Chapter 27
Vivi
Carina holds a wooden-handled knife in her hands, tossing it deftly back and forth between the two. She crosses her steps as she circles me, not quite a sidestep. Something more. I try to match her steps, keeping my eyes locked with Carina’s.
I’m no novice to fighting. Angel taught me when I was a teenager, saying it was a skill all girls should have, especially in our world. He was right, even if I haven’t used my rough abilities yet.
He taught me that a person will broadcast every move with their eyes.
If you watch the body, you’ll probably end up surprised, cara . If you’re looking at the hands, you miss the feet, and vice versa.
Watch the eyes.
The eyes…they will always betray your opponent.
Carina has obviously been taught the same. She watches me without blinking, shifting slightly to get into a better position. I tense, anticipating.
Something changes in Carina’s eyes right before she lunges forward—the slightest narrowing and then a subtle flare.
I’m ready for her. I pivot on my feet and allow Carina’s momentum to send her past me. Once Carina is even with my body, I give a sharp shove to her shoulders. Carina stumbles forward but catches herself.
Damnit. So close.
Evie laughs and claps her hands.
“Look at that! You are starting to get it, Romanov. Maybe in a few months, you will be able to put her on the ground.”
Carina laughs. “She can try, but it’s not going to happen.”
On the other side of the room, Rowan spars with Lulu. Nothing much appears to be happening. Rowan is smaller, a ball of bouncing energy with her red curls springing lightly around her face as she moves on her toes. Lulu, although bolder than Rowan, is nonetheless too careful to be much of a threat.
“Hit her, Lulu! Damnit, you’re not here to be nice. Stop trying not to hurt her.” Evie obviously agrees with my observation.
I wipe the sweat from my upper lip and grin at Carina. Both Carina and Evie can take a hit, I’ve learned, and I’m finding it’s kind of fun to hit someone. I doubt I’d be able to strike out against Lulu or Rowan as hard as I am against Carina and Evie. It would feel wrong.
Carina pauses in circling me to watch the others with something like exasperation. “Are you two going to dance around all day, or are you going to try to take each other down? Fight, ladies.”
Rowan shoots her a glare. “Stop talking to me, Carina. You’re breaking my concentration.”
Rowan’s distraction gives Lulu her opening. Within seconds, she slides a foot out, catching Rowan by the ankle and hooking it toward her. Rowan falls onto her ass.
Rowan shouts. “Ow! LULU!”
“Yes!” Lulu pumps her fists and jumps up and down, celebrating. This is her first takedown.
Evie whistles, the sharp sound in the confines of the room claiming our attention. “All right. You guys are getting better, but you still have a long way to go. So let’s not celebrate too much. Next, we are going to—”
She breaks off, head cocked toward the ceiling in a listening posture.
“Wha—?” Lulu begins and then stops when Evie holds up a hand.
Then we hear it. I see the blood drain from Rowan’s face, a mirror of my own, I’m sure. Even from the basement, the sound is loud and sickening—the repeated rhythm of gunfire.
My blood turns to ice in my veins, and my head whips toward the door.
Ivan .
“Oh, my God.” Rowan springs to her feet, wringing her hands. “What do we do? Do we stay? Should we try to help? Hide? I don’t—”
Carina and Evie exchange glances and run to the table, and Rowan falls silent. Magazines rack loudly in the absence of sound, and they head to the door.
Lulu’s eyes are huge in her pale face. “You aren’t really going out there, are you? Maybe we should stay…or should we come—?”
Carina pauses in the doorway. “We are, but you are not. You are staying right here. Evie and I have done this before. If Azrael is attacking the mansion, then they know all of us are here. This is it, ladies. Drill’s over.”
“Bar this door and let no one in,” Evie chimes in.
Rowan’s gaze skates frantically around the room. “Bar it with what? There’s no lock.”
Evie is already moving down the hall. “Whatever you can get in front of the door. Ready, Carina?”
“I’m always ready.”
The two of them leave the room. Rowan is shaking. I take stock and am faintly surprised that I’m not in the same state. Carina was right; none of them are ready for this kind of fight. Judging by the noise coming from above us, it’s bad.
But I’m not worried about myself.
I’m worried about Ivan. I know that he is perfectly capable of handling himself, but anything can happen in a situation like this. Anything can go wrong.
He could get extremely unlucky.
It’s something no one can control.
Metal grinds against the dirt floor, and I look over to see Lulu dragging the sturdy metal table into position in front of the door. Spurred into action, I move to help her push it into place.
We survey our sanctuary. Aside from the table, there isn’t much else with which to bar the door. There are several massive gun cabinets lining a wall, but when the three of us attempt to move one, it doesn’t budge.
A stack of crates holds a collection of paper targets, but they are made of old, flimsy wood.
