“My fault.” The dark eyes smiled. “When the master woke us up, it was a little . . . abrupt. I think I startled her.”
“He jumped up swinging, and she swung back, knocking him on his ass,” Marco translated, making me bite my lip. Because Rico was the most obviously badass of my bodyguards, the leather-wearing, tat-sporting, gun-carrying one, when most of the others wore Armani like their master and debated things like plain or tassel-front loafers.
I doubted Rico had a pair of loafers, or if he did, I’d never seen them.
I also doubted that he’d ever been decked by a slim, pretty woman before. But then, Tami was pretty badass herself. And she didn’t need leather to prove it.
She had a belt in jujitsu, the same color as her weave, that did that for her.
“I’m sure she’s sorry,” I told Rico, who was openly grinning now.
“She promised me some cookies,” he agreed.
“I’ve had her cookies. I’d take a belt for them any day,” Marco said, but he was still looking at me. Because he had the patience of Job, and the stubbornness, too, and I doubted he was going to let this go. He took his job as chief bodyguard seriously, and was not a fan of the Circle.
At all.
“Jonas said he called for backup so my court wouldn’t be without protection while he figured out what was going on,” I explained.
“And you believe that?” An eyebrow the size of a caterpillar went north.
I clasped my arms around me again, and told myself it was because I was chilly. The vamps had adjusted the temperature to compensate for all the extra body heat we’d had lately, and without it, it was verging on cold in here. “I don’t disbelieve him. He said he wants to work with us—”
“He wants to work with you. I think he could do without us just fine.”
I sighed. “Look, I know his attitude could use an overhaul—”
“It’s not just his attitude,” Rico said. “He took the girl, didn’t he?”
I frowned. “What girl?”
“The one who drugged you yesterday.”
“What?”
“He took Lizzie,” Marco confirmed.
“What?”
He nodded. “Turns out, you couldn’t have traded her if you’d wanted to. The Circle’s guys took her before we were awake to stop them—”
“Took her where?”
“Nobody knows,” Rico said. “Jonas called a few hours ago, to check on Rhea—who is his daughter, I understand?”
I nodded, frowning.
“But it was a short call and the only information we gained is that he’s back in Britain. Where the girl is . . .” Rico shook his head.
“She’s probably with him,” Marco said. “You know damn well that’s why he left his men here last night. And why they didn’t object to Rhea going out this morning. They probably saw it as a golden opportunity to make off with Lizzie before Cassie got back.”
I didn’t say anything to that. How could I? It was probably the truth.
I’d helped to put Jonas back in power, foolishly thinking we’d be allies. So far, his definition of that term seemed a little different from mine. And now he had Lizzie, and I didn’t know where, but I needed to.
Because I wasn’t the only one looking for her.
“Why did Rhea go out?” I asked, trying to get this straight in a head that was still half-asleep. “And what witches?”
“They were with us in Augustine’s,” Rico said. “Don’t you remember?”
“Sort of.” I vaguely recalled some women pouring into the ruined shop along with the vamps.
“You were pretty out of it, so no wonder,” Marco said. “But if they hadn’t shown up, we wouldn’t have had a way past the wards on that safe, since the guys supposedly manning the front desk had already fled. . . .” His jaw tightened. “It could have been bad.”
“But what were they doing here?”
“They were worried about Rhea,” Rico said.
“That’s how the dark mage fuckwads got her,” Marco added. “She gets a call—while we’re still out of it, mind—and the damn Circle just lets her leave! They didn’t even volunteer to go with her. They sent an untrained nineteen-year-old acolyte off on her own—”
“To go where?” I asked. “Why would she go anywhere?”
“Oh, that’s the best part,” Marco said. “That’s the part I’m going to bring up the next time Jonas, or any of those Circle bastards, says a goddamn thing about us guarding the Pythia—”
“She received a phone call from someone claiming to be with one of the covens,” Rico explained, glancing at his friend. “Saying they were upset that there weren’t any coven girls in your court other than her, and they felt slighted.”
I frowned. “But that’s their choice. The covens don’t usually send—”
“They didn’t send ’em this time!” Marco said, loudly enough that Rhea stirred uneasily.
“Careful,” Rico said, glancing back at her.
“Sorry.” Marco looked at him sardonically. “Didn’t mean to step on any toes.”
“Just as long as you don’t step on hers.”
Marco’s smile grew. “Wouldn’t dream of touching your little charge—”
“She isn’t my charge, but I will defend her,” Rico said, watching to see that Rhea settled back down again. And then he glanced at me. “As I would any of your court.”
“That’s . . . good,” I said, looking between the two of them, wondering what I’d missed. And then deciding I had enough to worry about already. “So one of the covens called Rhea?”
“No, one of the covens did not,” Marco said flatly. “Some woman working with the Black Circle did, and the damn Silver let Rhea walk right out of here, on her own, to meet with them and take charge of the handful of little girls they were supposedly sending.”
“And they grabbed her,” I said, my jaw tightening.
“And they grabbed her,” Marco agreed. “But luckily, she’d realized that she was going to be a little late—a couple of the kids have a cold, and she wanted to stop and get some medicine—and she called a friend of hers to tell her that.”
“A friend?”
“In the same coven,” Rico explained. “The one that had supposedly called her.”
“The original call went through the hotel switchboard,” Marco added. “So she didn’t have a number to use to call ’em back. But she thinks, no problem, I’ll just call my friend and she can let ’em know.”
“But her friend didn’t know anything about it,” I guessed.
“Her friend wasn’t even awake,” Rico said. “But when she did get up a short time later, and received the message, she realized that Rhea might be in trouble.”
Marco nodded. “She hadn’t heard anything about any coven girls joining the court, and she made a few calls. Found out that nobody else knew anything about it, either. So she called Rhea back, but nobody answered, so she tried to call us, but the switchboard wouldn’t let her through—”
“Then how did the Black Circle get through?”
The two vamps exchanged a look.
“How did they get through?” I asked again, a little more forcefully.
“We had the switchboard put a pass code on all your calls,” Marco told me.
“And?”
“And only a couple people had it,” Rico said softly. “They found one of them in his car this afternoon.”
“In his . . .” I trailed off, but Rico didn’t elaborate.
“Don’t soft-pedal it,” Marco said. “She’s not one of the kids.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Then tell her what happened.” He looked at me. “They found him in his trunk. He’d been tortured, presumably until he gave them the code, and then locked in his car and left to bake to death in the heat.”
“That was unnecessary,” Rico said, frowning.