A Righteous Kill (46 page)

“What does a brother have to do to get invited?” Vince asked shamelessly.

“Just bring your appetite.” Knox elbowed him. “And just try not to kiss the cook,”

“No promises,” Vince joked, opening the door to Luca’s Charger for Hero. “We’ll see you guys over at the church.”

Hero climbed in the passenger side and Vince got in the back. Luca finished his conversation with her pop and slid into the driver’s seat. The ride was tense and full of expectant silence. The nightscape flashed by in a colorful string of Holiday lights and sparkling frost, the artistic atmosphere of the city accentuated in its decorations denoting every possible winter holiday for anyone willing to celebrate one. Hero tried to feel some peace and joy and love for her fellow man, but instead all she could focus on was the sword hanging over her head. Not telling her family about the night’s plans had been torturous, but even Rown said it was for the best.

“Do you think this will happen the way they say it will? That he’ll try something dangerous tonight?” She turned to Luca, who kept both hands on the wheel and both eyes on the road.

“I think this idea is a fucking waste of time and resources,” he snapped.

Hero nodded. He hadn’t really answered her question, but he didn’t seem inclined to at the moment.

“I still can’t believe Trojanowski pulled your case,” Vince piped in from the back seat. “That was a dick move, bro.”

“Might have been the right one,” Hero thought she heard him mutter as the familiar spires of St. Andrew’s came into view. The church glowed against the night sky with lights strung on the bare trees, candles in every window, and warmth spilling from the open doors. Their parking spots had been saved close to the doors and Luca pulled up next to the black SUV that held Corelli and Reinhardt.

Luca and Vince used the darkness of the car lot to spot-check their firearms.

“What if—” Hero flinched as magazines were checked and driven home, sights tested, and then guns returned to various holsters. “What if
nothing
happens tonight? What if he doesn’t show?”

“Then we go back to the drawing board,” Vince sighed. “The only point I agree with DC on is that he’s going to make his move soon, though it probably wasn’t going to be tonight.”

Luca remained silent, keeping his opinions to himself.

Corelli stepped out of the driver’s seat and opened Hero’s door for her before Luca had a chance to come around.

“You look beautiful,” he complimented her. His eyes alight with masculine interest. Hero thanked him. She’d opted for a long, form-fitting burgundy velvet skirt with a billowy gold blouse that let all the cold air through it. She shivered in her coat, ready to go inside.

Vince was out of the car and the malicious glint in Corelli’s stare told her that the dark, silent presence behind her was Luca.

“How are your nerves, Ms. Connor?” Corelli asked, shaking her hand with both of his. He had the audacity to feel for her scar through her mittens, and Hero jerked her hand out of his grasp.

“It’s Katrova-Connor,” she corrected. “But you can call me Hero.” She gave him a disingenuous smile. No use pissing off the people charged with keeping you alive.

Corelli fake-smiled right back at her, annoyance dampening the admiration in his deep-set brown eyes. They weren’t a dangerous black, like Luca’s, but the color of mud, bland and uninteresting. He obviously didn’t like being corrected, especially in front of people.

Reinhardt had come around the SUV, his doe-eyes and young face tagged him the more companionable of the two. “Just a quick brief before we go inside. We have an agent stationed on the corner of both the front pews and Corelli and I will be covering the rear of the church. You’ll be sitting in-between Ramirez and Di Petro, and your brother is also on duty tonight, though his main concern is the safety of your family.”

Corelli motioned to a dark van hunkered like a prowler beneath a large tree next to the church. “Surveillance and operations is in there, along with backup.”

Hero nodded, suddenly unsure. “Do you think anyone is going to get hurt?” she asked, fretful for her family, for the people inside.

“Not if we can help it.”

Hero didn’t appreciate Corelli’s shrug, or his attitude, so she turned away from him and slipped her arm into Luca’s. “I’m ready.”

Luca tensed where she’d gripped his arm and a pang of hurt preceded a longer stab of irritation. “Oh, relax,” she hissed. “This is just for show, remember?”

He stood frozen for a beat, then began walking across the crunchy grass to the sidewalk. Vince followed them, and the other two agents hung back in the shadows, probably to enter more inconspicuously.

