Chapter Eight

When the taxi finally came to a stop a block away from Five Points, she threw the fare down on the seat without preamble, jerked the door open, and jumped out. She held the door for Ethan and then Gen. Ethan clung to Gen, his eyes wide with barely suppressed terror. Gen was worse for wear from the chase, but otherwise the drive had returned her normal calm.

"We good?" Kierse asked.

Ethan and Gen exchanged a look before nodding. Gen took Kierse's hand. "Are you okay?"

Kierse shrugged. "Let's just move."

She fell into step between her friends.

"This whole thing is so messed up." Ethan's head hung forward, and he stuffed his hands into his pockets. "We can't go back to Colette's. We're going to have to find a way to tell her what happened to us. And Corey." Ethan looked panicked. "He's going to be worried."

"My mother is a formidable woman," Gen said. "And Corey knew he was sending us onto the streets. He won't worry too much tonight. It will be all right."

"But how will we contact them? We don't even have a phone."

Kierse blew out a breath and said the words that she hated saying. "Nate will know what to do."

Because Nate O'Connor had a solution to everything. She was certain he would have one for this newest dilemma. And she had more than just security and communication in mind.

"We're in good hands," Gen said.

"But that's home." Ethan whispered the thought they were all thinking.

"I know," Kierse said.

And they fell silent after that. Their home had been taken from them, but at least they had one another.

Kierse led the group around the corner and down 10th Street toward the giant warehouse that made up the ground floor of Five Points. The name was an homage to the famous Five Points neighborhood in lower Manhattan where the Five Points Gang dominated in the nineteenth century. It coincided rather well with the consolidation of the five wolf packs during the Monster War under notorious werewolf alpha Nate O'Connor. Monsters had mingled peacefully with humans on his property even before the Treaty went into place. It had long been a safe haven for those who saw a future for monsters and humans and continued to be so today.

The exterior was black with a large glowing blue sign and a line that wrapped around the building. They moved to the back, waiting their turn as Kierse watched the drug deals go on in the park across the street as she tapped her foot impatiently.

After a few minutes, they made it to the front. The bouncer looked the trio up and down and pointed at a sign that read "We abide by the Monster Treaty."

"You got a problem with that?"

"We're good," Kierse told him. "We're just here to see Nate. Is he in tonight?"

"Don't know," the man said. "Haven't seen him. You're good."

Kierse paid the cover charge and then stepped inside. It was a monstrosity of a building. What used to be a large warehouse had been converted into a pulsing nightclub full to the brim with people dancing. Ethan's face lit up at the extravagance of the place. He was more of a party boy than he liked to admit—young and beautiful and open to anything. Though he would have preferred to be here with Corey.

Kierse didn't understand how she and Ethan had gone through such similar things and he had turned out with his emotions on his sleeves and she had come out of it shut off and broken inside.

"This place has an energy," Gen said.

She wasn't wrong. Five Points was the nightclub. It used to be even more slammed than this, but the street festivals were new competition.

"Thank God it's not a full moon," Kierse grumbled. "The whole place goes on complete lockdown."

Ethan shuddered. "That would have been bad timing."

Werewolves could shift at will, but on the three nights surrounding the full moon, they had no choice. It was animalistic, and anything that crossed their paths was bound to wind up dead. She remembered when the streets used to go silent on those three days. Doors barred, no business, not a peep. With Nate as alpha, they locked themselves down to comply with the Monster Treaty.

"Come on. Let's find Nate."

They put Gen between them as they eased through the club. The crowds felt more oppressive than usual after their fun race across the festival. Kierse kept her chin tilted up and her eyes straight ahead.

When they reached the bar, she leaned over to speak to the blond bartender, who had a crescent moon with five stars—the symbol for the Dreadlords—pin attached to her low-cut bodice. "Hey, is Nate in?"

The woman poured two shots, pushed them to the couple in front of her, and took the cash before facing Kierse. "You want Nate? How do you know him?"

"We're friends."

"Nate is friends with everyone," she said with a laugh. "You'll need to be more specific."

"I'm his little sister."

The bartender checked her out. "Nate doesn't have any sisters. And thank the Lord for that. She'd be the most overprotected woman in the city. But if he's running around on Maura with you, I'll have his balls."

