Chapter 23 Cassie
Cassie
“We haven’t heard from Marilee and Angie in over an hour, that’s weird. They said they’d check in after thirty minutes. I’m going to call them.”
The words were barely out of my mouth when I heard simultaneous crashes from throughout the house.
“We’re under attack!” I yelled.
Alexei and I stood back to back, blocking Eleanor between us.
“Give us the girls,” a huge guy in tactical gear yelled.
When I sniffed I realized he and his companion were human. We could work with that.
“What girls?” I asked, feigning ignorance. “Are you here for me?”
“Ruby Wozniak and Eleanor Parkhurst,” the man boomed. “Turn them over and the rest of you won’t be hurt.”
“Let me at them,” Eleanor hissed, trying to push past us. We didn’t budge. She might be a shifter, but she wasn’t much of a fighter.
“What do you think, Alexei?” I said in a deceptively casual voice as I let my fangs descend and my nails lengthen. “Should we give them the girls?”
I hissed at the men, making myself appear bigger.
“Vampire!” The man sounded panicked. He frantically dug into a pocket, coming up with a small wooden cross. With a shaking hand, he brandished it in front of him.
“Seriously?” I asked. “You’ve been watching too many movies.”
I moved fast, diving for his legs and crashing into his knees.
I knocked the man over and to my disappointment he barely fought back.
Pussy. I made quick work of snapping his neck, and by the time I jumped to my feet a half-shifted Alexei had disemboweled the other guy, who wasn’t enough of a challenge for him to even shift into bear form.
“Nice work.”
“You too.” Alexei gave me a big smile. He loved killing bad guys.
“If you two are done congratulating yourselves, we have to find Ruby,” Eleanor reminded us. “She and her parents are helpless.”
The three of us raced across the house, following the sound of fighting. Alexei moved ahead of me, using his bear bulk to knock down the door. Eleanor and I followed right behind him, then we all skidded to a halt as we observed the sight in front of us.
Stanislaus Wozniak was holding a gun on one guy, his arm steady despite a bloody bullet wound on his non-dominant shoulder.
April was hitting a guy repeatedly on the head and shoulders with a long necked metal vase that she was brandishing like a sword while my mate – my brave, fierce mate – clung to the guy’s back, her arms locked around his beefy neck like she was trying to choke him out.
“Enough!”
The guy being attacked by the Wozniak women gave Mrs. Wozniak a shove, sending her flying into her husband.
A shot rang out as they fell to the floor, but fortunately it hit the ceiling, sending a shower of plaster over them.
The goon tried to dislodge Ruby and when he couldn’t, he bent at the waist to try to flip her over his head.
I was in front of him in an instant, catching her as she flew off him.
Alexei went into full-on bear mode, shifting and killing the guy closest to the Wozniaks, but before I could get to the other guy I saw a flash of gray fur.
Eleanor’s wolf knocked him down, snarling as she bravely tried to hold him in place.
He bucked her off, sending her flying much like he’d done with Ruby, and I flew forward to take over, sinking my teeth in his neck and ending his life.
I also got a few mouthfuls of fresh human blood, which was nice.
I didn’t get that very often. It was okay for us to take a few sips if we were killing in self-defense.
Human blood was much tastier than the synthetic or animal blood we usually drank.
Not that I planned to share that tidbit with the people in this room.
“Is everyone okay?” I asked, resisting the urge to slurp up a little more blood and instead moving to my feet.
“Your mouth,” Ruby whispered shakily.
I wiped my lips with the back of my hand, and my fingers came back bloody.
“Oops.”
She looked a little pasty, but she didn’t pass out, so that was progress. After wiping my mouth on my shirt, I held out my arms and despite the fact that the entire front of my body was covered in blood she came right away, throwing herself into my arms.
“I can’t believe you killed that guy,” she said softly.
“I’d kill anyone to keep you and your family safe.”
I heard someone clearing their throat and when I looked over Ruby’s shoulder, her parents were watching us closely, April sporting a sweet little smile.
“You have proven yourself worthy of our daughter and you have our blessing,” Stanislaus said. “But you will have a proper wedding. I won’t have my wife disappointed.”
“Yes sir,” I said.
I felt the strangest sensation, a warmth in my chest that I’d never felt before. It was happiness, I realized. Being accepted by Ruby’s parents meant more than I thought it would. Now we just needed to end this vendetta with the Romanian mob.
For the second time today, it was like I’d manifested something.
