My jaw dropped. “Malcolm sent the skinners?”
“I can’t prove it—I didn’t get a chance to ask the guy any questions before I heard sirens—but that would be my guess.” Jameson made a face. “I knew he was unhappy about me leaving, but I never thought he’d really send someone to kill me.”
“You say that like he’s sent people to not kill you,” I remarked. It was a joke, but Jameson’s expression flickered. I stared at him. “Wait, he’s sent people before? To what, beat you up?”
Jameson nodded, then shrugged. He was absently rubbing at the scar on his collarbone again. “But that’s just Malcolm being Malcolm. I thought he’d punish me with a couple of beatings and then let it go. Maybe I shouldn’t have fought back.”
What? “Let me see if I’m following here,” I said in a voice that squeaked. “Your former boss sent people to beat the shit out of you, but you resisted. Now he’s escalated to sending real shooters with actual guns, and your response is to wonder if you should have let the first guys kick your ass?”
He gave me a rueful grin. “That’s pretty much it, yeah. The guys he sent before were just a couple of street assholes. Lackeys. I thought Malcolm was just trying to make a point.” The smile faded. “I didn’t think he’d actually have me killed.”
I couldn’t blame Jameson for that. Nulls are so rare that it usually gives us a kind of protected status in the Old World. It wouldn’t have surprised me to hear Malcolm was trying to have Jameson kidnapped and dragged back to New York, but actual murder seemed . . . shortsighted? Wasteful?
Still, it was hard to argue with the very lethal bullets that had been flying our way. Malcolm had to be really pissed.
But that didn’t explain everything that was going on. “I don’t get it, though. I can totally see Malcolm sending skinners against you, but why would he pay them to kill vampires in Las Vegas?”
Jameson shrugged, looking uneasy. “Maybe to make the Holmwoods’ show fail, so they’d have to fire me. Maybe out of spite. Or maybe vampires really are just leaving town because Silvio took over, and the skinners have nothing to do with it.”
That didn’t sound right to me. I believed Wyatt when he said Ellen wouldn’t leave him without saying goodbye. There was no reason for him to lie about it, not when all he wanted to get out of it was revenge and a quick death.
But I wasn’t going to be able to convince Jameson of that, at least not yet. “So what do we do?” I said instead.
All this time the gondolier had been singing loudly in maybe-Italian at the far end of the boat, but in the moment of silence following my question I realized she’d switched up the music, possibly to win back our attention. The new song began, “Row, row, row your boat.” Well played, lady.
“You do nothing,” Jameson said firmly. “I don’t know if the guy I fought lived or not, but at least one of them got away. Now that they’re aware of our, um, connection, they’ll come after you, too. And if they figure out who you really are . . .” He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe they kill you, maybe they put you in a trunk and drive you back to LA. I’m not willing to risk it. You need to get the hell out of Vegas.”
I glared at him. “It’s cute how you think you get to be in charge of what I do.”
“I’m serious, Letts. I want you out of this.”
“Let’s say I did leave,” I said, though I had absolutely no intention of doing it. “Let’s say I pack my shit and run back to LA. What exactly are you going to do?”
He hesitated, but only for a second. “I’ll talk to the Holmwoods. They might be willing to intervene on my behalf.”
“Bargain with Malcolm, you mean. For your life.”
Jameson shrugged. If that’s what you want to call it. Why wasn’t he more upset about this? Why did he seem so resigned? “But you’ve helped them set up the show, and it’s running now,” I pointed out. “And this is the second time I’ve seen you today. So I’m guessing the Holmwoods don’t need you so much anymore.”
“They need me.”
“For what?”
“Daytime stuff,” he said vaguely.
That line of questioning wasn’t getting me anywhere. “Look, Arthur and Lucy like money, right?” I countered. “Isn’t it just as likely that they’d sell you out to Malcolm? Hell, it would probably smooth things over with him, after they poached you.”
Jameson shook his head, looking frustrated. “They wouldn’t. There are still things they need a null for, trust me.”
“I trust you,” I said, realizing it was true. “But do you trust them?”
He opened his mouth, closed it again. “Then I should stay,” I insisted. “I’ll watch your back.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up, but I missed whatever he said next. Just past his shoulder, a familiar head of red hair caught my eyes. Laurel. She was winding through the crowd, with Juliet, Tara, and Bethany behind her. All of them were smiling and chatting.
They weren’t looking this way—yet. “Shit,” I said, ducking down below Jameson’s shoulder. They were supposed to be going out for cocktails after their dance class. Maybe they’d come back to the hotel to shower first.
“What?” Jameson said, scanning the crowd urgently. Probably looking for a shooter.
“No, it’s just . . . someone I know. I don’t want them to see me.” It was going to be pretty damn obvious that I wasn’t working. Unless I could convince them that Jameson was the new building manager? No, even if I could get him to play along, that wouldn’t really explain why I’d brought him back to the Venetian for a gondola ride.
“Oh.” He relaxed. “Damn, you scared me. You owe them money or something?”
“Shh!” I kept ducking, trying to sort of maneuver myself awkwardly behind Jameson’s body. He started to turn. “Don’t look!”
Jameson just glanced down at me, amused. “This is adorable.”
“I hate you.” I yanked out my ponytail holder and hunched over so my hair would fall in my face, but the movement caused the gondola to rock slightly. The gondolier paused her song, then gamely resumed.
Jameson snickered. “You realize you’re calling more attention to yourself, right?” he asked.
“You got a better idea, smartass?” I snapped.
“Yes.” Jameson turned his body toward me, and I thought he was going to try to shield me. But then he slid his hands into my hair on either side of my face. He tilted my head up and kissed me.
And kissed me.
I wish I could say that I instantly forgot about being caught by Juliet, but covering shit up is what I do. There was a part of my brain that started instantly recalculating: if they did see me kissing someone, they would just assume I’d snuck off to see some guy I’d met. Not super flattering, but it was a narrative I could work with.
Then the tip of Jameson’s tongue slid into my mouth, and I really did forget about my sister-in-law. And the skinners, and Malcolm, and the vampire disappearances. Piece by piece, it all dropped out of my awareness, until there was only Jameson’s intensity meeting the heat of my body. It had been so long . . .
We finally broke apart when the gondolier cleared her throat dramatically. I opened my eyes and realized that we had returned to the gondola dock. And there was a line of people waiting. And some of them were catcalling us.
I didn’t care.
Neither did Jameson, apparently. We climbed onto the dock—I saw Jameson give the gondolier a fat tip—and he took my hand and led me out of the throng of people, to the side of the building. When we had gotten some distance from the crowds he turned to face me, still breathing hard. “Your room?” he asked huskily. Then he winced, drawing back a little. “I mean, if that’s not too . . . I don’t know if you have a boyfriend or whatever. I kind of just sprang that on you. I know you probably don’t want to rush . . .” He looked embarrassed. “Oh, hell. Stop me anytime here, Letts.”
“But this is adorable,” I said with a smile. It was probably the first time I’d ever seen Jameson flustered. I could feel that weird null sensation in my radius, and this time it almost felt like it was shimmering around us. For a second I even wondered if other people could see it. But we had sort of sidled over to the wall of the hotel building to get out of the path of the crowd, and no one was watching us.