Blindside Read online

  The flashing signs burned her eyelids in cha-cha rhythm. “I don’t do tricks.”

  “Come on. Please? They say you got real powers.” His tone was that of a real kid, no longer fearful, his non-bruised eye open wide with wonder.

  The light-bending ability to make her frame appear huge already took up a great chunk of power. Then again….

  “How about a trade?”

  She all but heard the kid’s mouth part in shock. “Yeah? I got—”

  “Not that,” she said when he dug for his baggies. “Your sunglasses.”

  A cheap pair of aviators hung behind his neck.

  “You’re shitting.”

  So Lana sent a jolt of power at the pink neon girl with lit-up nipples. When the glass shattered into pieces, the kid’s “Wow!” speared her heart.

  Glasses were shoved into her hand, the lenses cold and smooth and thin against her palms clad in black leather.

  “Go home,” she said over her shoulder and headed for the flamingos, wind from the river snarling at her cape.

  Mid-level dealers didn’t hawk their product on the street. Night Rook would not do well inside The Red Flamingo, but Lana figured cleavage would be her key in blending in.

  The sunshades cut down on the pain, and the skin-tight leather ensured no one looked at her face too long before traveling south. She stuffed the cape into her helmet and justified paying top dollar for virtually indestructible paper-thin silk.

  Inside, harsh Latin rhythms beat at her eardrums. She pushed through alcohol-drenched bodies and used the breaks between the lights to push her way up to the bar. Make room for Daredevil, bitches.

  “Hey, mamas. Wanna party?”

  Give him a smile. “I could get in the mood.” Her shoulder blades itched under the eye searing light show. No point turning around—even during small patches of relief she wouldn’t find the owner of that gaze. “Pavlic Mendoza hooks me up. Know him?”

  “Mendoza?” Her new friend curled a thinly mustached lip in an expression that held both respect and distaste. “That half-breed shithead’s too expensive. If you want good shit….” The lasers bleached out her retinas, but she figured Papi gestured something about hooking her up with “good shit” on the cheap.

  When meaty fingers curved over her gloves, Lana suppressed the urge to blast him. “Your girl’s gonna get jealous.” Maybe a jealous woman owned the stare stabbing at Lana’s back.

  “I got no girl, sweet mamas. Wanna try me?”

  “Maybe.” She let Papi bring her hand up to his mouth, his lips lingering on the leather as if taking a taste. Just my luck, someone with a fetish. “Mendoza, first. Then let’s see you dance.” Despite the sunshades, the lasers rendered her blind. For a short moment, she was helpless, the lava in her veins whispering to blast the lights away.

  “Mendoza.” Despite the pain, she steeled the words into a husky-voiced command.

  “Okay, mamas. He’s probably still here.” She could see shapes, black outlines against white hell that was her vision. No choice but to trust Papi to steer her through the mass of alcohol drenched bodies gyrating in the pulsing razor light. She couldn’t lose Mendoza, not when she was this close to finding a connection, a thread of data linking corruption at San Mike PD to those who had set Nicky up.

  She still couldn’t say, even in her mind, that her brother was murdered.

  That feeling of being watched followed her deeper into the sea of writhing bodies. She should’ve been used to people staring both as the Night Rook and as the invalid who could barely function in daylight.

  “Hey, homes.” During a momentary relief of near darkness, Papi clapped the massive shoulder of a bulldozer leaning on the bar. “My baby wants to party.”

  “Yeah?” Lights bleached out his face when Pavlic turned, but Lana got an impression of a heavy chin and a thin upper lip concealed by an attempted mustache. A hand adorned with multiple gold rings clutched at the lapel of an imitation leather coat. “Why would I care?”

  “Chill, bro. She ain’t a cop.” A respite from the lights revealed Papi’s tight smile.

  “Hey, Pavlic. A friend of mine says he’s offered you good money. And when you didn’t call him back, he asked me to sort out your mess.” She barely heard herself over the music. “You know him right? Tall, dark type. Wears a helmet. Been trying to get ahold of you for weeks.” Her helmet hung from her elbow, below her waist, the crowd hopefully too thick and drunk for anyone to notice.

