Chapter 21
Bohnes
My eyes crack to the perfect darkness of my bedroom.
I’m as alone as I always am when I wake in the morning. Assuming…that it is morning. I have no idea how long I slept for. My bedroom has no windows for a reason. Windows are weak points. I don’t need weak points in the place I sleep.
This is not a normal morning, you fucking fool. I sit up suddenly, disoriented as I realize that I’m the only one left in the bed. I fling the covers off, heart pounding, fear ricocheting through me. How could I have dozed off like that? I haven’t slept that long in years.
I storm over to the bedroom door and throw it open, panting.
What greets me is a scene of serene domesticity that makes my head spin.
Ash Kelly, the mayor’s brat, is standing at my stove—cooking. The bastard is cooking breakfast (presumably) with my pan. My spatula. My food.
“Morning, Nightmare.” Scar flicks her tongue seductively and winks at me.
“Nice bedroom hair, baby.” She leans back in the throne chair, reclining like a queen in the same clothes I gave her last night.
I dig my phone from my pocket. I don’t sleep without it attached to me, so that’s not unusual.
What is unusual is that someone—Scarlett, I’m sure—turned off all of my alarms.
I glance at my notifications to make certain an apocalypse hasn’t come on while I dozed like the dead.
I look up, catching Widow at my dining table. He’s sipping a cup of coffee and staring at me in the most bland, neutral way. That’s an improvement between us. No animosity, just mild curiosity.
Alexei is perched on the edge of another chair, holding an empty mug in his gloved hands. He must’ve found a box of my favorite black latex ones. Perfect for dealing with blood and bodies. Biodegradable, too, so they’ll break down in the rare case that I can’t burn them.
It smells like bleach in here, so I imagine our mob brat was cleaning.
“It’s nearly noon,” I say, realizing that I slept for twelve hours straight.
Twelve. Straight through the night and half of the school day.
It’s Monday, so all of us save Ash are due back at that dump they have the audacity to call a high school.
Not that it matters. I could give a fuck if I graduate.
I only go because Scarlett goes. We could never go back there again for all I give a shit.
Although we should wait for the mob to ‘find’ Alexei there before we drop out entirely.
“Yes, it is,” Scarlett purrs, crossing her legs and kicking her slippered foot as she holds my favorite mug between her beautiful hands and smiles at me. “But we’re playing hooky, remember? We talked about it last night.”
I stalk forward and grab the edge of a chair, eyes flicking to Ash when he turns toward me with the spatula held in his hand.
“Can I get you some coffee?” he asks as Alexei runs a gloved fingertip around the rim of the mug, making the white porcelain squeak.
“Are you insulting me by implying my home and my things aren’t clean?
” I hiss, a bit stressed-out. My white hair is wild around my face, and I’m sure I look dastardly with my teeth bared and my hands white-knuckled on the chair back.
“I clean my kitchen like I clean my murder weapons: zero evidence of a crime.”
“How am I to know that?” Alexei queries, looking up at me without an ounce of bother on his face. He’s not afraid of me either. “Unless I check first.” He continues on with his inspection of the mug while I spiral.
I slept for twelve hours. I haven’t slept that long in…living memory. And here we are, embroiled in a high-stakes situation with the mob and the mayor, and I allowed myself to succumb to oblivion for half a day?
“Hey.” Scarlett’s cheeky smile slides off her face and she leans forward, giving me a pointed look.
“I made the executive decision that you were going to sleep as long as you needed to sleep. What good are you going to be in a fight if you’re exhausted to the brink of collapse? Sit down and let Ash make your coffee.”
“I promise you, my little headstone,” I grind out, still clutching onto the chair as Widow hides a smirk in his next sip of coffee. “That I am always of use in a fight. Exhausted or not. Half-dead or not. Dead, even. Undead.”
“Well, you’ll be of even more use with some sleep under your belt.
” Scarlett is frowning now. She slams her mug on the table, sloshing coffee.
She then slides her dead sister’s lighter from her pocket and, with an adorable dose of defiance, drags the big dick candle she gave me across the table.
Lights it. Pushes it into the center. “Sit.”
It kills me to obey, but I do it. I sit. I stare at Widow, fantasizing about his death to keep myself calm. He runs his tongue against the inside of his cheek. Yawns. Takes another sip of coffee.
