Unwanted (Elemental Assassin) (3 page)

Of course, the gold-nugget-size rings absolutely ruined the rest of his sleek, fashion-plate look. Wearing gaudy man jewelry with such a classic, tailored suit was a faux pas of epic proportions. Still, I frowned and studied the giant closely. Something about all those gold rings seemed familiar, like I’d heard of someone with that unfortunate style choice, but I couldn’t remember who.

Isabelle went over to the giant, who crossed his arms over his chest and stared down his nose at her. He murmured something that I couldn’t hear, and she bit her lip and shook her head. His eyes narrowed, and his lips puckered, indicating that he didn’t like her response. He stared at her for a few more seconds before jerking his thumb over his shoulder, telling her to get into the car.

Isabelle slowly shuffled past the man and climbed into the back of the SUV, disappearing from sight. The giant realized that I was watching them, and he stared at me, his pale blue gaze flicking over me from head to toe.

“Nice suit,” he called out. “Is that a Fiona Fine original?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “But it’s not as nice as yours.”

“You’re right. It’s not nearly as nice as mine.” He reached up and infinitesimally adjusted his dark gray silk tie, even though it was already perfectly in place. “Next time, do yourself a favor. Be a real man, and don’t cheap out on your threads.”

Cheap out
? My suit had set me back more than three grand. It hadn’t cost five large like his, but it also hadn’t come out of a trash bin. Anger spurted through me at his casual dismissal, but before I could open my mouth to snipe back at him, the giant waggled his fingers at me in a mocking good-bye, making his gold rings glimmer. Then he turned around, slid into the back of the SUV, and closed the door.

The vehicle moved away from the curb and eased into the flow of downtown traffic, leaving me fuming on the sidewalk. Not just at the giant but also at myself. I couldn’t do
anything
right these days, not even think of a witty comeback to put a pompous jackass in his place.

And the giant’s sneering attitude wasn’t the only thing that bothered me. I might not be a bona fide assassin like Gin, but Dad had trained me right along with her, and I’d lived in Ashland long enough to recognize trouble when I saw it. And that guy was trouble with a capital
T
.

I pulled my phone out of my pants pocket, angled it at the back of the SUV, and snapped a photo of the license plate. I’d find out exactly who that giant was and, more important, what he was doing with Isabelle.

The anger slowly leaked out of me, replaced by a growing sense of dread and melancholy, and there was nothing left for me to do but face the inevitable.

Sighing, I headed back into the bank to get ready for another innocent man’s funeral.

 3 

Mosley was still talking to the teller, although he glanced at me as I moved past him. I nodded at the dwarf, then did my best to ignore my coworkers’ hostile glowers. I went back downstairs to my office, shut the door, and changed into my black funeral suit, along with a dark gray shirt and a black tie.

I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. Dark brown hair, green eyes, handsome face, muscled body, not-so-cheap suit. I looked the same as always, and no scars remained from the brutal, prolonged beating that Rodrigo Santos had given me or the blue-white Ice burns that Deirdre had blasted all over my body.

Not on the outside, anyway.

The Ice burns might be gone, but just the thought of them made my eyes twitch, my palms sweat, and my stomach churn. I remembered where she had put each mark on my skin, how horribly they had all hurt, and, worst of all, how much my own mother had enjoyed torturing me. I shivered, dropped my gaze from the mirror, and left the bathroom.

There was one more thing I needed to do before I left for the funeral. I went over to my desk, sat down in my chair, grabbed my landline phone, and hit one of the speed-dial buttons. The call went through, and she answered on the second ring.

“Hello, gorgeous,” I drawled.

“Hello there, yourself, handsome.” Detective Bria Coolidge’s light, lilting voice sounded through the phone. “How are you? Gin told me you had another funeral this afternoon.”

“Yeah.”

Even though Peter Vargas and the other guards had died during the bank robbery a couple of weeks ago, the police had only recently released their bodies to their families. So all the funeral services and burials had taken place over the last few days, with Peter’s being the final one.

“Finn?” Bria asked. “Are you okay?”

I grimaced. Gin and Bria had been tag-teaming me for the last several days, with Gin coming over to the bank for lunch and Bria bringing me dinner at night, or vice versa. Even when they weren’t around, the two of them were still talking and texting about me, debating how I was handling everything, and plotting ways to cheer me up. I knew they meant well and that it was all part of their plan to Make Finn Feel Better About His Colossal Fuckup, but their care and concern only made me feel worse. Especially since I’d treated them both so badly when Deirdre had been around.

“I’m okay. Actually, I was wondering if you could do me a favor and run a license plate,” I said, changing the subject and pulling up my email on my cell phone. “I’m sending you the photo now.”

“Sure,” Bria said. “What’s up?”

“Oh, it’s probably nothing,” I lied. “Just a car I saw sitting outside the bank. But Mosley asked me to check it out, and I can’t let the big boss down again, now, can I?” I tried to make my tone teasing and lighthearted, but even I could hear the tension in my voice.

“Okay,” Bria said. “Give me just a second.”

Through the phone, I could hear her typing, along with the distant murmurs of other conversations in the police station.

“Got it,” she said a few seconds later. “That SUV is registered to Bartholomew Wilcox. I’ve seen that name before. Isn’t he some sort of bookie? Have you heard of him?”

