Page 16 of The Mobster's Mate

Carefully, he sat down next to him and brushed the hair back from his forehead. Unfocused eyes opened and met his gaze.

“You’re going to be okay,” he promised, but he wasn’t sure the man could hear him, his eyes sliding back closed.

He tightened his hands, resisting the urge to either keep touching the cat or stand and throw something against the wall. One was inappropriate, and the other wouldn’t help anything.

Fuck, he hated feeling helpless.

It was how he’d felt when he was a child, watching his family crumble in front of him, feeling second-class compared to something he could never be no matter how hard he tried. He’d worked a long time to never feel inferior to anyone or anything again.

But watching this cat burn away in front of him was driving him to the brink.

As soon as Darius came into his eyeline, he stood. “Is she coming?”

Darius nodded, worried eyes locking on the jaguar. “They’re on their way up.”

“Good.” Quinten started for the door. “Keep your eyes on him. If anything changes, holler.”

It only took a few moments for him to get to his own bedroom. He quickly stripped and then pulled on a clean suit, cursing under his breath. If Ginger and the others hadn’t come up with anything, there wasn’t time for him to negotiate with any of the covens or pack witches who he had alliances with.

He needed help, and he needed help now.

Luckily, there just so happened to be a powerful coven within an extremely powerful pack that owed him a favor.

But they wouldn’t be pleasant about it, he was sure.

He was just finishing tying his tie when his phone alerted him to his front door opening. A few seconds later, he heard Ginger running through the penthouse. Shrugging into his suit jacket, he met her in there.

She had one hand hovering over the unconscious cat’s body, her eyes squeezed shut as she mumbled under her breath. He waited impatiently for her to finish. When she squeezed her hand shut and opened her eyes to meet his, he knew he wasn’t going to like what she was going to say.

“Darius is right. He’s going to die if we don’t do something immediately.”

“Did you and the others come up with anything?” he asked, hoping for a long shot.

She shook her head, mouth twisting in regret. “I’m sorry. We worked all night, but we’re just not confident in any of our hypotheses, at least not enough to risk his life on it, and that’s what we’d be doing if we tried anything we came up with. We need somebody who knows more about this kind of magic.”

He nodded. Yup, just his luck.

Her eyes dipped back down toward the bed. “I guess we know what the note meant now.”

“What?”

“The note.” She dug through the bag she had hooked across her body, sifting through the things inside until she pulled out a familiar-looking piece of paper and held it out to him. “The part about being a fan of long goodbyes? Whoever put that collar on him knew it was going to kill him fast enough that we wouldn’t have a chance to help him. They know about us, Q. They know that you have witches but that we’re a small coven and a lot of us are too young and inexperienced to deal with something this powerful.”

“They’re watching us,” he said softly, taking the note from her. “That’s what you’re saying.”

“They’ve been watching us probably for a while. That or he has some sort of seer with him, someone powerful who can keep an eye on us from afar, can know what we know, who we are. Our strengths and weaknesses.”

“Maybe even both,” Darius added. “Watch us physically and magically.”

Fury began to build in the pit of Quinten’s stomach. This was his city. These were his people. He didn’t know who this Tiho was, but the motherfucker was going to regret the day he ever set his sights on Quinten and what was his.

“You should take that with you,” she said, nodding at the note.

He raised his eyebrows. “Take it with me?”

“Wherever you take him, whatever coven you get to help, they might be able to find something. We couldn’t find anything on the note.”

“What were you expecting to find?”

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