MEILING rarely spoke in meetings with clients. She left that up to Gedeon, fading into the background so those around her almost forgot she was in the room with them. It was the way they conducted business deliberately and it worked. But this was her find.
Gedeon wanted these men to see her as an equal partner. To take her seriously. And, most of all, to know that he would hold them accountable if anything happened to her. They knew him and they knew he wouldn’t just have a woman talk for the two of them. If she was speaking, it was because he respected every word that came out of her mouth, and he expected they would as well.
Fyodor, Timur, Gedeon and Meiling met in Fyodor’s office. It wasn’t behind the double doors that led to the kitchen, but rather down the hall, past where Evangeline and Ashe made the coffee. A nursery had been set up just behind the bakery, and on the other side of that was Fyodor’s office. There was access to the kitchen from his office and to the nursery as well.
It was a sweet setup for Timur. He could get to the children, to the women and to his main responsibility, Fyodor, any number of ways in under a second. He had multiple ways of extracting the family should there be an attack on them. Gedeon didn’t know who had designed the interior suite of rooms, but it was brilliant. He hadn’t seen all of them, and he would bet there were hidden ways to get to the roof or to the basement. Timur wouldn’t take any chances with his family.
Meiling looked straight at Timur, not in the least intimidated, even though she was half his size. “Timur, we need someone fast. When I say fast, he has to be fast enough to stop a woman from sending a text in a crowded public place. She’s leopard and she’ll have someone looking out for her. It might be a woman he knows. He can’t think he can get to her. He has to know he can. If he misses, that little girl will die. Do you have anyone that fast?”
Timur nodded slowly, keeping his gaze fixed on her face.
“At the same time, before we can make a move on any of them, we have to find whoever is watching out for the woman. I believe her backup will be either of these two men.” Meiling showed Timur photographs of Alan Cano and Caleb Basco she had on her phone. “In any case, both men are most likely involved.”
Gedeon watched Timur’s face closely, and then Fyodor’s as Timur passed Meiling’s phone to his brother. Both men had to know the two shifters Meiling was all but accusing of being in a conspiracy to abduct a small child.
“Do you have proof?” Fyodor asked.
“If I had proof, Gedeon and I would be slitting their throats instead of sitting here talking to you,” Meiling said. “Timur offered help. He said anything. I know I can get the evidence. We asked for proof of life. If I’m right, this woman”—she took the phone and showed him the photograph of Lola Morales—“will be handing off instructions to Georgi Chaban.” She swiped the photograph of Lola to one side and replaced it with a picture of Georgi. “It will happen this morning.”
“You’re aware all four of the people you suspect are a part of the Lospostos lair?” Fyodor asked, his voice mild. Gedeon instantly went on alert. So much so that he signaled to Meiling to put some distance between her and the Amurov brothers.
“Generations of their families,” Fyodor continued, “have lived their entire lives in the Lospostos lair and served them with honor.”
Meiling shrugged her shoulders and wandered over to the window to look out on the street. “I am certain what you say is the truth. I’m also certain I’m right that Lola Morales had a very long affair with Fredrick Atwater after he lost his wife. She believed he would marry her and take her for his mate. The woman Atwater lost was his true mate and he was never going to replace her. Lola didn’t understand that because Atwater didn’t bother to explain it to her, not until she realized he had several other lovers.”
Fyodor held up his hand to stop her explanation. “Atwater confirmed this?”
“Harold, his right-hand man, confirmed he had an eighteen-month-long relationship with Morales and that he regularly takes advantage of the women working in his home. Morales still works there and is aware of Atwater’s sexual practices and appears not to care. She was the one to end the relationship. Atwater expressed a fondness for her and would have fired the women he was having sex with, although he made it clear to her he wouldn’t marry her or have children with her.”
“If he was willing to get rid of all the other women for her,” Timur argued, “that was saying something about the way he felt about her. She was special to him.”
Meiling glanced at her watch. “She wasn’t his only. She wasn’t the one he would have children with. Build his life around. Be the center of his world. He had cheated on her regularly with her right there in the house. She didn’t mean enough to him to stop using other women. He was everything to her, but she didn’t mean the same to him. In any case, gentlemen, we asked for your help. If we’re not going to get it, we have to come up with another plan. Lola is going to go to work this morning and find out that her boss has collapsed under the pressure of his child being kidnapped and money being siphoned from his businesses along with the fear of Lospostos’s retaliation.”
