Page 30

CHAPTER 30

YOU'RE HAIR brAIDS?

Nadira

I t’s New Year’s Eve and Julian and I are sitting in front of the fireplace. Since a car chase and a slug ruined our Christmas plans, we decided to wait until tomorrow to enact our revenge. Today is supposed to be for us to fuck, eat, sleep, and fuck again. Although I should be more stern with Julian because he shouldn’t strain himself, I also know the man I’m dealing with. He leaves his risk-taking to work and to protect me, everything else he does is to ensure our future.

The peace of the crackling fire, Leaper’s purring on her cat bed, and Julian’s arms around me lull me into a state of contentment I rarely experience let alone get the time to truly immerse myself in. My sore muscles are thanks to Julian, and my body hasn’t stopped humming from my many orgasms. That’s why when Alastair hands me my phone, my first reaction is to push it away and pretend he doesn’t exist.

“You have four missed calls from your friend Chelsea,” he says.

“That’s not like her.” I take the phone and return the call.

“Nadira, where have you been?” Chelsea’s voice transmits her concern over the phone as clearly as if she’s in the room with me.

“I got stuck in a snowstorm, but now I’m with Julian. Why?”

“I need to see you. Can we meet? Today?”

“Of course, where?” I sit up, ready to forego my relaxing day with Julian to find my shoes and go into bestie mode.

“Our usual spots aren’t safe. I’m sending you instructions. How soon can you be there?”

I pull up the encrypted message she sends, wondering when she became so paranoid. “An hour.”

“See you then.” Chelsea disconnects and I stare at the phone puzzled by our interaction.

“Where are we headed?” Julian helps me stand.

“Downtown… Something’s wrong.”

Without questioning if I want him with me or what I need, Julian leads the way. I understand because I don’t want to be apart from him, either. Watching him in the throes of a fever after losing a dangerous amount of blood and knowing how close I came to losing him will always play at the back of my mind. With his near-death experience so recent, I’m still in my clingy phase and have no wish to move on.

When we get downtown, we follow Chelsea’s directions. They read like a spy novel. We arrive at 16 th Street Mall among the crowds of people gearing up for the festivities tonight.

As we pass a narrow door, a hand grabs my elbow. I swing my hand in a chopping motion to target the person’s wrist.

When I see it’s Chelsea, I deflect the momentum of my blow to the wall. “Dammit, Chelsea, I could have hurt you.”

“I know. Follow me.” She leads me and Julian into an empty speakeasy, goes behind the bar, and retrieves two bottles of vodka.

When she takes a seat, I demand, “What the hell is going on, Chelsea?”

“I need your help.” She opens the bottle and takes a swig.

“Girl, you already know I got your back, whatever it is.” I share a worried glance with Julian.

Chelsea shifts her attention away from me, acting cagier by the second. Then she settles on Julian. “So, this is the guy you’re seeing?”

He steps forward, his hand extended. “Name’s Julian.”

“Yeah, I know.” She eyes him, a wealth of thoughts hidden behind her eyes.

“Chelsea, why’re you changing the subject?”

“Because what I’m about to ask is huge, and when I tell you everything, you probably won’t want anything to do with me ever again.”

“That’s not in Nadira’s nature. She’s loyal to a fault, and you should know this.”

“Yeah, but everyone has a breaking point.” Chelsea’s glance lands on Julian again. “You might be an exception.”

“Sorry? Do we know each other?” Julian studies Chelsea as if he’s putting together the fragments of a jigsaw puzzle but he’s missing most of the middle pieces.

“We do, but I’ve had plastic surgery since the last time we saw each other. And although I lied to you when you asked, Nadira, we know each other as well.”

Confused, I shake my head. “So why did you lie?”

“Because I’ve been spying on you.”

Julian jumps in front of me and pulls a gun on her, shielding me from this new threat.

“Julian, let me explain,” she says, hands raised in a sign of surrender.

“Start with who the hell you are.” I sidestep Julian with a weapon aimed at her.

She sits unsurprised by our reactions. “You knew me as Chloe when we were at Creative Gifts.”

I stumble into Julian, who wears the same shock on his face that I feel in my body.

“Fucked up, right? You have no idea how I felt the first time we met as adults, and you had no clue who I was. God, I was so fucking mad at you and your nerve, showing up like you hadn’t abandoned me.”

“So, this is payback?” I ask.

“Was payback. I couldn’t decide if you were playing me now or if you played me when we were kids. You were super smart back then and could have fooled me so easily.”

“What changed your mind?” Julian pulls a seat out across from her and offers it to me. When I decline, he takes it instead.

