folks in the other houses might be of help. No one at all was out and about—not on the street or peeking out from behind a curtain as far as he could see.

Annoyed with not thinking this through, Cade walked back down the stairs. He pulled his cell out to call the cab driver but caught nothing but static, a common problem in this sort of terrible weather.

The sun would be setting soon.

Which meant the kid would be back. Had to be, thanks to curfew.

Cade went back up the stairs and leaned against the door to wait.

An hour passed and then the second began. The sun was nearly gone, pushed down into the horizon by the oppressive gray clouds. He checked his watch again and again, tapping his feet against the concrete stairs.

He needed to get back to the District.

Chatter broke his concentration; he looked down the street to find two men dressed all in black sauntering down the street. He leaned forward to see if one of them was the kid.

Neither of them was.

The men looked rough and dangerous, with ripped leather jackets and caps pulled low over their eyes. They seemed to be taking great care looking at the remaining buildings on the street. Cade started to get a bad feeling.

He dropped down to a hunched position in front of the door, calculating his odds of outrunning them. Of hiding. If they hadn’t spotted him yet….

“Hey,” one of them called up.

Cade wrestled with what to do for a moment, then stood up slowly.

The older of the two men gave him that patented look over, from his shoes to his face in one filthy sweep. The little smile that appeared on his face made Cade ridiculously uncomfortable despite it being a staple of his business.

This guy didn’t look like he cared about Cade’s conversational skills or anything else.

“You lose your key?” the younger asked as they stopped in front of the gate.

“Just waiting for someone,” Cade called down. “He should be here any moment.” He pretended he could see someone in the distance.

The men didn’t leave.

“You need to buy anything tonight?” the older man asked, pushing open the gate. “We can give you a little company while you wait.”

Cade was trapped. “No,” he said, losing the pleasantness from his tone. “My friend will be here in a minute.”

The man didn’t seem to register Cade’s words or defensive stance. He took the first step, and a smile spread over his face. “I recognize you from the billboards.” He cocked his head to one side. “You probably make some big money up there in that fancy casino.”

Cade narrowed his eyes. He wished he’d brought something to fight with, a knife or spray, something to give him an advantage. He could hold his own—his father taught him and his brother to defend themselves when they were barely out of diapers—but two against one left even the strongest person at a disadvantage.

“Come on, baby,” the younger one called, slinking up behind his compatriot with an entirely differently gleam in his eyes. “How about a party?”

The slow, fearful burn turned into a brutally hot fire.

“Asshole, if you think either of you is getting anything from me without a life-threatening wound, you are sadly mistaken,” Cade spit out, his drawl sneaking back into his words.

The men didn’t seem to be anything but amused by Cade’s posturing—they continued up the steps, menacing in a way that made Cade remember that stupid could kill you just as quick as skillful.

When the older of the two paused a step down—his gaunt form and bad skin spoke of a serious Dead Bolt habit—he pushed back his jacket to reveal a large hunting knife tucked in his waistband.

“Gimme your money,” he said, and Cade slipped his hands out of his pockets.

“No.”

The guy lunged a second before Cade, who ducked and took the force of his attacker’s body weight in a crouched position. Cade struggled to stay upright, but the guy knocked him against the door, pushing the wind out of his lungs. He went for the knife before the guy could get his bearings, but it clattered to the ground as they both struggled to reach it.

Pushed from behind, Cade smacked headfirst into the door, the reverberations of the metal door rattling him right down to his fillings.

He slumped a little, still reaching for the knife. It got kicked to the other side of the stoop, and Cade threw his full body out to try to grab it.

Someone in the distance screamed, the sound cutting through Cade’s foggy brain.

His fingers had just touched the edges of the knife’s handle when the weight of his attacker disappeared. Cade rolled over, his head protesting the movement, then looked up…

…to find a man in a black hooded jacket holding the drug dealer by the neck.

“If I ever see you here again, I’ll kill you,” he rasped at the man he held. With a flick of his wrist, he dumped the man down the stairs.

He rolled down and landed in a heap on top of his already unconscious friend.

Cade sat up, leaning back against the house as he tried to catch his breath. His knee hurt like a mother, his left hand abraded from the concrete stairs.

“Oh shit,” he panted, looking up at his rescuer—fucking Patrick Mullens—right before he passed out.

Chapter Ten

C
ADE
CAME
to slowly, registering
cold
and
pain
almost at the same time. He was on his back, staring up at the jutting edge of a roof and the backdrop of a starless black night.

