Vendetta (2 page)

“I should take a shower,” she protested gently, even as an appreciative groan escaped her. “You are
so
good at that.”

“That’s not all I’m good at,” he said huskily.

Then he stood, scooped her in his arms, and she laughed, holding their champagne glasses in the air and balancing her rose and her box of chocolates in her lap as he carried her down the hall into the bathroom. She peeled off her clothes and he made short work of the bathrobe. Fragrant soap and steam washed away the day and by the time Vincent lay her on the bed, she felt like an entirely new person, still glowing from the thrill of victory. Today a jury of his peers had put away a very bad man. An evil man. The system had worked.

She had become a cop for days like this.

But for moments like these, she was simply a woman deeply in love. She reached for Vincent and he gently lowered himself down, gathering her up and giving himself to her. They moved together and she saw the bronze glow in his eyes, like embers, and then he willed the beast away.

When they were both sated, they ate chocolates and finished the champagne. She stroked his cheek and trailed her fingers down his arm. As tiredness caught up to the two, he clasped her fingers in his and snuggled her against his chest. His heartbeat was powerful, comforting.

There is a miracle in my bed tonight
, she thought.

Somewhere in the distance a siren blared. A dog barked as if in answer.

Half asleep, Vincent mumbled, “Intimate lingerie shop?”

She laughed. “You heard that, did you? An informant implicated Easy Pickin’s in a money-laundering ring—
don’t
make jokes about it, Tess and I have run through them all.”

“Well, I know you’ll
collar
them.”

“Except that one.” She batted him playfully.

She told him a little bit about the case, and he listened intently even though she could tell he was weary. Then she dozed contentedly in his arms, drifting in dreams to the words of a song they had danced to together:

“
You’re my guiding light.”

Vincent was so much more than that.

She felt the welcome weight of his muscular arm over her, the dip in the mattress from his body. He was there. It was so special when they could sleep side-by-side.

If only you could be here when I wake up
, she thought.
Every morning that I wake up.

But she would not ruin this night by wishing for things she couldn’t have. She would be grateful for what she did have. And she was unbelievably grateful.

Smiling, she surrendered to sleep.

* * *

Hours later, she rolled onto her side to admire him in the city’s light. To her surprise, the room was pitch black. She looked at the thin strip of night sky between the curtains at the window.

She frowned. She lived in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood in the city that never slept, but tonight its familiar ambient glow was replaced by an inky darkness. Something was wrong.

She eased Vincent’s arm away, pulled back the covers, and sat up.

“What is it?” Vincent asked, awake in a flash. “Your heart’s beating so fast.” He quirked a grin. “Again?”

“Something’s happened,” she said slowly.

She got up, padded to the window, and eased the drapes aside. Her city block was invisible in the dark. There were no lights on the buildings, and the streetlamps and neon signs were out.

Trap. Ambush
, she thought and, by then, Vincent was on his feet, too. From the glow of his cell phone, which he lifted above his head like a flashlight, she spotted a pile of clothes on the floor—his—and started to gather them up. They reeked of smoke.

“Vincent? What happened to your clothes?” she asked, trying to figure out if their condition was connected to the darkness outside her building.

The curtains fluttered and she realized that he had opened the window and was already on the fire escape to the roof. Vincent’s best friend, J.T. Forbes, called Vincent’s ability to move faster than the human eye could see “blurring.” Vincent had definitely blurred. She dropped Vincent’s clothes, dressed as fast as she could and went up to the roof, too, half-expecting him to be gone. But there he was, in his bathrobe, peering from a safe distance out at the nothingness. Not a single light shone anywhere in their field of vision.

“It’s a blackout,” she said. “Power outage.”

For a moment she allowed herself to feel a wash of intense relief. It was doubtful that a manhunt for Vincent was the cause, and Justus Zilpho did not have access to the resources necessary to blot out the entire city. But then her cop senses took over: blackouts could lead to looting, and a lack of power meant that the average citizen was defenseless against street crime, which always increased when crooks could move about more freely.