“Hero—” Luca began hesitantly.

“Save it,” she cut him off. “Just… hold me up. I have to get through tonight.”

Luca let out a long breath through his nose, the frost reminding her of a dragon, before he reached over and put his other hand over hers. “No matter what happens, I’ve got you,” he rumbled.

Hero looked up at him and knew, in that moment, that he spoke the absolute truth. A little of the dread coiling through her released, and she clung to his arm, leaning on his strength as they walked up the stairs to the cathedral doors.

A large, powerfully-built, grizzled man with slicked-back hair and an ill-fitting suit stood at the entry and handed out programs. He looked more like a bouncer than a parishioner, but Hero absently thanked him as she took a flimsy red program.

“Psst, Hero,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth. “I need to ask you a favor.”

She froze and Luca’s arm flexed beneath her fingertips, but as she stared up into familiar ice-blue eyes, she felt her mouth break into a wide, genuine smile. “Jimmy Mazure! Don’t
you
look sharp?”

The skin beneath his newly-trimmed beard colored and he stared at the programs in his hands.

Hero reached for him, and squeezed his shoulders. Luca made a negative sound and Mazure replied with a disgusted face. Still no love lost between these two.

“Where’s Agent Orange?” she asked, looking around for his cat.

Mazure’s grey beard revealed a fond smile this time. “He likes to sleep in the nursery around back where it’s warm and he can dig in the soil.”

“That’s wonderful, Jimmy, I’m so glad to see you here. What favor did you need from me?”

Luca made another rude noise, and Hero elbowed him.

Mazure’s expression turned sour as he stared at Luca and his hands trembled a little, but his features were soft by the time he swung his gaze back to her. “I wanted to take communion tonight,” he announced.

Hero’s grip tightened on him. “But that would mean going inside,” she said gently.

His shaking intensified, but he swallowed and nodded. “I think I can do it. It’s just a trip up the wide isle and back out again.” He motioned to her family taking their customary seats in the middle pew. Three empty spots were left at the edge for her, Luca, and Vince. “If I get to you, do you think you can… go with me?”

“Oh, Jimmy.” Moved by his request, she tried not to let her chin wobble. “I’d be
honored
to. I’ll wait for you.”

“You’ll have to go up with
us
,” Luca motioned to himself and Vince, who looked like he suddenly realized communion would be part of the deal.

“Am I going to get hit by lightning if I take the sacrament?” Vince asked.

They all ignored him.

“I figured
you
would be close by,” Mazure said to Luca, sounding as though he disapproved. This puzzled Hero as he was so adamant that they should do just that when last they spoke. He was probably still sore about his treatment in the interview room.

“You look well, Jimmy.” She gave him a final squeeze and then released him. “I’ll see you inside?” He nodded, looking alternately relieved and troubled.

Poor man
, Hero thought as she made her way up the isle to her family’s unofficial pew. He must be terrified of what he was about to do, but it was a big step and Hero felt grateful to be a part of it. Flowing with a little more of the Christmas spirit, she stepped back to let Vince slide in next to Rown, then she sat, and Luca took the edge.

She spotted the other agents right away from the way they tracked her progress into the church. One was a short but stocky blonde man who’d been at her art show, and the other a woman she’d never seen before but looked like she threw on a skirt beneath a work blazer that didn’t exactly match. They took seats in the alternate front corners of the congregation on either side of the dais where Father Michael, dressed in a black cassock with a white robe, was giving a pep talk to the choir. Father McMurtry impatiently pushed at the step to the podium with his cane, positioning it at just the right spot before he limped over to ask the organist for help straightening the red sash over his resplendent golden robes.

A pre-teen with a tight ponytail strangled
O Holy Night
on the harp and Hero found herself thinking the girl’s parents were cruel to let her do that in public. To the girl
and
the congregation. Feeling guilty for the ungracious thought, she cast a surreptitious glance over her shoulder to Mazure, through the people filing inside to take their seats. She saw him hand programs to Corelli and Reinhardt. He seemed to be studying the seams of their suit coats and hips, as though he could see through their clothing to the weapons beneath. Jimmy
was
ex-military. He probably knew exactly how to spot those kinds of things. His head snapped toward her with an incredulous look, and Hero gave him an encouraging smile and a little wave.

