Spiders in the Grove (In the Company of Killers #7)(32)

“What? That he loves her?” Osiris says. “Jealous much?”

My face scrunches up. “Oh, hell no—I don’t do love. It just disgusts me, is all. I don’t care who it is.”

“Wise woman,” Hestia puts in, and for the first time since we started working together, we agree on something.

I think on it a moment, glancing between Osiris and Hestia standing underneath the setting sun. We look like rogue assassins straight out of a video game, dressed in black from neck-to-toe; guns at our hips, and our boots, and our backs; the breeze blowing dramatically through my long, blonde hair as I stand tall on the rooftop of the city’s tallest building; the smell of the hunt is thick in the air; the cool, tingling feeling of excitement racing up my spine. This is what I live for—the hunt, the chase, the game, the capture—not babysitting someone who doesn’t need it. Or babysitting at all.

“Let’s go,” I tell Osiris and Hestia, waving at them to follow.

“Not going with you, remember?” Osiris points out.

I turn around. “I’m not going to Mexico, either. Come on; let’s get back to work before we lose your sister’s trail.”

Osiris raises a dark brow amid that sexy, sculpted brown face of a god—I haven’t had him yet, but he’s on my to-do list.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” he asks.

Hestia doesn’t care either way—she’s as ready to get moving as I am.

“Victor will get over it,” I say.

“Well, I’m talking about the girl,” Osiris says. “If something happens to her, I imagine Victor won’t be as forgiving.”

“Izabel can handle herself”—I pull the gun from my hip, check the chamber, and then slide it back in—“and as soon as Victor, and everybody else in his Order figures that out, and stops spending so much precious time on her, the better off the organization will be.” I point a finger at them both. “You mark my words: if everybody continues focusing on her wellbeing, instead of just letting her make her own fucking mistakes, Izabel will be the fall of Victor’s Order, and likely the death of everyone in it.”

“Does that include you?” Hestia asks.

“Nah”—I shake my head, purse my lips—"definitely not me. I’ve already figured out she can handle herself; that’s why I’m not going to Mexico.”

I turn and head for the rooftop door. “Coming, or not?”

They follow me out.





Victor


I grit my teeth, and toss the cell phone on the chair behind me I have yet to sit down on. The gun feels heavy in my other hand; I want to use it, but I cannot, though the longer I hold it, the more I feel like the other part of me will take over and pull the trigger.

I set the gun aside, too, next to a stack of old magazines, not trusting myself with it. Apollo will die for what he and Artemis did to Izabel, but I need him alive to lure his twin, so she can die with him. Osiris and Hestia may be close-by, and on Artemis’ trail, but the best way to catch her is with bait. And in Dina Gregory’s house, where Izabel is most-likely to be is the best place to bait her. Izabel knew this—that is why she kept Apollo down here—but I also get the feeling it was not the only reason.

“You should tell my brother and sister I said hi, and that I miss them,” Apollo says, with sarcasm.

When I do not respond, he tries something else: “I actually prefer this wheelchair,” he says, “to the hospital bed that psycho had me on—I appreciate it, man. I got real tired of staring at the ceiling.” He looks across at me. “But this back and forth shit,” he continues to ramble, “is getting a little tiring. You people are crazy, you know that, right? I mean, shit, I’ve never seen so much drama, and I come from a big fuckin’ family; and you know my family, Victor, so that’s sayin’ a lot.” He pauses. “Hey, you want to know something?”

“No, Apollo, I do not.”

“Your girl,” he says anyway, “she seems pissed—like at you, I mean. What’d you do to her? It don’t take a genius to figure out she never told you she had me down here. And that other guy, Big Fred, whatever, when she talks to him, she’s got that twinkle in her eye, if y’know what I mean. Heard her with him on the phone one day. You should teach your girl not to have private conversations in front of prisoners.”

He will say anything to get under my skin—I was falling for it until his insinuation about Izabel and Fredrik. That is entirely false. About her being angry with me—that is more than plausible.

Still, I offer no response. I focus on the sounds of the house, listening for signs of Artemis. I think about Izabel keeping this from me, having Apollo the whole time and not telling me about it—something I have thought about before Apollo brought it to my attention. But as much as it disappoints me, it does not compare to Fredrik knowing and not telling me. He conspired against me with Izabel, and it is something I cannot forgive. The trust I had in Fredrik is gone.

“I’d be mad as hell, bro,” he says, “if my woman did some shit like this to me; left me in the dark—look at you down here, doing the work of a newbie agent—Ha! Ha! Ha!”

My chest and shoulders rise and fall; finally, he gets my attention. I break away from my thoughts to acknowledge him.