“I have to call in,” she said, and hurried back down to her apartment. As she climbed through the window, she heard the trilling of her cell phone. She checked caller ID: sure enough, it was Captain Ward. A quick glance at the time said it was 1.15 in the morning.

“Chandler,” he said, “get down here. The entire borough of Manhattan has gone dark. Hold on.” Listening, she moved to her nightstand to grab her badge and her gun with her free hand. “Brooklyn, too.”

“On my way, sir.” She ended the call and moved carefully through the darkened apartment, feeling for her purse. She drew out her police-issue flashlight and dropped in her cell phone. She had a burner phone in there, too. For Vincent. They switched them every three days, which was the protocol J.T. and Vincent had established years before Cat had arrived on the scene. For a while, they had been able to stop using them and rely on normal cell phones. But now that Vincent was on the run again, such precautions were a regular fixture in their lives.

“I heard,” Vincent said. He moved to the pile of smoky clothes and began to put them on. She flicked on the flashlight and shone it at him. His jeans were scorched and there were ragged burn holes in his white T-shirt.

“What
did
happen to you today?” she asked worriedly. “Were you caught in a fire? Is J.T. all right?” J.T. Forbes had protected Vincent for the ten years that he had remained in hiding from Muirfield, the secret government organization that had turned him into a beast. Now that Vincent was a fugitive again, J.T. was also at risk.

“J.T. is fine,” he assured her. “And I wasn’t
caught
in a fire. I ran into one. A little girl was trapped in a tenement and it would have taken the firefighters too long to get to her.” He shrugged. “So I went in.”

Although he was standing directly in front of her, a frisson of anxiety skittered up Cat’s backbone. Fire could claim Vincent’s life. When her father had turned Vincent into an apex predator, Vincent had lost his ability to heal himself. To stave off her growing panic, she reminded herself that she had seen no burn marks on his naked body, and he seemed fine. Still, she couldn’t shake her instinctive reaction. If anything happened to Vincent, it would be worse than if it had happened to her.

“Was she all right?” she asked as she threw on fresh work clothes. “The little girl?”

“She was a little shaken up. Smart kid, lay on the floor below the smoke. I heard her telling the fire captain that an angel saved her.” His grin was lopsided. “Good thing he didn’t look up. He would have seen that angel dangling from the side of the building after the floor gave way. Without any wings.”

“That was risky,” she said, and he shrugged. They locked gazes and laced their hands together. She knew they were both thinking the same thing: there were things in this world worth risking everything for—their relationship, his freedom, even their own safety—and a human life was one of them. For all the suspicion and fear cast Vincent’s way, and all his protests that he wasn’t Batman, he was definitely a hero.

“You should leave a change of clothes here. ” She cupped his cheek, taking time to appreciate just how wonderful he was. “For all the other daring rescues you’re sure to undertake.”

He laid his hand over hers. “So far we’ve been able to convince everyone that you had nothing to do with my escape from custody. If you suddenly stockpiled men’s clothes in your apartment, that’d look pretty suspicious.”

“I could say I’m collecting things for a charity drive,” she argued. “With a few on hand that aren’t your size, my excuse would be more plausible.”

She could tell he was thinking it over, and allowed herself a moment of satisfaction. Even though she’d become a cop instead of a lawyer, which had been her original career goal, she could still argue the finer points of any position she took. She loved that Vincent could hold his own against her, and did when it mattered to him. They were two opinionated, driven people, taking life head on, ready to fight for what was important, but learning to back off when harmony between them was more important.

A siren blared down Bleecker, which was on the south side of her building. She shifted back into work mode, zipping up her jeans, putting on her coat, and slipping on her black gloves and a charcoal-gray knitted cap. It was bitterly cold out tonight. Hopefully that would keep less-motivated would-be looters from venturing onto the streets.

“Anyway, think it over,” she asked him. She rose on tiptoe to kiss him goodbye, wondering how long it would be before she saw him again. This part was always so difficult. Too difficult, and tonight it was veering on painful when she considered that he would have sacrificed his life willingly today to save that little girl.

“I have to go,” she said unnecessarily. What she meant was,
I never want to let you go.
The soft expression on his face assured her that his heart heard her unspoken words, and that he felt the same way.