Oh, I’d heard of him all right. Bart the Butcher. That had been his nickname back when he’d been a professional boxer, and it had stuck, even after his retirement from the ring. Now he was a powerful bookie who ran a massive gambling operation and would bet on anything and lend money to anyone—provided you paid him back with fifty-percent interest.

And if you didn’t pay up in a timely fashion, well, Bart liked getting his hands dirty. Instead of killing people, he had a reputation for being a sadist who enjoyed crippling folks—and then demanding seventy-five-percent interest as a “service fee” for needing to beat you down.

I should have known who he was the second I saw all those ugly gold rings flashing on his fingers. Not so much gaudy baubles as his own personalized set of brass knuckles. Bartholomew Wilcox was trouble, all right, the most dangerous kind.

But the real question was, what was Isabelle Vargas doing with a hard-core gangster like that?

“Finn?” Bria asked. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Just making a note. Now that you mention it, the name does sound familiar. I think he has some accounts here at the bank. So it’s nothing, just like I thought.”

“Yeah. Nothing.” Disbelief colored Bria’s voice, but she didn’t press me for answers. Instead, she changed the topic. “You want me to come over tonight? After you get back from the service?”

The last thing I wanted to do was go to another funeral, much less see anyone after it, but Bria was just trying to help, the same way Gin was with her boxes of barbecue.

“Sure,” I said. “That would be great. I’ll text you when I’m done for the day. It might be a while, though. Mosley will probably find something for me to do here at the bank afterward.”

“Okay. Talk to you later. I love you, Finn.”

The warm, earnest sincerity in her voice was another punch to my gut. Just like Gin, Bria had risked her life to break into the bank to save me, and she’d stood by me ever since, despite all the times I’d ignored her when Deirdre had been alive.

“I love you too,” I said in a hoarse voice. “I gotta go now.”

“I know, baby,” she whispered back. “I know.”

We both hung up. I sighed and slumped back in my chair, eyeing the dark, empty space under my desk. When I was a kid, I used to sneak into my dad’s office at home, curl up under his battered old wooden desk, and read my comic books for hours on end. I’d pretend it was my own fort, my secret hiding place, where no one could ever find me. Right now, I wanted to be that happy, carefree kid again, curl up under this desk, and pretend the last few weeks had never happened.

But I couldn’t do that. Like it or not, this was all my fault, and I was going to face every single sickening second of it, including Peter Vargas’s funeral.

I got to my feet, buttoned my black suit jacket, grabbed my long black trench coat from the rack in the corner, and left my office.

The bank was closing early for the service. The other workers were riding together in groups of twos and threes, but I was all alone as I got into my car, cranked the engine, and pulled out of a nearby parking garage.

I left the busy downtown streets behind and drove out to the more rural part of Ashland until I reached Blue Ridge Cemetery. I steered my car into the line of vehicles crawling into the cemetery, pulled off to the side of the access road, and parked on the grass, along with everyone else.

I got out of my car and followed the other mourners to the grave. Several rows of metal folding chairs had been arranged in front of a silver casket with a lovely spray of red and white roses draped over it. A picture of Peter Vargas was propped up next to the casket, and I stared at the face of the man I’d gotten killed. Black hair, brown eyes, friendly smile. Peter and the other guards hadn’t deserved to be murdered just because I’d been stupid enough to trust the wrong person. I should have been the one lying in that casket. I would have been, if not for Gin, Bria, and the rest of our friends. But here I was, still aboveground, while Peter was about to be lowered into it forever. An icy wave of guilt surged through my body, numbing me from the inside out.

In addition to being well liked at work, Peter had been well respected in the community, involved in all sorts of activities, including volunteering as a coach for several kids’ sports teams. More than two hundred people had shown up for his funeral, and the chairs in front of the casket quickly filled. Everyone spoke in soft, sad voices, saying what a shame it was that such a nice, decent, hardworking guy was gone before his time.

I wholeheartedly agreed with them, although I didn’t join in any of the conversations. No one wanted to talk to me. Besides, the bank workers were giving me more hostile stares than ever before, so I decided that the best thing to do was to stand off by myself to the right of the casket, out of everyone else’s way.

A murmur rippled through the crowd, and Isabelle Vargas appeared. She was still wearing the same black pantsuit and heels she’d had on at the bank, along with a long black coat. She’d freshened up her makeup, but her eyes were even redder than before, and I could tell that she’d been crying again.

A man who looked just like Peter walked beside Isabelle, escorting her to the center chair in the first row of mourners. He was Peter’s brother, and I thought back to my conversations with the guard, trying to remember his name. It came to me a few seconds later. Paul Vargas.

But the worst part was the other person walking beside Isabelle, a little boy about three years old. Leo, Peter’s son.

He too looked just like his father, with a messy mop of black hair and big brown eyes. Leo held his mother’s hand, his head swiveling back and forth as he stared at all the people gathered around the grave and the casket. A frown creased his tiny face, and it was obvious that he didn’t really understand what was going on and why everyone was so sad and quiet.

Isabelle sat down, scooped up Leo, and settled him on her lap, kissing his forehead, smoothing down his hair, and hugging him tightly, just like a loving mother should. Emotion clogged my throat, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. All I’d wanted was a chance to get to know my own mother, and all she’d given me in return had been pain, heartache, misery, and death.