Lita looked justified, smug even.

“But I can fire you from our security detail, and I can recommend to Rafael that you be sent back to L.A., that I can do.”

She finally looked uncertain.

“You said it yourself; he is my lover. Most men give more weight to a woman’s opinion if she’s sharing his bed.”

“You’re not sharing a bed; you’re just fuck buddies.”

Dino said, “You know that Rafael fucks Anita, but you haven’t been in town, been one of us, when it happens yet.”

“So?” she asked.

He gave that deep chuckle and shook his head. “It’s quite a show.” I knew Dino meant that when I had sex with their king, Rafael, and fed the ardeur on him that I took energy from all the wererats in the area. It was a power rush of near epic proportions.

“You mean we watch them fuck?”

“I’ll explain after we fuck tonight,” Dino said.

I might have added to the conversation, but I felt Jean-Claude. He was almost here, and I was tired of Lita. I just reached out and had her AR in my hand, using the strap across her body to pull her off balance. She fought to keep control of the AR, not go for her handgun; again, a mistake. I used her own momentum to drive her to the floor and took the nine-millimeter out of her holster as she went down. I trapped the AR behind her back with the knee I drove into her. She tried to fight then, but it was far too late. I put the business end of her own pistol against the side of her head. My finger was on the trigger; there was no safety on this model of gun.

“Don’t . . . just don’t,” I said low, almost caressing. I felt very calm, very still inside; it was the place I went when I pulled the trigger. It was a quiet, strangely peaceful place where I went when I killed. Once it had been white and static filled, but lately it was just quiet. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t excited. I didn’t feel bad about the woman I was about to shoot. I didn’t want to shoot her, but the main thing that made me not want to shoot her was that Dino liked her enough to fuck her, and I liked Dino. When I realized that was my emotional math, I tried to feel bad about it, but I didn’t. I didn’t feel anything much in that moment, except that sense of waiting where the world slows down and you have forever to decide, will you pull the trigger or not?

Lita was very still underneath me, her head motionless against the gun. Her hands were still pressed to the floor in the middle of her effort to get up, but she’d frozen in an almost push-up. She was part of a street gang in L.A., which meant she’d been around violence all her life, and I’d finally done something she understood.

“Anita,” Dino said, very quietly, “please.”

I wasn’t going to kill her, but that he bothered to say please meant he liked her. I didn’t understand why, but . . . I eased the gun back from her head and pointed it ceilingward, finger off the trigger. I unhooked the strap on the AR and moved it to one side. I took the hide gun that was at the small of her back and put it by the AR. I took the knife that was in a sheath at her neck, hidden by all that long hair. I had a back sheath, too; a lot of people forgot to search there.

I heard the knock on the door but knew it was Jean-Claude just by the feel of his energy, so I didn’t look up, or away from the woman underneath my knee and hand. He didn’t interrupt when he came through the door. He’d wait and trust that I’d explain later.

“Have I made my point, Lita?” I asked, voice still low and careful.

She licked her lips and swallowed hard enough that it sounded painful. “You’re the boss, I get it.”

“Do you really, or are you just saying that because I pointed a gun at your head?”

“I pushed, you pushed back. You took me. You took me without trying hard and you aren’t even a shapeshifter, or a vampire. How did you do that?”

“If you stop being a pain in my ass, I might show you on the practice mat.”

“You won’t send me to L.A.?”

“One more chance, but you do this shit again, and you get either a plane ticket home or dead, is that abundantly clear?”

“Yeah, it’s clear.”

“Kelly, you feel well enough to be in charge of her weapons?”

“Yes, ma’am.” She got to her feet and came and took the weapons on the ground.

“Lita, I’m going to stand up now, and you are going to stay very still until I tell you to move, is that clear?”

“Yes . . . yes, ma’am.”

I stood up carefully. As a marshal I’d have cuffed someone before a search; you had to be careful, because sometimes you eased up as you got up, and that was enough to let the bad guy, or girl, fight back.

“Very good,” I said. I handed the gun to Kelly to add to the rest. “If you think she deserves them, give the handgun and knife back to her. The AR will have to be earned back; right now she doesn’t get to carry anything bigger than a handgun.”

“I’ll tell Claudia and Fredo.”

“Okay, you can get up now, Lita.”

She did, slowly, carefully, as if she still didn’t feel safe. Good. She licked her lips, and I noticed her red lipstick was smeared on one side, as if I’d forced her face into the floor at least once when I took her down. She looked at me; her eyes flicked behind me and I was pretty sure she was looking at Jean-Claude, but then her gaze came back to me. Better; before she’d have kept looking at the hot guy, and Jean-Claude was one of the hottest around.

“You’re fast, really fast,” she said, and her voice was still uncertain, almost afraid.

“And I’m trained, really trained,” I said.

She nodded. “And you’ll teach me?”

“If you start trying to be part of the team and not just a piece of ass with a gun, sure.”

“I’m not a piece of ass,” she said with a flare of her old sullenness.

I fought not to smile. “No, you’re not, but you gotta stop flirting with all your male partners when you’re on guard duty. It’s a job and if you can’t treat it that way, then we don’t want you here.”

“I’ll try not to flirt, but it’s . . . it’s sort of what I do.”

“Work on doing something else,” I said.

“I’ll try, I mean that, but I can’t guarantee I won’t forget sometimes. I’m not making an excuse, I’m just saying tell me to stop fucking around and I’ll listen from now on, don’t just kill me.”

I looked into her face and saw the first real sincerity I’d seen in her. “Okay, but make sure that me just saying something is enough; don’t ever make me have to put a gun to your head again, Lita.”

“I won’t, Anita, I swear.”

“Good.” I wanted to turn and see Jean-Claude, not just feel the presence of him, but there was something on the face of the younger woman that made me keep looking at her.

“The wererats call you Gatito Negro. I thought they were making fun of you, like you were a kitten they had to take care of, but that’s not what it means at all, is it?”

“No,” I said, “it isn’t.”

Dino said, “She’s small, but she eats rats, our Gatito Negro.”

Lita nodded. “Yeah, and I don’t want to be eaten.”