I’D ENJOY WATCHING these men cower on the asphalt at my feet more if their poses didn’t remind me of the women I just finished rescuing from the assholes. The way the dozen skinny, bruised figures cringed and quivered when I first burst into the truck.
“We didn’t know,” one of the pricks crouched in front of me whines. “We always used to be able to bring our shipments through this—”
I interrupt in a voice as blunt as the pistol in my hand. “They’re not shipments. They’re people. This has been my turf for five years now, and I made it clear to everyone who does any kind of illegal business around here that I don’t tolerate treating women like merchandise.”
“It sounded like a temporary thing,” one of the other traffickers sputtered. “You can’t take away such a huge part of—”
“Yes, I fucking well can.” I glanced through the darkness of the vast parking lot toward Julius, who was striding over from one of the vans we’d arrived in. “They’re all secure?”
The massive leader of the Chaos Crew dipped his head in a nod. His expression was cool and collected as always, but I caught a feral gleam in his eyes that would have thrilled me under better circumstances. “Need any help?”
“I can handle this myself.” I just didn’t want the women who’ve been victimized so much to have to witness even more violence.
I flicked off the safety on my pistol and aimed it at the man in the middle of the trio—the one I’d heard barking orders at both the other two and the women as we’d approached. “You didn’t really think you were allowed. You just figured you could get away with it. This is the proof that you were wrong.”
With one squeeze of the trigger, a bang thundered through the night. The jerk slumped with blood pooling beneath his head.
I waved my pistol at the two lackeys, and they scrambled to their feet.
“Go back to whoever his boss is. Deliver my message for me. And if I see your faces around here again with any other ‘shipments’ like this, you’ll be kissing the pavement too.”
I didn’t need to tell them twice. The two gangsters dashed for the emptied truck like their feet were on fire.
As the engine roared and they tore out of the parking lot, Julius stopped beside me with a low chuckle. “You put them in their place.”
“You’d think so.” I grimaced at the corpse on the ground. “We’ll have to deal with that.”
Talon approached at my other side, the same ominously quiet presence as usual. “I’ll take care of it.”
Blaze leaned in from behind me and slung a lean arm around my shoulders. “Why do you sound upset, Dess? We won—you caught them before they got very far.”
“It was still too far.” I sighed and turned back toward our vans. “I shouldn’t still be having to put assholes like this in their places. I’m the Blood Hunter. My word is supposed to be the law—that’s the whole reason I accepted the job.”
“Old habits die hard,” Julius said, running his hand over his short dark hair. “We’re seeing a lot less of the human trafficking crap than there was under the old Blood Hunter.”
“Any amount is too much,” I muttered.
The bloodthirsty psychopath whose place I’d taken had left quite the mess in his wake. Even after ending all the trafficking deals he’d personally had a hand in, other operations who’d carried out their business within his territory kept popping up, thinking they could still get away with it.
As we reached the main van, Garrison was just hopping out through the back doors. He leaned inside to offer one final reassuring comment to the women we’d freed and eased the doors shut before turning to the rest of us.
“They’re about as comfortable as they can be,” he said with one of his wry smiles. “I told them we’d get everything sorted out, whether they want to stay here or go back home.”
“Good.” I exhaled in a rush, not really feeling like there was much good about the situation.
How ironic was it that the former Blood Hunter’s people had raised me to believe I was meant to stamp out the evil in the world… and it’d turned out an awful lot of that evil had been orchestrated or at least approved of by the man himself?
Garrison gave me an evaluating look and tipped his blond head toward the other van. “You should get back to the hotel. You deserve some rest.” A sly glint came into his eyes. “We have big things planned for tomorrow.”
I frowned. “Big things? We haven’t talked about—”
Blaze tugged me toward the vehicle with a flash of a grin. “You might be the boss most of the time, but we’re taking charge for a day. It’s time for a little change of pace. You trust us, don’t you?” He leaned in to peck a kiss to the side of my head.
It was hard not to melt a little when the hacker took on that sweet tone. And there really wasn’t anything for me to do right now that would help anyone. The employees I’d brought on since becoming the Blood Hunter knew how to set up new lives for these women better than I did.
