Page 18 of Iron Blade

Eoghan sat up, his eyes narrowing.

“Cosima …” he repeated her name. “Durante?”

Without a word, Eoghan plucked the phone out of my hand and held it in front of his face, his voice speaking right into the microphone.

“Is this Eugenio’s girl?” he said, with a smile that looked like a snarl.

The line was silent. I blinked, waiting. I looked at the screen to see that the seconds were still ticking by. The call was connected.

“Eoghan, let her go. If this is about me, or my father…”

“This has nothing to do with the Durante’s.” He said her family name like a curse.

“Let her go, Eoghan.” Cosima’s voice took on a commanding edge I had never heard before. “What do you want? I’ll trade it. The docks? The East side warehouses? What do you want? Just drop her somewhere, and let her go…”

I noted all of that information. Cosima Durante had the influence to trade property. That was interesting.

Almost as interesting as the fact she’d make a trade for me. I didn’t think we were that close.

“Sweet, dear Cosima,” he crooned, “My interest in Kira has nothing to do with the business you and I were born into.”

“Eoghan, you evil bastard, let her go…” She spoke right through him.

“I don’t think I will. I’m going to take her home. You’re going to stay on the phone with her until she’s safely in her apartment, with me locked on the other side.”

That silenced Cosima completely.

“Tell me what you want, Eoghan. I will make sure you get it. I will make my fa–”

“Don’t talk about your Da’ to me,” he growled into the phone. “This isn’t family business.”

“Eoghan…” Her voice was a warning, and I could imagine her suddenly declaring war.

“Cosima, darlin’...” he said, suave as ever. “Don’t make me change my mind. And don’t put her in danger by drawing back the wizard’s curtain.”

I had no idea what that meant. Whatever he thought, he definitely spoke to Cosima as if she was a power player, and not just some mafia princess.

“Now be a doll, and sit there quietly, as I have a conversation with Miss Kekoa,” he said, handing me the phone.

I took it with both hands, making sure I didn’t accidentally hang up by touching the wrong place on the screen.

“What does she mean?” I asked.

“If you truly thought I was a scary man, you wouldn’t ask me that,” he said with a smirk. “New Yorkers, for all the modernity and urban decay, are really as superstitious as the old worlds we come from. We believe in ghosts and shadows, oaths and fairies.”

“That’s not…” Cosima started to speak, but Eoghan spoke right over her.

“You see, we all come from other places. Me, from Ireland. The Durante’s from Italy. The Vasiliev’s from Russia. We all come from somewhere else, and with it comes legends and myths.” Despite the fact that he had fastened my seatbelt, he hadn’t put on his own. He shuffled in the seat towards me, until our hips touched. “Old superstitions need to go, if we’re to move into the future, away from our troubled pasts, don’t you think, Cosima?”

His black eyes didn’t leave me for an instant.

Was he making a truce? It sounded like it. Like he was offering an olive branch without offering one.

“Do you hear me, Cosima?” he said, his eyes still not leaving mine.

I was too scared to blink.

“I hear you, Eoghan,” she said, and I almost dropped the phone, surprised that she had spoken at all.

---