“The couple that assaulted Tamara went missing and no one has found them. It’s something Yolanda would have done without being asked. You have no idea how shitty I started feeling for carrying this sense of betrayal with me for so long.”

“I knew you could hold a grudge,” I say, remembering her feelings for her mother held even on the last day I saw her. “Hold up, you have parents. The last I checked Creative gifts never placed children for adoption.”

“They don’t exist. I used models as a cover.” Chelsea eyes me while taking a long drag from the bottle. “So your memory is coming back. I always wondered if the drugs I put in your water would have long-lasting effects.”

“What the fuck?” Julian upturns his chair as he shoots to his feet, a scowl darkening his features. “You drugged Nadira?”

Chelsea nods. “I’m not proud of it now, but I thought I had good reason to get back at her. Agreeing to slip her the memory blockers was the only way the organization would agree to keep her alive. Can you believe it?” She laughs derisively. “I was so mad at you and wanted you to hurt so badly. But even then I couldn’t stomach the thought of your death.”

“You were giving them my location after they put a bounty on my head.” My body shakes with rage and tiny fissures spread along my heart.

“Not on purpose!”

“That’s bullshit. Someone was on her tail in Spain.” Julian’s body vibrates from the control he exerts not to attack Chloe.

“That wasn’t me, I swear. My only slip was about Nadira getting her memories back.”

“Then how’d they know I would be at Danae’s on Thanksgiving?”

She takes a swig from her vodka bottle. “That was a trap. I planned to kill everyone who showed up before you arrived, but they sent more assassins than I expected.”

“You were the one shooting arrows?” Julian glares at her. “You could have killed us.”

“That would have defeated the entire purpose of laying a trap.” Chelsea turns to me. “Julian wasn’t the only one you taught about luring people where you wanted them. I never forgot what we practiced, and it came damn handy on Thanksgiving.”

I rub my temples as a memory crystallizes in my head. “Whenever we did weapons training, you always chose archery. You said because no one ever saw it coming and you could still be far away.” I drop the hand holding the gun.

“Yeah, and you forced me to practice until I never missed a bullseye.”

“Okay, you’ve explained yourself. What I don’t get is why you’re coming to us for help after admitting we can’t trust you,” Julian says.

“I didn’t stop at Thanksgiving.”

“So you had something to do with Julian being shot on Christmas Eve?”

Chelsea’s eyes widen. “This is the first I’m hearing about this, but it tracks. And no, I didn’t know your plans, so I couldn’t have tipped anyone off. But it makes sense why my traps stopped working after Christmas Eve.”

Julian and I fold our arms in unison and glare at her.

“I’ve been giving them bogus locations and times for where I expected you to be, then eliminating the threats as they arrived. That all ended a week ago when their assassins started hunting me instead of looking for you.”

I take another chair and sit across from her. “You’ve been protecting me this whole time?”

“Nadira! You can’t be thinking what I think you are,” Julian protests.

“She needs our help.”

“Really? Because all I’ve heard is she’s a backstabber since the day she met you as an adult.”

“Then you need to listen again. What I heard was she had my life in her hands every day. I was vulnerable to her every day for years. If she drugged my water, she could have ended me without me knowing. She chose to keep me alive.”

Julian slams the chair he overturned and sits beside me.

I rub his shoulder, silently coaxing him to rid himself of his anger. To Chelsea, I ask, “Do you know why they’re desperate to kill me?”

“You’re going to trust her with this, too?” Julian clenches his teeth, his jaw spasming as he tries to calm himself.

“I trust her.” Before he objects, I say, “Even with what she’s said, I still trust her with my life.”

“Dammit Nadira. If you die because of her, I’m?—”

I press my fingers against his lips. “That won’t happen. If anything, reuniting as our old group will give us better odds when we end the organization.” I turn to Chelsea. “So do you know?”

“No, but I assume it has to do with you two renewing your relationship. They did separate you before. Am I on the right track?” She looks from me to Julian and back again.

“They separated us to keep me from telling Julian what I discovered. Then they tried to kill me before I could tell anyone else.”

She frowns at me. “You were ten. What could you have known that would make them go after you so hard?”

“That the organization stole every child and murdered our parents to profit off us as assassins.”

“No… My mom died in childbirth.” Chelsea pushes away from the table and backs away.

Julian’s expression softens as he watches Chelsea’s denial. “Your mom died when they ripped you from her belly. There was an investigation and autopsy report.”

I rise and close the distance between us. When we’re close, I hold her hands. “Chelsea, what I need to know is if you want in on our plan to destroy them.”