—— CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE ——
Callie and Derek found their footing the previous night. She’d revealed one of her darkest fears in the midst of an atrocious act. Anyone else would have ditched her. Derek got it, though. Now she’d have to earn back enough trust to learn what it was in his past that made him understand her. It was early when they stepped out of Callie’s apartment, and headed to recover Derek’s motorcycle. Plenty of time to gently push for answers, she thought.
Fate, as always, had other plans.
“You’re in one piece. That’s got to be a good sign.” Ford had already started up the staircase as Callie and Derek were approaching the edge of the second-floor landing. Ford slathered himself in boyish charm, but, especially in the ochre light, he couldn’t mask the cruelty beneath.
“Can my brother say the same?” Taunting the equivalent of the jock who hazed the new kids might not be wise, but she’d run out of fucks to give.
The dick rolled his eyes. “Yeah, he can. Though after all this, I don’t understand the value you see in him.”
Derek’s grunt, as if he had finally found something in common with the dirtbag, earned him a nasty side-eye from Callie.
Ford ignored him. “Do you have what belongs to me?”
Belonged? Why was everyone around her so interested in ownership? Who had the rights to the souls? Who could claim their magic? Discussing all this with a mob boss in the stairwell to her apartment the morning after she’d snuck into a police station and stolen investigation files was right below cleaning a stranger’s bathroom with a toothbrush on her to-do list.
Derek interrupted her thoughts. “You couldn’t wait until later?”
The sun was high and bright. She used to enjoy that. Not now though, with winter stampeding down the mountains. Exhausted and cold was a bad combination on its own, but adding in her general sense of dread put Callie mere inches from crumpling into a puddle of anxiety. Doing so in front of Ford was not an option. Not now. Not ever.
“Governor’s moving faster than predicted, and we’ve already disposed of the research’s human component. Besides, no need to have our girl stress over that information any longer than necessary,” Ford said with a genial smile.
A deep rumble filled the space. Derek. They’d have to rediscover their footing, but there was no question whose side he was on.
Ford shook his head slowly, relishing the patronizing action. “You’re only here because I’ve allowed it, Derek. Don’t forget that.”
Derek doubled in size. His presence overtook the concrete hallway. His towering frame keeled toward Ford. The man didn’t flinch. “You seem to be forgetting how easily your soul could disappear.” The dark promise tumbled from Derek’s lips, a smooth waterfall with a wicked undercurrent.
But Derek couldn’t wield magic. He’d told her so. Was he bluffing? Callie had never heard him use magic and his connection to the Soul Charmer as an open threat to anyone before, but, in that moment, she believed he could make Ford’s soul disappear, and, more importantly, so did Ford.
The mafia man’s hands were stuffed in his pockets, but he hurried backward three steps. Was it wise to strike fear in dangerous men? Only if one could back it up. Callie’s fingers curled into fists at the thought. Bringing the heat, literally, had saved her ass earlier. Hurting Ford would be worth a hidden scar or two on the rented soul buried beneath her sternum. If it came to that.
“Let’s get this over with inside.” He jerked his head toward her door. “Too many eyes out here.”
As much as she did not want Ford inside her apartment, she wanted her nosy neighbors to see her handing over confidential police files even less. Once they’d stepped inside, Ford rocked his weight from one foot to the other. He didn’t peer at the family photos hanging next to his shoulder. He didn’t look toward the fridge and suggest she offer him a drink. He didn’t try to sit on her couch. Hell, he was a better unwelcome guest than her mother.
Derek didn’t sit, either, instead preferring to loom at Ford’s side. He was practically begging for an excuse to use his fists. For his part, the mob boss looked completely unimpressed, wearing a look of calm confidence that, if it was a bluff, was damn convincing.
“You get both?” He meant the files and the data.
Callie nodded. She retrieved the bulky file folder from the countertop and shoved it toward him. He accepted it with a single hand, and didn’t show surprise at its weight or heft.
“The drive?” he prompted.
“First, how do I know my brother is safe? That you’ll free him? That you’ll hold up your end of the deal?”
His exasperated sigh should have earned him a swift kick to the shins. Instead he retrieved his cell phone—under Derek’s watchful gaze and occasional snarl—and dialed. He clicked over to speaker mode.
“Yeah?” a male voice answered.
“Have Josh say hi.”
“What’s going on?” Josh said after a second. He sounded weary, but still very much like her brother.
“Roll down the window and look up, Joshy,” Ford directed. Then he nodded to Callie and her window.
Derek’s subtle nod, the infinitesimal sign of security, was all it took for her to rush to the curtains. Her brother’s too-pale face peeked out of a black SUV in the rear of the parking lot. Callie needed several calming breaths before she was able to turn toward Ford again. He’d already ended the call. Anxiety and relief warred within her. Again. It was supposed to be over now, but her gut didn’t believe it.
