Page 13 of Ace of Shadows
Cassian shrugs as the bar finally tears open. “We can’t prove it.”
“Maybe we can.” Raven hops off the counter. “There are a hundred ways to induce a heart attack. And jumping in front of a subway car? If they were pushed, I’ll be able to find it on the cameras.”
“And if it’s just bad luck?” Valentina pipes up. “If you hear hoofbeats, you think horses, not zebras.”
“Can you look me in the eye and tell me what happened to Ivy’s parents doesn’t scream Mafia hit to you?” I face her, my eyes narrow. “Tell me that with one hundred percent honesty and I’ll drop Ivy back off where I found her.”
Valentina’s lips part but in the end, she relents. “You still shouldn’t have brought her back here. We have safe houses for a reason.”
“Agreed,” says Bradley. “I have to go. I’m out of state for at least a couple of weeks fixing this legal shit with customs and the Irish.” He points at me with one thick finger. “Don’t fuck this up. This place had better still be standing when I come back.”
A smirk creeps across my lips. “I outrank you.”
Bradley’s palm slaps the back of my head as he passes. “There are no ranks here, dumbass. We’re a team. You’re just new.”
I wave him off and watch him leave as Raven loops her arm around Valentina’s elbow and drags her out. “Come on.” She grins. “The sooner we find out the truth, the sooner we can make his pet project vanish.”
Despite the rubbing of personalities and nipping at one another, the kitchen’s colder without them. Cassian wanders past but pauses as the screen slides back up into its home.
“You really think this is something?” he asks, his head tilting to the side.
“I really do.”
“So why bring her here?”
My shoulder lifts. “Her dad’s dead, mom’s in a coma. Those cops found her as fast as I did. Didn’t seem right to take her to a safehouse and dump her if we want answers.”
Cassian’s lips roll together and he nods. “Alright. I’ll back you on this, Ace, but you gotta be careful. What we do works only because we follow the rules. You start breaking them, this whole thing falls apart.”
“If I’m wrong, you can fire me and find a new Ace.”
Cassian snorts. “If it worked like that, I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.”
Before I can say anything else, a sudden, sharp scream of terror rises up from deeper within the apartment.
Cassian’s eyes glint. “Sounds like your pet’s finally awake.”
5
IVY
This isn’t the same room I was in before, was it?
It all comes back to me in a rush. The nurse, those two cops, the news that my father is dead, and that strange man with his constant questions and the needle in my arm. I’m tied to the bed again, but rather than being cuffed to a metal frame, I’m handcuffed to a wooden headboard.
At a glance, this room resembles the hospital room I woke up in previously but it’s also… different. The lighting isn’t as harsh, the bedsheets are softer, and the dark paneling on the closed door resembles something in a hotel rather than a hospital.
What is this?
No, it doesn’t matter.
I need to get out of here.
I need to get out and find a doctor or a phone to call the police and tell them what happened. I have to find out what happened to my parents.
Tears come as soon as my mom and dad enter my mind and a deep ache opens up in my chest. It’s like a black hole that’s drawing me in, twisting me from the inside, and I almost wish it would hurry up and swallow me so I don’t have to feel it. My head throbs in pulses matching the pounding of my heart, and my ankle pulses hot and uncomfortable, as if it’s being held over an open flame.
None of it matters.