Kierse snorted and dropped a fifty on the bar. "I'd kill him myself if he ran around on Maura. We're more like colleagues. Tell him Kierse McKenna is here."

"Kierse McKenna," the woman said with appreciation as she pocketed the money. "I've heard about you."

"Have you now?" Kierse never knew if that was a good thing. She didn't recognize the woman, but it had been a year since she'd been with the wolves.

"Yeah, Finn's my boyfriend, and he said you two used to work together for the boss."

"That's a name I haven't heard in a while," Kierse said. Finn had been her point person back in the day. He and Ronan were in the upper echelon of Nate's circle.

"I'm Cara. Come on." She threw a rag down on the bar. "I'll see what the boss is up to."

Kierse dipped her head at her friends as Cara lifted a latch that let them come through to the back. They went through a servers' doorway and up a flight of stairs.

Cara knocked twice. "Boss, you're going to want to see this."

"I said I'm not to be disturbed," Nate yelled as he wrenched the door open with a feral scowl on his lips.

His eyes went from Cara to Kierse in a heartbeat, and his eyes widened.

She shot him a rueful smile. "Hey, Nate."

"Fuck me! Kierse McKenna is in Five Points."

Kierse couldn't keep her smile from widening when she beheld him. Nathaniel O'Connor was in his early thirties, average height, and corded with muscle. He had a tawny complexion, like he'd stepped out of a harvest moon, and hazel eyes. His hair was chestnut brown, short, and coily, and he had a charismatic lilt to his tongue and that to-die-for characteristic O'Connor smirk. He was a handful and a half even before she'd found out he was a werewolf, with all of their possessive, predatory, and hot-tempered bullshit.

Nate's father's family had been powerful Irish mobsters going back generations, but then Nate had been turned during the war. The mob had fallen and Nate had come out alpha, uniting the Manhattan wolves around him into the Dreadlords. Kierse had worked with him on jobs for years until her own world had fallen apart. It had been more than a year since they'd gone their separate ways, but damn it was good to see him.

"I'm back."

He tried to pull her into a hug, but she stepped out of it.

"Okay. Okay," she said with a laugh.

"I know that you missed me." His eyes traveled down her body and gauged the state of her in a glance. He whistled low. "Looks like you've had a night."

"Tell me about it."

She hadn't spoken to Nate in a year, and seeing him again reminded her of the bonds that were knit between them. After Gen had saved Kierse, Colette had wanted to get her safely back into the thieving game. Amberdash was dangerous; tonight was proof of that. But she had a friend, a local alpha werewolf, who needed some jobs done on the side. Kierse had readily agreed. It'd been easy stuff, things she could do with her eyes closed, but it had changed her in ways she didn't know how to explain.

No longer did she anticipate Nate throwing her off a roof or leaving her for dead in the middle of a job. Suddenly, she'd realized... she could trust him. Then he had become a fixture in her world.

Until Torra.

Until it all fell apart.

"You remember Gen and Ethan?"

"Of course," Nate said, shaking Ethan's hand.

"Good to see you again, Nate," Ethan said.

"The Prophet Genesis," Nate said with a wolf smirk. He wrapped an arm around her affectionately.

"Hey Nate," Gen said shyly.

"Any friend of Kierse is a friend of mine," he announced.

"Any friend of Colette's, you mean," Ethan corrected.

"Hey, we're all family here."

Nate was so low-key that no one would have guessed he was the head of the Dreadlords. But Kierse knew that in his heart, he just wanted what was best for this city.

"Thanks, Cara," Nate said. "That'll be all."

"Sure thing. Nice meeting you, Kierse," Cara said and then disappeared.

He put a finger to the injury at her side. "Let's get a look at that. I assume you're in trouble if you're here to see me. It's been what, a year?"

Kierse nodded, wincing as he touched the wound. "It's fine."

"Maura is on her way here. You'll let her patch it up."

"All right," she conceded.

"So, this trouble?" Nate asked. He tipped his head at her.

"I took a job. I was caught." Nate's eyebrows rose. "I know. Unusual. Anyway, the guy let me go, but he apparently has powerful enemies."

"How powerful?" he asked.

"Druids."

Nate growled low. "Fucking perfect."

"Yeah, they attacked the brothel while the Roulettes were there and tailed us to the street festival in Little Italy tonight. We barely got away."

"You're in a world of shit."