I bumped my elbow against Blaze’s. “You know I do. Fine. To the hotel it is.”
I woke up the next morning to a flurry of hushed but urgent conversation from the living room of the big suite we’d booked while we investigated the latest trafficking ring.
“Don’t we have an umbrella? It was on the list!”
“I think we can rent one there. Nothing worth worrying about.”
“Did you seriously get me a Speedo?”
“Hey, if you leave all the shopping to me, you get what you get.”
Hearing the Chaos Crew guys squabble in their usual companionable way was nothing new. But normally they were bickering about things like guns and entrance strategies, not… whatever it was they were talking about right now.
I squirmed out from under the covers and pushed open the door. “What are you four up to now?”
The men all paused with vaguely guilty expressions over an assortment of bulging canvas tote bags. Blaze broke from the tableau first.
“We’re going to the beach!” he announced, bounding over to me with typical irrepressible energy and shoving a bundle of fabric into my hands. “Get dressed, and we’ll head right over.”
The beach? I hadn’t realized any of my men were hankering for fun in the sun, but I could humor them until I figured out what this “change of pace” was really about.
The bundle turned out to include a sporty maroon two-piece bathing suit and a gauzy cover-up that I imagined my pale skin would appreciate. I tucked my feet into the flip flops Blaze had also handed over and gamely followed the men out to the car.
While I’d been getting changed, so had they—into tropical print polo shirts and matching shorts. Talon looked down at himself with an inscrutable expression as if he was considering burning the stuff right off his body, and Garrison kept fiddling with his collar, but Julius wore his comfortably enough. And Blaze had never looked happier.
“We’re just a half hour from one of the best beaches in the country,” he informed me as he hopped into the driver’s seat. “So it made sense to start with this little outing.”
“Start?” I repeated.
Garrison cracked a grin. “We’re all getting our turns choosing today’s activities.” He kicked the back of Blaze’s seat. “I think Blazey here just wanted to ogle women in bikinis.”
“Hey, there’s only one woman I’m interested in looking at. And plenty of other things to enjoy at the beach.”
“We look forward to you proving that,” Julius said dryly.
Blaze parked amid a crowd of cars, and we tramped over the sand through the other beach-goers under the mid-morning sun. A light breeze wisped over me, carrying a pleasant summer warmth, and the ocean lapped at the shore in low waves.
It turned out we could rent beach umbrellas. The men acquired two and set them up side by side before stretching out our towels underneath. Then Blaze started digging through the rest of the bags.
“We’ve got a frisbee, a beach ball, snorkeling gear… Everyone should put on sunscreen. I packed a cooler with cold drinks, but obviously we need to get a hot dog from the stand over there for lunch. I think it’s hot dogs that people usually eat at the beach?”
Talon raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you supposed to know that already?”
Blaze clapped his hands together. “Hot dogs. Definitely hot dogs. But it’s not time for that yet. What do you want to do first, Dess?”
I glanced around at the clusters of people around us. There were couples lounging together and groups of friends and families with kids of various ages dashing across the sand. It all felt weirdly normal… Weird because it wasn’t at all where we would normally be.
But there was something both soothing and exhilarating about the hiss of the waves and the sprawl of the ocean. I pulled off my cover-up. “I think I’d like to go in the water.”
“Sounds good. Swim time!” Blaze tugged off his own shirt.
Talon hunkered down on one of the towels in a position that made me suspect he had a pistol tucked in the back of his shorts. “I’ll keep an eye on our stuff.”
I quickly confirmed who had been grousing about the Speedo. Garrison chucked off both his shirt and his shorts and glanced down at the tiny, tight swim suit with an incredulous expression.
I laughed and tapped his chest lightly. “I like it. It gives me an excellent view.”
His lips curved into a smirk as he met my eyes. “I guess I like it too, then.”
Julius strode ahead of us down to the ocean, seeming to clear a path with his brawny form without making a single gesture or glower. As I plunged into the cool water, a gasp slipped from my throat. Then I was bobbing with the surf and paddling around between waves, grinning with the tang of salt in my mouth.
