Ilona Andrews - White Hot

“So am I.”

“Yes, yes, we’re all special,” Arabella said. “But she is right. What if you get shot? Who will take care of us? Who will bring us sushi?”

“I’m doing this,” Catalina said. “I’m not letting them hurt you or Cornelius, or Matilda, or anybody else. My way nobody has to get hurt.”

That’s what I must’ve looked like eight years ago, when I told my parents that they wouldn’t be selling the family firm. That I would take it over and keep it afloat. And I did. I’d been seventeen too.

She was right. If she got involved, we’d cut casualties and injuries down to a bare minimum.

“Fine.” I leaned back. “You’ll do this and then you’ll do your best to disengage.” I turned to Arabella. “You will get her out. You won’t hurt anybody. You will grab your sister and get the hell out of there. No heroics.”

She made a high-pitched squeak. “Okay, boss lady!!!”

“We’re not telling Mom about this,” I said. “We’re not dropping hints and we’re not making cute comments.”

Catalina and I looked at Arabella.

“I won’t say anything.”

“Okay,” I said. I hoped I wouldn’t regret it.

They left my office and I called Rogan. He answered immediately. “Yes?”

“We probably won’t need to besiege the fort. My sisters will be coming.”

He didn’t answer for a long moment. “What should I plan for?”

“A strike team big enough to contain Olivia Charles. But we won’t need to storm the castle.”

“You sure about this?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t sound thrilled.”

“I’m not.” This probably wasn’t a good time to explain all the difficulties Catalina’s magic caused. “All we need to do is get Catalina to a gathering of people large enough within the fortress. The more people, the better. Trust me?” I hadn’t meant for it to sound like a question.

“Okay,” he said.

Silence stretched. I wanted to see him so badly.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“In my office. Where are you?”

“Outside your front door.”

My heart sped up. I got up, lowered the blinds in my office, locked the door between the business hallway and the rest of the house, and opened the front door. He took the phone from his ear and came inside. We walked into my office. I shut the door behind us, and then his arms closed around me and tomorrow disappeared. He kissed me, long and eager. Memories of him lying next to me naked swirled in my head. I kissed him and kissed him, nibbling on his lip, licking his tongue, stealing his breath . . .

My phone chimed. I ignored it.

His phone beeped.

The intercom came on, Bern’s voice spilling from it. “Nevada, where are you? I need to talk to you. This is urgent.”

Rogan’s phone beeped again, then again, then emitted a high-frequency electronic whine. He growled and put it to his ear. “Yes?”

A tiny voice on the other end said something urgent. Rogan rolled his eyes. “Yes. Yes. No. Handle it. Yes.”

He turned the phone off and tossed it on the table. It went off again. He stared at it as if it were a snake.

“Take it,” I told him.

He turned to me. No trace of Mad Rogan remained in his face. There was just a man and he was frustrated as hell. “When this is over, any place. Anywhere you want.”

“Is that lodge in the mountains real?”

“Yes.”

“Take me there,” I told him.

Ten minutes later I walked into the Hut of Evil to find both of my sisters standing over Bernard’s computer.

My cousin’s face was pale. “Augustine sent this over.”

He clicked a key and a video filled the screen, showing the ultramodern interior of Augustine’s MII office. The camera sat just behind and to the right of Augustine. The door stood open. The normally opaque glass walls sectioning off his workspace were now transparent, and from this vantage point we could see all the way down to the receptionist’s desk. Lina was gone. Instead a young man occupied the chair, busily working on his computer. I’d never seen him before and he probably didn’t know I existed.

A tall woman strode into the hallway, her face lined with age. She held herself ramrod straight, her silver hair carefully styled, her dark brown eyes challenging anyone in her way. Two bodyguards followed her, dressed in suits, both square jawed with identical short haircuts and identical expression.

Augustine stood up. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Tremaine. To what do I owe the honor?”

She stared at him, her eyes measuring him with the deadly precision of a raptor sighting her prey. Icy claws gripped my spine. This is it.

Victoria Tremaine turned without a single word and walked back the way she’d come.

I wore a Scorpion bulletproof vest, a helmet, an urban assault outfit, and boots. Rogan’s people offered me a light machine gun but I stuck with my Baby Desert Eagle. It made me feel better.

We’d gone to ground in the Texas scrub on the edge of the perimeter fence bordering Olivia Charles’ fortress. Ahead a lone guard sat in a booth.

I felt like a turtle. How in the world had my mother and grandmother worn this gear for years?

Next to me Arabella, wearing the same outfit I did, pursed her lips together and took a selfie. Ugh.

“Do you remember the exit route?” I asked.

She nodded. “We go north, quick sprint, five miles over the brush, to Rogan’s helicopter. I got it. Stop worrying.”

A limo slid down the road and stopped before the gate.

“Are you sure this will work?” Cornelius asked.

“Yes,” I told him.

Cornelius worried me. He’d brought no animals and no weapons that I could see. His face was calm, his eyes distant. Something odd was taking place in his head.

“It’s just that your sister is so shy,” he murmured. “I’ve been at your house for a week and she barely spoke to me.”

The limo’s window rolled down. I couldn’t see into it from this angle, but I knew who was inside. Melosa in the driver’s seat, ready to snap her aegis shield up at a moment’s notice; my sister in the passenger seat; and Rivera in the back, armed to the teeth.

The guard said something.

Come on, Catalina. You can do it.

The gate swung open. The guard left his booth and stood next to the car.

“Okay.” I got up to my feet.

A few yards down, Rogan stepped out from behind a tree. If things went wrong, he planned to level the booth and the guard with it. I brushed the twigs from me and trotted to the limo. Around me Rogan’s strike team—six people he’d handpicked—fell into place. Cornelius shrugged his shoulders next to me.

Rogan joined us. We jogged to the limo, where the guard waited. He saw us and winked. His face shifted and Augustine’s familiar perfection took his place. “You brought children, Rogan? This is a new low for you.”

“What are you doing here?” Rogan asked.

“I wouldn’t miss this. What—and let you have all the glory and information to yourself?” Augustine pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Shall we?”

The limo moved ahead. We followed it.

A second checkpoint loomed ahead.

“Is it a real soldier this time?” I asked.

“Yes.”

The limo stopped, the window rolled down, and I felt magic shift in the distance, a mere splash of it, like a raindrop in the night. The soldier left his booth and walked next to the limo. We rolled on up the road to the guardhouse at the doorstep of the fortress. They saw us. Weapons snapped up.

The soldier waved at the guards. The limo stopped again. The guards put away their weapons and joined the second soldier.

“What is your sister, exactly?” Augustine asked.

“You’ll see.” There was no name for it. No talent like this had ever been recorded. But it wasn’t something you would ever forget. “Just don’t look at her directly once she starts.”