Page 12 of Grave Curse

Romeo flipped through screens on his phone, then started typing furiously. “Understood. Has Hades threatened her?”

“Also, I want the interior of her warehouse wired for audio-capable cams, even her bedroom. How difficult would it be to get a camera inside her car without her noticing?”

Romeo stopped typing and frowned at me. “You want me to bug where she lives?”

“And don’t forget her computers, both at work and at home. Every click she makes, every email she opens or sends, I want to know about it.”

“Tyr, what the hell happened?”

“Did you know she stepped on a nail?”

Romeo stared at me. “No. Is she okay?”

“It happened a year ago when she was installing those fancy lit-up shoe shelves in Vixen’s Den. It happened, she got hurt, and you didn’t know about it. That meansIdidn’t know about it, and I don’t fucking like not knowing important shit like that.”

Romeo continued to stare. “Ohh-kay.”

“And last week, you know what she did?”

“I’m sure you can tell me.”

“That woman went on a goddamn date with the ridiculous asshole who moved his shitty little tattoo parlor next door to her shop. I didn’t know about that, either.”

“Technically speaking, you did know about the guy who moved in, since the Gravediggers own that property under Blue Horizons, LLC. You knew we were getting a new tenant.”

I tried killing him with a glare. “I’m talking about their fuckingdate, Romeo. I didn’t know about that until Misty mentioned it to me. You wanna explain to me why I didn’t know about it?”

“Because I’m not under orders to report about every new person that shows up in Ginger Sisko’s life.”

“Well, now you are. I don’t know jack-shit about this guy, except that his first name is Draco, but that could be a fake name or a road name. It’s possible he could be one of Hades’s soldiers masquerading as Mr. Nice Guy Next Door. I want a full background check on him, ASAP.”

“Tyr.” Finally the uncompromising tone from my V.P. penetrated, and I found him watching me like I was frothing at the mouth. “What the hell is going on?”

“What do you mean, what’s going on?” I shot back, scowling. “I’m giving you orders, and I’m expecting you to follow them.”

“I’m talking about Ginger. We’ve already got her covered.”

“Yeah, and that coverage is shit. She almost had a head-on collision this morning.”

“It was a near-miss, which was reported to you seconds after it happened. If you want me to assign a security detail to be with her wherever she goes, I can do that with one phone call.”

“I’ve already tried that. It didn’t go well.” Actually, she’d somehow stolen the clothes of the prospect I’d assigned to her, threw them onto my desk and told me to shove both the clothes and the idea of a security detail up my ass.

Because Ginger.

“Well, then, short of kidnapping her or putting her in a medically induced coma, I don’t see how anyone can stoprandom things from happening, like stepping on nails or dates with the next-door-neighbor.”

“She’d never allow herself to be drugged, not after what happened with her mother.”

“Dude, I was kidding.”

Lost in contemplating how I could kidnap Ginger without her noticing, I looked up and saw him frowning at me. “Romeo, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re locked in a cold war, and I know how my uncle’s mind works. He has a gift for hitting where you’re most vulnerable in the same way that the devil has a gift for being evil.”

“And Ginger is a vulnerability to you?”

“Do you know what a whipping boy is?” I asked without answering.

“A whipping boy,” Romeo repeated, squinting at me as if that would help him see what my point was. “Yeah, some poor kid back in medieval times who was raised with royal children and made to feel like family, only to be savagely beaten if any of the royal brats stepped out of line. What does that have to do with—”

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