Chapter 14
Dima
I’ve watched Kristie pace back and forth since we came home from Mama’s with Gabe in tow.
The man is a behemoth and yet he lets his tiny little sister bully him into coming home with us so she can keep an eye on him.
From what I can work out, Gabe is not only a gentle giant, but he’s sensitive to the pain of the dead.
Communing with Maddigan and only part of his soul seems to be taking a physical toll on him.
Kristie reaches the end of my living room, pauses, gazing out the window for a moment, before spinning and pacing back the other way.
I’m not complaining. Every time she has her back to me I get an eyeful of her perfect, round ass in her spray on black jeans.
Then when she turns, I get to watch her perfect tits jiggle my way.
The little crease between her brows is adorable too.
Everything about this woman does it for me, I’m absolutely gone for her.
She’s gone for me too, I can feel it. She brings me peace, and I know when I look into her big hazel eyes that she’s at peace too.
But she’ll never admit it. She’s stubborn like that.
“Argh!” she growls, stopping in the middle of the room, fists on hips.
“Can I help?”
She purses her lips to the side. “Maybe. I’m not sure. Can you do your vision thing at will?”
“Yes and no. If it’s something I’ve seen before, I can go back in, tease out new details. I can’t just conjure someone or something up unless the fates allow it.”
She nods absently. “Can you go back in, and maybe take a look around, see how many people are there other than you, me, Imposter Maddigan and whoever or whatever the hell the thing that looks like me is?”
I nod, relaxing back into the couch. Tipping my head back, I stare at the ceiling.
The couch dips next to me and I roll my head to find Kristie’s large almost luminous eyes on mine.
Her full lips tip up slightly, her eyes darting down to her lap.
Angling my head to follow her gaze, I see her open palm, face up, on her lap in invitation.
I place my much larger hand in hers, and smile as her tiny fingers lace through mine.
She leans her head back. “I’ll be here the whole time.”
I close my eyes for a beat, opening them to stare at the lush gardens and cast iron fencing surrounding the mansion property. The huge columns are once again at my back, and Fake Kristie runs past, her white nightgown blowing in the fading sunset.
“Dima,” a whisper hits me, pulling my attention to my right.
Kristie, my Kristie is there, black boots, jeans and jacket looking a stark contrast compared to the Kristie dressed in white.
“Behind you,” she whispers again, and I don’t even take the time to think about why or how I can hear her.
My visions never have sound, and yet, I can hear her.
Turning I come face to face with Maddigan.
No. Maddigan’s soul. The part of him that can weaponize the gift he’s been given.
I can’t see past the mask, but the person is small.
Their features move behind the soul mask, lips moving and yet I cannot hear them. Only Kristie.
The large ornate front door of the mansion opens, two men dressed in suits stepping out, guns raised at me. Or are they raised at White Kristie? I spin, eyes meeting White Kristie’s, blood blooming across her chest.
In my earlier recurring visions she would jerk and a silent scream would tear from her lips before I saw blood and fear. But here, she looks almost peaceful. Thankful.
A warm weight settles in my lap, the scent of my shampoo breaks through my thoughts as Kristie’s hair tickles my nose when she snuggles into me. My arms wrap around her, letting her ground me as my thoughts race.
“I saw,” she whispers, her breath tickling my neck where her face is nestled.
“What do you mean, you saw?”
“I dunno how all this kooky shit works. I was holding your hand, admiring your handsome as fuck face, then the next minute I was back in the garden of that damn mansion, watching you watch everyone else.”
“Did you call out to me?”
“Yeah. To get you to turn around.”
I’ve never once had a vision where I could hear voices. Although, I guess I also have never had a vision where the woman I love has them at the same time, from a different perspective, either.
“What did you see that was different from the last time?”
She takes a breath. “Well, those two goons that stepped out of the house. They weren’t there before. And I’m sure the last time that imposter of me was shot. This time she didn’t jerk.”
She’s right. I noticed that too.
“Other Me also didn’t look scared.”
“No,” I agree. “She looked almost peaceful.”
“Yeah,” Kristie whispers.
She snuggles deeper and I hold her tighter, almost impossibly so. I know we’ve only known each other a few days, but our souls have known each other a lot longer.
“I think we can change how this whole thing goes down,” she says, after a beat.
“How so?”
“I know those two goons. They just happen to be the last two on my list.”
Placing my hands on her shoulders I push her back so I can see her face. “Seriously?”
“Yup,” she pops the P. “Wanna help me get rid of them and then we’ll come share a shower and an orgasm?”
I grin, moving to stand with her in my arms, dropping my mouth to hers and greedily taking everything she will give me.
“Can you maybe not do that in a common area?”
Kristie tears her lips from mine with a growl. “Gabe, stop cock blocking me!”