“He wants coffee, Ash,” Scarlett says as the smell of the food wafts my way. I truly wish it smelled like shit, but it doesn’t. It smells oddly good. What on earth is this idiot making? I wonder as Alexei holds up his mug.
“I suppose this will do.” Alexei stands up, pouring his own coffee.
I notice that he takes a minute to inspect the pot first. Runs his finger across the glass.
Lifts the lid to peer at the grounds. Examines the sides of the machine.
He steps aside briefly so that Ash can pour me a mug, bringing it over to the table and setting it in front of me.
“Thank you.” The words grind out painfully between my teeth as I pick up the mug and throw back a mouthful of hot, black coffee. It burns my tongue, but I don’t care. I’m coming down from the verge of a panic attack. I like to be in control at all times. This does not feel like I’m in control.
Ash smiles at me. I see that he has his sword leaned up against the countertop near the oven.
“You’re welcome.” He returns to the stove, removing what looks like an omelette from the pan and putting it on a plate over the top of something else. Rice? What the fuck is happening in my house right now? Ash is not only cooking, but he’s wearing my clothes.
“I picked out clothes for them,” Scarlett says, offering up the information after reading my mind. Intuitive as always, the love of my life. I creak my neck over to stare at her. She grins at the expression on my face, and I slit my eyes at her.
“You find this amusing, do you?” I purr, putting my elbow on the table and leaning in toward her. Desperately trying to keep my cool. Twelve hours. I slept for twelve hours. I still can’t believe it.
“Very much so.” Scarlett leans in, holding her coffee in one hand and tickling my chin with the fingers of the other.
I bite onto her fingers and she tucks her lower lip under her teeth.
We stare at each other as I suck on them, dragging them deeper into my mouth.
“You perv. Drink your coffee and let’s work out what we need to do today.
Obviously, we’re going to deal with Ernest Bolin. ”
I swirl my tongue around her fingers and then push her hand away, sighing as I pick up my mug and take a sip.
Alexei resumes his seat at the table, straight-backed and imperious.
I can’t wait to legally own half of everything he does.
That’ll make this intrusion worth it, when I’m sitting in his house and drinking his coffee and…
well, I’d never wear any of his hideous clothes.
That’s a given. Driving his cars. I grin at the thought, taking another drink of coffee and letting the caffeine soothe my stress headache.
“Deal is a fascinating word choice.” Alexei is staring at Scarlett, but his gaze is going right through her.
He’s a vampire, ready to sink his teeth into the neck of the police chief.
I wonder if he’ll taunt the man with the cold, callous death of his son, Bryson?
I hope so. “Yes, we’ll play around a bit with him.
” Alexei taps a gloved finger against his temple in time with his next words, like he’s trying to drive the order into his own brain.
“But we cannot kill him. It’s better if he’s alive when the family gets a hold of him. ”
Ash sets a plate down in front of me, and I curl my lip at him. I wanted him dead and he’s making omelettes and coffee in my house. What fresh hell is this?
“The fuck is this?” I snap, but he doesn’t so much as twitch. I suppose that sharing a womb with a fucking demon like Aspen makes a man immune to most anything.
“Omurice,” Ash says simply, using a knife to slice the omelette down the middle.
It splits open, spilling orange-yellow yolk over the ball of rice underneath.
“Kichi kichi style. It’s a Japanese comfort food.
Chicken and fried rice with onions. A demi-glace sauce.
” He pours said-sauce over the top, but I have no goddamn clue what demi-glace is nor how he prepared or obtained it from my limited kitchen supplies.
“I already asked,” Widow says, speaking up for the first time as he leans back in the chair, kicking out one leg and taking another drink of his coffee.
He gestures at Ash as the man shuffles back to the stove wearing some of my best slippers.
“The sauce is like butter, broth, and ketchup or something.”
I curl my lip as Scarlett pushes the fork that Ash left in my direction.
Alexei is staring at the meal like it’s maggots on a plate.
He looks away and works at his own coffee.
The frog ribbits from its enclosure and I feel my face twist into an odd shape.
I’ve killed and dismembered men with nicer expressions.
“Ketchup in a demi-glace?” Alexei laughs, high and bright and pompous. “Blasphemy.”