Gedeon had to suppress a groan at the use of the crime kingpin’s name. Twice he’d tried to subtly insert his body between hers and Timur’s. Fyodor was a ruthless man, there was no doubt about it, but he wasn’t a man to kill a woman. But if Timur thought Meiling was a threat to Fyodor, he would end her in a heartbeat. Timur was the biggest threat in the room and Gedeon would kill him first, but he needed Meiling safe. She persisted in moving, pacing, but keeping her slim body between his and Timur’s. He was going to strangle the woman when he got her alone. He knew damn well she was protecting him. She just couldn’t seem to help herself.
“We’re going to help you. I want to understand what you need from us, Meiling,” Timur said. “What exactly do you plan to do?”
“When Lola gets to work, which will be any minute, she’ll find Atwater in his suite, with a doctor giving him IV fluids and insisting he can’t have visitors or anyone in the rooms with him. His orders will be he needs round-the-clock quiet, with lights dim and no one to upset him. Only Harold will be allowed in. Drake Donovan already had a team of shifters here and he allowed us to put them in place to guard Atwater. We believe Lola has been drugging him. By cutting him off from everyone, it will be impossible for the drugging to continue. We also had people sweeping the house for bugs last night. Anywhere Atwater would go, his office, the conservatory, his library, even Lilith’s room and his private suite, had bugs. The rest of the house was clean. We left them in place so she wouldn’t be tipped off. The only ones destroyed were the ones in the conservatory, and we flooded the plants where they’d been placed.”
“It strikes me that if you’re correct about this, the old adage of a woman scorned can be really frightening,” Fyodor commented.
“You’d better think about that,” Timur pointed out. “Evangeline might look as sweet as can be right now, but you mess around on her and life as you know it could get very rough.”
“Touching another woman would be out of the question for me,” Fyodor said, his voice gruff.
Gedeon could hear the truth in the crime lord’s voice. Fyodor would never cheat on his wife. Clearly he didn’t even joke about it.
“Keep going, Meiling,” Fyodor encouraged.
“Once Lola realizes she can’t get to Atwater to judge his reactions, she may think she’s pushed him too hard. Harold will have left a communication in the established place demanding proof of life. They don’t use text messaging. That’s good for us. That means Lola will go out this morning and she’ll deliver a message to someone asking them to get a proof-of-life photo of Lilith. I intend to follow Lola to whomever she passes that message to and then follow him back to wherever Lilith is being held. If I’m spotted, I believe they’ll kill Lilith and dispose of the evidence immediately. Who would believe anyone in the Lospostos organization would have anything to do with a kidnapping of a child?” Meiling explained.
“And you figured this out in just under two hours without knowing any of these people?” Timur said. “You’re sitting in a damn bakery with customers coming and going and you’ve already decided who’s guilty.”
Meiling looked at him, her long lashes veiling the expression in her dark eyes for moment, and then she nodded. “Gedeon and I often have to work fast in order to save lives. It is possible we’re wrong in our summary of who is behind this horrendous crime and why, but we had to make a decision, and this is our best one.”
“You believe it?” Fyodor said.
“I do,” Meiling reiterated.
“Time is slipping away,” Gedeon reminded. “You have to make up your minds whether or not you think you can help based on what we’ve given you.”
“The answer is yes,” Fyodor said. “I don’t have to like it, but yes.”
“You do see why it would be impossible to go to Elijah Lospostos with this even if we did have the time.” Gedeon made it a statement. “These are members of families deeply entrenched in his organization. One man, Georgi Chaban, we know for certain Elijah gave a personal recommendation to Atwater to hire as a bookkeeper after his longtime bookkeeper died of a heart attack. We both believe it is possible Lola helped him along with that heart attack. It seems just a little too convenient.”
“Tell us what you have in mind,” Timur said.