Bastard gut.
She wadded her concerns and squished them beneath her stomach. Distracting emotions were best buried. She tossed the small drive onto the coffee table. It skated a few inches and stopped near the end closest to Ford. He snatched it with a scowl. She’d given him everything the police had, and he had the nerve to glower at her?
“You plugged this into the third rack, right?” He emphasized the number. Nothing like the douche who kidnapped her brother doubting her competence.
She nodded. The risk of saying the wrong words when she was so close to being done with Ford and having Josh back safely was too great.
The quick salute he gave her smacked with condescension, but it also meant they were done. “Stay here. We’ll send Josh up.” Then he turned and left.
The door snicked closed behind him.
“Creepy fucker,” Derek muttered.
Her hands were shaking, and Callie wiped a fine coat of sweat from her forehead. “Understatement.”
Derek hadn’t closed the distance between them. “You want me to stay?” He wasn’t ready to leave. “I mean, do you want some time alone with your brother?”
He wasn’t bothering to conceal his need to care for her. Another day she might analyze that, poke at why he wanted to be near her, contemplate if she was his way to atone for the dark secrets in his own life. Save the girl, make up for the bad. Today she didn’t have the energy for such drama. She’d spent years working to remain under the radar, to be the girl no one noticed. Now too many people knew her, and the stress and the fear and the pressure of it all was congealing in her stomach. Derek had reeled her in before. She’d let him keep her from the edge now, but she couldn’t afford to say all that. Yet. “Can you?”
One corner of his mouth pulled upward. “Of course.”
She’d taken a single step toward him when her front door flew open. Derek lurched around to block the man who’d burst in.
“It’s okay,” she yelped. “It’s Josh.”
It was, but it was a sickly version of her big brother. Derek released him, but remained angled between the siblings. Callie swallowed her fear.
“You okay?” Falling back on the words Derek had offered her after the break-in steadied her. Distracted her from the changes before her. Her brother had never been bulky, but he hadn’t been classified as lean either. In the weeks since she’d seen him, his face had gone gaunt and his hair, once the same rich brown as her own, was darkened to near black with grease. A raspberry scrape on his left cheek was the only mark of brightness he carried.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going to be fine.” He’d licked his lips between every word, shooting questioning glances one after another at Derek.
“Good?” The package of anxiety she’d hidden in her stomach quivered.
“I can stay here, right?”
So much for Zara’s proclamation about Josh crashing with her. What else had her mother lied about?
“Tonight, sure.” Callie moved toward her brother with open arms, ready to hug him and let this drama be finally over with. It wasn’t though. She stopped mid-step and dropped her hands to her sides. Frost built beneath her nail beds and her hands turned icy.
“Goddamn it,” she swore.
Josh’s confusion didn’t help matters. Of course he’d used souls. Of. Fucking. Course. “You alright, Cal?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said through gritted teeth. She backed away until her hands regained warmth.
“Look, I’m going to need to stay here for awhile. Mom isn’t going to handle this well, and I need time to recover before I see her. You do kind of owe me, after all.”
Derek’s anger snapped before Callie’s could, which said something. “You want to try that again?” he rasped.
“Who is this asshole, and why’s he in your apartment?” Josh asked to Callie, and then turned to Derek. “Charmer’s business is done. You can get out, Lurch.”
“You’ve got fucking nerve, kid, I’ll give you that,” Derek said.
Callie pressed her hand against Derek’s back. He softened, and moved to her side.
“First, Derek’s a big reason as to why you’re alive and not in tiny pieces all over the city right now. Be nice. Second—”
“I’ll take care of you now. Family does that.” The same words her mom, her aunts, her cousins, and every other person in the Delgado family threw around, were now coming from Josh’s mouth. He punctuated them by reaching for her, his hands grazing her forearms before Derek shoved him away.
The hailstorm raging inside her was agony. Ice licked up to her elbows as she stumbled backward, and her skin darkened. Frostbite. Her brother had given her frostbite. The terror of the previous night, the unending worry over her temporary abilities, it all came up. Literally. Her stomach revolted. She ran to the bathroom, barely making the bowl as her stomach spasmed.
The white bathmat did little to protect her knees from the Saltillo tile below as she knelt in front of the toilet. She hadn’t exactly wanted the guys to follow her in here, but she thought her upchuck move would have at least killed the conversation. Wrong. In between heaves she heard the two.
“Don’t know what you’ve threatened my sister with, but it ends now.” That was the Josh she’d saved. The perk of family was that you knew each other’s cores. Yeah he was a junkie and a thief and an on-and-off liar, but when it came to choosing between people in the family and those who weren’t, he always sided with her.
