Most Wanted - A Fantasy Romance Novel (The Shadow Blade Series) Page 15

  Where was she going? What was wrong? She’d fallen asleep in his arms placid as a lamb, nestling against him, even twining her fingers through his own, and smiling when he kissed her goodnight. He’d planned on waking her up with breakfast, or dinner in bed, and then running her a soothing bath.

  So why was she leaving? And without even saying goodbye?

  He ran to his dressing room to grab a clean pair of pants and saw that the bags of underwear he’d bought the other day were lying in disarray on the ground. He paused, wondering what had happened and starting to piece things together. Maybe Ariel had seen this stuff and not realized it was for her. Maybe she had thought he had a girlfriend. Stupid. He cursed himself. He should have just given it to her the other night. It was a small gesture, to make up for ripping her underwear. And he’d wanted to buy her something. But then he’d not known how or when to present it to her.

  He turned and saw the closet doors were hanging open. Swearing under his breath he grabbed for a pair of jeans. Damn it. Damn it to hell. He pulled on the jeans and jogged to the bedroom door, tripping over his wallet. He picked it up and it fell open to the photograph of Neve and him on their wedding day. His heart smashed into his ribcage. Shit. He glanced at the door and then back at the photograph. Had Ariel seen this too?

  He threw the wallet to the floor and raced towards the stairs, taking them three at a time until he hit the bottom and flung open the front door. He sprinted down the driveway, but by the time he got there, Ariel was gone.

  Chapter 19

  Ariel flung her bag onto her unmade bed and stood there, breathing hard, looking around. She needed to get her head together and focus but she couldn’t stop thinking about Jax and about what an idiot she had been to ever trust him. He was a Blade for god’s sake. He’d probably had an ulterior motive this whole time. And where was his wife? Away on a business trip? On holiday somewhere? Unaware her shithead husband was cheating on her? She was tempted to write her a letter.

  Forget it, forget it, she told herself, chanting it like a mantra. Only one thing mattered now; getting the hell out of LA. She started throwing clothes onto the bed, scanning the room frantically, trying to focus. She couldn’t take weapons. She wouldn’t get through airport security. But that was OK. She could buy new ones when she got to where she was going. The only problem was her Shadow blade. She needed to leave it somewhere safe. Maybe she would give it to Felix to take care of while she was gone. Or have him ship it to her when she had a new address.

  Once she’d packed a handful of clothes and her unused but every-ready passport, Ariel surveyed her crummy apartment and realized with a pang of regret that there was nothing else left to pack, not a single possession other than the photograph of Saul tacked to the refrigerator. Her whole life could be boiled down to a handful of clothes, a blade and a photograph. What the hell did that say? She didn’t know, but she swept the sadness aside. What did it matter? Things were just things. She had a lifetime of memories, most of them bad, but some of them good, some of them better than good. That would have to suffice.

  Urgh. Why did Jax have to appear in her mind’s eye? Why did she have to remember him? Because every time she moved she was given a sharp reminder of him, that was why. She’d take some painkillers, sleep on the plane, and hopefully when she woke up she’d have forgotten all about him.

  As she swung her bag onto her shoulder and picked up her passport someone hammered on the door. Ariel froze, her senses going into overdrive. Who was it? Was it Jax? Her heart beating wildly. But no, she couldn’t sense him. If it was Jax she would have known. It was a demon. She edged to the door.

  ‘Ariel?’

  It was Felix. Ariel yanked open the door. ‘Felix!’ she said, surprised to see him on her doorstep. ‘What’s up? What are you doing here?’

  He was buzzing with excitement, out of breath. ‘I came to show you this,’ he panted, thrusting something at her.

  Ariel took it. It was a piece of paper, ragged and torn from having been stuffed in Felix’s pants. She unfolded it and felt her heart skip several beats. Air exploded from her lungs. ‘What is this?’ she demanded.

  ‘It’s him. It’s that guy. The one you were with the other night.’

  ‘I know who it is,’ Ariel hissed, staring at the photograph of Jax on the front of the bounty flyer. ‘But why is there a bounty on him?’

