Page 46 of Lovesick Gods (Lovesick #1)

Mal should have known better than to underestimate his sister.

She also obviously had a thing for adorable nerds, because while Vaughn was a handsome enough young man, his profile picture sported a giant smile and a T-shirt of the classic E.T.

movie poster, only a silhouette of Godzilla had been added and was in the process of eating Elliott.

To get her eyes back on him, Mal snapped his fingers in front of her face. “You are not allowed to use that knockout lipstick seducing a CSI.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she grinned.

“Lucy…”

“I was just checking his relationship status.” Almost thirty years old, yet her pout made her look like she was five again, being denied a treat at the grocery store. “He happens to be single, and well…your recent success, even if you won’t share with me who the guy is, has me curious.”

“About clandestine affairs?”

“About finding someone who could make me smile like that.”

Mal hadn’t realized he’d been smiling more lately. First his mind and the words leaving his mouth were mutinying against him, now his expressions? He screwed his face up into a frown.

“Mrs. Pak described him for me,” Lucy said, shifting back to teasing now that she had an opening. “Tall. Too skinny. Redhead. Didn’t mention his leaning. Fire maybe? Well-dressed but a bit on the dorky side.”

“Mrs. Pak did not say ‘dorky’.”

“Close enough.” She shrugged and leaned forward on the table.

“What she did say definitely translated to dorky. So this guy sounds entirely your type, is what I’m saying, but what matters is she said he showed up and you were flustered .

He surprised you, huh? You’re keeping him to yourself.

Won’t talk about him. Won’t tell me who he is.

Which means you like him. And if he’s dressed nicely with a flare of nerdy too, that tells me a few other things. He’s not part of our world, is he?”

Mal sighed, his hands twitching on the tabletop. “More so than you might think.”

He’d taught his sister too well; she knew how to read people, how to fit together the pieces of a puzzle and act accordingly, turning any situation to her advantage.

They weren’t supposed to use their skills against each other, but that rule often went out the window when one of them thought it was in the other’s best interest.

But as Mal prepared to counter her prodding, to either shift attention elsewhere or maybe, maybe come clean and admit he was sleeping with Zeus, he saw Lucy’s attention diverted behind him, and her smile fell into a hard glower.

Turning to look over his shoulder, Mal soon glowered as well.

Dunkirk. On his turf. Again .

He stood with a scrape of metal on concrete. “This ends today.”

“Mickey…”

“Back me up or back off.”

With a huff, she hurried to catch up with his swift strides across the street to where Dunkirk had just entered the bakery.

Mal folded his hands in front of him and brushed a thumb along the switch on his amplifier. He’d worn the cuff on a whim today. Thanks to Priestly, he could do plenty to send a strong message without even having to blast Dunkirk. “I have some lovely new enhancements to try out, sis. Stay close.”

Priestly had also included a pair of sunglasses for Mal’s more casual days. Slipping them from his coat pocket, he put them on and enjoyed the displayed weather report. If need be, he’d see a lot more through those lenses soon enough.

Janey was working the shop without her grandmother, Mal noticed as they entered with the gentle ding over the door alerting their presence.

She flashed Mal and Lucy a smile before saying, “I’ll be right with you, Mr. Cho.

” Such a doll. But her good manners meant Dunkirk turned from where he stood at the counter.

Not a problem; Mal didn’t need the element of surprise to handle him.

Sean was young. Ballsy. Angry . He had pale blond hair, a clean-shaven face, blue eyes, and a thin but well-muscled physique from years of bar fights and bad decisions.

Not merely Water leaning, he was specifically Ice , which had been proven when he survived the Mendozas locking him in a freezer overnight a couple years back.

If he’d been an Elemental and not so distinctly Irish, he would have reminded Mal of his own father even more.

But Dunkirk being able to resist intense cold didn’t mean Mal’s new amplifier wouldn’t be useful. It would be a good field test before the heist in only a couple days’ time. Whatever Dunkirk could withstand might be similar to Zeus’s tolerance from his enhanced healing.

“Do you know what you want, sir?” Janey asked Dunkirk, even though he hadn’t turned back to her. She wasn’t fazed by someone who looked tough and was capable of flashing several 100 dollar bills in her face.

“Sean isn’t here for the Danishes, Janey,” Mal said, keeping his hands folded and Lucy behind him. “Why don’t you step into the back?”

