Page 23 of Bent Out of Shade
“With a woman who knows everything.” I plucked a grape from the fruit bowl in the center of the table and tossed it in my mouth.
“An oracle?” Emmett said.
“The administrative assistant at my old law firm. So pretty much.” I drummed my fingers on the table. “Also, you should know that Vincenzo doesn’t want anyone other than us to know about Sabrina’s disappearance.” I flashed the puncture marks.
Emmett leaned in for a better look. “He bit you?”
“Blood oath,” I said.
“If we break it, do you suffer?” His brows drew together. Aw, look at him being worried for me.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Tatiana said.
Her mild tone provoked a hot rush of anger inside me. “Thanks so much for alerting me to that possibility. He just grabbed me and bit. Took my magic in the moment too, so I couldn’t even fight him off.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but Emmett cut her off with a chuckle.
He rubbed his hands together. “So all I have to do is get a little chatty and we can watch you squirm. Epic.”
Delilah had him in a chokehold in the blink of an eye.
Tatiana frowned. “That’s a bit extreme.”
“Emmett threatened me first,” I said.
“Not that.” My boss pulled out her phone. “I’m going to have a word with our client about him not trusting my impeccable reputation vis-à-vis confidentiality and success rates.”
I took her cell away. “Missing the point.”
Emmett pounded on the table for mercy and my shadow released him. “You’re no fun,” he sulked.
“Vincenzo’s fiancée vanished,” I said, ignoring him, “and he not only refuses to even consider one of his enemies might be behind it, he went to this extreme to keep it all hush-hush. How hard would it be to dig deeper into our client without alerting anyone to the facts?”
Tatiana swept some dead flower petals off the table and dumped them into a vase containing a wilted bouquet. “Difficult, since one of my prime sources is dead to me, but not impossible.”
“Undead,” Emmett corrected. “Mr. BatKian.”
Tatiana narrowed her eyes and I kicked him under the table.
Emmett mimed zipping his lips.
“It’s a red flag that our client doesn’t want to pursue every angle to find her.” Tatiana infused her magic into the flowers, and the blooms perked up into their full glory. “Leave that with Emmett and me while you investigate Sabrina’s movements. Anything else?”
I removed the amulet from my trouser pocket and set it on the table.
She picked it up, running a finger over the clay edges. “What’s this? Some chachka Sadie made when she was little? I wouldn’t advise wearing it as jewelry if that’s what you were wondering.”
Emmett snickered.
Splaying my hands on the table, I silently counted to ten. “I took this from a couple of randos who kidnapped Emmett to force me to answer some summons.”
“Which would have been a great honor,” Emmett snarked.
“Yeah, well. Any thoughts?”
Tatiana tossed the amulet onto the table. “I’d get better branding if I were them. Those figures have absolutely no sense of style.”
“That’s your issue right now, is it?”