"I know it's an imposition, but could we stay here? Just until I figure out how to get these fuckers off our backs."

Nate looked at her more closely with a head tilt that said she had left out a great deal of the truth. Still he nodded. "Of course. You all look like you've seen a ghost. Why don't I show you to some rooms? And then Kierse, I'll have Maura look at that." He turned to Gen and Ethan. "Either of you have injuries?"

They both shook their heads. Nate cracked the door back open and led them up a staircase into living quarters.

"This going to be all right?" Nate asked, gesturing to a set of rooms.

"That would be perfect," Kierse said. "I know you want to know more, but I need to talk to them first. Can we talk after Maura gets back?"

Nate nodded to the door. "If you're not bleeding out, I think it can wait a few minutes. Looks like they need you."

"Yeah," she said. "It's been a long night. And could you do me a favor and reach out to Corey in the Roulettes? He's Ethan's boyfriend. He's going to be freaking out."

"Of course." Before she could walk into the room, he said, "Hey, it's really good to see you again."

Something panged in her chest. The reason that she'd stopped coming by. The heart that had broken in her chest when everything had fallen apart with her girlfriend and even Nate hadn't been able to fix the problem. She'd stopped going to anyone for help after that. Stopped seeing anyone who reminded her of the old days. Only her family could even get away with mentioning what had happened... could even say Torra's name.

"You too, Nate."

Then she stepped into the room to figure this all out.

Ethan had his long legs spread out across the bed on the far side of the room. Gen had taken a seat beside him, staring down at her hands. Kierse knew exactly how they were both feeling. They had been driven from their home. Their world narrowed to this blank room and an uncertain future.

A twinge of guilt hit her. This was all her fault. She closed her eyes around the pain of that thought. No, this had started because of Graves. She placed the blame at his feet.

"How are your ribs?" Gen asked, glancing up at the sound of Kierse's boots.

Kierse pushed her jacket back and looked at the gash. "It's shallow. Maura will wrap it."

"I wish I had my herbs. I could at least dull the sting."

Even though Gen read futures in her tarot cards, her real gifts were more medicinal. She had a knack for the perfect hangover cure, collected herbs that Ethan had a green thumb for growing to help with Kierse's many scrapes and bruises, and had even worked out a form of birth control. Since modern medicine was so expensive, Gen's skills were unreasonably valuable.

"It'll be fine," Kierse said as she sank onto the bed opposite her friends. "It's been a long night, but we need to talk about what happened."

"Which part?" Ethan asked. "The almost-getting-murdered part or the audacity they had to attack the brothel?"

"The job," she said. "The job and the magic."

"You can't still be considering this?" Ethan demanded. "He just almost got you killed."

"Look, I'm not jumping up and down that entangling myself with this guy has these results. I knew as soon as I saw him that he could kill me on the spot and that there's only one reason he needs me alive. I can use that."

"And that's because he wants you to steal something for him?" Gen asked. "Why you?"

Kierse glanced down at her fingers. This was the unreal part. Him having magic was bizarre enough. "Because he thinks I have magic, too."

Gen and Ethan were silent a beat too long. She glanced up to gauge their reactions. Ethan seemed incredulous, but Gen looked interested.

"What makes him think that?"

"Because his house wasn't barred by modern security systems like the regular billionaire pricks I steal from. He had a ward system. That's what he called it. He used magic to protect the house, and I walked right through the wards. He tested me while I was there, and it's true. I can break them."

Ethan gaped. "Magic? Seriously? But I thought the whole point was monsters not magic."

"I said that, too," Kierse acknowledged. "But I can't deny what I saw, either."

"So you're the only one who can do this job," Gen intuited.

Ethan whistled. "That means you could charge anything."

"I don't think he cares about the money, and I intend to collect so that we can have a safe place when this is all over," she told them, brushing a hand back through her dark hair. "But he's also the only one who can give me more information about if I actually have magic."

"So what are you going to do?" Ethan asked.

"What I do best," she said, throwing on a smile of overconfidence. "Swindle information and money out of unsuspecting assholes."

Gen sighed. "I hope it's that easy, Kierse."

"When have I ever been wrong before?" she asked with bravado for her friends' sakes. Gen and Ethan needed to believe in her skills as much as Kierse did. They needed the reassurance that she would get out of all of this alive. After tonight, Kierse needed that, too.