Page 11 of Hero & Villain (Super Serum Billionaires #1)

Chapter Seven

HERO

S he was so…pink.

I stood on the roof overlooking the strip with my glass clenched in my hand, but I didn’t see the view. All I saw was her eyes flashing with pain when I held her too tight.

She was Haversham’s granddaughter, the seductress who had taken down Clint with a gesture of her pinkie. But she was also very very pink. Also purple and green and blue. Someone had beaten her so badly that it made my whole soul quake with absolute rage.

Yes, I’d engineered her being here, but I hadn’t planned for it to be like this.

She was supposed to break me, so why was she the one so thoroughly broken?

It was probably her cousin. I was going to tear him apart so viciously, so thoroughly, you wouldn’t be able to find all the body parts, no matter how hard you looked.

“She’s here, if a little later than you predicted,” the mastermind said, leaning against the glass rail like he wasn’t worried about falling to his death.

He wasn’t. With what he had running through his veins, that kind of fall probably wouldn’t kill him or even keep him down for long.

It would, however, ruin his hat, and that sort of thing he was serious about.

“Exactly on schedule according to your information. You’re scary,” I smiled and then threw back my glass. Ginger ale. I wasn’t drinking anything that put me at a disadvantage ‘til Haversham was buried.

It was one thing for him to destroy his enemies, but his own granddaughter? Monstrous didn’t begin to cover it.

“So I’ve heard.” Horse sipped from his own glass, blue eyes glinting with anticipation.

This is the kind of thing he really enjoyed- seeing people run around like rats in his maze.

Not that he personally manipulated anyone.

Which is why I was there on his roof when I had so many other things to do.

“I also heard that Jezebel took her under her wing.”

I winced and eyed his glass, mostly from habit more than from any actual desire I had to get drunk.

What I wanted was to touch her hair and see if it was as soft as it looked.

I could probably get drunk on her pink hair easily if you consider how I’d reacted to drinking from her water bottle.

Drunk. “You know how hospitable Jezebel Whiskey is.” I took another sip of my ginger ale.

It would look like whiskey from a distance, which served my image.

Jezebel also didn’t drink. In fact, Nix’s team was entirely sober except for Trixie’s sporadic binges.

Horse nodded. “As in not at all, yes, I am quite aware of her self-isolating habits in spite of her Dangerous Dames’ efforts to draw her in.”

He made their little group of psychos sound practically poetic.

I leaned closer. This was pertinent. “What do you have on Jezebel? She’s actually a psycho killer assassin from Russia, right?” I wasn’t going to let Daniela get into another pair of claws, even if I had to kidnap her myself.

He shrugged and managed to look slightly uncertain and cocky at the same time. “I have no idea. She didn’t exist before she came to Vegas.”

I scowled at him. “No history? You can dig up anyone’s past.” I really wanted to rescue Daniela from Jezebel.

But I couldn’t do that without a reason.

Unless I wanted to. But we had a plan to take down Haversham.

I couldn’t trash years of planning just because I wanted to kidnap someone. I mean, save them. Obviously.

Horse sighed. “Her fingerprints aren’t in any databases, but her accentless Mandarin does give an idea.

If you haven’t found anything on her, how could I?

You’re much better at following digital trails than I am.

Hopefully, her influence doesn’t negatively impact Daniela while she’s at this impressionable stage. ”

I grinned at him. “You think she’s impressionable? What gives you that impression?”

Horse knew things. If he thought that her path to villainy wasn’t carved in stone…

He gave me a look, dark brow raised over dark blue eyes. “Impressionable impression? Seriously?”

I shrugged off the nonessentials. “She’s here to destroy me, but I don’t mind being destroyed. Think of the revenge if she abandoned her family and chose true love instead.” I sipped my ginger ale while Horse studied me with a flat expression.

“Indeed, just think of the revenge. Think about the power of true love and abandoning one’s family to attain it.”

Those words were full of spikes through the chest. My sister had been destroyed by love. She’d abandoned me, leaving me alone with my parents. I grimaced and made a face at him. “That’s why Trixie doesn’t like you. You aren’t a romantic.”

His eyes darkened slightly. “There are lots of reasons Trixie doesn’t like me. Probably the biggest reason is that I keep trying to manipulate her.”

