Page 11 of Cherished by the Sinners (Sinners Never Die #4)

Darlene

D arlene watched Magnus charge out of the restaurant like he was dressed in armor and on his way to a jousting tournament he was sure to win.

His stride was similar to Mason’s, but not quite the same. Mason’s stride was smoother, quieter. Magnus held everyone in a room’s attention. Mason could slide in and out and most wouldn’t notice.

Huh. Was that a natural development or something they perfected over time? She’d have to ask them.

She focused on her food. She’d finished her steak already and was nearly done the potatoes and vegetables. The waitress came out with a fresh pot of tea.

“Could I see a dessert menu?” Darlene asked.

“Our desserts change every day. The Chef likes to create new ones all the time. Tonight he has a chocolate lava cake, a rhubarb tiramisù, and an apple and raspberry crumble with ice cream.”

“Oh, can I have the crumble, please?”

“Of course,” the waitress smiled at her then headed for the kitchen.

Darlene finished the food on her plate and noted that the vice cop had stood up. He was talking to the two men he was with, but she couldn’t make out any actual words.

She pushed away her empty plate and pulled her tea a little closer.

The vice cop walked up to her table with an over-the-top swagger. “Moving up in the world, are we?” he said to her. He bent over the table as if he were being friendly. His smiled held all the slick disgust of a used car salesman. “If you’re doing those two meatheads, I hope you raised your rates.”

“I have a new job now,” she said, proud of how calm she sounded. “A legitimate job.”

“In this place?” he asked on a laugh so loud he sounded more like a donkey than a man. “This place is run by a crime family. One that doesn’t mind getting their hands dirty. One day soon you’re just going to—” He snapped his fingers only an inch from her face. “—disappear.”

Darlene didn’t answer.

He leaned closer still, his hand reaching for her face, when three tiny elderly Chinese ladies all but ran into him.

“What the—” he said as the three ladies asked him questions in rapid Mandarin and made shooing motions at him.

He backed up a few steps and the ladies piled into the booth on either side of her. They chattered at her in a combination of Mandarin and English, asking what she ate and what kind of tea she was drinking. She had to focus quite hard on listening in order to understand their broken English.

It was hard not to laugh at the astonished expression on the cop’s face.

Darlene answered their questions and thanked them for coming to visit her. “Would you like dessert?” she asked them in slow English.

“You understand them?” The vice cop asked, as if he couldn’t believe his own ears.

“Yes.” That’s all the answer he was going to get.

One of the ladies very obviously looked the cop up and down, shook her head and whispered in her ear, “He has very small hands. He wouldn’t make a good husband.”

Darlene giggled as the lady said something in Mandarin to her friends. Probably repeating what she’d whispered to Darlene.

They all laughed.

“What’s so damned funny?” the cop asked in a snarl.

Darlene struggled to maintain a straight face. “Um... she doesn’t think you’d make a very good husband.”

The cop stared at her blankly for a moment before rolling his eyes and muttering obscenities to himself. “Just remember what I said.” He snapped his fingers in her face again.

One of the ladies told him in broken English that he needed to wash off the smell of alcohol or no woman would want him.

He glared at the elderly lady. “Now what did she say?”

“She thinks you smell like alcohol and it won’t help you get a wife.”

He sneered at all of them, then started walking away while snapping his fingers.

“He is a strange man,” the lady said.

“Yes,” Darlene answered as she watched him turn left toward the exit. “He is.”

She gave her new friends a closer examination.

They were all over fifty, with silver strands in their straight black hair.

They should have looked soft, breakable, even weak, but they didn’t.

Not to her eyes at least. Their postures said they were confident, strong, and fully cognizant of everything going on in the restaurant.

Their gazes never stayed on one thing very long, as if they were looking for something.

Or keeping watch.

“My name is Darlene, may I know your names?”

The lady who had been making all the comments said, “I’m Fen.”

The lady on Darlene’s other side said, “I’m Jia.”

The last lady said, “I’m Ai.”

The waitress came out with her dessert at that moment. There was a hitch in her stride as she noted the additional people at the table.

“Can I get you ladies something?” the waitress asked.

“Tea and dessert?” Darlene asked them.

“Yes, yes,” Fen said. “We enjoy dessert very much. What you are having looks interesting. Can we try it?”

“Of course,” Darlene said to the waitress. “Three more pots of tea and crumbles.”

“Oh, and some alcohol,” Fen said. “In the tiny glasses?”

“You want a shot?”

“Yes, yes. Lemon Drops for all of us.”

The waitress grinned and retreated to the kitchen.

“So,” Darlene said just before she took a bit of her crumble. “Magnus asked you to come sit with me?”

Fen giggled. “He asked our lady to send someone to sit with you. We volunteered.”

“Why?”

“Because we like you. You work hard and you try to speak Mandarin.” She leaned forward and whispered, “We are also not blind, the twin men want you for their own. This is good. A sign of happiness and harmony.” Her smile dimmed just a little. “We need that.”

“Well, I don’t know about how much happiness and harmony I’m going to bring to... the hotel. I’m just a housekeeper.”

Fen studied her with a sharp gaze. “How many languages do you speak?

“English, but I know how to be polite in several languages”

“Which ones?” Ai asked. “English, Mandarin...”

“Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Italian, French, Russian, and a little Hungarian.”

“Nine is many languages,” Fen said. “What school did you go to?”

“I didn’t...” she paused trying to figure out how to explain her strange and horrible childhood. “My father was in the military. We moved a lot when I was a kid. All over the world, and I liked to talk to people.” She shrugged. “But I never finished high school.”