The table won’t hold long. Our only real hope is that no one comes down here.
On the far side of the room, I can hear Rowan chanting to herself. “Reset. Reset. Reset.” She has slid down the wall to sit against it, knees pulled to her chest, and her eyes squinched closed.
With a glance at Lulu, I walk over to her, sit down beside her, and hug her against me.
Rowan’s voice is muffled against my shirt when she speaks a moment later. “I need Clementine.”
Rowan’s ginormous ginger cat had been left at their apartment. It had been Cassidy’s decision, and according to Rowan’s earlier statement, she hadn’t much cared for it. Clementine went with her everywhere .
I can almost see why he made that call. As much as Clementine does for Rowan, I’m pretty sure that gunfire…and a subsequent gunfight…were probably not covered in his therapy training. “He’s better off where he is,” I say. “He would have been terrified.”
“Yes.” Rowan nods. “He would have been so scared. God, I’m so selfish—” A tear trails down her cheek.
“You’re not. You’re frightened. We all are,” Lulu says.
Time ticks by slowly. Rowan is not calming down, instead beginning to rock back and forth within the circle of my arms. Lulu makes an attempt to talk to her, but Rowan isn’t hearing it. Her eyes remain squeezed tightly shut, and the word reset continues to pour from between her lips.
I’m still holding her when I get an idea.
“Did I ever tell you about Cervinara?” Rowan doesn’t answer, and drawing on all of my patience, I repeat the question.
Her rocking slows, and Rowan slowly shakes her head. “No.”
“We used to go there during the summers. It isn’t much, more of a village than a town. Nothing like the city. Most of the businesses close by seven. Few are open past lunch on Sundays. The days are slow. Lazy. But I don’t think I’ve ever been so at peace in my entire life.” I glance over at Lulu, who has a faraway expression on her face where she sits across the room. “Lulu knows.”
Lulu nods, a small hum of agreement escaping.
I continue. “In Cervinara, I wasn’t Lorenzo Valachi’s daughter. Of course, I knew that this wasn’t entirely true. Everyone in the town knew who we were, and they respected us for it, but it wasn’t like here. There were no threats. No competition. Just us and the town. Angel used to take us on walks. We collected rocks and flowers. When we went to the festivals they held there all the time, he held the money. He always made sure that the vendors had my favorites ready for me. He always remembered.”
“Do you remember the night when you got lost?” Lulu asks, smiling faintly.
“No…wait…maybe.” It was something I hadn’t thought about in years, a memory so distant that it didn’t seem like mine anymore. I stare into space, the visceral details returning slowly.
I remember the grit on my hands from when I fell onto the pavement of the town square. Angel had told me not to wander, to stay by his side, but the fireworks had drawn me away from my siblings.
I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going; my eyes were on the heavens. I watched the violent splashes of blues, reds, and purples erupting above the town. I could feel the light on my face, mesmerizing me with every flash. By the time the fireworks were over, I was in a part of town I didn’t recognize.
And I was all alone.
“Angel found me.”
Lulu nods. “He did. He was such a protector.”
I had given up hope at one point. The night was wearing on so much that dew covered the plants in the windowsills of the houses. The moon was shadowed by the clouds moving in front of it, and the stone sidewalks were cold to the touch on my bare feet. I crawled onto the concrete stoop of an unfamiliar building and brought my legs to my chest.
And I sobbed. Big, childish tears that ran streaks down my face. “I thought I would be lost forever,” I murmur. “I thought I would have to find a new family.”
“Goose.” Lulu chuckles, the sound a bit broken.
“And then he was there. Not angry. Not judgmental. Just worried.”
Angel had found me.
A boom brings me back to reality. Someone is at the door. Rowan’s hand latches on to mine and grips it with painful force, and the three of us stand and move away from the door.
“What do we do?” Rowan whispers.
I shake my head. There’s nothing we can do.
The door flies open, the table thrown back, and falling over with a crash. A man stands in the doorway, and we exchange glances. We don’t recognize him. He waves a gun at us.
“Move. Now.”
“Who are you?”
That’s my voice, shaking but surprising me with its firmness. The man doesn’t answer, merely grabs Lulu’s arm and pushes her through the door.
We don’t argue with him. He leads us through the long corridor of the basement, up the stairs, and onto the main floor. The first thing I see upon emerging is blood splattered on the wall and a body on the floor.
“Oh, my God…” Rowan starts to cry.
The man leads us to the sitting room, where an old man stands with a group of police officers. Blueprints for the house are laid on the table. The man looks up at me, his gaze narrowing on me.
Waylon Vigneault. I remember him from the funeral.
“That’s her,” he says, pointing a finger. “That’s Viviana Romanov.”