Part 11 (1/2)

”What danger?” said Sloane. ”He won't even know we're there. All we have to do is put a bullet in his head. It's easy.”

”Definitely,” said Silas.

”Um,” I spoke up. ”It might not be that easy. I shot him before. In the throat. And I could swear he was dead, but then he showed up at my apartment.”

”What?” said Griffin. ”Knox didn't tell me that.”

I nodded. ”Yeah. I told Knox I thought maybe he had the serum.”

Griffin shook his head. ”But that doesn't make any sense. Marcel has nothing to do with Op Wraith. There's no way he had the serum.”

”Are you sure you shot him and killed him?” said Silas. ”Did you check his pulse to make sure he was dark?” That was what we called it when you got a kill shot. You looked dead, but the serum was doing its work, healing you.

”Well, no. I didn't check. But he fell over, and he didn't move for a really long time.”

”There's no way he's got the serum,” said Griffin. ”He wasn't part of Op Wraith. And no one's even manufacturing it anymore, right?”

”No,” said Sloane. ”They can't be. It was a project that Frank Thorn worked on, and he's...” She looked at me. ”Oh. That's your dad, isn't it?”

”It's fine,” I said. ”My father is dead to me.”

”You had to have been mistaken, doll,” said Griffin.

”But we can get close enough to make sure,” said Silas. ”Right? I've got no problem severing this dude's spine.”

Griffin gulped at his beer. ”I really don't think we should meet him.”

”Why not?” said Sloane.

He rubbed the top of his head.

”Doesn't make sense not to,” said Silas.

I watched Griffin, noting how uncomfortable he was. I had a pretty good idea why he didn't want to meet Marcel. The man had hurt him in the worst ways imaginable. Of course Griffin never wanted to see him again.

But I didn't think that Griffin necessarily wanted everyone to know what happened to him. How could I help without giving him away?

”Maybe,” I said, ”Sloane and Silas could go without you.”

Griffin looked at me, and I could see relief in his eyes.

”But don't you want a piece of this guy?” said Silas.

Griffin considered. His expression changed. It hardened. ”Maybe I do.”

”Of course you do,” said Sloane.

”Why's he after you, anyway?” said Silas.

Griffin shrugged. ”I don't know. I haven't seen him in years.”

”So you don't know what he wants with you?” said Silas.

”How do you know him, anyway?” said Sloane.

Griffin drank more of his beer.

”Does that really matter?” I said. I could tell Griffin didn't want to talk about it.

”It might,” said Silas. ”We don't know what his motives are.”

”He's... twisted,” said Griffin. ”He likes to manipulate people. It's probably all a game to him. I don't know why he picked me, though. Maybe I made an impression on him.”

”You knew him before Op Wraith?” said Sloane.

”Um, shouldn't you guys be focusing on strategy?” I said.

”Yeah,” said Griffin. ”Trust me, we don't know enough about his motives for them to be helpful.”

”Okay,” said Silas. ”Well, we have a little more than a week to get this together, so we better get cracking, huh?”

The rest of the week pa.s.sed in a flurry of preparation, and I was left out of most of it. It was decided fairly early on that I would be positively no help on this mission, so I was going to stay behind in the house while the three of them went to kill Marcel.

That was fine with me. I knew I wasn't very good with a gun, and I didn't want to get in anyone's way. I stayed to the periphery of their strategizing conversations, and I didn't try to engage Griffin, even though he was now around constantly.

He looked so gorgeous, and I wanted him. I wished I could find some way to make him see that we were meant to be together. But he was consumed with working on the plan to take down Marcel.

So the days pa.s.sed. Maybe things went quickly for everyone else. They were busy. I was bored most of the time. I had a stack of romance novels that Sloane had gotten from a yard sale, and I'd been reading those. But that was before Griffin was around all the time, and... somehow, they weren't nearly as entertaining anymore.

In romance novels, there was always something keeping them apart that blew up at the last minute. He didn't know that she was only pretending to be a n.o.blewoman, and when he found out that she was actually a peasant woman, the wedding was called off.

Then there would be pages of despair. At some point, though, he'd miraculously show up on his stallion, and take her away from the little hovel she lived in. They'd get married anyway.

And everything would be perfect.

But real life wasn't like that.

Griffin wasn't coming back on his stallion for me. He wasn't prepared to overlook the fact that I was pretending to be a n.o.blewoman.

Maybe it was because what I had done seemed worse to him than lying about my social cla.s.s. Maybe it was because all romance novels were nothing like real life. How many young, virile, handsome dukes could there possibly be in England during the Regency period anyway?

I didn't know.

I tried not to think about it. I tried to watch Griffin without wis.h.i.+ng he was mine.

Mostly, I tried to stay out of the way.

I did insist on coming along to the shooting range. The others were only brus.h.i.+ng up, but I needed a good bit of practice. I wasn't particularly good with a gun. I'd only had a few lessons with Griffin, and when I thought about them-thought about how his body had been so close to mine as he'd shown me how to hold the gun-well, it was distracting and not in a good way.