“We have to spot anyone backing up Lola. Gedeon will be backing me up. This is the first time Atwater has changed things up, so I would expect them to be on edge. Gedeon tells me if it were him, he would put one of the men on Lola and the other on Georgi. It may happen that way. If I spot Lola making contact with Georgi, I’ll signal Gedeon. I’ll follow Georgi, hopefully back to where Lilith is being held. Your man cannot move on Lola until we know for certain her backup has been handled and so has Georgi’s. I have to also be assured that whoever takes down Lola is fast enough to get to her before she can text Georgi to kill Lilith. She will do that. A woman who would plan this elaborate of a revenge plot most likely planned to kill Lilith all along.”
“Kyanite is fast enough,” Timur assured. “He wouldn’t move on her unless he knew he could take her down and get the phone before she gives the order.”
“We know we’re putting you in a bad position with Lospostos,” Gedeon said. “For that, I apologize, Fyodor. I had hoped we could handle this without you.”
“He’ll understand a child’s life was at stake,” Fyodor said. “I ask that you meet with him after this is over. You’ll be able to hear the truth in his voice when you speak with him.”
Gedeon nodded his head but didn’t speak. Before he agreed to meet with Elijah Lospostos, he was going to have a long talk with Meiling and lay down the law. If she wasn’t willing to comply, there would be no meeting. They would be getting on a plane and heading back to New Orleans within an hour of taking the kid back to her parent.
GEDEON watched as Meiling weaved in and out of the marketplace, crowded with wares and fresh fish. She was graceful when she moved, dressed in dark navy denim overalls that were still very feminine on her slight figure. Under the overalls she had on a striped navy-and-red long-sleeved cotton tee. She wore a cropped denim jacket over the tee. She seemed to blend into the shadows cast by the numerous overhead umbrellas shading the long tables of vegetables, fruits, fish, meats and wares offered by so many vendors.
She was patient, looking at everything, exploring each table, picking up a tomato or a cucumber and smelling it before putting it back down. She bargained for a basket of cherry tomatoes, and when she’d settled on a price, she placed them carefully in the woven basket hanging off her arm. She left that vendor’s table but backtracked, returning to purchase two cucumbers and a small basket of mushrooms.
Meiling was several feet behind the person she followed—a tall, beautiful woman wearing thick glasses with her chestnut hair tied up in a bun. She had a larger basket on her arm and was busy bargaining at various booths or tables for goods. It was clear she was known to the local vendors. They all greeted her warmly by name and pointed out their best and freshest produce.
Gedeon’s job wasn’t to watch Lola. It was necessary to find her backup as soon as possible. He wasn’t the only one looking. His primary role was to serve as Meiling’s protection. That meant he had to ensure no one was aware of Meiling trailing after Lola. He couldn’t imagine it. Meiling was extremely good at tailing her quarry. She didn’t look in the least interested in her. She was by turns in the same aisle or two rows over. Sometimes she was in the opposite row. She was so small, she was lost in the crowd often. Even if someone was up above the marketplace looking down on it, as he was, Gedeon doubted anyone would focus on her. She didn’t look in the least like a threat.
He scanned the crowd continually and then quartered the area around him. He paid attention to the rooftops and surrounding windows and balconies. Gedeon had detested bringing Timor and Fyodor Amurov into the entire affair. There was no way of guaranteeing that friendship wouldn’t override the Amurovs’ compassion for the child. They might decide to let Lospostos know what was happening. If the man was involved, he could send shooters after Meiling and Gedeon. That possibility was very real. Gedeon never let any possibility of retaliation go unheeded. That was what kept him alive.
“Two o’clock,” he whispered. “You see him? That’s definitely Alan Cano. Meiling called it. He’s watching Lola’s back. You have him, Rodion?”
“I do.” Rodion’s tone was clipped.
Somewhere, Timur was out there watching the entire scene unfold. Gedeon knew the head of security wasn’t happy that Fyodor had insisted he come along as well. Both men were upset that members of Lospostos’s lair were involved and he was not informed. Wars were started over much lesser things.
Gedeon didn’t trust anyone—apart from Meiling—and she’d earned his trust by saving his life on more than one occasion. He intended to have a gun trained on Elijah Lospostos if he ended up meeting with him. He wanted to have Meiling somewhere safe, out of sight. He’d lived his entire existence this way, since the moment his father’s friends had come to murder them all.