“Did he seem off to you?” Luca murmured into her ear. His hot breath conjured a sneaky memory of him biting that earlobe in her shower and the repercussions branded all the way down to her panties. “I mean, more than usual.”

She would only have to turn her face a tiny bit to bring their mouths flush, and she fought every cell in her body that screamed at her to do so. “Don’t. Start,” she said, whipping around to face forward. Great. Now she was aroused
and
irritated. If she didn’t love Luca so much, she’d really hate him.

Maybe that was his plan.

Frowning, Hero caught Father Michael’s gaze from the dais as he helped Father McMurtry to step up on the podium. Instead of smiling at her with sparkling eyes, as he was wont to do, he guiltily snapped his gaze away from her. Her frown deepened to a scowl, which felt foreign and uncomfortable on her face. Like it didn’t belong there. Because, well, it didn’t. Sagging in her seat with a frustrated sigh, Hero focused on Father McMurtry’s familiar and comforting voice.

“Thank you, Jenny Bower, for that lovely prelude music,” Father McMurtry started before leading into his flowery Christmas welcome message.

“Wow. He said that with a straight face,” she marveled to herself, and next to her Luca covered a snort of laughter with a quiet cough.

Hero felt a flare of victory at cracking his ‘stony face,’ as she’d come to call it. She spent the first half-hour of the service alternately scanning the crowd for someone with obvious serial-killer eyes, and trying not to notice the cut of Luca’s muscular thighs beneath his slacks.

Man
, she was weak. Maybe there was something to this whole being possessed by a lust-demon thing. She looked over at Vince, also a hot male and a whole lot better in the disposition department.

Nothing. Well, looked like it was just that pesky being in love thing.

Dammit
.

The organ started playing after the call to communion, and Hero stood with her family, but waited out of the way for Mazure. She did her best to encourage him with her eyes as he dragged his feet down the wide, but crowded aisle. She was certain he’d have preferred it to be clear so he’d have nothing to impede his exit, but the crowd was polite and as long as he kept eye contact with Hero, his resolution didn’t waiver.

Once he reached her, she held out her hand to him and he took it, much to Luca’s obvious displeasure. But Hero detected no impropriety in the older man’s shaking, sweaty grip as they made their slow progression toward Father McMurtry.

Luca walked in front and Vince behind as they trundled up through the line to partake of the Eucharist. As had become her habit, Hero wondered if JTB was here. If he was watching her right now, wishing her violence and death.

Hero bent her head toward Mazure, trying to distract herself. “You’re doing great,” she whispered. “Almost there.”

His head jerked in one nod while he seemed to search out all exits with wild eyes, but he squeezed her hand even tighter. They reached Father Michael first, who administered the wafers. Hero tried to send him an encouraging smile, as well, just because he looked like he needed it.

“B-body of Christ.”

“Amen,” she answered.

His hand seemed unsteady as she opened her mouth and presented her tongue. He dropped a wafer on the carpet, which happened from time to time, but it seemed to take a long moment for him to recover the next one and actually place it on her tongue. Hero waited for Mazure to finish receiving his wafer before moving on to Father McMurtry, who watched Luca intently as he drank the wine.

McMurtry cast her a fond expression as she stepped to him next and bowed her head. “Blood of Christ.” He administered the wine and then gestured with his head to Mazure. “Thank you,” he mouthed, winking before she moved on.

Hero beamed as Mazure seamlessly partook of the wine, a companionable look passing between him and Father McMurtry before he shuffled down off the dais.

“There.” She groped for his arm and gave it a little squeeze. “It’s nearly over.” To her distress, he felt even more stiff and unsteady than before, and she worried that his courage was wearing down. Following Luca down the right side of the aisle, past the parishioners awaiting communion filing up the right, she tried to gauge the distance to the door.

Halfway, Luca excused them between the lines and cleared a path to her family’s pew. Hero made to follow him, but Mazure’s elbow dug into her back and desperately urged her forward. “Keep going,” he stage-whispered to her as the gap in the line-closed ranks.