Night of the Lions (Lions of Manhattan 1)

The jet had a twenty-five person seating capacity. Angelo had brought five people with him—his manager, stunt expert, attorney, personal assistant and makeup artist. Angelo took a seat across from Gabe. His business manager and attorney flanked him. The rest of his entourage filled out the back seats.

“If I may be frank, your phone call intrigued me. I’ve never agreed to taking on a job without knowing what it entails first.”

“The nature of this matter requires the utmost secrecy. We would need you to sign a confidentiality release before we can begin to divulge the information to you,” Gabe said. Alex was ready with the paperwork. He took a sheaf of hard copies from his attaché.

Angelo turned to his attorney. His lawyer nodded. “Okay,” Angelo said.

Papers were exchanged. The lawyer read them before he gave his approval. The illusionist scribbled his signature.

Alex examined the disclosure contract. “All in order.”

Gabe relaxed in his chair. “I want you to perform a miracle at a gathering that we’re calling the Night of the Lions…”

Cat had been imprisoned for two days. It was driving her nuts. The glass cuts on her arms itched. Her clothes stuck to her body from the sweat. She smelt like a hobo. She desperately wanted a nice, long, hot bath, a square meal, and to sleep in a clean-sheeted bed. No one talked to her. Not even the big, scary man who gave her food twice a day.

On the third night, instead of the usual scary guy, a huge, dark-skinned man came when the door was opened. He packed a small assault rifle that could make nice holes in her body. The man spoke in a foreign language and made a gesture as if he wanted her to follow him.

Cat didn’t try to argue. Body language was pretty much universal everywhere. If she resisted, the man could break her neck. She slunk to the door. The man herded her into a room full of gruff-looking men, and all of them were packing. Judging from their swagger, she had a sinking feeling that she wasn’t in Jersey any more. Tijuana? These men looked foreign and menacing. They definitely didn’t have an ounce of Hispanic blood in them. Haiti? How could it be possible she had landed her ass in that part of the world? Just how long had she been unconscious before she’d first woken?

“Who are you guys?” Cat demanded.

The men just laughed.

One of them came over with a flour sack and unceremoniously covered her head with it. A barrel of a gun nudged her in the rib. She understood. They wanted to take her somewhere else. She hoped it didn’t have anything to do with any form of execution.

Besides, if these people had wanted to kill her, they probably would have done it already. Why bother keeping her alive?

She was dragged outside the building and hauled into an open vehicle. Two men crowded her.

They drove along bad roads that seemed to take forever. The vehicle bounced and bumped, making her guts churn, and the bag half suffocated her. It smelt like stale flour and something dead and unpleasant. Cat kept asking herself if things could get any worse. She had no idea where she was or what they wanted from her. Or what her conniving client had in connection with these men.

The drive was finally over. A man barked something and she didn’t know whether it was directed at her. When she didn’t move, he yanked her off balance and pulled her out of the vehicle. She almost tumbled down like a rock. Luckily, she managed to get both feet on the ground, which prevented her from face-planting the gravel.

The men shoved her around some more, prodding her with the tips of their rifles. She trudged like a blind sheep. They trekked until her feet felt swollen from stepping on rocks, twigs and thorns.

A man barked a command that sounded suspiciously like, “Stop.” Cat shambled until a hand jerked her to a halt. The man dragged her to a place where the ground was covered with mounds of huge roots. It felt as if she was walking under a giant tree.

The man barked again. They stopped. Cat fell when someone shoved her. She cursed them to high heavens. While she was busy cursing, the men bound her legs and arms with ropes. She thought the whole rope thing was overkill. She couldn’t have run anywhere even if she’d wanted to. She was beyond exhausted, and her feet hurt like hell.

They left her after they’d tied her securely. But they didn’t go far—she could hear the sounds of their boots against the gravel and dirt. She wished they would take off the stupid sack. She longed for fresh air.

She was dying for fresh air.

The men’s chatter died down. For a while she only heard the wind blowing against tree branches, echoes of the men’s boots against the ground.

Then she heard snarls and hisses. Roars. Big cats. Lions? The air filled with the musk of wild beasts. Cat’s heart dropped to her guts. Where exactly was she? If the roars were lions, she must be in Africa. Right? Lions only existed in Africa. Or in zoos.

One of the men came and took the flour sack off her head.

Oh, thank God. She exhaled a relieved breath. Oh, crap.

Cat couldn’t believe her eyes. The men had brought her to some kind of vast, grassy area. A humongous, gnarly, ancient tree stood behind her, and the place was crawling with lions. Wild lions. Male lions. Lionesses. Cubs. They leapt and bounded towards a huge bonfire in the clearing, about three hundred feet from where she was.

Cat had a sinking feeling that the lions weren’t actually lions. They were shifters, like Duval and Judith Rossi, or whatever the bitch’s name was. Their eyes gleamed with intelligence. Their expressions were too lively to belong to wild animals. They looked pretty freaky.

The lions circled the bonfire as if they were waiting for something. For a while, nothing happened except that the lions kept coming. Their numbers grew to hundreds. By now Cat was convinced they were shifters. She’d read somewhere that lions were territorial creatures. One couldn’t saunter into another pride’s domain without fighting being involved. Seeing hundreds of them in one place could be classified as an uncanny phenomenon, even for someone who didn’t know much about lions.

The hissing and snarling died down when a big, male lion with a red mane approached the bonfire, circling it. He roared several times. Cat watched him with interest. The red-maned lion looked as though he were giving a speech. That was the darnedest thing she had ever seen. The other lions listened to the red-maned one with interest. Then a lioness entered the scene. A scruffy one. Cat instantly recognised that ugly bitch. She was Judith Rossi. Or Sophie-Marie Veron. Whatever.