Gedeon had been very young, but he remembered each of them. They’d eaten at his family’s table. His parents had helped their families time and again. He’d played with their children. Still, they’d come to murder them. Their only sin had been their extraordinary gifts, which seemed to intimidate and frighten the others. And make them jealous. Never mind that his parents had used those gifts to aid the others.
From those early days he had learned that anyone could pretend friendship and end up betraying you. It had been his father’s best friend who had come late in the night, knocking on the door. His father would have been prepared for an attack had it been anyone else. He had opened the door without hesitation. He had grown up with the man and thought of him like a sibling. Gedeon had called him uncle. That betrayal had hurt his father almost more than the torture and death that followed.
Gedeon was thankful his father had died. It had spared him seeing what the pakhan had done to Gedeon’s beloved mother. Selling her to any man. Beating her at every opportunity when she resisted. What he did to Gedeon was beside the point, but it built a rage in him and his leopard that would never go away. Gedeon could push it down, but it would always be there, and sometimes the nightmares were relentless.
Gedeon was intelligent and he had waited for his opportunity, looking compliant so the pakhan trained him to become an assassin for him. He found his father’s best friend first, and he spent days making him suffer. First by killing his family one by one in front of him. He made certain the man had no one left. Then there were days of merciless torture, every single one in retaliation for what his mother had suffered. Finally, a slow, agonizing death. Gedeon had never felt a single ounce of remorse. He was still very young and knew he should—but he hadn’t. That had only been the beginning of a long, secret campaign to get the murderers of his family.
The pakhan had never suspected a young boy would be behind the brutal killings. How could he be? These men were experienced. They had vicious leopards to warn them. And Gedeon always had an airtight alibi.
Time was slipping away. The longer Meiling spent tailing Lola in the marketplace, the greater the risk of her being discovered. Where the hell was the man on Georgi Chaban? For that matter, where was Georgi?
“She just made contact with Georgi,” Meiling whispered in his ear. Her voice was so soft he barely heard it.
Gedeon’s gaze jumped to her instantly, his heart accelerating. Her head was down as she smelled a ripe apricot. Lola was to her right and behind her, talking animatedly with the vendor while Meiling purchased a few of the apricots and placed them in her small basket. She began to wind her way through aisles around the rest of the long length of tables, walking toward the exit, ignoring Lola completely. Twice she stopped to look at something one of the vendors had to offer before shaking her head and continuing on her way.
“She’s coming out,” Gedeon advised.
He had to work to keep from being tense. This was the moment Meiling was most at risk. Georgi had someone backing him up, and so far, no one had spotted that man. They were all leopards. Gedeon wasn’t at all familiar with the terrain, and their enemies were. This was their home turf, and they regularly made their drops here. They would know every nook and cranny to wedge themselves in to watch over their charges, but like him, when their responsibilities were on the move, they would have to move.
Very carefully, but with great speed, he broke down his rifle and placed it in the small carry case. While doing so, he barely made any movements. The entire time, he scanned the rooftops and the one little open meadow just to the right of the parking lot. That meadow kept drawing his attention. His gut knotted.
“Lotus, come back inside. I don’t care what your excuse is but come back inside. Make it look real.”
Meiling was a pro when it came to working with him. She didn’t argue, although she had to be afraid she would lose her quarry. She snapped her fingers and turned around, nearly bumping into a man who caught her by the shoulders. She laughed softly and apologized.
“Forget something?” he asked, keeping her from falling.
“Yes, what I came for in the first place. I’m always doing that.”
The older man laughed with her, and then she continued into the farmer’s market while he headed toward the parking lot. She hurried immediately and then purposefully turned to her left and went straight to a vendor who had a multitude of lettuce on his table. She pointed to three different types and added them to her basket, explaining how she’d forgotten the very thing she’d come for in the first place. Chatting with him a little more, she added fresh beets and a bundle of asparagus. After paying, she turned back toward the exit just as Georgi and Caleb Basco entered. Meiling smoothly rounded the vendor’s table to examine the strange artichokes he was pointing out to her. She listened carefully as he explained how to cook and eat them.
