Page 166 of Death is Familiar

But I knew from experience what the fog of desire could do to Jack, and how things could escalate. And with what was already at risk, the rumors spreading, I couldn’t let us get tangled up in one another, not after Todd’s sacrifice.

“We can’t Jack, not here.” I took a half-step away, fighting the heady lure of his siren song. “Not with what’s at stake. Todd is risking everything for us, to do this, here, now, would disrespect him and everything he is shielding us from. Besides, I look like a whale.”

“You look ravishing.” Jack closed the distance and spun us to face the floor-length mirror. “Look in the mirror and tell me, what do you see?”

“A whale.”

His hands firmed their grip on my shoulders. “What do you really see?”

Taking in my scars, new shape, and Jack’s split lip and fading black-eye, I chuckled, “A rag-tag team stuffed into expensive clothes.” Coupled with Todd’s new head of hair, the three of us would be barely recognizable from ourselves a few months ago. “And a shiner that is going to get a lot of vamp attention.”

“Well, I see strength. I see a stubborn, tenacious, survivor who, much to my detriment, will turn every head in the room.” Jack smiled at our reflection, then brought himself to stand before me. “I see a woman granting me the greatest honor of my life.” Oh. A small kindling of hope flared in my chest. “And if you’re fishing for answers about my black-eye, you might as well ask the question.”

He had me there. Because even though I tossed the shiner comment in passing, I had been fishing. “Todd punched you.”

“Not a question.”

“In the face.”

“Still not a question.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?”

“Oh my god.” I made to leave. “If you’re just going to play games⁠—"

He caught my hand and gently tugged me back. “You are aware I’m in the habit of getting what I want. That I’ve made a name for myself in the FBI?”

“The Jack Hess Monster?”

Jack almost rolled his eyes, almost. “Among others. But very rarely, on occasion, I can let my success get to my head. There are times where I feel like I can do it all, that nothing can go wrong. That I’m indestructible. And when that happens, I’m liable to make mistakes. And I’ve made them. Plenty of them.”

There could be hundreds of mistakes, lives on the line, but given the revelations shared by Jerome, I sensed these mistakes were namely around Todd, and his missing tongue. Or mistakes that led to Jack getting poisoned, which I still hadn’t spoken to him about, but now in preparation for the fang ceremony wasn’t the right time. Right now, I only needed to know why someone as calm, grumpy, and collected as Todd, punched his superior. In the face. Thrice.

Shaking his head as if to ward off bad memories, Jack continued, “The punches were given to Todd to keep me on the straight and narrow. If I ever went down the wrong path, or made a mistake grievous enough, he had free license to punch me in the face.”

“To… punish you?”

“To help me course-correct. Hold me accountable.”

Whatever Todd had punched Jack for must’ve been serious enough to warrant the action. It was a strange arrangement, but one I understood. “How many punches was he given?”

Jack Hessinger skated a thumb over his bruised brow, down his cheek, and feathered it over his split lip. “Three.”

Three. Eye. Cheek. Lip.

He’d used them all.

39

Downstairs the event preparations were well underway, the vamps set to arrive within the hour. I toured every nook and cranny of the space, familiarizing myself with all of the building’s secrets. Where someone up-to-no-good might hide. Where the security footage and the computers were stored. Which doors were locked, those that led out, and those that opened into closed rooms—dead ends.

The mansion selected for the fang ceremony was large, gothic, and if I was an objective bystander—which I wasn’t—I would have found the setting to be the epitome of dark luxury.

But holy hell did it have a lot of doors. Many of which had antique key-holes, and lacking deadbolts, they required a key when the door was locked.

Beyond the main space, which was fairly open, backing onto a terrace overlooking the Tarrytown Reservoir, the underbelly of the mansion was filled with curved corridors, and small rooms. My door count was at sixty-six, and climbing.