Jennifer Estep: Wasted

First Clarissa and now Roslyn. I wasn’t sure how much more bruising my ego could take.

“Sure,” I said in an easy tone. “Roslyn and I are friends. But if you’ve hooked her, then congrats to you. Because she’s beautiful, man—inside and out.”

For a moment, Xavier smiled. And it wasn’t just any smile. No, he practically beamed . It was the look of a man deeply in love. I sighed. Well, fuck. I might be a cold-hearted bastard, but I had a soft spot for Roslyn. I’d really hate to kill someone who cared that much about her. But I’d do it just the same—just like Gin would.

Xavier cleared his throat. “Anyway, there’s been a … problem at the club lately. And from some things that Roslyn has said, I thought that Gin might be able to help.”

Ah, hell. His tone of voice told me exactly what he’d picked up from Roslyn—that Gin was the assassin the Spider. Roslyn knew all about what Gin did, since Gin had killed the vampire’s abusive brother-in-law not too far back. Roslyn had first come to me about finding someone to kill her brother-in-law. I had denied all knowledge of such things, of course, but not too long after that, the brother-in-law had meet with a messy, untimely demise. Roslyn was a smart lady, and she’d put it all together. Me, Gin, Dad, and what we did. In fact, Roslyn had told one of the hookers who worked for her about it all, which had eventually led to my dad’s death.

Gin didn’t think that I knew about that, though. Gin didn’t think that I knew about a lot of things. Killing was her specialty—ferreting out information was mine.

“Finn?” Xavier asked, wondering at my silence.

I sighed. “No more word games. Just lay it out for me, Xavier.”

To my surprise, he did. For the next five minutes, Xavier sat there and told me what was going on. Every word he said made my stomach twist a little more. Fuck. Gin was not going to like this—not one damn bit. I didn’t like it much either, but Gin—she was going to take it personally. She was going to blame herself for what was happening at Northern Aggression.

“So do you think that Gin will help?” Xavier asked in a low voice after he finished telling his story.

“Help?” I barked out a cold laugh. “Hell, she’s going to feel responsible for the whole thing.”

Xavier shook his head. “It’s not her fault. It’s nobody’s fault.”

“You don’t know Gin. She won’t see it that way. She may be as cold as ice, but if you fuck with somebody that she cares about—hell, even a friend of a friend—you better watch out. Because she will bury you six feet under and not think twice about it.”

I started brooding then. About Roslyn and Xavier, about Gin, about the whole fucked up situation. I don’t know how long I might have sat there if Xavier hadn’t cleared his throat and pointed to the TV screen.

“Uh, Finn, who is that? And why are all those men with her?”

I looked over. On the TV screen, Clarissa Divine strode into the lobby. The vampire looked as gorgeous as ever, but for once, she wasn’t alone—six men wearing dark suits and carrying briefcases flanked her.

“Oh, them?” I said. “Don’t pay any attention to them. They’re just here to rob the bank.”

Xavier frowned and looked at me. “Here to rob the bank? How the hell do you know that?”

“Because I’m Finnegan fucking Lane, and I know things.”

Xavier kept staring at me. I sighed again. This time, I was the one who told the story about my very first meeting with Clarissa and all the times that she’d been back to the bank since then.

“So I was immediately suspicious when Clarissa went for Stevens instead of me,” I said. “Since I’m obviously the much better catch.”

“Obviously,” Xavier agreed.

“Hey now, keep the sarcasm to a minimum.”

A grin crooked up the corner of the giant’s lips.

“So I did some digging. There is no Clarissa Divine in Ashland or anywhere else in the South that I could find. However, there is a Clarissa Devane, who happens to be an extremely high-priced hooker. And guess what her specialty is?”

“Robbing banks?”

I put my fingers together and made a shooting motion. “Bingo. First, she goes in and seduces the manager. When the poor fool is hopelessly in love with her, she goes to the bank with her crew. They rob the place and pretend to take her hostage. Since the manager doesn’t want his lady love to get her brains blown out, he’s more than happy to give the thieves access to whatever they want, including the vault. Once the vault is empty, the thieves take Clarissa with them, supposedly using her as a human shield. Of course, it’s all just part of her getaway. A couple days later, the cops will get a tip about a decomposing body dressed in whatever Clarissa was wearing while she was in the bank. Since she’s dead, the cops look for the thieves. After a few weeks, the police will find their bodies rotting somewhere. Clarissa doesn’t like to share her loot, you see, so she offs her own crew after the job is finished. With no one to chase after, the cops lose interest, the case is closed, and Clarissa is off to build a new crew and find a new sucker to fleece.”

Xavier whistled. “That’s pretty slick.”

I nodded. “Just watch the TV, and you’ll see.”

Sure enough, it happened just like I said that it would. One of the guys with Clarissa pulled a gun out of his briefcase, grabbed her, and pressed the weapon up to her temple. There was lots of screaming then, so much so that I had to mute the sound on the TV.

Eventually, after the tellers had emptied out all of the cash drawers, the thieves started threatening to kill Clarissa unless the manager stepped forward. A few seconds later, Andrew Stevens came out from behind the counter where he’d been standing when the thieves had first come into the bank. There was so much sweat on his forehead that I could see it on the TV screen. The thieves waved their guns around some more, and Stevens quickly caved. He headed toward the door that led to the lower floors—including the vault.

“All right,” I said, getting to my feet. “I’m going to get Gin to help you and Roslyn with this problem that you’re having at Northern Aggression.”

Xavier blinked. “Just like that?”

I nodded. “Just like that. I owe Roslyn that much. But right now, I’d like you to help me. I don’t know about you, but after what you just told me about Roslyn, I really want to hurt somebody. Want to help me stop a robbery? Hell, the department might give you a commendation for it. The higher-ups at the bank will certainly be grateful.”

Xavier cracked his knuckles. His grin matched my own.

I hit some buttons on my desk and grabbed some supplies out of it—namely, a couple of guns. I offered one to Xavier, but he politely declined. Then again, he didn’t really need a gun. As a giant, he was strong enough to pull someone apart with his bare hands.

We turned off the lights in the office. Since it was late Friday, most everyone else had already gone home for the weekend. Besides Stevens, I’d been the only one still working down here on the lower floors.

We didn’t have long to wait. We’d left the office door open, and footsteps clacked on the marble floor and echoed down the hallway to us.

“Secure this floor and make sure all the offices are empty,” I heard one of the thieves say. “I don’t want anyone coming up behind us trying to play hero. The rest of us are going down to the vault. That’s where the real money will be.”

“Got it,” another man said.

Most of the footsteps moved on and then faded away, as the thieves with Stevens and Clarissa in tow, went on down to the vault floor. But after a moment, more steps sounded, growing louder and louder and headed in this direction. I listened. Two men, one to run point and the other for backup. Thanks to the TV screen, we knew that two of the thieves had stayed in the lobby to keep the tellers under control. Since two were now headed this way, that meant that Clarissa had taken two more down to the vault with her, along with Stevens. I nodded at Xavier, who nodded back.