Vengeful (Villains #2)(85)

Her voice was warm, tinged with smoke.

“Ms. Riggins,” said Stell, sinking into the chair opposite.

“Morgan,” she corrected as a glass of red wine was laid at her elbow. “Given all that’s happened, I no longer feel inclined to use my husband’s name. But please, call me Marcella.”

She spoke with an airy confidence, one gold nail toying with the rim of her glass, and Stell realized that it wasn’t Marcella’s beauty that had failed to translate in any of the photos he’d seen. It was something else.

Something he’d seen before.

In Victor Vale. In Eli Ever.

A rare kind of strength. A dangerous will.

Someone this powerful belongs in the ground.

Suddenly he understood Eli’s stance, the stubborn resolve behind his declaration. Stell’s hand drifted toward his holstered gun.

If you don’t kill her, you’ll wish you had.

His fingers brushed the safety.

But Marcella only laughed. “Come on, Joseph,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve noticed, weapons don’t really work on me.”

Stell had seen the footage, of course—Marcella on the shattered balcony, the sniper’s shots skating off the air around her. He’d also seen the image of the thin man in the dark suit. The one, he realized, who was now sitting several tables over, wearing sunglasses, despite the restaurant’s low light. The set of the man’s shoulders, the angle of his face, suggested he was staring directly at them.

Another EO, Stell wagered.

“Don’t mind Jonathan,” said Marcella. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Joseph,” she added congenially. “But, well, we’re still getting to know each other.”

A fresh whiskey appeared at Stell’s elbow. He didn’t remember finishing his first, but the glass was empty. He lifted the new tumbler, took a sip, and stopped, recognizing the taste.

It was a brand Stell kept in his apartment. One that he only poured when he had something in particular to celebrate.

Marcella smiled, knowingly. Her long legs uncrossed and recrossed, high heels glinting like knives at the edge of his sight.

“Tell me,” she said, twirling the wineglass stem between her fingers. “Do you have the place surrounded?”

“No,” said Stell. “Believe it or not, I’m not eager for anyone to know I’m sitting down with a terrorist.”

Marcella pursed her lips. “It will take more than harsh words to wound me, Joseph.”

The way she used his name, as if he were the wineglass between her fingers, something to be toyed with. “You wanted to meet,” he said curtly. “Tell me why.”

“EON,” she said simply.

“What about it?”

“You seem to target us because of what we are, not who. That kind of indiscriminate attack is shortsighted, to say the least.” Marcella leaned back in her seat. “Why make another enemy, when you could have an ally?”

“An ally,” echoed Stell. “What could you possibly offer me?”

A slow, crimson smile. “What do you want? Less violence? Safer streets? Organized crime really has gotten out of hand lately.”

Stell raised a brow. “You think you can change the course of the mob?”

Marcella’s smile shone. “Haven’t you heard? I am the mob now.” She rapped her nails on the linen tablecloth. “No, you want to deal in kind, don’t you? A more relevant currency? You want . . . EOs.”

“You would hand over your own?”

“My own what?” Marcella scoffed. “Who are they to me?” Stell looked past her again to the man in the dark suit. Marcella read his expression. “I’m afraid June and Jonathan are not up for trade. They belong to me. But surely there are others, ones that have eluded your grasp?”

Stell hesitated. Of course, some EOs were harder to catch than others, but there was only one that had proved, so far, impossible.

“There is an EO,” he said slowly, “one who seems to be targeting their own kind.” He didn’t elaborate, didn’t share Eli’s theory regarding their motivations. “So far they’ve killed seven other EOs.”

Marcella’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “Isn’t that your job?”

“I don’t approve of needless death,” said Stell. “Regardless of whether the victim was human, or not.”

“Ah, a man with morals.”

“My morals are the only reason I agreed to this meeting. Because I’m tired of burying good soldiers—”

“And because you haven’t figured out how to stop me,” said Marcella. Stell swallowed, but she waved him away. “This is a last resort. Why else would you sit down with a terrorist?”

“Do you want a ceasefire, or not?” asked Stell tightly.

Marcella considered her wine. “This EO—am I to search in the dark, or will you give me a starting mark?”

Stell drew a notepad from his pocket and scribbled down a list. He tore the sheet off. “The last five cities where the killer struck,” he explained, sliding the paper across the table.

Marcella slipped the sheet into her purse without reading it. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“You have two weeks,” countered Stell.