“Ah, come on, Cat,” Troy purred, stepping closer to her. “Don’t be like that. We used to be friends. We used to be a lot more. I remember how good we were together, don’t you?”
Troy reached out, as if he were going to curl a lock of Catalina’s hair around his finger, but she slapped his hand away before he could touch her.
“That was a long time ago,” she snapped. “Before I knew better.”
Troy’s eyes narrowed. “You know, given our history, I was going to be nice about this. Not anymore.”
He snapped his fingers. One of the other guys stepped forward, unzipped the black backpack he was holding, and pulled out a fistful of plastic bags, all filled with pills. He handed the bags to Troy, who held them up so that Catalina could see them.
“All you gotta do is take these pills over to that barbecue restaurant where you work and pass them out to the waiters and the customers,” Troy said. “Give them out here on campus too. Think of them as free samples.”
He snickered, and so did the other two guys.
Catalina’s jaw clenched tight, and she glared at Troy, her hazel eyes almost black with anger. “I’m not pushing your pills. Forget it. Find someone else to sell that poison for you.”
Troy reached toward her a second time, but Catalina slapped his hand away again. Troy surged forward, and the other two guys stepped up behind him, the three of them crowding Catalina and forcing her to back up against the chain-link fence on that side of the lot. Troy’s two minions were actually older guys—vampires, given the glint of the fangs in their mouths as they leered at Catalina.
“You move out of the neighborhood, and you suddenly think you’re better than everyone else. Well, not so high and mighty now, are you?” Troy sneered. “Not when there are three of us and one of you.”
She coldly looked from one guy to the next, not a flicker of fear showing in her face. Impressive. Catalina was tougher than she’d ever let on at the restaurant.
“Actually, I’d say that there are just two of you,” Catalina said, jerking her head at the vampires. “From what I remember, you don’t like to get your hands dirty, Troy.”
A red flush crept up Troy’s neck, spreading into his cheeks. “Well, you’d know all about being dirty, wouldn’t you? Since all you do is clean up other people’s shit all day long.”
Catalina stiffened, but she didn’t respond.
“You know, if you won’t play ball, then you aren’t leaving me a lot of options,” Troy said. “I can’t have you going around school after turning me down. That would send the wrong message to a lot of people. Last chance, Cat. Take the pills—or else.”
The two vampires crept a little closer to her, smiling even wider and showing off even more of their fangs. Troy’s meaning was clear: get with the pill-pushing program or get drained.
Catalina lifted her chin and glared at Troy. She wasn’t backing down, no matter what. I admired her for it, really, I did, but it was also stupid of her. She should have just accepted the pills and flushed them later. Oh, I knew that Catalina didn’t want to take the pills and get sucked in with Troy and his thugs, but it was too late for that. This was about to get very ugly for someone.
Good thing ugly was what I specialized in.
“Gin?” Owen asked.
I realized that he had asked me a question, probably more than once, and I focused on his voice again. “Sorry, babe. I’ve gotta go.”
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Nah. I just see a bit of trash that needs to be taken care of. I’ll be there soon.”
Owen and I hung up, and I slid my phone into my jeans pocket, before opening the car door and throwing my backpack into the passenger’s seat. Then I slammed the door shut.
The sharp crack reverberated through the parking lot, and the three guys turned to stare at me. Catalina tried to edge away, but the two vamps spotted her furtive movements and flanked her, keeping her pinned against the fence. I pushed away from my car, stuck my hands into my pockets, and strolled in their direction.
Catalina recognized me, her boss, at once. She let out a small gasp, her face paled, and she started shaking her head no-no-no, although I couldn’t tell if she was trying to warn me off or worried about what I was going to do to the three guys hassling her.
But Troy didn’t see her reaction. Instead, his gaze slid past me to my car. When he realized that I was driving an Aston Martin, a greedy smirk slashed across his face.
“Hey, hey, foxy lady,” he called out. “You lookin’ for some action? You lookin’ to score a little sumthin’ sumthin’?”
I smiled back at him, showing almost as many teeth as the two vampires were. “Sumthin’ like that.”
Behind Troy, Catalina kept shaking her head no-no-no. She opened her lips, but one of the vamps rattled the fence beside her, a clear sign for her to keep her mouth shut. But there was no need for her to waste any more of her breath on these fools, especially not to try to tell them who they were messing with. Besides, Troy wouldn’t have heeded any warning. He was completely focused on me, a potential customer, and I could almost see the dollar signs churning in his head as he calculated how much he could take me for.
“Well, you are in the right spot, baby. Because I have got just the thing for you.”
He held out one of the bags, and I took it from him. A single pill lay inside the plastic, its deep, dark red color making it look like a drop of congealed blood. I flipped the bag over and realized that a rune had been etched into the surface of the pill: a crown with a single flame arching up out of the center of it, the symbol for raw, destructive power.
Still, despite the bloody color and the symbol, the pill looked more like a kids’ vitamin than a dangerous drug, but I knew all too well how deceiving looks could be. Most people didn’t think that I seemed anything like a dangerous assassin—until my knife was cutting into their guts.
“What’s this?” I asked.
Troy’s smirk widened. “It’s the latest, greatest thing on the market, baby. It will rock your world. Nah, scratch that. It’ll just burn it down instead.”
The two vamps snickered at his cheesy lines. Catalina rolled her eyes. Yeah, that’s what I wanted to do too, but I decided to let things play out.
I tucked the pill into my jeans pocket. Not because I had any intention of taking it but because Bria would no doubt be interested in it. Detective Bria Coolidge, one of Ashland’s few good cops, actually cared about things like trying to keep drugs off the streets. I tried to help her out whenever I could, despite my own life of killing and crime.