“How did you know?” she whispered as she purchased two of the artichokes. They were definitely in the thistle family. Gedeon hadn’t eaten them before. He hoped she didn’t think he was going to start now. She’d been like a crazy woman in the kitchen lately. He was certain she might be considering poisoning him with the thistles or at least choking him with the thorns.
“I had a hunch. I’ve seen this kind of setup before. Keep walking to the parking lot and get into the secondary vehicle. It looks like shit, but Timur said his cousin’s wife made it into a road rocket. So far, they’ve come through for us.”
“Um, Gedeon.” There was laughter in Meiling’s voice. It was the kind of thing that drew him to her. In the midst of a tense situation, Meiling always had a sense of humor. “I have no idea what the secondary vehicle looks like. That wasn’t part of the discussion. You were taking control of that. I had the truck.”
“That little Honda with the paint peeling off. There are four cars parked between the truck and the Honda and Georgi’s vehicle.”
“The shiny hot-looking souped-up truck I was going to get to drive?” she challenged, but the laughter in her voice belied her ability to sound upset.
“You couldn’t even climb up into the cab,” he stated.
“You feel very safe, don’t you, Leopard Boy? I can’t retaliate when you’re making your short jokes because I’m here and you’re there, but it won’t be long and you’re going to be very sorry. Where are the keys to the rocket?”
“Reach under the right wheel.”
“That’s not going to be noticeable?”
“You’ll figure it out, you always do.”
“Who was the actor helping me out with my little performance? The older man? He was leopard. His cologne smelled yummy.”
Gedeon just stopped the grin. Caleb Basco wasn’t his problem. Timur had assigned someone to take him down. “Timur asked him to help us out. Don’t tell me you have a thing for older men.”
She dropped one of the small packages she was carrying beside the tire of the Honda. Her hand slid along the wheel well and expertly extracted the key from the little holder. “Georgi Chaban just walked right past me without looking my way. His car is the hot little Porsche a row up and three cars over. I thought you said he was parked between us.”
“He changed cars.”
“He thinks he’s so clever. Lola handed a note off to him. He read it, tore it into tiny pieces and dropped the pieces into three garbage cans,” Meiling reported. “I indicated the cans to Jeremiah but he can’t move on them until everyone except Chaban is rounded up.”
“You just worry about tailing Chaban. If Timur’s men are as good as he said, they’ll do their jobs. If not, there isn’t anything we can do about it,” Gedeon pointed out.
She slid behind the wheel of the Honda. The car started right up. Chaban had already pulled his Porsche out of the parking lot and turned left. A dark blue sedan pulled into traffic after him. The sound of metal hitting metal was loud as an SUV rammed into the side of the sedan and drove it over the curb and right back into the parking lot, smashing it into another parked vehicle.
“Timur’s man just took Caleb Basco out of the equation, Meiling,” Gedeon reported. “The cops have been called and Caleb will not make it out of this alive. A fight will break out, and Caleb, who believes he’s a total badass with a knife, will attempt to blindside Timur’s man. He won’t succeed. The witnesses will be a couple of cops.”
Gedeon followed Meiling out of the parking lot, taking the exit to their far left. He caught a glimpse of the Porsche and accelerated around the little Honda, revving the motor of the memorable shiny blue-black truck obnoxiously as it shot past her to gain several car lengths in the middle lane.
Meiling tested the speed and agility of the little Honda, weaving it through the needle of two cars in the middle lane to get into the fast lane. She passed Gedeon and kept up her speed until she glimpsed the Porsche. He was using the middle lane effectively. Driving fast, but not calling attention to himself.
“Timur’s men are reporting in, Meiling. The net’s being dropped on Lola’s accomplices. I hope to hell he’s right and Kyanite is as fast as they say he is. If he can’t get to Lola before she has time to send a text to Georgi, that little girl is toast,” Gedeon mused aloud.
“I don’t need to hear that right now,” Meiling replied very softly. “It’s going off like clockwork. We don’t fail, Gedeon, because we plan out every detail. She’ll stay alive and we’ll return her to her dad.”
She murmured something under her breath he couldn’t quite catch.
