Syn cleared his throat and felt obligated to keep all images of anything sexual out of his mind while he replayed the course of his relationship with Jo—which he knew damn well was over now.

God, this hurt, he thought.

“She’s a reporter. She was looking into a murder downtown. There were lessers around, and I was worried that they’d recognize her for what she is—even though she is not aware she’s a half-breed.” He decided to edit out the part about her pointing her gun at him. Also the Mafia hit stuff. “There were the human police all over the place, too. She didn’t want her presence to be known, so I made sure it wasn’t. I’ve only ever protected her, I swear to you.”

Manny twisted around in the driver’s seat for a second. “She doesn’t know about the change?”

“No. She’ll find out tonight, though. Or at least she better. It’s so close for her the now.”

“Why didn’t you tell someone?”

“V already knew about her.” Syn did his best to keep any aggression out of his voice. “So she’s been looked after.”

“They should have brought her in.”

There was a long pause. And then Manny said, “I know your reputation.”

Rolling his eyes, Syn muttered, “Who doesn’t. And she’s living and breathing, isn’t she. If I were going to kill her for sport, I would have already.”

There was an even longer silence that followed that little piece of caring-is-sharing, and in the quiet, Syn went back into his past, thinking of the first female he’d gone after in the Old Country. It had been back when being a mercenary had been his only job, before Balz had gotten him in with the war camp and the Bloodletter and Xcor.

In another case of his reputation preceding him, Syn had been approached in a pub by a farmer whose fields were being encroached upon by a neighboring landowner. As the conflict escalated, the farmer’s cows had been poisoned and his lake spoiled. He’d been looking to have the problem resolved.

Syn took the money. Did recon to ensure that the story as represented to him was true. Infiltrated what turned out to be a castle to get a feel of his victim’s environs.

And then it was time to kill the male. His talhman had looked forward to the moment of blade to flesh, but Syn had waited for the spring festival to commence so there would be chaos and distraction and drunkenness inside those thick walls. Lurking within the castle and seeking the perfect moment to strike, he had followed the master of the estate back to his private rooms. Imagine Syn’s surprise when he had attacked and discovered that under the garb of a male there was, in fact, a member of the fairer sex: With her hair shorn, and heavy sandalwood sachets to cover the scent of her, no one had guessed her truth.

When it came to slaughtering her, Syn hadn’t cared about which sex she was.

And he hadn’t spared her.

He had shed all the blood from her veins until the inlaid floor beneath her bedding platform had glistened with what had kept her alive. He had felt nothing.

No, that wasn’t true. The usual rush, the thrill, the sadistic joy he experienced at causing pain, as well as the release from his own buildup of anger and aggression, had all been there.

They were always there.

In fact, that cycle of kindling, target finding, killing, and resulting relative peacefulness was why he had to murder on a regular basis.

His talhman was what made him a serial killer. Like an alcoholic needed a drink to deal with stress, he needed to bring death to complete his cycle, and he had not, and never did, regret a thing. But that was because he had rules. The efforts and time spent determining whether his marks were criminal had ensured he was not like his father.

And had also ensured that he got to kill people like his father, over and over again.

That was why the Lessening Society had never been enough for him. That was business.

What he did with his murder kit on his own time was personal, a return to the death he had wrought on the sire who had tortured him and his mahmen.

Syn was getting lax about the screening process though, wasn’t he. When Gigante had told him to kill Jo, he hadn’t looked into whether the target was an innocent or not. He’d been reeling and kill-starved, overdue and therefore prepared to murder a reporter, regardless of their virtue or lack thereof.

Which was very different from a mobster who sold drugs to kids and did fuck-all else.

“I don’t want you around her,” Manny said abruptly.

“So you’ve decided to believe her. About your kinship with her.”

“Doesn’t matter.” The surgeon’s dark eyes went to the rearview. “Sister or not, she doesn’t need you in her life.”

Syn looked down at the gauze banding around his thigh. Manny had insisted on packing that wound as well as his others.

“So you’re just going to let me bleed out, huh,” Syn said.

“No, I’m still going to treat you. I have professional ethics.”

Syn lowered his head and closed his eyes. As images of Jo came to him, a relentless onslaught of memories, his instinct to protect her surged under his skin and raced along his veins. Under different circumstances, he might have suggested he and her brother fight it out.

What stopped him was… he couldn’t disagree with the man’s conclusion.

Jo was much better off without him.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

You stole from me again.”

As Jo spoke, she stared out of the window of the truck she’d gotten into at the abandoned mall. The last thing she remembered, they were leaving the site of the fighting. Now, they were in a parking garage somewhere… God only knew where.

“It’s for your safety.”

She looked across the seat. The man—male—beside her was Syn’s size, but with a long, flowing, multi-colored hair and the calm demeanor of someone who had done so many super-dangerous things that chauffeuring a woman to… well, wherever the hell they were… was waaaaaaaay down on his list of stressors.

“My safety?” She glanced at the bulk of his leather jacket. “Really. Like I’m not already at risk around you.”

He killed the engine and stared over at her with yellow eyes that were beautiful—and so not human. “You will not be hurt here.”

“I’m supposed to trust you? When I’ve lost—” She tapped the digital clock on the dash. “—seventeen minutes. Oh? You mean you didn’t think I’d check the time? I knew you were going to do something with my memory, so I’ve been keeping track of these numbers as they change.”

The male narrowed his eyes. “What you don’t understand is that there are people who would torture you for the information about where to find us. And they can read your mind and know what you know in the blink of an eye. So yes, it’s for your safety.”

Jo looked back out the window. There wasn’t much to see. Just concrete, asphalt, parking spaces, and no open-air anything.

As he got out of the truck, she followed suit. “Are we underground?”

“Yes.” He indicated an unmarked metal door. “And we’re heading over there.”

Following him—because really, what was her other option?—she ended up in some kind of corridor, going by… what seemed to be classrooms. Meeting rooms. And then some medical facilities that looked every bit as state-of-the-art as any hospital she’d ever seen.