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“What gave it away? Was it the gun? It’s usually the gun.”

His flat response made her laugh again. She was beginning to like him. Which she shouldn’t, seeing as he tried and failed to abduct her, only then for her to willingly let herself be abducted. Or whatever this was. Damn it. I have no friends because I refuse to let myself make them. Isn’t that what Gideon always told me? A new surge of frustration and anger at her situation rose at the thought. She hadn’t had time to put two and two together.

That fucker was sitting in that chair for eighteen goddamn months, pretending to be her psychiatrist. Letting her talk, giving quiet, gentle advice. She decided she was going to feed him her fist for that piece of deception. Or a plate. Probably a plate. Harry was always teasing her about how she punched like a girl.

Wincing, she gave up. What could go wrong? She had to take a risk. She was going to be stuck with this guy for a little while, at the very least. “Do you still want to know what I was going to say?”

“If you want to tell me.”

“Still not an answer.”

“Yeah. I do.” He lowered his voice to a mutter, but still loud enough to hear. “You’re worse than Mother Ursula.”

She grinned, but it faded quickly. “I was going to say that I’m starting to suspect I don’t want to remember who I was. That whatever I forgot, I did for a reason. I thought they were hallucinations—vivid dreams. I used to wish they weren’t. Now I wish they were. Being crazy might be easier to deal with.”

“That’s true. They have medication for being nuts. They don’t have medication for being undead.” He glanced at her, saw her wide-eyed, angry expression, and quickly looked back at the road. “What?”

“Holy shit, asshole.”

“I’m sorry! I don’t—you said it yourself. I don’t do people. I mean—” He groaned loudly as she burst out laughing. “I guess that’s true, eh? Technically. Literally? Which is it?”

Now her smile stayed put. “Both.”

“What I was trying to say was that being nuts is something that’s possible to most people. Unfortunate, but possible. Being what you are—whatever it is—you can’t exactly go to the corner store to pick up a prescription for that.”

“And you get weirdo old priests showing up to your door with a needle of horse sedatives.”

“Now, that’s uncalled for.” He pointed at the windshield as he fake-lectured her while driving. “I’m not old. Forty-four is a great age to be.”

“Sure, sure. Silver fox, etcetera. Oh, right. You don’t do people.”

He laughed with her that time. When it went quiet between them, he stretched out his hand to her in greeting. “Let’s start again. Let’s figure this out together.”

Still smiling, she put her hand in his. “You’ve got a deal, Rinnie.”

* * *

Gideon sat backon the leather seats of his private jet and eyed his phone. He could sense her nervousness through their inherent link. But for as long as it just remained as only fear and not pain, he wouldn’t intervene.

For the moment.

What was the phrase used nowadays? She needed a little “space.” If it kept them all from the brink of oblivion, he would happily entertain her little jaunt with the priests of the Order. Perhaps she might uncover something interesting along the way.

If they were bringing her to see what he suspected might be on the agenda, it would be interesting indeed.

Marguerite had always been, and continued to be, a fiercely independent soul trapped in the machinations of others. She always yearned to be free. But that was not something he could ever grant her. Not truly. He frowned.

He had seen to that a long, long time ago.

And therein lay the root of his problem.

Placing his phone face down on the table in front of him, he turned his attention to the dark shapes of the world beneath him.

Truth be told, this wasn’t his jet. It belonged to the owner of an investment firm in Boston who he had killed and raised in the same moment to do his bidding many years earlier. A thin blade through the ribs could puncture the heart and leave nearly everything else intact. It was a relatively painless way to die, all things considered.

Even better, it left their state of undeath nearly impossible to detect, even for troublesome creatures like Rinaldo. The longer one spent in the grave, the more of a stain the dirt and stillness left on the soul. His method ensured that their transition was nothing more than the skip of a heartbeat. A bump in the road.

And more importantly, it came with endless and undying loyalty. He smirked. The living were so easy to manipulate. He wondered if he would ever truly tire of the amusement he found in it. Someday, perhaps, if he existed for that long.