“You have completed your favor to me, and I will continue to search for Nathan for you. I’m simply relieving you of further debt. Come home.”
I hesitated. “You’ll still search for my brother?”
“Of course.” Dominic sounded offended. “Like you just stated, we had a deal. You have fulfilled yours, and I intend to fulfill mine.”
“I haven’t fulfilled anything! Your strength is deteriorating daily. You need Bex’s alliance to survive the Leveling. You said so yourself.”
Dominic sighed over the phone, and I knew he knew I was right. “We have a couple weeks. We’ll find another way.”
“A couple weeks is nothing. No, we’ll see this through.” I said firmly. “I’m already here, and I’m not leaving until it’s done.”
“DiRocco!” Walker’s voice called from the other room. “Come here. You’ll want to hear this.”
I muffled the phone in my hand. “What is it?” I shouted back to Walker.
“The police scanner.”
I could just barely discern Ronnie’s breathy whisper. “You should wait until sunrise.”
Walker’s voice was smooth and soothing, a tone he’d never wasted on me. “Listen to the police scanner and keep me updated. I’ll call if I need you.”
“You never call unless it’s from the hospital. Lydia’s attack is different, and you know it. Visit the scene in the morning. Please.”
“DiRocco!” he called.
“I’ll be there in a second. Just finishing up here.” To Dominic I said, “I need to go.”
“That’s our Ian Walker’s voice I hear in the background,” Dominic said calmly.
It didn’t matter that Dominic was over three hundred miles away, nor that we were only talking over the phone; the dead chill in his tone still spiked fear through my gut. My heart leapt into my throat, and I imagined that even across such a distance, he could still hear its accelerated pace.
“He doesn’t know you’re speaking to me,” he commented.
I took a calming breath, but my heart still slammed. “I try not to make waves.”
“You’re a reporter. It’s your job to make waves, and I dare say, you’re very good at it.” Dominic paused, and I envisioned him staring at me, cocking his head in that unsettling, bird-like movement of his, as if he could ferret the truth from seeing into my brain.
I shivered.
“Does he know the true motivation of your visit? Does he know about your brother’s disappearance?” He paused again, and I suspected that like everything Dominic did, he paused deliberately – to make me sweat. “Does he know of our deal?”
“It’s not as if I could invite him to dinner with Bex and her coven like a double date.” I lied, fear making me angry. Of course Walker didn’t know. He’d die if he knew I’d made a deal with Dominic. Even I couldn’t deny it was akin to making a deal with the devil.
“I approve of Ian Walker as your backup, but you still need to take precautions against him. Although he is skilled and will probably protect you, he will have no qualms about risking your safety for the chance to kill a vampire, especially Bex,” Dominic said, his tone stern and less terrifying, but I could understand terror from Dominic. This advising, almost parental tone coming from his gravelly, rumbling voice was confusing.
“I know what Walker is capable of,” I said flatly, the memory of Jolene McCall’s buckshot-blasted face still raw in my mind. Strange and random things reminded me of her, like jaunty baker’s hats and fondant. It’s the details that refuse to disappear even after the pain is buried far and deep, undetectably, inside. I hadn’t eaten a cupcake in three weeks.
“You think you know what Walker is capable of, but he has hunted Bex for nearly a decade. His hunger to kill her will surely outweigh any other interest. When it comes to your primary goal as my liaison,” Dominic enunciated, as if I could forget, “you will be on your own.”
I would be more on my own than he realized since Walker had refused Bex’s dinner invitation. I touched the vial of his blood that hung from a chain under my shirt, rubbing the smooth glass with the pad of my thumb. “More than a decade?” I asked, deciding to keep the focus on Walker.
“He hasn’t spoken of his fair Juliet?” Condescension masked the sharp edge in his voice.
“DiRocco! Now or never! I’m leaving in five!” Walker shouted.
I sighed. “I’ve got to go,” I said to Dominic.
“Ask Ian about Julia-Marie Frost, and maybe then you’ll understand the minefield between him and Bex.”
“Maybe you should worry less about Walker’s loyalty and more about your own,” I said hotly. His words reminded me of how little I really knew about Walker and his past, and having Dominic throw that ignorance in my face made my temper boil over. “It’s been weeks since Nathan disappeared, and you have nothing to show for your efforts. Assuming you’ve put forth any effort to find him.”
“If you’re late to call me going forward, I will assume the worst and come for you,” Dominic said, ignoring me. “This is your only warning.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I whispered. “What about the truce? Bex would consider your presence an act of war, or so you’ve claimed. Isn’t that why I’m here in your stead?”
“The war that will ensue should you force my presence will be on your shoulders,” Dominic hissed. “I expect you to call five minutes before dawn, so I know that you have survived the night without injury.”
“What about Nathan? You remember him—five foot eight, nose ring, my hair, my eyes? It’s been weeks, and you aren’t any closer to finding him than when you started.”
“We made a deal, and if you uphold your end of the bargain, I promise you, I will uphold mine,” Dominic purred. “Have a good night, Cassidy DiRocco. I’ll look forward to your next call.”
“You have no trouble finding me wherever I am,” I said, exasperated. “I don’t see why it should be so difficult for you—”
The phone went dead.
“—to find Nathan.”
I shoved the phone in my right jacket pocket, but remembering the hole, I switched it over to the left with Walker’s borrowed silver nitrate spray. I bit my lip as Dominic burdened my thoughts. He wouldn’t risk breaking the truce with Bex. He’d sent me here deliberately to avoid initiating a war with her, but his words made me wonder. I knew how fast he could move. I knew how fast he could fly. Was the 300-mile distance a false sense of security? If he decided to come for me, could he really?
“I meant five seconds, not five years, DiRocco!”
I opened the bathroom door and caught the barrel-end of his bellow. “Coming, Walker,” I called back. I left the bathroom and walked into the kitchen.
Ronnie looked up at my approach. Her mascara was smeared across her cheeks to her temples from wiping at tears. I raised my eyebrows and glanced at Walker.
His expression was set like molded plaster.
“You still have the silver nitrate spray?” he asked.
I patted my pocket. “Armed and dangerous.”
“Then let’s go.”
“Go where?” I asked.
Ronnie sniffed. I glanced at her and then back at Walker.
“What’s going on?”
Walker