“You’re one to talk.” A thread of possession laced Derek’s derision. He understood her core, too, and had accepted her despite her special brand of crazy.
Goddamn men. Arguing on her behalf while she puked in another room.
“Pretty sure you and the Soul Charmer shouldn’t be involved.” How well did Josh know Derek?
“You’re the one who threw her to Ford to pay off your fucking debt like a coward. You’re the one who foisted her on the Soul Charmer. You’re the one who risked her goddamn life.” The floorboards creaked. One of them must have edged toward the door.
Derek. He continued, “So I’d point that finger elsewhere if you don’t want me to snap it off.”
She pushed up from the floor. The first person outside her family to have her back was now yelling at the one other person who had regularly stood up for her. As if one couldn’t feel worse while leaned over the commode. Derek wouldn’t actually injure her brother. Probably. Intervening would be smart, regardless, but she didn’t make it far before her stomach roiled again.
Josh chuffed. “You don’t know anything about me or my sister. She’s done with the Charmer anyway.”
Callie wished that were true. Derek must have agreed. “She’s done with him, but she isn’t done with me. And I’m not about to let you make her feel like shit.”
“Wait. What? Me?”
“Yeah, you.” The edge of a wicked growl sliced Derek’s voice, a tone she knew he saved for uncooperative targets. “How ungrateful can you be? She risked everything to save you. Not saying she shouldn’t have done it, but that kind of dedication deserves your respect and never-ending gratitude. If you were anyone else, I’d have already broken your face for the shit you put her through.”
Josh’s voice had gone tight. Callie couldn’t tell if it was out of fear or guilt. “I appreciate her, and I know her a lot better than you do.”
“It’s not a contest, kid, but I’m the one keeping her safe, so quit being a dick. Sit on the damn couch, and when she gets back out here thank her and then shut the fuck up.”
Josh didn’t say anything more. Glass clicked as her refrigerator door closed. That reminded her: the empty vodka bottles sitting atop the fridge needed to go in the recycling. Focusing on the mundane steadied Callie. The dry heaves had finished—she hoped. She quickly brushed her teeth and rinsed her mouth a few times before wading into the tension of her living room.
The magical layer between the Soul Charmer’s rooms was thick, but the energy in Callie’s living room rivaled it. Josh sat on the sofa, taking up as little space as possible. Derek was on the other end. He took a deep swig from a glass of orange juice and tried to project a controlled aura. She wasn’t fooled.
“Stomach settled?” He pushed off the couch and walked toward her. He placed his glass on the kitchen counter, and then wrapped his arms around her.
Being angry took more energy than she had. Indulging in a hug was simply easier. “I’ll be all right.” Her words were muffled against his chest.
He pulled back enough to look at her. “Water?”
Were her eyes still ringed with red? She shook her head. “I’m exhausted.”
He nodded and gave her a quick squeeze.
She leaned around him to speak to Josh. “You eat anything recently?”
His gaze darted to Derek before answering. His nerves were showing, but his voice was solid. Faking confidence was a genetic trait. “Not much. You guys already eat breakfast?”
Callie’s eyebrows drew together. Before she could point out his idiocy, he answered his own question. “Right. Sick. Never mind.”
She was going to get high on oxygen at the rate she was taking calming breaths. “Kitchen’s pretty bare, but feel free to make yourself some toast.”
“Thanks.” He got up and started toward her. “Thanks for letting me crash and, um, for everything else.”
She took a couple steps backward, but smiled.
“It’s what we do.” Her DNA might be muddled at the moment, but despite the outside influences, at its core it held the same traits as Josh’s. Family loyalty was locked in, right alongside their brown eyes.
Her brother moved to hug her, and Derek intervened.
“What the fuck, man?”
“You can’t touch me.” Callie couldn’t hide her wince.
“I know I made things hard for you or whatever, but I still love you.” He edged forward again, and Derek put a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s not that.” Couldn’t Derek explain this? She gave him a pleading glance.
Earning his care this quickly was scary, but that didn’t temper her gratitude when he took over. “She can’t be near people who have used soul magic right now. Part of the shit with the Charmer. Hurts her,” Derek explained.
Josh’s face scrunched like a lemon had been shoved in his mouth. All he said was, “Oh.”
Callie scrubbed her hand on the nape of her neck. The skin had cooled from her earlier sickness, but she was still off. “We’re going to take care of some business. Couch is yours.”
“Cool.” He wasn’t arguing and that was good enough for today.
His eyes stayed on them until Callie closed the front door behind her. He might not trust Derek, but then again, her brother’s taste in people was questionable.
She trusted Derek. Officially. And that was fucking scary.