I’d been down near more than one ocean plenty of times on missions, but I’d never actually gone for a swim. It was both refreshing and soothing… Maybe we should add this to our regular habits.
Garrison and Blaze got into a minor battle of splashes, and Julius swept in to claim a kiss from me while they were otherwise occupied. When I’d had enough of the water, we padded back over the sand, where I tossed the beach ball back and forth with Talon and Julius before accepting a game of frisbee with Blaze.
The hot dogs, when we finally grabbed them from the stand, were greasy and slathered in ketchup and relish, but I had to admit I couldn’t think of a more fitting meal for our current environment.
“All right,” Garrison said as I licked the lingering ketchup off my fingers. “We did Blaze’s beach thing. Now it’s my turn. Come on. We can get changed on the jet.”
“Changed for what?” I asked.
He moved to start rolling up one of the towels, shooting me his smirk over his shoulder. “You’ll see.”
Two hours later, we were back in DC, stepping into a lobby that smelled like butter and salt.
I took a curious peek at Garrison. “You had a craving to see a movie?”
“Not just any movie,” he insisted. “One of the best movies ever made, in our own private theater—so no annoying people talking through the good parts. You’re about to experience Casablanca as most people currently alive never have.”
He glanced around, his gaze landing on the concessions counter. “We should get popcorn, right? Regular people get popcorn.”
Was that the point of all this? To pretend we were regular people? I still hadn’t quite figured out what was going on with my men today, but I was enjoying the ride enough not to complain.
A couple with two young kids in tow walked up to the counter as we watched and left it with four overflowing bags of popcorn. Talon nodded. “It does look like popcorn is the thing to do.”
We gathered our own bags of buttery goodness, and Garrison led the way into the small screening room he’d booked just for us. We set ourselves up right in the middle of the rows of chairs, Julius stretching out with his feet resting against the seat ahead of him.
Garrison gave a little wave to whoever was in the projection booth, and the screen flickered to life. I tossed a handful of popcorn into my mouth and let the kernels melt on my tongue as the story began to play out before me.
By the end of the film, my heart was squeezed tight. A man who tried to convince himself he didn’t care about the world around him but realized he did so very much? No wonder Garrison loved this movie.
I glanced over at him in the darkness as the credits started to roll and grasped his hand. “Lucky you. You don’t have to choose between saving the world and getting the girl.”
A flush spread across his cheeks. “I’m not sure what I do is on quite the same level.”
“Speak for yourself,” Blaze declared, tossing a piece of popcorn at the other man.
Garrison rolled his eyes, but when his gaze came back to me, it hold mine intently. “You enjoyed the show? You mentioned one time that you’ve never really watched a movie in the theater. I figured it might be a good one after seeing how much you love that silly spy show.”
I hadn’t ever sat down to watch a movie at a public venue, although I had once assassinated a target in a theater. It hadn’t seemed wise to stick around after the fact.
“It was great,” I said. “Other than obviously Ilsa should have figured out she could have both of them and then everyone could have been totally happy.”
Julius laughed and tugged me to my feet. “That would make everyone’s lives a lot easier, huh? I think Talon has something else in store for you not far from here.”
When I raised my eyebrows at the taciturn man, he offered one of his quiet smiles. “I came up with something a little different from the others.”
As we stepped into the squat gray building, a chorus of barks and grunts reached my ears. I hesitated, instinctively looking toward Talon again.
He nodded and gently rested his hand on the small of my back to usher me up to the reception room’s front desk, where a harried-looking woman with a frizzy ponytail was tapping at a computer keyboard. The other men followed behind us.
The woman gave us a quick smile. “How can I help you?”
Talon’s hand rose to squeeze my shoulder. “My wife is going to adopt a pet. We’d like to look at the animals you have available.”
The men referred to me as their “wife” from time to time when we felt the need to label our relationship to each other in public, even though we’d never formally gotten married. It still gave me a tingle to hear the word while my mind started spinning.