  Felix caught the aggression in her tone, which wasn’t hard to miss, and took a scared step backwards. He shook his head at her confused. ‘I, er, he’s a Blade?’ he said, as though that was explanation enough.

  The room started to spin, she couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen. Ariel forced herself to read the flyer. The Brothers had put a bounty out on Jax. They were offering a million dollars for him alive. Half a million dead.

  ‘A million dollars?’ Ariel heard herself say out loud.

  Felix grinned ear to ear. ‘A-ha.’

  Ariel pressed a hand to her stomach, which had tied itself into a knot. A million dollars? That was more than they’d ever paid for anyone. They rarely went after Blades because they saw the Blades as basically doing the same job as the bounty hunters did, but for free. So why were they going after Jax? And how did they even know who he was?

  She squinted at the photograph and realized with a shock it had been taken from the CCTV outside Jimmy’s. Jax was leaning against his bike wearing his leather jacket. Shit. She should never have taken him there. This was her fault. But something nagged at her. She didn’t understand why they’d put such a big hit on him. It made no sense.

  ‘How did they know?’ she demanded. ‘How did they know he was a Blade?’ she asked, starting to pace like a caged animal.

  Felix took a backwards step, his eyes darting to the door. ‘Aaron told Jimmy,’ he mumbled. ‘Said you were getting help from a Blade.’

  Ariel came to a sudden standstill. ‘But why?’ she asked. ‘Why do they want him so badly?’ The flyer was scrunched up in her fist and she was thrusting it in Felix’s face.

  Felix shook his head, his face a mixture of confusion and fear. ‘I thought maybe you’d be happy,’ he said softly.

  ‘Happy?’ Ariel asked, shaking her head, not understanding.

  ‘You could make a million!’

  ‘What?’ she asked, her head still trying to compute, rapidly trying to calculate her options.

  ‘You could hand him in. Get the money!’ Felix said. ‘You’d be rich. You’d have over a million five if you counted all your other winnings.’

  Ariel felt suddenly sick. She put a hand over her mouth and swallowed the nausea down. The room was spinning like a top, making it hard to think straight.

  Five hundred thousand. That was all she had. If she offered it to Jimmy in lieu of Jax’s life, it would leave her with small change. Not even enough for a coffee and a donut. Nowhere near enough for a flight to Europe. Damn. Tears of anger welled in her eyes. She clamped her jaw shut to stop from crying. She had been so close.

  ‘You could bring him in Ariel!’ Felix said, ‘Think about it.’

  She blinked at him. Then shook her head. No. Even after everything, even after his betrayal, she would never hand Jax over to the Brothers. They would torture him to get him to reveal more about the Blades; who they were, where they lived, how they trained. She couldn’t do that to him.

  She could warn him. Maybe that would be enough. She could head to LAX, book a flight and then call him on the way to warn him to watch his back. She glanced at the bag of money sitting by the door and then at Felix, looking at her expectantly and her heart sank to the depths of her chest. Her ribs felt crushed, as if banded by a metal vice. She couldn’t just leave. She’d spend the rest of her life wondering, worrying, regretting…blaming herself.

  ‘No,’ she said in a hoarse voice to Felix. ‘I’m going to speak to Jimmy.’

  ‘What?’ Felix asked, his head shooting up.

  She crossed to the door, grabbing her bag of money as she went. She would go and see Jimmy and
plead for Jax’s life. She would offer him every cent she had, give it back to him, and hope she could get the bounty voided. Did they even do that? She didn’t know. She would just have to make them.

  She didn’t stop to think about how it would look, her pleading on behalf of a human and a Blade at that. She couldn’t. Because it was her only shot at this. If she warned Jax it wouldn’t matter in the long run. They had his photograph. And his name. They had the registration plate of his bike, it was just visible in the corner frame of the shot. It wouldn’t take long to run it and find his address. She needed to move fast before another bounty hunter got to him.