  Mendoza shot a look over her shoulder. “I don’t know nothing.”

  “Yeah? I believe you. But you haven’t called my friend back. You know how he gets when he’s unhappy.” Despite Papi’s squeeze on her wrist, Lana stepped closer, making Mendoza hunch up lower to the bar.

  “What friend? I thought you wanted to party?” Papi tugged her closer, brushing a palm over her breast under a pretense of a hug. His breath of mint, beer, and pot twisted her stomach into knots.

  That gaze at her back…. “Give me a minute.” The light razored her eyelids, the flashes merciless beats of pink.

  “You’re with me now, aren’t you? I wanna know about your friend.” She had to grit her teeth to keep from blasting Papi into the crowd on the dance floor. With tears blurring what was left of her vision, she glanced over her shoulder, trying to find that gaze.

  “Come on, mamas.”

  Damned lights wouldn’t stop flashing.

  “Come on, baby.” Another tug at her wrist, strong enough to whip her around, and when the lights dimmed again, she thought she recognized a face. Pain hit, deep and low in her belly, an old ache she had thought was buried with the guilt. Not possible.

  “Mamas….”

  She snatched her wrist from Papi’s grip and turned back to Mendoza, who was fighting futilely to get through the crowd. “Let’s talk somewhere private.”

  “I don’t know nothing,” Mendoza mumbled just as the crowd pushed him toward her. Falling, he knocked the sunshades off her face to drown her in agony. The heat of lasers burned into her eyes; the sawdust floor rushed up to introduce old friends, Nausea and Pain.

  “Fuckhead!” Papi was at her side, groping as much as helping. More tears—God, she hated them—stabbed through her burning lids. She crawled over the floor, searching for the glasses, closing her fingers over the magically intact lenses with rapid relief. With shades back on her eyes, she pressed the helmet to her belly, the cool touch edging back some of the nausea.

  Yeah, you’re a real superhero, now.

  “Poor mamas, you could use a fix. Come in the back with me. I got something to help you.” Under the blaring rap, Papi gripped her upper arm to help her up and squeezed her breast as if that was his thank you.

  With noise and tears coalescing into hell, she’d had enough.

  A quick fist to his face shattered Papi’s nose, his blood a thick, dark spray she barely avoided. With screams and chaos behind her, Lana pushed out of the crowd toward the stench of downtown air.

  The helmet back over her face calmed most of the agony. At least that eerie gaze no longer cut her back. Not possible that he came back after three years.

  She had to focus on the present. Power seeped from her pores to create a lens effect, making her frame appear as a walking nightmare. The oversized cloak maintained the illusion if the power she still didn’t understand winked out. She became a dark blur, large and impenetrable, the Night Rook as she had once mumbled to a reporter who asked for her name.

  She hadn’t mastered flying, so she ran, the wind tearing through the cape, the smell of water fresher as she headed toward the San Mike River. She wouldn’t lose Mendoza when she’d gotten a bead on the snitch.

  Tonight, she’d find out his connections and, from there, the dealers who set up Nick. And the cops—she still couldn’t think about that without bile in her stomach—who protected them all.

  Pavlic wasn’t hard to find, or maybe she got lucky. Either way, she all but stumbled over him huddled in the shadow of a crate close to
the entrance of the harbor. The wrought iron lamps with their curlicues and soft lights allowed her to see him feverishly texting.

  “Reception’s crappy down here,” she said in a voice freakishly low thanks to the helmet’s audio distortion.

  He jolted, mouth dropping open in surprise. She fed on his sick terror of the persona she created, this “Night Rook” name she once dropped out of arrogance and pride.

  “How about a freebie? Favor between friends?” He fumbled a plastic baggie out of his pocket, his fingers shaking, his rings a dull gold.

  The helmet and her power shield allowed her to see the yellow spills of lights shimmering on the water’s edge. Another time, she’d have admired the view. “The cops won’t get here in time.”

  “You think you scare me? You think I’m running from some freak dressed like Darth Vader?” Pavlic waved a blade, the steel gleaming under the lights like a sharp star.

  A short blast of power sent him reeling close to freezing water.

  “I want names, Pavlic. The cops you snitch for.”