I didn’t want to act confused in front of the animal shelter worker. So I kept my mouth shut as she ushered us into one of the rooms off the lobby. There, rows of cages stood along both walls, all the way down the narrow space and around a corner.
“Dogs in this section, cats and other smaller animals around the corner,” the woman said. “Don’t reach inside the cages. If you have any questions or want to take one out, I’ll be right here.”
She stayed by the door to give us space to consider the animals. My heart skipped a beat meeting all the dark, hopeful eyes behind the cage bars.
I waited until we’d walked halfway down the room before leaning closer to Talon to murmur to him. “You figured I needed more company?”
“I thought…” He paused, gathering those thoughts, which I knew he didn’t always feel confident expressing. “It’d be your first pet, wouldn’t it? I get the impression it’s nice to have an animal to come home to. And Steffi would like the company when we’re away.”
“A first pet is a rite of passage, for sure,” Blaze said, with a laugh rough enough that I turned to check his expression. My stomach twisted as I took in his tensed features, his gaze fixed on the dogs in the cages next to us.
He’d had a pet of his own once. A dog his childhood bullies had killed. I didn’t think he’d gotten another one since.
My throat tightened. None of the snuffling or yipping creatures around me felt quite right anyway.
I tucked my fingers around his elbow. “You know, I think I’m more of a cat person. It seems like they’d get along better with our kind of lifestyle anyway.”
Garrison chuckled under his breath. “Headstrong, independent, quick to defend itself. That does sound like someone we all know.”
I narrowed my eyes at him in a mock-glower and continued around the corner into the other section of the room.
Several mews rose up as the cats caught sight of us. There had to be at least thirty of them, a few scruffy kittens and others fully grown.
I walked along the rows, studying each in turn. Some cowered, and some rubbed their sides up against the bars. Some pretended not to care, giving themselves a tongue bath and acting as if they hadn’t even noticed us.
I’d always reached the end of the row when a slim orange tabby flung itself at the bars of its cage and clung there, peering out at me. It bobbed its head with a questioning meow.
When I stopped, it tilted its head the other way, like it was evaluating me as much as I was it. Then it reached its paw through the bars as if trying to invite me to play.
A smile I couldn’t contain sprang to my lips. “That one.”
Julius shook his head. “It looks like trouble—but it also looks like it’s already taken to you.”
Talon gave my hair a light tug. “We’re fans of trouble, aren’t we?”
When the woman unlocked the cage, the cat leapt right out into my arms. It stared up at me and tapped its paw to my chin, its claws retracted.
Tentatively, I stroked my hand down its back. It blinked and then started purring like a motor.
“Yes,” I said, beaming down at it with a heart suddenly full in a way I’d never experienced before. “This one.”
It was only after we arrived at the Blood Hunter’s main mansion in the dimming evening light that I realized something was missing. I set down my new furry friend, who I’d decided on the drive home I’d call Jack—short for Jack-o-lantern—in the foyer and turned to Julius.
Before I needed to ask, he lifted his chin toward the staircase. “Change into one of the dresses you’ll find on your bed and then come right back down. We’ll set up everything for Jack and get ready ourselves. The day’s not over yet.”
Dresses? Intrigued, I dashed up the stairs to see what else my men could possibly have in store for me.
Steffi must have brought the new purchases over while we were away. Four dresses lay across my bed—but not the sleek evening gowns I typically wore for the kinds of missions we ended up on. These all had wide skirts, one twinkling with sparkles embedded in the fabric, another embroidered with a gold lace pattern along the neckline. Princess dresses, I’d have called them.
I stared at them for a few minutes before stirring into action. Two I immediately dismissed as too poofy and cumbersome. I wavered between a strapless indigo gown with a skirt more flowy than billowy and a deep green gown with spaghetti straps and the sparkles, and decided I’d rather look like a shadow than stars.
When I descended the stairs in the gown and a pair of black pumps that worked well with it, I found all four of my men waiting for me in the foyer, each in suits so smart I practically drooled. Julius stepped forward with a blue flower in his hand that he pinned to the bodice of my gown. “I thought you might pick this one. Come on out—our limo awaits.”
