Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(10)

Talia flicked through those papers again, scanning for something. “Or are those bruises and split knuckles from the fighting you do for Carmine Falcone?”

Silence. Leopards didn’t talk. Selina hadn’t the first two times she’d been here. She wasn’t about to now.

“Do you know what it means to be three weeks away from eighteen in Gotham City?” Talia leaned forward, resting her arms on the metal table. There was a slight accent to her words, some rolling purr.

“I can buy lotto tickets?”

Again, that hint of a smile. “It means you will be lucky if the judge tries you as a juvenile. It’s your third strike. You’re looking at bars no matter what. The question is whether it’s kiddie prison or the big girls club.”

“Where. Is. Maggie.”

The question was a roar in her blood—a screaming, thrashing demand.

Talia leaned back in her chair and slid a paper-clipped file toward Selina. “Your sister is at a group home. In the Bowery of the East End.”

Oh God. If their apartment complex was garbage, then the Bowery was the entire dump. The gangs in that area…Even Falcone didn’t mess with them.

Selina set her bound hands on the file Talia had pushed over, the photo of a grimy, cramped bedroom atop it. Maggie’s new bedroom. She turned the paper over, fingers curling.

“Lord knows who is running that home,” Talia mused, flipping through the rest of Selina’s file.

“Are you trying to piss me off so they can add assaulting a grade A asshole to my rap sheet?”

The question was out, low and growling, before Selina could reconsider.

Talia laughed, a light and silvery sound. “Do you think you could do it? Handcuffed?”

A faint click sounded in answer.

Rotating her free wrist, Selina dropped the straightened paper clip onto the metal table. A sleight of hand—turning over that photo of Maggie’s foster home to distract the eye while she palmed the paper clip. And then used it and some careful angling to spring a handcuff free. She’d bought a pair a few years ago to use for practice, to learn how the locking mechanism worked. For precisely this sort of moment.

Talia smiled again, full and wide, and let out a satisfied hum. “Clever girl.” She jerked her chin toward Selina’s free hand. “I’d suggest putting it back on. You know how uptight the police can be about such things.”

She did. And she knew that even if she unlocked the other cuff and pummeled this woman’s face in, she still wouldn’t make it out of this holding room or the precinct.

Selina clicked the handcuff back around her wrist. Leaving it loose enough that she could free herself again, should the need arise.

Talia watched every movement, head angled to the side, dark hair shifting. “I’m here to offer you a bargain, Selina Kyle.”

Selina waited.

Talia closed her file. “I run a vocational school for young women like you. Physically skilled, yes.” A nod toward the cuffs, the bruises on her face. “But smart most of all.” She placed a hand on the file. “I’ve got chart after chart of your grades. Your exam scores. Do your little kitty-cat friends know you’re top of your class and that you aced all statewide exams?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She’d made sure the Leopards never heard about it as well. Being good in the ring with the bullwhip and gymnastics was about as much talent as she’d let show. Selina leaned forward a bit. “Acing tests doesn’t win fights.”

Another laugh, this one low and sultry. “You know, if your frequent absences didn’t bar you from graduating this year, you might have been able to have your pick of scholarships.”

College wasn’t a possibility. Not with Maggie to look after.

“This school of mine, though,” Talia said, tracing a nail over the surface of the file. Like a long red talon. “It would be a new start. And a better fit than juvie. Or prison.”

With every passing minute she spent in here, Maggie was in that disgusting home, breathing in filth and dirt.

“The catch, before you ask, is that my school is located in the Dolomites of Italy. And your sister cannot come.”

Selina blinked, processing what the woman had said. A school in Italy. No Maggie.

“If you come with me,” Talia went on, “I can make this record”—a tap of the hand on the file—“vanish. Forever.”

Selina studied the file and then Talia’s beautiful face. These offers didn’t come without major strings.

“I don’t give a shit about the record,” Selina said. “I want Maggie out of that house.”

Talia blinked, the only sign of surprise.

“I want my sister put in a single-family foster home. With good people who are willing to adopt her. Somewhere in a cushy suburb. No gangs, no violence, no drugs.”

Silence.

Selina added softly, “And I want you to make sure my mother is never able to get her hands on Maggie again.”

The lights above hummed. Talia’s hand scraped over the rough surface of the file folder as she slid her hands into her lap. “You’re in no position to make demands.”

Selina leaned back in her chair, refusing to break the woman’s dark gaze. “If you want me so badly for your human-trafficking club, you’ll do it.”