“Spit it out, Lotus.” Gedeon accelerated and deliberately passed her and several other cars, bringing him nearly side by side with their quarry. He didn’t look over but bobbed his head up and down to the beat of the music playing loudly. He wore dark sunglasses and a baseball cap backward on his head. When the car in front of him didn’t move over immediately, he revved his engine impatiently.
Meiling laughed. “You don’t miss much, Leopard Boy. I just said I wanted to kick her dad hard somewhere it might do him some good.”
He winced, having the feeling he knew exactly where she was thinking of aiming, and his Lotus Blossom knew how to kick.
“He deserves it,” she added.
“A wise man knows not to argue,” he intoned, and passed the moment the car in front of him pulled into the middle lane, almost directly in front of Georgi’s pretty little Porsche. The driver gave Gedeon the finger, but he ignored it, rocking out to the music, his head banging up and down.
“When did you get wise?” she asked as the beat-up Honda glided up three cars to settle behind the Porsche.
“Suggesting kicks can straighten a man right up, Lotus,” he said, and let his truck slow just enough to annoy the hell out of Georgi. He wanted the man’s attention on him and his kick-ass truck, not the unremarkable little Honda sliding in and out of traffic, keeping right up with the Porsche.
As expected, Georgi pulled around the truck at the first opportunity and accelerated, wanting to put distance between him and the truck—or wanting to get to his destination faster. Gedeon wasn’t in the least surprised when he took the exit leading away from the city and toward Elijah Lospostos’s vast estate. The gently rolling hills were covered in trees placed close enough that their branches had grown strong but twisting together as they reached upward, forming an arboreal highway. Only a shifter would recognize it for what it was: essentially a road to use when one wanted to escape quickly.
The Honda pulled over in a small turnout under the shade of weeping trees someone had planted in the hopes of staving off the relentless sun on the side of the two-lane road. Gedeon pulled the truck in tight behind her so that not one part of his flashy vehicle was showing. He leapt from the truck into the Honda.
“Stay as far back as you can without losing him. Head for the knoll I told you about,” he instructed.
She glanced at him, her dark eyes soft. “Gedeon, we’re close, I can feel her.”
“I wish I was closer. If that note said to kill the child instead of providing proof of life, we’re fucked.”
Meiling drove with the same casual ease she did everything. He kept his gaze fixed on the Porsche, which was several miles ahead of them. They were slightly above Chaban and could see his car weaving in and out around a few of the circular turns. Meiling didn’t push the speed, although she had to be feeling the same sense of anxiety as Gedeon was.
This was one of those cases that inevitably took him back to a childhood where he had no control. Where murderers decided the fate of children for whatever their reasons. It didn’t matter that he was called in at the last minute and he had only a couple of hours to find the victim; he always felt responsible if he didn’t get there in time. Finding a dead child was one of the worst failures imaginable to him.
She abruptly pulled the Honda over and both bailed. They’d chosen this spot ahead of time because it gave them the best view of the small house Georgi Chaban leased on Lospostos land. Chaban’s parents had the home a mile from his, also leased from Lospostos, but they’d held that lease for years.
Chaban pulled his Porsche into the garage and was instantly swallowed, out of their sight. The moment he was in the garage, Gedeon and Meiling swept their entire surroundings for signs of guards or anyone else who might be watching over Georgi. Both had extrasensory gifts they had learned to rely on, and when neither could spot anyone and radar hadn’t gone off, they crouched low and ran toward the leased property.
Chaban’s land was very neat and set back from one of the well-maintained roads on the property. Everything on the Lospostos estate was very well kept, although it could appear wild to an outsider. The trees were sculpted for leopards, the branches thick and twisted to bend toward one another throughout the massive estate.
Chaban’s leased property was a distance from the main house, where Elijah and his family resided. Many of the Lospostos workers were considered family and had leased portions of the land for their own families. The land around the houses was maintained by the families, but all roads and the surrounding property were kept up by Lospostos.
Meiling and Gedeon utilized the shrubbery and foliage from the trees to help hide their approach to Chaban’s home. They kept away from the main road. It wouldn’t do to have someone passing by unexpectedly spot them. Anyone on the Lospostos property was most likely a shifter, with a shifter’s enhanced sense of smell. Meiling and Gedeon were using a special scent blocker to prevent shifters from discovering them as they made their approach.
