Stripped. Julie Leto

Lilith could do was read minds and predict the future. And even then, sometimes her predictions came too late.

      As it had for her mother.

      She swallowed the lump in her throat and stood firm.

      “What about all the good I do with my powers?” Lilith argued. “My work with the cops?”

      Regina arched a brow. “You abruptly stopped working with the police three months ago.”

      Lilith had the insatiable need to stick her tongue out. “I can’t help it if they don’t call me anymore.”

      A smile twitched Regina’s generous lips—a family trait. St. Lyon women never needed collagen.

      “Can’t you?” she asked knowingly. “And, besides, can you honestly tell us that you have gained nothing personally from your association with the police?”

      Not without lying.

      Lilith had gained plenty—first and foremost, major bedroom action with chief of detectives, Mac Mancusi. But that was over. Had been since he’d figured out that she was a real psychic and not simply an ultra-intuitive woman, as he’d rationalized. Oh, and that she’d been using her powers to manipulate him into falling head over heels in love with her. Yeah, that had pretty much sealed him kicking her ass to the curb.

      “My benefits were short-lived and not without repercussions,” Lilith said, jabbing her hand through her spiky short hair. “I’m on my own again. Just me and all the bad guys I help the cops catch whenever they come to me. I could clean up Chicago once and for all.”

      “And disrupt the balance of good and evil?” Regina asked, her voice hitching higher than her normal sultry tone. “Jeez, Lilith, are there no rules you won’t break?”

      Lilith stamped her foot, crunching down on a large, serrated glass triangle. “The only rules I won’t break are the ones I make for myself.”

      “Like?”

      Lilith scowled. She wasn’t a big rule maker. She definitely ascribed to a live-and-let-live philosophy. “I do no harm, Regina.”

      “What do you call the aftermath experienced by your clients once you’ve bilked them for a peek at their futures?”

      “It’s not bilking if what I tell them is true,” she countered. “If they can’t handle the truth, that’s their problem.”

      The two elders on either side of Regina whispered simultaneously in her sister’s ear.

      Once again, her smart mouth wasn’t helping. Nothing would. No amount of pouting or manipulating was going to get her out of this one. She did a quick probe of their minds. They wanted her powers. The future of order in the witching world depended on Lilith’s punishment. Blah, blah, blah.

      Regina nodded to the elders, then with a swish of her hand, shimmered them out of the room.

      Lilith took a hopeful step forward.

      “What just happened?”

      “I don’t need them to witness what must be done.”

      Betrayal cut a slash through her heart. “Reggie, you can’t.”

      Her sister’s eyes glossed with emotion. “You’ve given me no choice, Lilith. Please take the punishment the Council has chosen. Use this time as a mundane to prove to them you are capable of selfless good, and maybe you can earn your powers back.”

      Instinctively Lilith squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “The Council can kiss my ass.”

      Regina quirked a quick half grin before she placed her hands gently on Lilith—one hand on her forehead and the other on her heart.

      She made short work of the incantation, a spell as old as time itself. Lilith planted her feet solidly on the ground, refusing to yield as her psychic energy was sucked out of her. She loved her sister, but if she’d had the strength at that moment, she would have coldcocked her as soon as the spell was complete.

      Instead she drifted to the floor, unconscious and unaware of how deeply her life had just been irrevocably changed.

      1

      “YOU HAVE TO CALL HER.”

      Mac Mancusi stood, eyes focused on his perp on the other side of the one-way mirror. The jackass was forcing his hand. With teeth grinding until his jaw ached, Mac cursed. There had to be another way to save this case before it was flushed down the crapper, his career along with it.

      “I don’t have to do anything, Fernandez. Last time I checked, I was still the chief of detectives in this department. Or did your sorry ass somehow get promoted by the new mayor when I was wiping his footprints off my back?”

      Through the reflection in the glass, Mac watched Lt. Rick Fernandez run his hand through his thick hair.

      “Boss, I’m just saying… We all know the mayor’s been riding you since the election. His smarmy staff boys have been sniffing around the precinct all week, hunting for some damning shit to leak to the press. If this drug bust doesn’t happen, you can kiss your job goodbye.”

      Mac forced his words through his tight lips. “I know the stakes.”

      “Then why are you waiting around? Call the bruja!”

      Sounded so easy. Call the witch whoan’d ripped his heart out, filleted it, then served it on an Italian roll with onions, peppers and a side of you’re-a-fool. Yeah, no problem. Wasn’t as if he had any pride or anything as inconvenient as self-respect to stand in his way.

      “Know what, Fernandez? I remember a time when this department could beat a confession out of a perp without having to call some voodoo princess to do our dirty work.”

      Fernandez shoved his hands in his pockets. “Listen, boss, you want to beat the crap out of Pogo Goins and hope he gives up the location of three hundred kilos of cocaine, I’ll back you up. But you know that shit won’t fly anymore. We need the location of the drugs and we need it two hours ago. I don’t know what happened between you and Lilith, but it can’t be as bad as what’s going to happen if we don’t find that blow before it hits the streets. Word is the shit ain’t pure. We’re going to have ODs, turf wars, retaliations. Chaos. Goins hasn’t asked for a lawyer yet. He still thinks we’re talking to him about his stolen car. We don’t have much time before his brain clears enough to know we’re trying to flip him for the information. He’ll call his mouthpiece for sure.”

      And then the interview would be over. Mac and the detectives in his department didn’t have anything to hold Pogo Goins, just a tip that the low-level hood had been the go-between in a huge shipment of cocaine. When Goins’s car went missing and he actually reported it to the cops, the Chicago PD had gotten the break they’d been waiting for—a chance to put a real dent in the drug trade, maybe even take down the masterminds behind the renewed influx of high-priced, low-quality coke. If the rumors were true and the drugs weren’t pure, the stakes went through the roof.

      Time was running out. He needed Lilith.

      “Go grab a pack of cigarettes for our guest,” Mac said, gritting out the words between his tightened teeth, “while I make a call.”

      Rick grinned, gave a quick nod, then headed out, closing the door behind him.

      Mac pulled out his cell phone and hit the speed-dial button he’d yet to delete. When Lilith didn’t instantly answer, his stomach hardened. She used to pick up on the first ring—sometimes before. She claimed to always know when he was calling. He figured she had caller ID and a less-than-busy work schedule predicting future love matches for idiots with too much disposable income.

      But today she ignored his call.

      Maybe she didn’t want to talk to him.

      He couldn’t blame her.

      When he’d figured out exactly how