Julie Leto - Stripped

Oh, the man was going to be sorry.

“Mancusi, what the hell kind of operation are you running here? This is the twenty-first century, man. Al Capone and Eliot Ness no longer work here.”

Mac pressed his lips together to smother a smile when Lilith muttered, “What a moron.”

The mayor turned toward her again, his eyes narrowed.

“Excuse me?”

Lilith’s grin could have cut glass. “Capone never worked here. He was the criminal. And Ness was a fed, not Chicago PD.”

The mayor’s face was stone until his bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrow cocked over keen blue eyes. “And you are?”

Lilith stepped fully into the man’s personal space. “A friend of the detective’s who doesn’t appreciate being run over by politicians on power trips.”

Yeah, this was helping.

Mac cleared his throat. “And what can I do for you, Mr. Mayor?”

With reluctance, Dafoe turned away from Lilith. “You can pack up your things,” the politician declared.

“What?” Lilith yelped.

Mac held up his hand. “Mr. Mayor, I was told by the chief that the matter would be adequately reviewed before any action was taken.”

“One look at Boothe Thompson’s face is all the review I need. You’re out of here. Two weeks. Maybe more if I hear one whiff of you interfering in any police matters during your suspension. I can’t have my police officers beating up on my defense attorneys.”

“I had no idea you personally owned the justice system of Chicago,” Mac retorted.

Dafoe’s bloated face reddened. “This is a new administration, Mancusi. An iron fist is what I promised my constituents, and that’s exactly what I’m going to provide.”

Mac’s throat burned from the exertion of keeping his mouth shut. He’d walked right into this one. Common sense had told him to let Goins go when it was clear the information he may or may not have possessed wasn’t forthcoming. Instead he’d called Lilith and pushed the boundaries of good police work.

But it still stank.

“There’s still a shipment of drugs out there, Mr. Mayor. The distribution could be transpiring as we speak.”

The mayor’s jaw tightened. “That’s no longer your concern.”

Lilith grabbed the mayor’s sleeve and spun him around. Mac couldn’t react fast enough. Not with the desk in the way. A split second later, a security guard had Lilith’s face pressed against the wall, her arms tight behind her back.

“Back off, you oaf!” she demanded, striking backward with her head and knocking the guard in the chin.

“Lilith…” Mac warned, his body burning from the inside out in his efforts to remain still. The last thing any of them needed was a free-for-all. Especially when more than one person in the room was armed.

The mayor had been shuttled to a corner by his handlers. Through the dark sleeves, he could see the man’s sweaty face.

“Call off your man,” Mac insisted.

The mayor stuttered, “Sh-she attacked m-me!”

“I barely touched your arm. Boy, won’t the press love to know how you react when a woman merely touches you? Your wife must be so—”

“Lilith,” Mac said, his volume low and his tone dire.

Surprisingly Lilith quieted, the obvious insult to the mayor’s masculinity hanging heavy and acrid in the air.

Mac turned to the mayor, whose skin had turned the color of boiled beets. “I’ll pack up my stuff with no comment to the press if you allow…Ms. St. Lyon…to leave, as well.”

Two aides whispered in the mayor’s ear. He nodded.

“No comments to the press from her either?” the aide verified.

Mac waited for Lilith to agree. After a tense minute, her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, am I allowed to speak now?” She twisted so she could eye the security guard still holding her tightly. He made no move to release her. With a sigh, she agreed to the terms.

The aides shuttled to the door. The mayor straightened his jacket, then marched out behind them, stopping at the threshold. Once certain his security guard had planted himself directly between Lilith and the politician, he cleared his throat to speak, punctuating his words with jabs of his finger. “Not a word from you, Detective Mancusi. If one quote appears in black and white attributed to either you, your representatives or this…this…woman…you’ll turn in your badge for good.”

With that, he left. Ten seconds later, the room cleared out entirely. And yet Lilith remained by the door. Almost immediately her naturally pale skin went entirely white. Mac vaulted around his desk to catch her before her knees buckled.

“Lilith?”

Her lids drooped over her stunning eyes but didn’t entirely close. He was immediately struck by the scent of her perfume and the spiked fringe of her hair striking against his neck like a thousand matchsticks. She kicked her feet and shook her hands, mumbling unintelligibly. Whatever had come over her, she was fighting to remain conscious.

With a curse, he lifted her into his arms just in time for her to mutter, “Holy sensory overload,” against his cheek.

“You’re joking?” he snapped. “This is a joke?”

She groaned. “No…joke. Put…me…”

The demand trailed away. He set her down in the nearest chair, pressing his palm against her clammy cheek. “Are you sick? Should I call someone?”

Lilith shook her head gingerly. “No,” she insisted, pushing him aside. “Give me a minute.”

Mac backed away, realizing after he had some distance that his chest was sore from the pounding of his heart. “What are you doing, Lilith? Trying to manipulate me the old-fashioned way now that you’ve quit being a psychic?”

She’d put her head between her knees but looked up slowly and with pure poison in her eyes.

“You’re kidding, right? I just got manhandled by the mayor’s goons and you think I’m playing a game? I’m not used to relying on my normal senses. Smell. Touch. Look, I’m not going to bore you with all the details, but suffice it to say that adjusting to life without my—”

She stopped and flopped back down into the crash position.

“Without your what?”

“Without my common sense, apparently,” she snapped.

Mac took a deep breath and turned to the storage closet, digging around until he found a box whose contents—a collection of ball caps from the department team—he dumped unceremoniously onto the floor. Forget her. She wasn’t part of his life anymore. He’d saved her from arrest for assaulting a public official, but now that she was safe, he simply had to give her a few minutes to get her equilibrium back after being nearly choked by the mayor’s muscle and then she could leave. And he could leave. They could both leave and be done with the insanity that had been their relationship.

Not to mention the sudden craziness of his job.

“You’re just going to give in?” she asked the minute he shoved the ashtray crafted by his six-year-old niece into the box.

“She lives!”

She sat back in the chair, the soft pink color in her cheeks slowly returning, and shot him the finger.

“Disappointed?” she asked.

“I never wished you ill, Lilith. I just wanted you out of my life.”

“Then why’d you call me this morning?”

He grabbed a commendation off the wall and shoved it into the box. “I was trying to stop a crime wave. That’s what usually happens after some drug lord dumps a couple of hundred kilos of powder on the streets.”

“Do you always put the requirements of your job ahead of your personal needs?”

“Do you really need to ask that question?”

Lilith pressed her hand to her roiling stomach and realized she was going to have to either get used to interacting with people without her power to anticipate their every thought and action or she would have to hole up in her apartment until the Council came to their senses. Since the chances of that happening were closer to none rather than slim, she figured she’d better start acclimating herself to a new, psychic-free life.