  Jax parked his bike outside Ariel’s apartment building, and not even bothering to pay someone to guard it, sprinted towards the entrance. A bearded homeless guy muttered as he ran past and raced up the stairs. He pounded on her door. There was no answer. Shit. He tried the handle. The door fell open. He scanned the space. She wasn’t there. She was gone. The apartment looked like a tornado had hit it, but that was no indication of anything. It had looked the same the other day. He glanced over at the refrigerator then and saw with a sinking feeling that the photograph of her ex, Saul, was gone.

  Shit. Jax hung his head. He was too late. His gut was telling him she was gone for good, that he had lost her. Biting back a frustrated howl Jax sloped back down the stairs. He had to find her. But he had no idea where to even start. He stopped halfway down the stairs. That wasn’t exactly true. He knew she wanted to find this guy Rikon Fayette. So if he could find out where Rikon Fayette was he could find her. Jax considered his options and finally realized there was only one.

  He would have to pay a visit to Jimmy.

  Chapter 20

  Ariel pushed open the door to Jimmy’s office. The first thing she noticed was that he had a new desk. The second thing she noticed was the smug smile on Jimmy’s face. He stopped chewing his cigar and kicked back in his chair, resting his tiny feet on the desktop.

  ‘So you came,’ he said, flashing her his yellowing teeth.

  Ariel narrowed her eyes at him. What did he mean? How did he know she would come?

  ‘I wanted to talk to you,’ she said.

  ‘You want to try to buy your lover’s freedom?’ Jimmy asked.

  Ariel flinched back as if he’d kicked her. What? She stared at him. How did he know about her and Jax being lovers? Her heart started to pound and the fog that had surrounded her started to clear.

  ‘He’s not my lover,’ Ariel growled once she’d gathered herself. Her cheeks were flaming though.

  Jimmy laughed. ‘So why you here then?’ he asked.

  Ariel pressed her lips together. Goddamn. She glanced over her shoulder. Vin Diesel had changed shifts. Now he looked like that goddamn vampire from the Twilight movies, the big set one with the blonde hair. He was grinning at her too. Ariel suddenly put it all together. Jimmy had set this whole thing up. He’d seen the CCTV image of her and Jax, had probably had her followed and being the cunning, untrustworthy bastard that he was, had seen an opportunity to get his money back and wipe the smile off her face at the same time. She hated him with a passion she thought she had reserved only for Rikon. One day, she vowed to herself, she was going to make Jimmy pay.

  ‘I bet on you this time Ariel, just like you said I should.’

  Her gut twisted, acid hatred spurting through her. She glared at him. The little piece of worm-faced shit. Jimmy pouted at her, still smiling triumphantly.

  ‘You bastard,’ she hissed.

  Behind her she heard the bodyguard move. Her hand slid into her pocket, felt the hilt of her Shadow blade. It was so damn tempting. But if she made a move she knew it would be her face on the front of a bounty flyer before the end of the night.

  ‘Never claimed to be otherwise,’ Jimmy answered, swinging his legs off the table and returning to his calculator and spreadsheets.

  It was just about the money? He didn’t like losing. He wanted to teach her a lesson? Well, fine. She hefted her bag onto the table. ‘Here you go,’ she said, her voice sounding eerily calm. ‘It’s all there, except for fifteen thousand. You can have it. Just cancel the hit.’

  Jimmy glanced briefly at the bag before his gaze returned to his sheets of paper. His fingers tapped on the calculator.

  ‘It’s six hundred to cancel it,’ he grunted.

  ‘What?’ Ariel screeched.

  ‘You heard. You want me to call off the hit, you gotta pay six hundred thousand.’

  ‘Six hundred?’ Ariel spluttered. She didn’t have that kind of money and he knew it.

  Jimmy’s fingers stopped tapping. He looked up at her, his reptilian eyes cold and empty as panes of glass. ‘Maybe you should think about bringing him in and handing him over to the Brothers then. That’s a sweet amount of money. Could buy you a hit on Rikon Fayette.’ His tongue flicked out to lick his lips.

  Ariel’s breath caught. If she handed Jax over she could have Rikon. She didn’t want to buy Rikon Fayette though. She wanted to bring him in herself. She wanted to be the one to kill him. She wasn’t going to pay anyone for that pleasure. And even if a million dollars could buy her that opportunity she couldn’t do it if the cost was Jax’s life. Anyone’s life, in fact.