“I’ll patrol, see if I can keep NYPDs crime stats down,” he said. “Help out a few folks.”

“Thanks. But
please
be careful. It’s dark, but people aren’t blind. If someone spots you…”

“I’ll lay low. I was Special Forces, remember? Covert ops?”

“And a fireman, and a doctor,” she said. A protector. A healer.
And the man I love.

“And a candlestick maker.” He kissed her once more. Despite her captain’s urgent summons, she savored that kiss. They never knew when it would be their last.

“Will you be here when I get back?” she asked, but that was a question he couldn’t answer, and they both knew it. In fact, since she was a cop, there’d be no guarantee that
she
would come back, either.

“I want to be.”

“That’s the best answer I can hope for.”

He had dimples when he smiled. Beautiful dimples. She lost herself for a couple more seconds.

Then she was out the door.

I
t was 2 a.m. and the 125th precinct was buzzing like a beehive: phones ringing off the hook, overtaxed emergency generators causing the overhead fluorescent lights to flicker. As she entered the bullpen, Cat’s body responded to the call to arms, blood pumping, the last vestiges of sleepiness evaporating.

Tess was leaning over her desk on the landline with a steaming travel mug glued to her hand. She took a swig and grimaced, then hailed Cat over with the mug. Her brown eyes flashed with the thrill of the chase and Cat knew she was taking down the details of a crime report.

Tess, said, “We’ll get right on it.”

She hung up just as Cat reached her desk, then took another gulp from her mug and shuddered from head to toe, a total body roll of disgust. She shook her head like a wet poodle drying off and smiled her best, most mischievous smile.

“Whoa. You are not going to believe this,” she said in a hushed, excited voice. She looked furtively around. “This is our case. Ours, okay? We deserve it.”

Cat raised her brows. “It’s clearly juicy. Let me guess. We’re going undercover in Florida? At a spa resort?” She took off her gloves and hat and gave her hair a shakeout. A scattering of snowflakes had kissed her loose waves and the tip of her nose. It was January, and it was cold.

Tess smirked. “
Almost
as good. Angelo DeMarco has been kidnapped.”

Cat blinked. “DeMarco? As in
those
DeMarcos? Tony DeMarco, mob boss?”

“The DeMarco DeMarcos, yes,” Tess said. “Angelo is Tony’s son.” She got as close to squealing as a badass like Tess could get. “Captain Ward’s
got
to agree that we get to keep this one. We just put Justus Zilpho away.”

“Kidnapping cases are FBI jurisdiction,” Cat pointed out.

Tess’s eyes sparkled. “And that
was
the FBI. They’re asking for an assist.”

That made sense. The DeMarcos were one of New York City’s most prominent families. The FBI was a federal agency, but the DeMarco Building was in 125th’s jurisdiction, and the DeMarcos prided themselves on having been in New York for seven generations. Originally from Sicily, they were incredibly wealthy and powerful, and although occasionally a DeMarco would be brought in on racketeering charges, no one had ever made a case against them stick. For cops—good, honest cops—the thought of taking the DeMarcos down was the equivalent of winning the lottery.

Get to know them, help them with a legitimate issue, and you’re closer to that goal
, Cat thought with relish.

A family kidnapping would be a high-profile case, and even though Zilpho had paved the way back into Captain Ward’s good graces, Tess and Cat still had a lot of unproductive months to make up for—the partners had spent most of their time solving beast-related crises that they couldn’t tell NYPD about. Rescuing Angelo DeMarco would raise the 125th’s street cred even higher.

“Beats Florida, eh?” Tess said.

“Well, we are never happy when one of the citizens we are sworn to protect goes missing,” Cat said somberly. “We’re both highly motivated to find this… boy?”

“Only son and heir. He’s twenty,” Tess said. “They’ve already received a ransom note.”

“
Oooh
,” Cat said appreciatively.

“See? It’s gonna be a good one. Zilpho plus DeMarco equals job security. Heck, maybe even promotions. Let’s go tell Ward we want this.”