  “They’ll kill you.” Choppy voice full of dark, gratifying fear. “Dozens of them are on their way here. You gonna fight them all?”

  “Won’t need to.” Too bad he couldn’t see her smile. She didn’t stop to analyze this satisfaction bubbling inside her veins.

  “They say you fly. Fly, fucker. Show me.” And that meatpacker body rushed her, blade angled up and aimed right at her throat.

  Her power surged, a flash of heat under her skin. Just self-defense, a sly voice whispered in her ear, and time crawled to still. She waited, lethal, steady, a cobra coiling for a kill.

  She would enjoy it.

  No. Instead of power, Lana used his momentum, moving aside to catch his wrist and flip him, gravity rushing up to meet two hundred pounds of flesh.

  She didn’t want to be a hero. She wasn’t Narc. But she stuck out a shield to protect his head when he fell, forehead first, onto the concrete.

  “Let’s talk about those cops.” Slight pressure on his wrist convinced Pavlic to drop the knife.

  “Okay, okay! Suka.” A mix of Spanish and Russian curses followed. “There’s dozens, okay? Hundreds. We’re talking brass.” He yowled with renewed pain.

  High-ranking cops covering Nicky’s death. Dread and bloodlust surged in bright waves, rage in a mood to party. “Names?”

  His wrist jerked in her hands. “They’ll fuck me up. You know it.”

  “I’ll fuck you worse.” A slight twist had him howling. That same dark satisfaction twisted in her veins while a voice, a weak faraway plea, whispered for her to stop.

  “Rook.”

  She froze under the shimmering darkness, her cloak beating around her legs. Mac Gamble stood less than ten feet away, arms crossed, eyes devoid of compassion. A long coat cut across his shoulders and dropped down to his feet, making him seem huge, a beast, a massive form emerging from the river. And damned if, under the mix of nerves and fear, Lana didn’t taste a small glimmer of joy.

  Her pulse stopped for a long shuddering second, then kicked into a gallop while she stood motionless, watching him move closer.

  She pictured his features, his hair cut short, the skull-trimmed look maximizing the harsh angles of his face. Firm sculpted lips did nothing to soften his expression, his wide jaw edged in flickering gold light. Creases around his mouth that deepened when he laughed. No doubt, the look he gave her out of those cool fathomless eyes could’ve cut granite.

  “This isn’t your business.”

  “You got my powers. Makes it my business.” Sandpaper voice lashed over her, dark, and delicious. Deadly.

  Mendoza whimpered at her feet.

  “Let go of him.” He jerked his chin at Pavlic. The Night Rook couldn’t see his eyes, but she remembered them to be as bright and sharp as emeralds.

  “We’re having a conversation.” She should’ve been sprinting down the docks instead of standing like a starstruck groupie, taking in his frame, those broad shoulders blocking out the river, his arms crossed at the chest.

  He would fight her. The thought sent a thrill down her spine.

  Mendoza jerked again. “You know who you’re dealing with? That’s Narc. San Mike’s hero, asshole.”

  “He’s not a hero now.” She couldn’t stop looking at Narc, craving his heat, the same as when he had been Mac Gamble, an Aikido instructor with a low voice and rare brilliant smile.

  “Neither are you.” His voice lashed out in a rope of silk, a rough-edged caress she had no business wanting.

  His cool, merciless gaze held hers, daring her to move, to flee, to stay and challenge him. Her pulse threatened to rip out of her veins.

  “My fight isn’t with you Narc.”

  Mendoza wrenched under her hold, beating at her with his free hand. His fist bounced off the thin level of power she kept around her skin, using the rest to form a barrier between herself and Mac, splitting her focus, gritting her teeth in effort to keep the energy in place.

  “Give me the cops you work for and it’ll be over.”

  Another hard desperate tug, while Narc—she had to think of him as Narc—pushed his weight at her shields less than three feet away.

  “The cops I work for? Dozens. You think I got everyone’s name?”

  A fist against the shield had the same effect as a punch in the gut.

  “I know how this works.” Mac’s voice snapped over her in a caress of pain and pleasure. “You’re fighting to keep focus. It’s not going to hold.”

