Keystone (Crossbreed #1)(57)
Sitting in that diner and smelling the food around me wouldn’t have been a big deal had Viktor never come along and given me a glimpse of an alternate life. It wasn’t the absence of a plate that bothered me anymore, but I missed the companionship of having someone sitting across from me to fill the silence. The Keystone mansion not only offered me solitude, but moments of sanity where just a brief conversation in the courtyard made me feel like a real person—not some low-life rogue who was searching for my next meal and killing immortals so I could feel better about myself. Perhaps the fates were trying to tap me on the shoulder, and I needed to start thinking about doing something else with my life.
Get a job.
Save money.
Buy a house.
Kill the bastard who’d just entered my line of vision.
My breath caught when a man strode in—the jerkface I’d wrestled in the club bathroom. The one Darius referred to as Salvator, his right-hand man. I stared for a frozen moment, wondering if it was a hallucination. Cognito could feel like a small city sometimes, but his timing was impeccable.
He glanced up at the menu. “I’ll have the burger and onion rings to go.”
While he rattled off how he wanted his burger, I discreetly tucked my hair back and pulled my hood farther down. There weren’t many customers, so it was easy to spot his car out the window since it hadn’t been there when Blue had circled around the side parking lot to drop me off out front. I’d be willing to bet anything he hadn’t locked his doors. Most Breeds didn’t.
When he started fiddling with a napkin dispenser on the counter, I quietly got up with my bag and went out the side entrance. I stood by a red car, pretending to search for my keys, but I kept my focus inside the diner. As soon as he sat down on one of the stools, I sprinted across the parking lot to his car. The windows were nice and tinted, so I tested the back door, and like magic, it opened.
I needed to act fast, so I got in and wedged myself behind the driver’s seat, flattening my bag against the floorboard on the opposite side so it wouldn’t be noticeable. I was a chameleon against the black leather interior. The headrest was pulled up and would allow me access to the back of his neck. I withdrew a push dagger and gripped it in my left hand while holding a longer blade in my right.
It was a good thing I wasn’t wearing perfume, because after I’d spent ten minutes in the back of his car, he would have smelled me the moment he opened the door.
Heavy footsteps approached the car, and a sack rustled.
“Don’t see me, don’t see me,” I whispered, gripping my weapons, ready to spring into action.
The car rocked as Salvator sat down and slammed the door. He was munching on something and growling like some kind of starved raccoon.
Knees, don’t fail me now, I thought to myself. If he was starting up the car, that meant he might be bending forward. I needed to wait until he was reclined all the way back in case my reflexes weren’t fast enough.
The engine purred, and Frank Sinatra crooned about having some woman under his skin.
“You never can win,” Salvator sang out of key.
I rose up and circled the dagger around his neck. He made a strangled sound, and the singing died in his throat when I pricked his nape with the smaller push dagger.
“Peekaboo.” I exerted pressure on both blades. “I have a little question for you,” I said. “Go ahead and swallow those onion rings first before you choke.”
I heard a loud gulp as he swallowed what was in his mouth.
“You’ve got some nerve getting in my car after calling the cops on me,” he snarled.
“Did you make any new friends in jail?” I asked, some of his greasy black hair threatening to get in my mouth. “One move and I’ll cut your neck two ways. I want to ask you something, and it’s in your best interest to answer correctly. Don’t bother going on about witnesses; we’re in a tinted car and I don’t really care. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” he bit out.
“Good. I need to know what happened to a certain Vampire.”
I watched in the rearview mirror as he furrowed his brow. “What Vampire?”
Either Salvator was the best liar, or Darius had kept him in the dark.
“The one Darius got rid of. Think carefully before you answer.”
I pressed the tip of the stunner into the back of his neck just enough to dull some of his senses and give him a taste of paralysis.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grunted.
“Then maybe you’re not that important in the chain of command.”
His eyes flashed up in the rearview mirror. “Fuck you. He tells me everything.”
Salvator carried out human murders, so it didn’t make sense that Darius would have kept him in the dark and had one of his bumbling guards carry out the task. Either Salvator was lying, or Darius was lying.
“Tell me the truth. You have ten seconds to decide your fate. Ten… nine… eight…”
“Fuck, I’m telling you I don’t know anything about a Vampire! You’re just wasting your time.”
“Seven… six…”
“Why don’t you call Darius and ask him yourself? One of the other guards might know something.”
“Five… four… three…”
“You’re just going to have to cut me.”