Chapter 43
Forty-Three
Elodie
I’m not surprised that Salvatore makes it to the spot first. He ducks beneath the low-hanging branches of a pine into the discreet clearing I found, his gaze roving over my body. “Is something wrong, a chroí? Why the secret meeting?”
My hand reaches toward him automatically. I start to catch myself and tamp down on the instinctive fear.
I’m allowed to want him. I’m allowed to turn to him.
Which he confirms with the slide of his fingers around mine and the wrapping of his other arm right around me.
“I’m not in immediate peril,” I say, just to reassure him. “Let’s wait until everyone’s here.”
In lieu of a more complete answer, Salvatore settles for tucking me against his massive frame and kissing the back of my head. His fierce warmth envelops me in a way the sun beaming down from above couldn’t quite manage.
How could I imagine I belong anywhere else?
It’s only a few minutes later that the crunch of two sets of footsteps breaks through the warble of the river beyond the trees and the peals of birdsong.
Cole and Asher emerge through the brush together. The professor’s eyes darken as he takes in my pose with Salvatore, but with a heat that brings me back to our brief kiss in the hotel bedroom.
“We’re waiting for Worth,” Salvatore informs them before I have to.
I tap him lightly with my elbow. “Sometime you’ll have to start referring to each other by first names.”
The mafia heir hums nonchalantly. “We’re not exchanging friendship bracelets yet.”
“Let me know when you are, because I’d like to see what you come up with.”
As Salvatore chuckles, the final member of our union steps between the trees.
Byron walks right over to me and takes my hand with a narrow glance toward Salvatore as if daring him to object. “What’s going on, Elodie?”
I drag in a breath, and my eyes well up without warning. Cole’s stance stiffens even as he takes a jerky step toward me.
Asher brushes past him, stopping just shy of touching me. “What happened?”
A snarl comes into Salvatore’s voice. “If one of those scalders took another stab at you—”
“No. Not exactly.” I grip Byron’s hand and swipe at my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize for getting emotional,” Cole says, quiet and even. “You’re dealing with a lot.”
The reassurance from him of all people sends a skip through my pulse—and solidifies my resolve.
All of my matches made a point of how much they’re with me, and here they are. I just have to keep letting them in.
I gather my nerve. “Ms. Lupul—whatever you used to turn suspicion on her mustn’t have totally worked. When I got home today, she was in the backyard talking with my dad.”
As I relate the entire conversation I overheard and the conclusions I’ve drawn from it, Salvatore’s embrace firms around me.
As soon as I’m finished, he presses another kiss to my hair.
“We’re not letting her or the rest of the assholes she works with get one finger on you, mia amata.
Screw their stupid training exercise. We can skip it. ”
I square my shoulders. “No, I don’t think we can.”
Byron lets out a scoffing sound. “We all can. The supplementary seminars aren’t mandatory. You’d have every reason to—”
I stop him with another squeeze of his fingers. “I have every reason to go. We have to expose this group for what they’re doing, as soon as possible. The longer they keep at it, the more people might get hurt.”
Including the men around me. Including the dad I only just got back from the dead.
“The longer we keep investigating, the more chance there is that they’ll realize we’re on to them and hit back even harder,” I continue.
“We can’t prove anything yet, but it’s obvious they’re going to lash out at me again tomorrow night.
All we have to do is make sure they’re caught in the act, and this mess will be over. ”
Please, let that be true.
A disapproving rumble emanates from Salvatore’s chest, but Asher speaks before the mafia heir can. “Tell us what you’re thinking, Lo. You’ve obviously mulled this over. The least we can do is listen.”
“Thank you.” I lift my other hand to rub Salvatore’s arm as if that’ll make him feel better when he hears my plan.
“I already managed to catch one of the killers. I just didn’t have enough witnesses.
I’ll be out there in the middle of the training, looking unaware and vulnerable, but when they attack, I’ll be ready, just like I was with Kenneth.
And this time I’ll have all of you ready to jump in too. ”
I aim a smile at the three men in my view, but they all look too worried to return it. Then Salvatore turns me to face him, gripping my elbows and peering down into my face.
“You almost died when it was just Kenneth—even with me tackling him too. We don’t know what they’re going to have set up for tomorrow’s session.
Is Captain Ross part of this group of shitheads too?
There’s all that fancy tech and who knows what else…
and what if no one believes us even if we say he and Jovak attacked you? ”
A trace of strain creeps into his voice with that last question.
“It won’t just be you. As soon as they make a move, we’ll get the police there.” I turn away from Salvatore toward Cole. “You won’t be part of the training exercise, so you can be watching the park from nearby. We’ll figure out a signal so you know when to make the emergency call.”
My gaze slides from him to the others. “And we’ve got plenty of magic. There’ll be a bunch of other lucents around—students, the nurses. We can light up the scene, make sure people witness what’s happening. But that’s not the most important part.”
“What’s that, according to you?” Cole asks.
“It can’t be just Jovak—and Ross, if he’s in on the scheme too—that we take down. We need to get to the heart of the group. That means the people calling the shots.”
I wet my lips. “When Asher and I listened in on Jovak’s conversation with Gwyn, she warned him that she’d intervene if she had to.
They must be pretty nervous after finding a corpse at Groove Garden, not knowing who found their records.
