“She was a problem for you, wasn’t she?” Drake queried, his voice without emotion. “I took care of her.”
Took care of her? My horrified gaze swung in his direction. “How? She was helping you.”
“As you said, I couldn’t use her to get to you.” One broad shoulder rose. “She was expendable. You are not.”
Oh my God.
“She betrayed you. I served retribution for you.”
Oh. My. God.
Drake stepped toward me, and I raised the thorn stake. “Don’t get near me.”
His gaze dropped and he sighed. “Remember what happened the last time you pulled a weapon on me?”
A shiver coursed down my spine, because oh yeah, I remembered, but I held my ground. “Do you really think that’s going to stop me from fighting you?”
“No,” he replied. “Apparently, you do not learn from previous experience.”
My hand tightened on the stake as I glanced toward the ledge. “Maybe not, but I don’t have to worry about you hurting anyone else right now either. We’re alone.”
“And that should make you much more wise.” He lifted his chin, the dark strands of his hair brushing his shoulders. “I could do anything I wanted to you and there would be no one, including you, to stop me.” Those words sent chills down my spine. Several seconds passed and then his icy smile returned. “Goodbye. For now.”
The air around him seemed to distort, and in a heartbeat the large raven was back. Spreading its long and broad wings, it swooped back over the ledge and disappeared from sight.
I drew in a shaky breath as I slowly lowered the stake.
Rushing to the ledge, I placed a hand on the cool stone and leaned over. The roar of wind caught the loose strands of my hair and blew them back from my face. I don’t even know why I tried to look. I already knew what I was going to see.
There. On the roof of a dark SUV was Val, arms and legs splayed in broken, unnatural ways.
Val was dead.
~
Numbing instinct took over. I knew I had to get away from the hotel without being seen, and that wasn’t going to be easy considering I’d run into the hotel, chasing Val . . . the woman who was dead outside.
Oh God.
Emotion clogged my throat as I raced down the stairs and then entered one of the hotel hallways, making my way to an elevator. Luckily, I didn’t need a card to use it. I pulled my hair up, twisting it into a knot. The lobby was full of people crowding the glass revolving doors. Squeezing past them, I slipped out onto Canal and headed right, ignoring all the sounds—what the people were seeing, the shocked gasps, the sirens. Once I was back on Bourbon, I pulled out my phone. I started to call Ren, but since he hadn’t texted me, I knew he was still busy. In a weird, detached daze, I decided not to bother him. I knew I had to report this, so I searched for David’s number and hit SEND as I blindly made my way down the street.
David answered on the fourth ring. “What.”
He always answered like that. What. Not a question but a demand. For some reason, hearing something so familiar settled the tight knots building in my stomach. “It’s Ivy.”
“Sort of figured that out when the caller ID showed your name,” he replied dryly. “What’s going on?”
An older woman noticed me, and her face pinched with concern. I wiped my sleeve under my nose, forgetting it was bloodied. “Val’s dead.”
There was a sharp expletive that blasted my ears. “I need a little more detail, like about five seconds ago.”
“I saw her on Bourbon, and she ran. I chased her up to the roof of one of the hotels on Canal,” I explained, keeping my voice low as I made my way toward the street. “She was down here doing something, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was. We fought, and she . . .” My breath caught because I couldn’t tell the complete truth, and what did that make me? I’d have to unpack all that mess later. “She fell off the roof.”
“Shit,” muttered David.
I took a breath that seemed to get stuck. “I didn’t kill her.” David didn’t reply, and I don’t even know why I continued speaking. “I asked her why she did this, why she betrayed us. She—”
“It doesn’t matter, Ivy. The why does not matter. She did what she did. She made that choice,” David replied with a heavy sigh. “She still out on Canal?”
My stomach turned. “Yeah.”
“I’ll send someone out. Call Robby. Let them know she’s one of ours.” There was a pause. “You’re off for the rest of the night.”
I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Someone knocked into me, and I shot the woman a look that warned her not to say one word. “Why? I’m fine. I can—”
“You were close to her. You just saw her die. I don’t care what you say you are, you’re off for the rest of the night. Get your ass off the streets or you’ll find yourself off tomorrow too,” David advised. “I’m being serious. It’s an order.”
Starting to walk again, I gritted my teeth and immediately regretted it, because my jaw ached. “All right.”