“You can manipulate anyone. Why don’t you actually do it instead of keep trying?” I waved a hand. “But what would be the fun of that?”

“It’s better this way.”

“Better for her or for you?”

“Her, obviously.”

I grinned at him and patted his broad shoulder.

“Now that’s romantic. Self-denial for her own happiness?

It’s also incredibly egotistical, but that’s your brand.

What has you thinking twice about Daniela being on the brink of a change of heart?

” That’s the only thing I was really invested in. Her hair looked so soft.

“The way she handled Clint makes one think she has no heart, but the way she plays…She has something inside her that she’s kept sensitive.

She’s never been free before, not really, so she might get distracted from her duty to destroy you and find other interests.

Jezebel is a wildcard. I didn’t see her getting involved, and it makes me nervous.

I don’t want Trix getting dragged into the Haversham mess. ”

My stomach knotted while the memory of twisted metal and Nitro’s broken body made me clench my teeth. Trix was Nix’s driver. It was too easy to tamper with an assault vehicle. I’d never forget the wreckage or the closed casket.

I swallowed hard until I could speak normally. “You aren’t worried about Jezebel?”

He shrugged and raised his glass. “I would personally be relieved if she were taken out of the picture.”

“Why? What do you know about her?”

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know anything, but her influence is questionable.”

“You think that she’ll corrupt Trix? You are so irrational about that woman. She’s not a delicate flower, and she never leaves her vehicles out where someone can tamper with them. You should ask her out, maybe after tomorrow’s big fight against Nix. She loves it when you’re beaten bloody.”

He scowled at me. “You should have made certain that Daniela ended up in your care. Why didn’t you press the issue? I suppose it would have looked unnatural, but she wants to get close to you. What is Haversham up to?”

I smiled, and a rush of adrenaline went through me. “You don’t know? That makes it more interesting.”

He frowned at me. “You still aren’t stable enough to play this game. She needs a good influence if she’s going to consider turning on her family.”

“Sorry, what? I’m supposed to be the hero? I never signed up for that. I’m here for revenge. The only way for me to get my revenge is to let her ruin me. That’s something I’ve always been more than capable of handling.” I tossed back the rest of my glass, tossed it to him and headed for the door.

I had things to do. Like breaching the fortress walls holding my ball of cotton candy.

I left the Providential Hotel, winking at the valet when he brought my pink hybrid around.

It had been twenty-four hours, and it would be reasonable to go check on Daniela, particularly since she was Nitro’s cousin, who I’d offered a place to if she needed one.

The fact that she didn’t move, speak, or look like Toni was hardly comment-worthy.

If I hadn’t been watching Toni for the last two years, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the differences, particularly with Daniela’s swollen cheek.

I grinned at myself and gunned the engine as I peeled out of the drive, making an impression as the unbalanced Dirk Dagger that I absolutely was.

I was going to kill whoever hurt her. I was going to hurt them first. Particularly if it was Philippe.

I needed to develop more torture instruments.

Maybe nanotech that would melt his organs from within, slow enough that it didn’t kill him.

That would hurt more than ripping off his nails with tongs, right?

I didn’t have much experience with torture.

Daniela could help me with that, so I could build up from least painful to most. Or the opposite, whichever was most psychologically damaging.

Or I could just touch her hair and pack her in ice to keep down the swelling.

What was Jezebel doing with her behind those walls?

I was on her team, but that didn’t mean I trusted her not to hurt Daniela.

The only thing that you could count on was that she’d follow Nix’s lead.

He liked me running his drones. His views had been up since I’d joined the team because I knew what I was doing.

He also wasn’t going to deal with the legal tape that a kidnapping would bring.

No, I didn’t think Jezebel would actually hurt Daniela, but what if she had internal bleeding?

Jezebel wasn’t a doctor. She didn’t understand how to deal with delicate females.

One thing my sister had been was delicate.

She wouldn’t have survived growing up with the Havershams. Daniela wasn’t delicate.

I knew that. But her hair looked so soft.

I drove up the winding canyon towards Jezebel’s ranch, hidden behind a three-foot wall of reinforced concrete. I parked out front and walked to the gated courtyard. Those gates were not decorative. They were also electric.