She’ll be watching in case she needs to step in and finish the job.
So we have to make it look like Jovak just screwed up, like there’s still a chance she could take me out, and expose her trying to kill me. ”
“And then hope she exposes the rest of the inner circle,” Byron fills in stiffly.
I force a grin even though my heart is pounding painfully hard. “That’s the idea!”
Salvatore is shaking his head. “No. No way, Elodie. It’s taking too many chances, sticking your neck too far out—they’d have to kill me to get to you, but one dimwit nearly managed to do that already.”
Cole rubs his hand over his face. “For once, I agree with Mr. Cosgrave. There are risky gambles, and then there’s near suicide. There has to be another way to take down this group.”
Byron folds his arms over his chest and aims a pointed look at Cole. “Haven’t you been able to dig up anything more on Jovak? The academy hired Captain Ross too. Don’t you have access to their records?”
Cole glares back at him. “There hasn’t been much to look at. Do you really think they’d sign a contract mentioning that they’re planning on murdering one of the students?”
Salvatore frowns at the professor too. “And weren’t you supposed to be tracking that Gwyn woman down? Can’t we get at her that way?”
Cole’s expression turns even grimmer. “I tried, the one place we know she has a regular appointment. The tracing spell I attached to her car vanished the moment the valet drove it into the garage. She must have left more discreetly than she arrived, because I couldn’t pick up her trail again. I can try again this week—”
I shake my head. “Even if she doesn’t slip by you again, we don’t know that you’d be able to follow her anywhere incriminating. They’re so careful. The only place we’re sure they’re going to be showing their true colors is at High Park tomorrow night.”
“There’s got to be another way,” Salvatore says. “I’ve got my connections. They should be able to dig up almost anything if they put their minds to it.”
Before the murderers notice what’s up and link it back to the man I’ve been accused of hooking up with? Before they slaughter him for the trouble?
My throat tightens. “We don’t have time for any of this. It won’t be that hard. You’re all forgetting—”
Salvatore’s eyes flash with a light that looks almost panicked. “No. I’m not letting you step into the line of fire again.”
“But it won’t—”
His stormy expression makes my voice falter, but not my resolve. Maybe he needs more than words.
I dig into my satchel for the paring knife I’ve been carrying there since the weather turned too warm for blazers. My fingers close around the wooden handle.
I pull it out, tug up my shirt sleeve, and rest the blade against my wrist.
The voices around me fall silent. Four pairs of eyes stare in horror at the blade and then my face.
Asher’s brow has knit with confusion. “Elodie… what are you doing?”
Salvatore’s hands flex as if he’s judging whether he could yank the knife away from me before I dig it into my flesh. “Don’t hurt yourself, a shíorghrá. Please.”
I nearly choke on the words before I can force them out. “I can’t. Remember?”
I press the blade in—just a nick of the tip. A line of blood only half an inch long beads against my light brown skin…
And streaks away with a swell of tingling warmth around my wrist. Salvatore grunts and gapes at his own wrist, where a matching scratch has formed while mine healed.
Even though I know it won’t do more than sting, guilt pinches my gut.
“I’m sorry. But you’re all being ridiculous.
Jovak and Ross and even Gwyn—as far as we know, they can’t kill me.
Not by any normal means that they’d assume would work.
Short of, I don’t know, cutting my head right off like I’m a void, I’m not sure anything would do it. ”
The image pops into my mind of my body chopped into scattered pieces and my matches racing around the world like Isis gathering Osiris to put me back together. The morbid humor brings a slightly hysterical giggle to the base of my throat.
Would my glim heal me even then?
Byron rallies his voice first. “That doesn’t mean you’re not in danger.”
I swallow hard. “I know. It means that what I’m most in danger of isn’t losing my life; it’s losing all of you. My glim means I have to be the bait. This is the perfect time to go fishing. Every day they can keep scheming is another day they could realize you’re a threat too. Can’t you see that?”
Silence settles over the glade. It’s Asher who breaks it with his soft, steady voice.
“I think Elodie has a point—and since she’s the one these people are trying to take out, we should let her decide what kinds of risks she wants to take to stop them.”
Cole sighs and rakes his hand through his hair. “There’s still so much we’d need to work out. How we’re going to trip Jovak up without scaring his handler off completely. How to make sure the police get there in time. Every piece needs to coordinate perfectly.”
I look down at my arm, at the dribble of blood drying on my healed skin. The tiny flare of energy from my glim has ricocheted through my thoughts with a growing thrum of inspiration.
“I think I might know exactly what can solve all our problems at once. What Jovak seemed most concerned about.”
“You must be looking forward to getting your glim soon. With your family history, I’m sure it’ll be an impressive one.”
Salvatore cocks his head, still scowling but no longer bristling. “What’s that? Just tell us what you need, Elodie. If it has to be this way… we’ll make it work.”
My other matches nod, their determined gazes echoing his commitment. A flutter passes through my heart, affection and fear in a heady mix I’m not sure I’ll ever untangle.
They’re here with me. Here for me.
And soon, if my plan goes the way I’m imagining now, I’ll be here for them too, as much as they deserve.
I hold up my gloved hand, the one that bears my bond mark. “We’re going to ‘spark’ our match.”