Page 90 of Heart Over Heels

Someone was waiting.

I was still in my work uniform—which wasn’t much of a uniform at all except for the duty belt used to holster my Glock. Years of training kicked in with a surge of adrenaline, and I drew the pistol and fired at the intruder. Two shots in the chest and one in the head.

The figure dropped to the floor, and I reached for the switch on the wall behind me. The living room flooded with yellow-white light, revealing the person on the ground and two others lying in wait, angels all.

Antonella Rossetti sat on the sofa like a nested bird with her wings spread and legs crossed at the knee. Behind her, Stefano Rossetti loomed broad-shouldered and somber, and altogether unconcerned with the third person sprawled on the floor, leaking blood from three bullet wounds.

“Don’t move,” I warned the angels.

My gaze swept the room, searching corners and checking the perimeter for other invaders, then flicking to the doors and windows for signs of forced entry. Everything appeared to be in order. No broken locks or shattered glass. But I didn’t believe for a second the angels had come without backup. None of them were armed—at least visibly—and I knew they had ample security at their disposal. If this was breaking and entering, it was the most casual case I’d ever seen.

I was still scanning for shadows that weren’t mine when the man on the floor let out a groan. Not of pain, but complaint.

“My suit!” he exclaimed as he sat upright.

Sucking in a breath, I regripped my pistol and leveled it at the angel’s head. Now that he wasn’t flat on the floor, I recognized him as Narcissus Rossetti, Antonella’s oldest child. With three of the six members of the Rossetti clan in attendance, we were well on our way to a holy family reunion in my living room.

Narcissus’s identity was less of a shock than his apparent immunity to bullets. That discovery rattled me to my core. Firearms were the answer to many a problem in the Corps, but it seemed that solution didn’t apply to divine beings.

Narcissus was as tall as his uncle, but leaner. He had the same porcelain skin and white hair as the rest of his kin, and his features sharpened as he scowled at me.

“I ought to smite you, you worm.” He took hold of his bloodstained suit coat and tugged, making the bullet holes gape. “This is cashmere!”

“Narcissus, darling,” Antonella cut in. “If you’re going to threaten the man, you should at least do it from your feet.”

The younger angel scrambled to standing, looking more disheveled and less dignified than I’d ever seen him.

I kept my grip on the Glock, letting the barrel rise along with Narcissus while I stared down the sights at the spot between his pale gray eyes. My earlier shot had left a wound that was rapidly healing, leaving behind nothing but a smear of red.

Narcissus had barely regained his footing before Antonella joined him. She smoothed her hands down the creased front of her slacks, and the weight of her gaze drove my gun hand lower until it hung uselessly at my side.

“Good evening, Mister James,” she greeted, so blasé it was chilling. “As you can see, when I go to visit someone and they aren’t home, I have the decency towait.”

My jaw ticked as I glanced around the assembly. “Don’t visitors usually knock first?”

Rather than answer, she plucked a sheet of paper off the coffee table and held it between two manicured fingers. My resignation letter.

“This is not the paperwork I asked for,” she said. “Where is the contract?”

My eyes flicked to Stefano. His expression stayed stony and impassive, and his lips pressed into a thin line.

“I didn’t get it,” I told Antonella.

“Why not?”

“I didn’t have a chance,” I replied. “That office is never empty, and I don’t think it’s in there anyway. It doesn’t seem like the kind of place to store something important.”

Antonella’s mouth curved slightly before she set the letter down. The motion drew my notice to something beside it—a flash of color, maybe another document? Before I could step closer, her hand closed over it.

She raised the second paper into view, and my gut twisted the second I recognized it as the photo from my fridge. Molly’s photo.

Christ.

They’d beeninmy house. They hadn’t just walked in and sat down. They’d searched. Ransacked. Rooted through my life.

A sense of indignation swept through me, and my heart hammered so hard it made my vision pulse.

“You have a lovely daughter,” Antonella said. “She lives near here, doesn’t she? With her mother…” Her head tilted, eyes narrowing in mock concentration. “What’s the name?”