“You have a gift,” Jai said, her voice high and soft.

“Sometimes gifts are a burden,” she winced at memory of why her last pimp wanted her in his stable. Her language skills made it easier to cater to high paying foreign clients. It was how she ended up in a serial killer’s hands.

The waitress came out with a tray of tea and shots, and a second server brought the desserts for her new friends.

“Thank you,” Darlene said to her waitress.

“Any time,” she replied. “And just so you know, the bill has already been taken care of, and you’ve been added to the VIP list.”

“What does that mean?”

The waitress smiled and wiggled her eyebrows. “You’re never going to get a bill.”

“Okay, thanks,” Darlene said.

“Why was she doing this with her eyebrows?” Fen asked, using her fingers to wiggle hers.

“She was telling me that I’m getting special treatment because I’m with Mason and Magnus. Or with Mason or Magnus.” She twisted her mouth to one side. “I’m not really sure what’s happening actually.”

Fen patted her hand. “Both.” She nodded once to emphasize her proclamation. She lifted her shot glass. “To men with large hands.”

Darlene joined them in downing the shot. It tasted better than she thought it would.

The ladies poured tea and made cheerful noises about dessert.

The two men who the cop had been sitting with, seemed content to nurse cups of coffee and speak a few words quietly to each other. They were working awfully hard to look relaxed, but they weren’t. Their posture was too straight, too rigid.

Fen pulled out her cellphone and typed a message to someone.

Darlene finished eating her crumble and answered the ladies’ questions about New York City. They wanted to know where the good tea shops were. Where to find interesting clothing, and where they could buy quality yarn for their craft projects.

Darlene was telling them about a few yarn shops she'd heard were wonderful when several more Chinese ladies entered the restaurant. Fen, Jai, and Ai waved at them and called out in Mandarin. Darlene recognized the words for tea and dessert. They ended up being seated close by at two separate tables, one on each side of the table with the cop’s two friends.

Then a group of their Japanese visitors came in and sat at a table where they could watch the cop’s table and Darlene’s table with ease at the same time.

“Fen,” Darlene said, keeping her tone light. “Who did you call?”

“I called no one,” she said with an innocent blink of her eyes. “I did mention to my aunt that the restaurant is nice. Good food and good service, and how there was even a police presence, which made me feel so safe.” She flashed Darlene a bright smile.

“Right,” Darlene said drawing the word out a little. She sighed. “I feel like I’m sitting with what looks like a school of koi, but is really a shiver of sharks.”

The three ladies smothered giggles behind their hands, but didn’t correct Darlene’s observation.

Yup, sharks.

With her belly pleasantly full and surrounded by guests who seemed determined to keep her company, Darlene relaxed into the padded seat. The only thing that kept her from nodding off was how rude that would be.

The conversation around her faltered and most of the restaurant patrons turned toward the restaurant entrance. Darlene followed their gazes and saw several people in the hotel’s reception uniform running about.

“What’s going on?” she asked of no one in particular.

Multiple notification dings sounded around her.

Fen looked at her phone. Her eyes got wide. “There is an active shooter in the hotel across the street. Police are in our lobby setting up a command center. We are supposed to go back to our rooms.”

“Magnus mentioned a bunch of emergency vehicles on the street earlier,” Darlene said getting up and scooting out of the booth with the ladies.

They all headed out of the restaurant, the Chinese ladies, the Japanese guests, and—after a quick check over her shoulder—the well-dressed friends of the cop.

The lobby was full of police officers in various uniforms as well as suits. They were well-armed with standard handguns and semi-automatic weapons. Enough to start a small war.

Darlene split from her new friends at the elevators, going to the staff elevators around the corner. She went up to her floor and walked to her room.

Magnus’s scent from his jacket was oddly pleasing and she ducked her head to inhale a lungful of it.

She pulled her room keycard out of her back pocket and moved to open her door, but movement from the corner of her eye caught her attention.

The two men from the restaurant were sprinting down the hallway toward her in near complete silence.

For a long second, she froze, unable to move, or even breathe. The same cold fear held her in its grasp... but this is now, not then , and she’d already survived things they couldn’t imagine.

They grabbed her, each taking one of her arms, lifting her off her feet, and running toward the stairs at the other end of the hallway.

She screamed as something hot and acidic tore through her bloodstream. She kicked and flailed and tried to butt their heads. When that didn’t work, she lunged up and sank her teeth into the only flesh she could reach. The ear of the thug on her left.

He shouted and swore and hit her, but she shook her head back and forth, as if she was a dog trying to kill a rat. His punches lacked power and leverage.

His partner shoved open the door to the emergency stairwell.

Blood filled her mouth, but she didn’t let go. She sawed her teeth back and forth until a hunk of cartilage came loose. She spit it and her mouthful of blood into the Thug’s eyes.

His partner, Thug Two, punched her in the face.

Thug One stumbled, lost his footing, and practically launched himself down the concrete stairs. He would have dragged her down with him, but Thug Two yanked her out of his grasp. It nearly pulled her arm out of its socket.

Thug One’s head smashed into a step. His body collapsed and flopped all the way down to the first landing.

Thug One down, Thug Two to go.

She kneed Thug Two in the nuts as hard as she could. When he doubled over, she jabbed a finger in his eye. He reared back, stumbling, but caught himself with his free hand.

“Stop,” he yelled at her.

“Let go,” she shouted right in his ear, then tried to catch it with her teeth like she did with Thug One.

He punched her again.

The world dissolved into pain and darkness.