Chapter 45
Electra
Ikick the cunning asshole’s camper, wishing it were his ribs. “You think he knew I found out who he really was?”
Calanthe scoots her lips to the side. “I mean, why else would he abandon his phone?”
I crush the buttons on either side of it, trying to turn it on, but the damn thing is out of battery. “How could he have known?”
“Babe, the guy’s a Hunter.” The gleam of pity in Calanthe’s stare riles me up even harder. “I bet they have an org chart of who’s who on the hunting-the-Hunters task force.”
I curl my trembling fingers around the traitor’s phone, wanting to destroy everything he owns.
Calanthe wheedles the device out of my fingers. “Why don’t you go check the camper for clues again?”
I’ve already ransacked the fucking camper, and save for that cookbook with the dedication I ripped out and folded into angry squares so it’d fit inside the pocket of my leather jacket, there was nothing hinting at Reeve’s real identity.
My throat clenches tightly as the loopy pink scrawl scores my skull.
Dear Reevey…
Love, Quinn.
Worse than being used is being fooled.
Oh, how the asshole fooled me. Pretended he felt something for me when his heart belonged to another woman. Even wore their initials on his fucking shoe for the world to see.
Tears burn my lids, but I still don’t let them fall. He doesn’t deserve my sorrow; only my rage.
“Remind me why I can’t torch it?”
“Because I want to tow it and pick it apart first.” Calanthe pats my hand. “But then I promise we’ll make a big bonfire out of it.”
While I try to find joy in the idea of watching something of his go up in smoke, a cell phone rings. At first, I think it’s Reeve’s, but the case pressed to Calanthe’s ear is white and reads Mrs. Hades in gold—one of my intentionally misspelled gifts to celebrate her engagement to Tarian.
“Only the camper,” she says. “And his phone… Oh, and a tactical jacket full of blood.”
I hope it’s Reeve’s. I picture the two-timing prick bleeding and feel zero pity.
“We don’t know his blood type. Uh-huh. Yeah.” She mouths Tarian’s name, then murmurs, “Dorian’s on his way back. He should land in about three hours.”
When I called my brother, while still airborne, and told him everything, he was deathly quiet. I wished he’d yelled at me, said I told you so, even though the only person who’d told me so was Malachi.
“Street cams!” I say. “We need access to street cams. Ask Tarian for a contact in the police.”
I expect Calanthe’s expression to spark, but she’s too invested in whatever her fiancé is saying to register my brilliant idea.
When her already large eyes bulge like a human under compulsion, my heart begins to bang triple time. “What? What is he saying?”
As I wait to hear what Tarian found out, I think of all those times I compelled Cillian and thought it worked, but there’s no way it could. Holy Hunters use our blood to stay immune to us.
I turn away from the camper in which I lost my virginity, my chest aching too hard to keep looking at it.
“Share the tracking info? Gael has two cars.” Calanthe blinks hard, but then she growls, “What do you mean, no? Just because I’m pregnant, it doesn’t mean I’m useless.” Her lips thin. “You’re being ridiculous, Tarian.”
There’s nothing my best friend loves more than true crime. During the short flight home, Calanthe had dissected every beat of my time with Reeve and went through all the data on Alexander’s tablet, managing to locate the traitor visiting the deli just last week.
Although Reeve had worn a wig and sunglasses, the two-timing idiot hadn’t swapped out his shoes. Not that it mattered. We would’ve recognized him regardless, since Alexander’s program tracks physique and body language, and we had plenty of footage of him at the gala.
While I seethed and sat with my fury—the one fueled by Rafferty blowing my cover by rushing inside the deli—Calanthe went through more footage, most of it dating six years back. There was nothing between then and now.
Gael believed Reeve had gone into hiding for fear of being next on his kill list. Alexander believed the Hunter had left to train with another enemy faction to better infiltrate us when the time was right to avenge his parents’ death.
After all, he’d picked me—the biological daughter of the man who’d killed both his parents. There was no way it was a coincidence.
I told Calanthe my theory about Ines sharing my lineage with the Holy Hunters the day I’d let them abduct her from Bloom’s Blooms. I hadn’t told Gael. I’m not sure why… It was certainly not to protect his ex-wife. For all I cared, Ines could rot in the same hell I was about to ship Reeve to.
“Ugh,” Calanthe grumbles, sticking her phone inside the back pocket of her stretchy jeans.
“What?”
“Tarian’s forbidding me from going with you.” Her cheek dimples as she bites it in frustration. “Mal’s on his way to pick you up. He doesn’t want you riding with Gael.”
Shame gnaws at my skin. “I don’t want to go with Mal.”
If I could help it, I wouldn’t see Malachi for months. I wouldn’t see anyone. I didn’t even want to face Dorian and my parents. “Did Tarian give you a contact in law enforcement?”
“We don’t need one.”
My chest starts to tingle. “Why?”
Calanthe’s lips scoot into a smile. “Because Mal put a tracker on Rafferty’s car.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Nope.”
Though I don’t magically cheer up like Calanthe, the tongues of rage-fueled fire burning within me stop snapping. “Where is he?”
“On his way.”
“I meant Rafferty. Not Mal.”
“Oh. Tarian won’t tell me. He’s too worried I’ll go Bonnie and Clyde with you.”
As we head to the parking entrance, I visualize all the ways my reunion with Reeve will go. In almost every scenario, I wreck him like he wrecked me.
I wait to feel the thrill of vengeance, but it doesn’t come. Surely it will.
Surely once we’re face to face, I’ll take immense pleasure in undoing him like he must’ve taken such pleasure in undoing me.