  She had no control here, in the dark, trapped in a bubble of her own power. Three years since she’d seen him last. A lifetime since he breathed life back into her lungs, that low voice screaming for her in the burning darkness.

  “I thought you didn’t use your powers.” Fighting for breath and focus, she dragged Mendoza back, his wrist a taut thick wire in her rapidly numbing fingers. She could let go, face Mac and fight, blast him with power…. “Come on, Pavlic.”

  Mendoza twisted again, and her shattered focus allowed him enough leeway to jerk her off balance. Mac pushed into the barrier, splintering her energy in a burst of heat, edging into her space, crowding her with that big fighter’s body.

  She should have clocked him while she had the last reserve of power. Instead she held the last shreds of shields tight around her skin, morphing the light surrounding her body to make her appear even bigger. Her cape snapped with the wind, the edges reaching out as if begging Mac to touch them.

  “Let go, you fuck.” Another twist and Pavlic wrenched free, the blade she’d dropped once more between his fingers. No time for strength or cop defensive tactics. She had enough power to keep the knife out of her gut, but not to stop the tip from slicing. Blood, cold and vile, stung her skin.

  She faced Mac, raw, without shields. Just her. Just him.

  Mendoza ran with loud thuds marking each step, the ground shuddering with impact. No hope in getting him with Mac, solid and dark and cold, standing in her way.

  “You don’t have to do this.” Calm voice, assured and steady. She didn’t take the time to reply.

  A hook aimed at his jaw found nothing but air. Mac’s palm closed warm and somehow gentle, on her wrist.

  “We don’t need to do this,” he said, and Lana had only herself to blame when she spun backward in an attempt to break his hold and opened herself to rookie basics.

  An arm around her waist, large, solid, and muscled. She reveled in the momentary flight before spilling back on the ground, lifting her knees as leverage to send him sideways, her foot shoved at the solid ridges of his chest.

  One hand held hers, skin over leather. His free palm closed over her boot. She should’ve pushed the steel reinforced tip into the hollow of his throat. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.

  Pushing didn’t do much good. Before she had the chance to kick, Mac flipped her on her belly, his weight subduing her in a match of strength.

  She took a breath, gauging her options. The helmet knocked softly ag
ainst the ground, the noise reverberating in her head. Her knees were trapped under his weight, her arms useless in reaching back to strike him.

  Silent, he sat with his weight pushing on her knees, holding her helpless. Waiting.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “I’ll live.” She jerked, much like Mendoza, praying her flexibility would hold. He drove her bent leg farther up, bowing her body. Words, harsh strips of satin, left his mouth, a prayer or a curse, she didn’t know. She used the momentary reprieve to twist out of this tangling of limbs, rolling away from all that solid heat to leave him with her cloak crushed in his fingers.

  The dim lights from the old world lamps caressed the angles of his face. Without her power, she had nothing to conceal her shape from that cool gaze, those granite features.

  A long testing step back. Mac stood, a black shadow from her past. She couldn’t seem to calm her breaths while nerves and arousal pumped alongside with fear, her body yearning for those wide hands touching her again.

  “You shouldn’t have come back.”

  “I want to help you.”

  Mendoza was long gone, probably mobilizing however many cops he could get ahold of for protection. Adrenaline was slowly ebbing, leaving her skin prickling with sharp kisses of pain. The night seemed cooler now because she had no cape to warm her.

  “I don’t need help, Narc.” A challenge thrown between them.

  “Rook. Yes, you do.” Her alias was a sensual lash out of that sculpted mouth. “Powers don’t make a hero.”

  “You gonna tell me people do?” She choked on tears and laughed instead, a smoke bomb warm and light between her fingers. “I’m not a hero. If you hadn’t come by, I would have proven that tonight.”

  Chapter Three

  Mac watched the Night Rook disappear in smoke, slim curves sliding into shadows. The shape, the feel of that leather-clad feminine body proved nothing—or so he told himself during the long walk into town from the docks.

  The room he took off Main boasted a view of garbage cans and, if he craned his neck, the foggy spires of the Space Tower. He glanced at them when he came in, denying himself the thought of going to “the office” as his father called the penthouse apartment Mac hadn’t seen in three years.