“You don’t have a cock to block,” he says, leaning against the doorway, although I’m sure it’s more for support rather than nonchalance. The man looks rough.
“OK. Stop clam jamming me,” Kristie says haughtily, unwrapping her legs from my waist.
“Better.”
“We’re off to get rid of some bad guys. We’ll be back and I’ll hang a sock on the door. Might wanna put your headphones on if you wanna remain oblivious to my talents.” She winks at Gabe who screws up his face in disgust.
“Kill me now.”
We watch him as he painfully shuffles past us into the kitchen.
“We need to finish this, Dima,” Kristie murmurs, her earlier sass gone.
“We will, Ved’ma moya.”
She nods up at me. “We will. And you won’t die either. Got me? I want to keep you.”
I lean down, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You have me in this life and the next.”
“How about you just try and stay alive in this one and we’ll go from there?”
Kristie
“You know how I said I knew those two goons?” I ask Dima, eyeing the street address I’ve given him on Google Maps.
“Yeah.” He glances at me, eyes darting back to the road.
“Turns out their office is here,” I turn my phone around so he can see the street view of the address I typed in.
His eyes flick between my phone screen and my face, as if he thinks I’d be shitting him about this. “You’re sure?”
“Look, I know that we haven’t been working together for long, but trust me.
I know where everyone within the Mancini Mafia is located.
Home addresses, work addresses. Mistresses’ addresses.
I know everything about them. It’s why La Madrina keeps me on retainer.
When most of the threats come from inside the family, I have to be on call to neutralize them.
So trust me, I know this is the right address. ”
He blows out a breath. “I just thought we had more time up our sleeves.”
“For what?” I frown.
“I don’t know. My visions, they came to me every night for weeks. On a rolling loop. I knew you were mine without ever laying eyes on you. It was my mission to save your life. All clues led me to believe you were going to be taken from me on Halloween night. That’s tomorrow.”
“Well, I’m not coming back tomorrow to finish this.
I have plans for us. Besides, did the vision tell you it was Halloween night, or did you just presume?
Because I start my decorating as soon as the first leaf falls.
So really, in actual fact, fake me could have been killed anywhere from September through until now. ” I shrug.
“Sometimes it disturbs me how relaxed you are about fake you dying,” he says quietly.
“I know, babe. But remember, thanks to my little special curse, you’ll probably die first.”
He gives me a sour look, making me snort. “So, we’re going in?”
“Fuck yeah.”
He maneuvers the car through the busy New Orleans streets, the Halloween revelry already beginning to build.
It’s Devil’s Night, which means there are already people walking the streets in full costume.
Bands are playing, in the older parts of the city ghost walks and tours lead people through all the decorated streets.
Halloween builds in this city steadily until it reaches fever pitch.
Typical that instead of being able to lean into the revelry I’m out here hunting down the other half of my foster brother’s cursed soul.
Ugh, why can’t I have anything nice? I side eye the man beside me.
OK, well maybe I’ve managed to have one nice thing.
“Oh look! It’s a Mike Wazowski!” I gasp.
Dima throws me a lopsided grin and I reach out, laying my hand over his on the gear stick.
I don’t know why but I have a need in my soul to feel his warmth.
There is unease clawing at my insides, making my skin feel itchy.
I get this feeling now and then, but never before I’ve lost someone, so I’m not fearing for Dima.
Yet. No, this feeling is something new, a whisper that whatever we do today is going to set off a chain of events that there may be no coming back from.
Dima’s fingers tangle with mine as best they can, his thumb gently running against my pinky in a soothing rhythm.
I gaze out the window, watching the houses whizz past, the Halloween displays of reapers and witches in front yards, there to not only thrill the children, but to keep up with the neighbors.
A slight fizzing starts at my toes, running up and down my limbs, the familiar excitement taking hold as we get closer to our destination.
There is an energy that pulses through me when I know I’m about to take a life.
Never an innocent, that’s not what I do.
Only the cruel and evil are taken by my hand.
All my Mafia hits have been men who deserved it.
Abusers, thieves, people who want to hurt others purely for their own gain.
I get the irony, that I work for La Madrina, and aren’t we doing the exact same as the men I’m hired to take care of?
Yes. And I will atone for my sins when the time comes.
Until then, I’m La Madrina’s shield. The person who stands between her and death.
The only person who can. And the only person who will be able to stand between the sliver of Maddigan’s soul that has brought ruin and pain to the innocent. Today this ends.
“We’re here, Ved’ma Moya,” Dima murmurs, slowing the car to a halt.
He turns in his seat to face me, his eyes taking in my features as if it’ll be the last time they ever do.
“You good?”
“Da,” His thick finger traces my features, my brow, down the slope of my nose, my lips before he leans in and sips from them in barely a hint of a kiss. He pulls back, eyes searching mine. “Let’s go free your brother’s soul.”