God, his head screamed, throbbing in tempo with his thundering heartbeat. The cold seeped through his clothes from the ground, even as the crinkle of some sort of blanket alerted him he was covered. A second later his teeth began chattering.

He had to get up. He had to move. Had to remember why he was here….

It took a while to convince his limbs to work. He got vertical, leaning heavily against the door, then rolled onto his knees. A painful hiss from that—he’d done a number on both of them. The blanket dropped to the ground. Gripping the doorknob, Cade struggled on weak and shaking legs to stand up straight.

By the time he was clutching the door for dear life, he remembered what happened.

Two guys had tried to rob him. The hooded guy saved him. And underneath that hood? Was Mr. Freaking Mullens.

He was right. The slick guy from the casino and the hooded douche bag were one and the same.

Anger fueled warmth and action. Cade made a fist with his undamaged hand and pounded on the door.

It felt like forever—Cade slammed against the heavy metal until the dizziness threatened to consume him again. How dare he—Cade had been mugged, groped, and now, what the hell, this guy was going to let him freeze to death under a piece of tinfoil?

Bastard.

In the midst of his banging, Cade heard something click on the other side. The door slid open to reveal the teenager, Sam, who looked like he’d just woken up. At the sight of Cade, his eyes got huge behind those black-rimmed glasses.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “And Jesus, what happened?”

“Two guys….” Cade’s voice was as raw and bruised as the rest of him felt. “Mullens—in the black hood.”

Sam’s face went slack with shock. He pushed past Cade to walk onto the stoop, seemingly unaware of the snow or cold. He turned back to Cade, who was clutching the doorjamb, just trying to stay upright.

“Where is he?” the kid demanded.

Cade shrugged. “Got knocked out. He kicked the fuckers down there.” He gestured toward the bottom of the steps, where he’d last seen the thugs. Both he and Sam looked at the same time.

No one was there.

“What the hell?” Cade wheezed.

Sam turned and began to bustle Cade into the house. “He’s going to kill me,” he muttered.

Behind that fortified door and gray exterior, Cade, leaning heavily on Sam’s arm, tripped into a whole different world. From the foyer—wood floors, a crystal chandelier—he could see a long hallway that flowed into a dining room straight ahead, a large staircase to the left and a living room that appeared to run the length of the home. The furniture was sparse but obviously expensive, and once upon a time, this home might have been considered a showplace.

It was also so fucking warm he could have cried.

“Holy shit,” Cade murmured as Sam led him down the hallway. He trudged along, limping and leaning against the wiry teenager. A huge kitchen past the burgundy-walled dining room, two doors to his right just past the stairs—this place was a mansion.

At the second door, Sam stopped and gave him an apprehensive look over his shoulder. “He’s gonna be pissed,” the kid warned, and then he pushed open the door.

Chapter Eleven

N
OX
HAD
spent his entire day in fearful rage.

When he returned to the brownstone in the middle of the night—cold, panicked—his brain had been crowded with memories provoked by the woman in the casino. His concern about the letter Sam received didn’t touch the terror that she was behind it.

That she was alive.

For the rest of the night, Nox pored over the Internet, looking for information. He found her name on the ferry manifest from seventeen years ago.

She was dead.

Jenny Aglaya was dead. He’d watched her get on the ferry. He’d watched the ferry sink into the river.

No. He’d run back to the house, but everyone knew the ferry sunk in bad weather twenty minutes after pushing off.

He’d built his entire plan for keeping Sam safe and out of harm’s way on that fact. The only person who knew Nox Boyet was alive—knew that Sam existed—had drowned along with thousands of others in the storm-swept Hudson River.

Sam found him in the morning, staring blankly at the screen.

Rachel Moon, the manager at the Iron Butterfly, native New Yorker, was at college in Boston when the Evacuation happened. Brighton Beach born, Russian immigrant parents, though never mentioned by name and long since deceased. Top-of-the-line manager, long coveted by other casinos. But she was completely loyal to the Butterfly.

He read the interviews.

She wasn’t Jenny.

Couldn’t be.

Nox conducted the rest of his day distracted and jumpy. He was short with Sam, late for work. He wanted to pack their bags and run away—
where to
was the $100,000 question—because if the two things were connected….

If she was Jenny. If she was sending the messages.

He could barely breathe.

The people who killed his father knowing about Sam, knowing about him.

His worst nightmare.

His forewoman, Addie, didn’t keep them on the job for long. The storm and subsequent winds made it dangerous on the fifty-eighth floor of the massive tower they were building. The jobsite was a hazardous mess, and Addie’s bosses weren’t too interested in dead workers making the headline of tomorrow’s news.