  She shook her head at Jimmy. There was only one option. She needed to take her cash and somehow find a way to make it more, make up the one hundred thousand short fall. There was a room of demons betting on cage fights just a few feet away. She grabbed her bag from the table and shoved past the dickhead wannabe vampire on the door. Jimmy’s laughter followed her.

  In the betting lounge she saw Felix waiting anxiously. As soon as he saw her he pushed his way through the crowd towards her. The room was stinking and heaving with bodies, people yelling at each other and the screens, waving chits in the air and wads of dollars.

  Ariel hated betting, but it was the only way she could think to make the money back.

  ‘Ariel,’ Felix said as he reached her side.

  ‘What?’ she snapped. She was preoccupied. She needed to watch the fights, figure out where to lay her bets. Anxiety was gnawing at her. She didn’t have much time. She wondered if she should head to Jax’s first and warn him but that would take time and she might be better off trying to win the money. She cursed herself for not ever having asked for his number. And sod’s law he had to be unlisted.

  Damn it. Panic was starting to take over, was clouding her judgment. She needed to stay calm.

  ‘Ariel!’ Felix was pulling on her sleeve.

  She glanced at him irritated. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s Aaron. I thought you might want to know. He’s gone after the bounty.’

  Ariel stared at him.

  ‘The bounty!’ Felix said again. ‘Your bounty. The Blade guy. He just left. He said he was going to teach you guys a lesson. I think he’s pissed.’

  Well durr, of course he was pissed. She wouldn’t have been at all surprised if Aaron hadn’t cooked this one up with Jimmy as a way to punish her, the sexist egotistical bastard.

  Ariel raced for the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Felix called out.

  ‘To Jax’s,’ she called over her shoulder.

  Chapter 21

  Jax cut the engine and kicked down the stand to his bike. He pulled the collar of his jacket up and checked his blades. He was walking into the lion’s den. There was no telling what was behind that boarded up door but he could sense it was nothing pleasant.

  His blood was hissing in his veins, pounding in his skull. Every single cell in his body knew this was a bad idea and was trying to get him to reconsider. But he didn’t stop walking. He would march on in there and demand to speak to this Jimmy guy. He’d offer him any amount of money, whatever he wanted, for intel on where Ariel might be.

  He pushed open the door. Inside it was dark and dingy. The festering smell of demon, vomit and cigarette smoke mingled in a toxic cloud. Jax coughed and let his eyes adjust to the gloom. He was in a long corridor. Further down, to t
he right, he could make out a door. On the other side of it he heard shouting and yelling. The far end of the corridor dissolved in darkness. He took a step, meaning to follow the corridor all the way to the end where he guessed the office might be, when suddenly the door on the right flew open.

  A kid came skidding out into the corridor. He glanced once over his shoulder and then came barreling towards Jax. Jax pressed back against the wall, ducking his face into the shadows, hoping the kid would just walk on by. He knew he must be giving off a scent though, because as he passed by the kid’s head flew up and he did a double take.

  Before the kid could yell out or do anything stupid, Jax locked his hands around his throat. He pushed the kid into the shadows of an alcove and thrust him against the wall.

  The kid was wearing baggy jeans and a cap and he had chits of paper sticking out of every available pocket. Jax didn’t know what kind of demon he was but he hoped he wasn’t a Shifter or a Chameleon. The kid made no move to shift or camouflage himself though, so Jax relaxed his grip.

  ‘I’m looking for Jimmy,’ he said.

  The boy’s eyes grew even rounder. ‘You’re him,’ he croaked. ‘The guy. The Blade!’

  Jax’s fingers flexed tighter around the kid’s neck. How did he know who he was?

  ‘They’re looking for you!’

  Who? Who was looking for him? Jax wedged his knee into the boy’s thigh. ‘Who’s looking for me?’ he snarled.

  ‘Everyone,’ the boy said, sweat breaking out on his brow. He was afraid. Jax eased off on the pressure, but his body was tensed, adrenaline scoring through every blood vessel, flooding his nervous system.