While Janey caught wise of the situation and gave a swift nod before making scarce, Dunkirk squared his shoulders. Thankfully, there were no other customers.

“Can’t a man order an afternoon snack in peace?” Dunkirk said with his faint Irish brogue, hand drifting inside his jacket.

“He can. As long as he doesn’t follow up his order by asking directions to where his ex and son live.”

“And unborn baby, you’ll recall.” Dunkirk flashed a nasty grin and took a slow step forward.

“I’m entitled to what’s mine, Cho. Something you fail to understand.

I know they’re still in the neighborhood.

I know Carla works at that bar. Smart move, making sure she always has an escort when she leaves.

You pay the bouncer extra? Or is that just part of the favors they owe you?

And here I thought men like that usually paid you on their knees. ”

Lucy’s hip subtly nudged Mal’s. Trash like Dunkirk wouldn’t rattle him, but he didn’t care for bigots falling to low tactics just to rile him. Flicking the switch for the cold field, he started to slowly expand the radius toward Dunkirk. With Lucy close behind him, she barely even shivered.

“I’ve warned you before, Sean. You stay out of my streets. Period. I don’t care what you think is yours. This neighborhood isn’t. It’s only a courtesy to your father that you’re still breathing. So back down, back off, and get the fuck out. Next time, I won’t ask nicely.”

The field encompassed Dunkirk before he could take another step, his expression instantly betraying that he felt the change in temperature. Shuddering, he scowled as a thin coating of frost began to form over his exposed skin—good. If it was powerful even against Dunkirk, it would work on Zeus too.

“You f-freak,” Dunkirk snarled. “Can’t even f-fight me like a man?”

“You only get a pass today because I’m in a good mood,” Mal inclined his head, “and Lucy does so love this bakery. Would be a shame to rough it up.”

“I don’t know, Mickey,” Lucy draped her arm over Mal’s shoulder, leaning tight against him but peering around his body with a wicked smile.

She let a coil of vines grow from her fingertips gently down Mal’s arm, while keeping her other hand behind her, ready to summon the underground weeds through the floor to ensnare Dunkirk if he tried anything.

“I could be persuaded to be bad. We could pay for any repairs. I’m sure Janey would understand. ”

“True…” Mal expanded the radius as Dunkirk tried to back out of it, not allowing the man to escape its chill.

Teeth chattering now, Dunkirk raised his hands to show he hadn’t drawn his weapon. “I’ll b-be on my way.”

Mal waited for a fresh shiver to leave Dunkirk before he turned the cold field off completely.

He knew this only postponed a future confrontation, but he didn’t look forward to an all-out war with the Irish if he killed the man.

Another option would be preferable, but if such a thing presented itself, it would not involve this asshole getting his way.

When Mal and Lucy moved from the entrance to let him pass, he paused and said, “See you real soon, Cho,” even with the frost still flaking from his skin.

Removing his sunglasses, Mal watched through the shop windows as Dunkirk headed away from the neighborhood.

“Coast’s clear, Janey!” Lucy called, retracting her vines from Mal’s shoulder.

For now, but this problem was not going away on its own.

?

The case against Ludgate had hit another dead end. Danny had nothing new to go on after failing to catch the man on his patterned routes, and he knew he wouldn’t get lucky twice. Sightings of Ludgate had grown fewer and farther between, and no new evidence from the heists had presented itself.

Old-fashioned legwork and investigating led Danny to the glassworks and other old acquaintances of Ludgate’s. None of them had seen him, and he didn’t have any real friends. But it was strange; Ludgate’s paper trail only went back so far. Before then, he didn’t seem to exist.

Danny knew the signs of a false identity when he found them, so he dug deeper and it didn’t take long to discover the truth.

Ludgate’s real name was Cassius Dougal Junior.

His mother had changed his name after she divorced the father.

A Metal leaning mother and Dark leaning father had led to a Light Elemental—it wasn’t unheard of, even if elements tended to be hereditary, a recessive gene could still slip through.

Ludgate had a record under his current name—petty thefts, mild public disturbances.

There were similar charges for young Cassius.

“Maybe he isn’t targeting Zeus for the fame,” John said. “You might have had something to do with bringing him in once.”

“These cases were too long ago,” Danny argued. “Ludgate lost his mother a few years back. Instead of his record escalating, that’s when everything slowed down, after she died and he got his job at the glassworks. I didn’t meet him as Zeus until the other night.”

Ludgate had been fired from the glassworks for unprofessional conduct.