He wasn’t kidding about the limo—a stretched black one was parked outside the gate. We all piled into the smooth leather seats at the back.
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked, and Julius only offered a secretive smile.
The limo pulled up at a grand event hall, the old stone face glowing with amber light. Julius ushered me inside and into a reception room decorated with streamers and sparkly banners and even—
“A balloon arch?” Garrison asked, shooting a skeptical glance at Blaze.
The hacker raised his hands. “It came up in a bunch of photos. I was going by my research.”
Music started to pipe through speakers through the room—an energetic pop song. Julius grasped my hand.
“Let’s dance.”
I laughed and let him sweep me around the room, which apparently was just for the five of us. Blaze and Garrison and Talon all claimed my hand in turn, although Talon didn’t do much more than bob with the rhythm. I didn’t mind—I didn’t know how to do much more than a two-step myself.
It was a crazy end to a crazy night, but I still couldn’t totally make sense of it. Other than with every glance around the room, similar images from the movies and TV shows I’d seen wavered up from my memory.
“Is this supposed to be a school dance?” I asked Julius when we all stopped at a table that held various snacks and a punch bowl to get a drink.
He dipped his head. “I guess we got some of the details right. I was thinking prom—the biggest school dance there is.”
I sipped the sweet punch and scanned the room again. “And why did you feel the need to set up a prom just for us? Why any of the things today? Not that I didn’t enjoy myself—I just don’t understand.”
Blaze’s smile softened. “We were thinking… You never had a normal childhood. Or teenage-hood. It seemed like it was about time you got to have some of those normal experiences from growing up.”
Garrison snorted. “Except none of us exactly had normal childhoods either, so you’ll have to forgive us if we messed it up a bit. We didn’t have much direct experience to draw from.”
Julius motioned to the room around us. “When she was still her bubbly self, my sister always went on about how she couldn’t wait for her first prom. It seems like it’s a big deal to a lot of people.”
And going to the beach and to the movies—those were things normal families did, like the ones I’d seen. Having a pet—so many kids who weren’t raised by psychopaths had that opportunity.
My throat closed up. “Thank you. It’s been wonderful. And some of those things, I’d like to do again. But… why today?”
The men exchanged a look.
“She really doesn’t remember,” Garrison said.
I frowned. “Remember what?”
“She will.” Talon nudged Julius. “Once she sees the last part.”
Julius nodded and raised his hand in a signal.
All at once the music fell away. A banner dropped from the ceiling with the words Happy birthday! as a mass of figures burst through a set of double doors at the far end of the room, shouting, “Happy birthday!” at the same time.
My jaw dropped. Oh, God. I hadn’t even been paying attention to the dates. I’d never known exactly what day I got to celebrate my birthday in a minor way in the household, and since leaving, I’d never seen the point in bothering.
But I knew what day Rachel Malik had been born on. A day twenty-nine years ago as of today.
“I did forget,” I mumbled.
Blaze laughed and grabbed me in a sideways hug. “That’s why we’re here to remember for you. Consider all of today our birthday present to you, to make up for all the proper birthdays you missed. And all these people wanted to celebrate with you.”
I recognized a few of the faces in the small crowd rushing over to join us. My younger brother Carter reached us first, and I grabbed him in a quick hug.
“Happy birthday, Dess,” he said. “I’d have done something before, but I didn’t know the exact date, and you didn’t seem to want—”
“It’s okay,” I interrupted. “This is great. This is perfect.”
I turned to greet Lou, the petite woman who’d almost become the next Deadly Rose but now only killed it on the ice in her figure skating routines. Her eyes glinted happily as she gave my hand a quick squeeze. “I’m glad I could help do something good for you after all the ways you helped me.”
“It was nothing,” I said. “I did what anyone should have.”
