Fated: Karma Series, Book Three by Donna Augustine Page B

your fancy sports car makes you better?”
    “What makes me better has nothing to do with my car. I just like to actually move forward when I hit the gas as opposed to how you occasionally slide backward.”
    “That only happened once and we were on a hill!”
    “Look, I’m not forcing you to ride in mine. I’m compromising. Me. Compromising. For you.” He raised his eyebrows, stressing with his expression how difficult this was for him.
    “You do have a problem compromising.” I nodded in agreement.
    “That wasn’t what you were supposed to say. I am not the only one with this problem. And if we are going to make it as a…team, you need to as well.”
    I was fairly certain team was his second choice of words. Was he going to say friends? Coworkers? He was trying. I had to take what I could get.
    But I wasn’t very fond of compromising either. I crossed my arms, sighed and I knew I must have had a puss on my face but I finally forced out the word, “Fine.”
    “Was it really that bad?” he said, laughter in his tone.
    “Yes.”
    “There’s a used car lot around the corner. You can pick. Tonight we take the Honda. Tomorrow, we get a real car.”
    He wasn’t exactly asking but I answered anyway. “Okay.”
     
     
     

Chapter Six
     
    A lifetime ago—or more accurately, last month—I’d saved a man on a yacht. Thinking back on it now, it felt like a different person had done that. It had been my first “save” job, robbing someone from death’s hands—and by death’s hands, I mean the process of the body dying, not my buddy back at the office—so that I could deliver them into Malokin’s. He wanted them for his own nefarious needs, the exact details of which I had blissful ignorance of.
    I’d never been a willing participant but Kitty’s life had been hanging over my head as Malokin’s noose had tightened around my neck. I hadn’t known until then how much I would hate being under someone’s thumb. How could I have? I’d never been a puppet before. If it hadn’t been for Kitty, I would’ve taken my chances and told Malokin to do his worst, even if that meant being strangled by the threads that held me.
    And here I was now: new marina and agenda, same yacht and target. It wasn’t surprising that they had decided to move the yacht to a new location after what had happened.
    I hesitated only a second before I turned off the engine, parked in a spot between a Mercedes and a Lamborghini.
    Fate threw me a look that said, yeah, we blend , before climbing out of the car. The Honda was making some especially foul smells today so I followed quickly. He might have a point.
    We walked through the parking lot and then toward the slips filled with boats.
    One of the things I hated about remaining here, so close to where I’d been born and raised as a human, was it was filled with memories that flooded back when I least expected them. The last time I’d been at this marina was when my number could still be counted among the homo sapiens.
    I’d gone on sailing trips from this place, back in better days when the only worries we’d had were if we’d brought enough booze and sandwiches. I wished those were the only things that came to mind now. I’d even settle for those memories to be the second or third of what came to mind, instead of being buried under a whole lot of ugly crap.
    “This guy, this was the first time I did something for Malokin.” I walked down the dock, staring up at the changing sky and wondering about all of the things I still didn’t know. “It keeps me up at night wondering how my saves contributed to what’s happening now.” It might have been the most honest thing I’d ever uttered to Fate.
    He looked at me as if he understood, right down to the sleepless nights. “Something was going on way before that. Maybe it helped him, maybe it didn’t, but this was coming either way.”
    He sounded so sure of it that it was easy to cling to the belief he was correct. I