There was another crash, and suddenly three guys were perp-walked into the office, Lois, Marilee, Wanda, and Bella behind them.
All three men had their hands zip tied behind their backs, and judging by their appearance, they’d put up a fight before my teammates took them down.
I looked them over. One was an older man, bulky and mean looking, with an unmistakable air of authority.
The other two were younger wolf shifters.
“Status report,” Lois barked.
Every person in the room stiffened at the command in her voice, including all the shifters.
“Two humans in the kitchen, dead. Two humans in here, dead,” I said plainly. “Mr. Wozniak needs medical attention for a GSV to the left shoulder. Everyone else is okay.”
“The bullet went right through,” Ruby’s father said. “I’ll be fine.”
“We still need to get you checked out, Dad,” Ruby said firmly.
We heard the wail of sirens approaching the house.
“Looks like the feds are finally here,” Lois said. “Took them assholes long enough. I called them half an hour ago when we saw these guys approaching the property like a damned invading army.”
Even though Sapphic Security worked closely with – and sometimes did contract assignments for – the federal crime agencies, Lois hated them with a passion. There was probably a story there, but none of us had the guts to ask.
“What do we have here?” an officious guy in a cheap suit he’d probably bought on sale at the mall asked like he thought he was in charge.
Lois looked at him like he was some dog shit she’d stepped on in the street.
“Christ on a cracker Murphy, we already briefed you on this investigation. Use your head for something more than a damned hat rack and search your memory. These are the Romanian mobsters we told you about.”
Murphy glared. Lois glared back, and within seconds he lowered his eyes, making Lois chuckle.
“Search them,” Murphy instructed.
Putting on latex gloves, the other two federal agents carefully searched the three guys who the team had restrained, bringing out IDs and confiscating weapons.
“Old guy is Viktor Radu,” one of the agents reported. “We’ve been lookin’ for you, Mr. Radu.”
Ruby marched over to him, poking him in the chest with her finger before slamming her hands on her hips.
“What is wrong with you?” she asked. “I’m sorry your daughter killed herself.
She was a sweet girl and a great player, but clearly she had some mental health issues that needed to be addressed.
You can’t blame the damned winning team for her deciding she couldn’t go on anymore.
Someone with those kinds of issues was going to hurt herself sooner or later regardless of the outcome of one game. ”
Radu just glared at her, hate in his eyes.
“Well, you’ll have plenty of time in a nice, cushy American prison to think about what you did,” Murphy told him.
Lois rolled her eyes. “The damned politicians will trade him back to Romania for some leverage with the Russians, we all know that.”
She stalked closer, giving the mob boss one of her patented glares.
“You bother any of these players again, I will unleash hell on you and your people,” she said in a voice that was deadly calm.
“I know all about your secret bunker outside of Sibiu. I also know that your wife is the source of most of your money, and she’ll cut your hairy old balls off if she finds out about Tereza, your girlfriend in Oradea. Do. Not. Test. Me.”
Radu paled, blinking rapidly. Lois really had him spooked, and I loved it. I wasn’t sure how a middle aged dyke wolf managed to intimidate literally everyone she came in contact with. It was a skill I wish I had.
“Do you understand me?” she enunciated slowly.
“Yes.”
“Good.” She gestured dismissively to Murphy. “Get these assholes out of my clients’ house. We’ll deal with the bodies.”
We all watched as the feds left, then Lois turned her attention to me.
“So it’s official?” She nodded at Ruby.
Nothing got past Lois.
“Last night,” I confirmed.
Lois sighed. “Damned vampires, you people have no sense of decorum, falling in love on the job like you’re freaking speed dating. You’re not gonna quit on me too, are you? I’ve invested a lot in your training.”
“No ma’am,” I answered quickly. “I love my job.”
“Okay then.” She turned her attention to Ruby’s parents.
“We’ll have cleaners in here within the hour to take care of the bodies and the blood.
They can also board up the windows for you until you can get someone out here to fix them.
We also have a medic en route who can stitch up that wound if you’d like to avoid a trip to the hospital.
In the meantime, please don’t touch anything.
They’ll need to document the crime scene. ”
Lois turned back to me. “Meeting at the office in thirty minutes, and I want a full written report on my desk by the end of the day.”
“Understood.”
My boss turned to Ruby and did something with her lips that I was pretty sure was supposed to be a smile. It was terrifying.
“Welcome to the Sapphic Security family, Ruby.”