Mancini tipped his head to the side. “She was like you, but not so strong because there was no training. The more you train your body and mind to be a fighter, the more the power of a phoenix will rise. Your mother was a survivor in many ways, but I don’t think she ever learned how to harness her offensive abilities. I believe her heart was too gentle for that.”
Eleanor twitched once and then went still. Mancini’s eyes flicked to her as if he’d seen her movement.
I lowered Eleanor and tucked her into her holster, but I never took my eyes from Mancini. “You’re saying the more I train, the stronger my abnormal ability is?”
“That is part of it, yes. The more danger you are in, the more expressive your ability becomes. Your myst is doing all it can to protect you, and so it grows stronger with each threat thrown at you.” Mancini’s eyes narrowed. “It makes me wonder if that isn’t what your father is trying to do. The more he pushes you, the stronger you become, the better tool you are to him when he grabs hold of you once more.”
“Stupid on his part then,” Killian said. “If she becomes much stronger, she’ll wipe him and all his people out.”
A chill rippled down my spine and I let my legs unlock as I slid to a seat. “He means to push me to the brink of my ability and then what? Control me? But that doesn’t make sense. He never knew I had any abilities. I’m not sure he thinks I do now even.” And he never would have let me go so easily all those years ago. Those words I kept to myself.
Mancini seemed to read my mind and I didn’t like it. “He didn’t exactly let you go, though, did he? In fact, he hunted for you for the last twelve years, and then killed your husband and stole your son, which threw you back into action with more fury than ever before. It sounds to me as if he knew all along what and who you were and has been playing the long game. It would make the most sense, agreed?”
I swayed where I was even though I was sitting, not with the motion of the helicopter but the strength of his convictions and the feeling that he might be right. Abe, my Malinois dog, pressed himself against my leg. Maybe to give me support, but maybe because he too could feel the tension that came with Mancini’s words. For my father to be playing the long game, to have known all along what I was . . . I wasn’t sure I believed it. Or maybe I just didn’t want to. It would mean he’d planned to kill Justin, to kill Bear long before I’d ever had either in my life. He’d known that if anyone came into my life they could be used against me.
I couldn’t do much more than stare at the man in front of me. I didn’t want him to be right—not because of any residual feelings for my father or family, but because it meant I’d been duped all those years into thinking I was safe. That the safety I’d felt had been nothing but an illusion. I hated secrets. I hated lies. I hated deceptions. I wanted reality, no matter how cold or hard it was.
I’d rather hate my life than believe it was not the truth.
Mancini laced his fingers and set them around his right knee. His voice scratched through the headset. “The more I consider it, the more I think that might be the answer to what is happening here. It won’t matter to your father if you kill all three of his guardians. He may in fact want that to happen. If you kill all three, it will spike your own abilities, making you more dangerous than the three of them put together. And because he is still immortal, you won’t be able to kill him. Then he has your son under his thumb, a perfect form of leverage to control you and your newfound strength.”
I glanced at Killian, needing to see his reaction to this. Because Mancini was hard for me to get a read on. His eyes being part of the difficulty, but there was almost zero energy flowing from him. I believed this was truth, but around Mancini, I didn’t fully trust my own feelings.
Liars fidgeted and all but danced in their seats, their energy spiking with each word as they worked to make you believe them. Even the best liars had tells. Looking back, I could pick out Simon’s, now that he was dead and gone. Though they were subtle, they were there.
Mancini had none of the tells. If what he said was the truth, then I had more to deal with than I’d ever before considered.
Killian’s green eyes were thoughtful as he turned to me. “It makes a wicked sort of sense, lass. But I do have one question.” He turned to face Mancini. “Why would he need someone stronger than three guardians of Hell to protect him if he’s immortal?”
Mancini shrugged. “I don’t know the answer to that.”
A lie, that one I picked up on and a zip of glee shot through me. The acrid tang of the lie floated to me before being swept away on the wind rushing through us. “Tommy, you still have my pack?”
Tommy jerked as if I’d slapped him. “Yeah, what do you need?”
I turned so my body sheltered what I was doing. Tommy laid the pack between us and from it I pulled out the red paste I’d used on Tommy. If smeared on any injury and then lit on fire, it healed wounds and infections that would otherwise kill in seconds. But that was not what I wanted. Before Simon died, he’d put something else in my pack. The sleepy as a lamb fairy dust shit that he thought might be useful. I found the small jar with the sparkling bits and rolled it into my palm, thanking him silently. He might have been an asshole, but this stuff was going to help.
“What are you doing?” Mancini asked.
“You’re lying to me.” I spun around as I pressed my thumb against the edge of the jar’s lid and spun it open. A gust of wind whipped the twinkling dust right into Mancini’s face, and he sucked in a deep breath. I spun the lid closed and jammed it back in the pack as Mancini slumped forward to his knees, the rest of the fairy dust settling in his hair and on his face. Like he’d been glitter bombed. The thought made me smile for a moment, then the smile was gone.
“Dirty pool.” He slurred the words through the headset, his body going slack against the wall behind him.
I knelt over him, careful not to touch any of the twinkling bits that had attached to his gray strands. Even as I watched, they melted into his skin and hair, sinking deeper into him. I waited until they were completely gone and then I reached out and grabbed the top of his head and yanked it back so I could stare into his face. “You are going to answer some questions now, Mr. Mancini.”
He licked his lips, the tip of his tongue darting out, but he didn’t say anything.
I tightened my hold on his hair. “What would my father need me to be stronger than his three guardians for?”
“Oh, that’s simple. He wants to have all the perks of his deal with the devil, and none of the drawbacks. He wants you or your brat to be his personal guardian against the demon he made the deal with. That won’t save him, though.” The words slid from him in a rush, so fast they blurred together.
I didn’t let go of his hair, just tightened my grip. “How can you be sure?”
“I know things.” And then he giggled. Fuck, if he went too deep, he was going to be useless as tits on a bull.
I tried a different direction. “You had Zee killed, you tried to set me against Killian by telling me he’d killed Barron, and you have not yet fulfilled your promise of helping me against my father. Why are you helping me? Why did you give me the diary? Who gave it to you?”