The sound of a weeping child caught at Gedeon’s heart. He hadn’t recognized he had a heart until Meiling came along. She’d softened him in ways he wasn’t certain were all that good. He had been numb before—closed off. Being around Meiling had changed him in unexpected ways. The more he was with her, the more he obsessed over her—and the more he found himself caring about how some of their cases could affect her. She had a much more tender heart than he did. He couldn’t imagine what the sound of that crying child was doing to her.
He signaled to Meiling to move around to the other side of the house. As they did, the sound of the child’s crying became louder.
“I want my daddy,” she said clearly.
The window was open, and blinds fluttered with the breeze. The blinds were wooden and had been pulled open, so when Gedeon peered into the room, he could see Chaban holding a camera out in front of a very small female child. The little girl flung herself onto an unmade bed facedown so that only a tangle of dark hair showed against the white sheet.
Chaban swore at the child. “Stop being a little monster. If you want to eat, you’d better cooperate. Your father wants to see a picture of you.”
The child kicked her feet and any reply she made was muffled by the pillow and sheets she had buried her face into.
Chaban stalked across the room and dragged Lilith’s head up by her hair, making her wail louder. He snapped several pictures of her and then dropped her head back onto the pillow.
“You dad doesn’t want you back. That’s why you’re still here,” he said cruelly. “You’re never going home. No one wants you because you’re an entitled little brat.”
Chaban stalked out and kicked the door closed behind him. The sound was loud, but more important, he had kicked the thick wooden door so hard, when it hit the frame, it shook the entire house. The child jerked in fear and pressed her hands over her ears, sobbing louder.
Meiling moved up to the side of the house in stealthy silence. The blinds swayed with the wind as she examined the window for alarms. Finding none on the window, which Gedeon found quite shocking, Meiling slid through the window.
“Lilith.” She whispered the child’s name. “Lilith, don’t stop crying or act startled. Your father sent me to bring you home. The bad man is just outside the door. He can’t know I’m here yet. My partner will make sure he can’t get to you again.”
Lilith flipped over onto her back and sat up, her eyes wild as she looked around the room. Gedeon, watching from the window, could see the leopard staring out from the child’s eyes. There was no question that Fredrick Atwater’s daughter was a shifter, and she had a leopard already looking out for her.
Meiling looked soft and gentle as she slowly approached Lilith, extending one hand toward her. “Honey, you should be able to hear lies. When you listen to people, you know if they are good people or bad, right? Lola wasn’t a good person, was she?”
Lilith shook her head. “I told Daddy, but he wouldn’t listen. Lola said I was bad for telling him. She called me a brat too.”
“You’re not a brat, Lilith. You were trying to save your daddy. That makes you smart and courageous. I’m sorry she and her friends have been so mean to you.”
“They said my daddy doesn’t want me back.”
“You know that isn’t true. You could hear their lies, couldn’t you?” Meiling insisted softly. She was close to the child now. Sitting on the edge of the bed with her. Not yet touching her. Not forcing acceptance from the little girl.
Gedeon could see the leopard in the child yielding to Meiling’s sovereignty. There was no demand in Meiling. No impatience. She listened attentively to everything the child had to say, leaning toward her with a little half-smile on her face and nodding as though everything Lilith had to say was invaluable. It wasn’t very long before the child crawled into Meiling’s lap and wound her arms around his partner’s neck. For some reason the sight of that caused a curious melting sensation in the region of his heart.
Meiling signaled him, a small movement of her fingers as she flung herself somersaulting backward over the side of the bed, Lilith in her arms, tucked in tight against her body to protect the child. Simultaneously, Gedeon dove through the window, his speed making him a blur as Georgi Chaban slammed open the door to the bedroom, using his fist and a boot. He had a gun out and shot into the room without actually seeing a target. The door crashed into the wall and started to bounce closed.
Gedeon went in low, beneath the gun, hitting him at the knees and taking him down, his knife sinking into his belly several times and then his groin, severing arteries while Meiling covered Lilith’s eyes and murmured reassurances to her.