“But most people wouldn’t.” She waved her hand toward the refreshments table, where all of my surprise guests are setting down gift bags. An auburn-haired man I recognized as her skating partner raised his hand in return as he set their offering down. “We all pitched in with our present—and if you ever want great seats at a skating event, just let me know.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I glanced around in a bit of a daze and locked eyes with the one other member of the Deadly Dozen who’d been willing to help Lou. The current Storm ambled over with a blond woman by his side, who I was willing to bet by the affectionate arm he had around her waist was the girlfriend I’d helped him locate when one of our rival crime bosses had arranged her kidnapping.
“Blood Hunter,” the Storm said with a warm grin I’d come to know he offered naturally. “Happy birthday. It’s nice to get to see you outside of stuffy meetings and tense stand-offs. I’d like you to meet Madelyn. If it wasn’t for her, I’m not sure I’d have made it this far.”
Madelyn guffawed in disbelief and offered me a shy smile. “It’s good to meet you. Logan’s here too—he still tells the story about how you and Blaze tracked me down when things were… bad.”
I found myself smiling in return. “It’s great to see they’ve gotten better. I’m glad you could make it.”
I really was. When had I ever had an actual party, rather than simply sneaking into one as an uninvited guest looking to murder someone or at best screw them over?
“Here’s an old friend,” Garrison said, coming up at my side. He gave a jaunty little wave to the redhead who was sauntering over.
Anthea Noble, the poisons expert who I’d exchanged favors with back when I’d first met my men, gave us a mock curtsey, but her smile was nearly as warm as the Storm’s. “Quite the gathering you have here. I feel like I’m rubbing shoulders with the elite.”
I motioned awkwardly to my men around me. “They set it up. I didn’t even know this was happening.”
“An actually surprising surprise party. That’s impressive in itself.” Anthea peered over her shoulder. “With permission from your partners, I brought along my nephew and a couple of friends… They didn’t have the easiest dealings with the Devil’s Dozen when a couple of your colleagues barged into our county, but I’ve only had good things to say about you.”
An athletic woman with her dark brown hair pulled back in a ponytail hustled over, flanked by two men, one well-built with ruddy brown hair close to Anthea’s scarlet shade and the other leaner and sandy-blond.
“Hey,” the woman said, holding out her hand. “I’m Mercy Katz, from Paradise Bend, not that you’ve probably ever heard of it. I hope you don’t mind us crashing your party. Anthea said the more of us, the bigger the surprise.”
“Blame Blaze for that,” Julius muttered in a low but amused tone.
I laughed as I shook Mercy’s hand. “There’s nothing to apologize for. If you’re a friend of Anthea’s, then you’re welcome here. And it is an awfully big room for all of us to fill.”
“We’re not quite done yet,” Garrison said. “Ah, Talon’s bringing them in now.”
I hadn’t noticed the larger man leaving our little cluster. The lights glanced off his shaved head by a side door he’d just pushed open. He held it wide so one after another and another slightly awkward-looking woman could ease out into the decorated space.
My eyes widened. I recognize one of their faces—and another. And there was one of the girls I’d gotten away from the former Blood Hunter’s operations years ago…
“We arranged to bring as many of them as we felt it was safe to ask and who were comfortable coming,” Blaze announced from behind me. “They wouldn’t have much of a life at all if it wasn’t for you, you know. So they sure as hell want to celebrate your existence. More than forty of them showed up, but you’ve gotten more than two hundred women free over the past five years, you know.”
I hadn’t realized it was quite that many. And seeing the once-trafficked women under the colorful lights, shy but healthy and happy, my spirits lifted.
Yes, there were more women out there I needed to save. More wrongs I could still put right.
But I’d done an awful lot right already.
I walked over to welcome the women who’d once been slaves—or on the verge of it. “Thank you so much for coming. I couldn’t have asked for a better present than seeing you doing so well.”
One of the women at the front of the group hesitated and then flung her arms around me. I tensed in her embrace, but only for an instant before I returned the hug. My heart felt as if it’d swelled to twice its normal size.
As she stepped back, I raised my hand over my head and lifted my voice. “Let’s make this a night to remember!”
A cheer went up through the room, buoying my spirits even more.
One thing was for sure—I was never going to forget my birthday again.
