That was good enough for me. I messaged Fagan Security to check it out. “Be careful,” I warned. “We suspect it’s a vampire nest.”
“Will check it out ASAP,” was the reply.
“Don’t go inside—I’ll handle the extraction. And I’m sending a couple of enforcers to take over security for the Vittores.” With Redbone’s back to the wall, he might go after Mila’s parents next. “I’ll contact you as soon as they’re in place.”
“Got it.”
“Use any means possible to get the truth,” I added. The Fagans would know they had my permission to compel one of the humans on site, either a thrall or someone on Andre’s staff.
I signed off and sat back. “They should have an answer for us in a few hours,” I told Mila.
Her face fell. “We can’t leave now?”
I shifted on the chair to look at her. This time, I couldn’t stifle the groan.
“Christ, I’m sorry.” She wrapped her arms carefully around me from behind and laid her cheek against mine. “You’re too hurt to go anywhere.”
“It’s not so bad,” I lied. “But it’s going to take a few hours for the silver to work its way out of my system. Meanwhile,” I added grimly, “I need to talk to Airi.” I wasn’t going anywhere until I’d reestablished control over my security and what remained of my staff.
Pushing to my feet, I made my way back to the living room for another glass of blood-wine.
“But even if I wasn’t hurt, I wouldn’t risk Joey by rushing in without a plan. My guess is the building’s a nest—smaller than a coven, but there could be as many as a dozen vampires based there. Plus, we don’t know for sure Joey’s still there. If he is, and we go in before we’re ready, they might move him somewhere else and it could take weeks to track him down.” I drained the wine and set down the glass. “So for now, there’s nothing we can do. You might as well shower, have something to eat.”
“Okay. Yeah.” She pushed her hair from her face, looked blankly at her blood-stained hands. “I guess I could use a shower.”
“Go.” I took her by the shoulders and turned her toward the bathroom. “I’ll get you some clean clothes.”
My phone had survived undamaged in my closet. I reinstated the house security system, then arranged to meet Airi in the dining room, which like my suite, was relatively untouched.
Mila’s rooms, though, had been trashed. A message, I suspected, from Redbone to her.
After leaving Mila’s clothes on a chair in the bathroom, I washed up and pulled on a fresh shirt and pants. By then my head felt clearer, and the pain from my abdominal wounds had subsided. Still, until the silver passed out of my system, I’d be achy and too damn weak, and craving blood any way I could get it.
Mila reappeared, clean-smelling from her shower, her damp hair in a braid. I took a few minutes to quiz her on what, exactly, Redbone had wanted her to do.
But she couldn’t tell me much more than what I already knew. Redbone had ordered her to get close to me any way she could. The mic in the earring allowed him to listen in on our private conversations, and the G.P.S. had allowed him to track her, and thus, me when we were together.
“I know he was just using me to distract you,” Mila said. “I feel so bad…” She trailed off, dark eyes troubled.
“Hey.” I slid my fingers under her braid to cup her nape. “You did the right thing. They had Joey—you had no choice.”
“I’m just glad I don’t have to lie to you anymore.” Her throat worked. “It was tearing me up inside.”
“Me, too. But there’s one thing I want to know. Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Write me a note or something?”
Why didn’t you trust me to help? my heart asked. Fuck, I was pitiful. But damn it, she should’ve trusted me.
“I couldn’t.” The look she gave me was stark. “Andre said that if I warned you, he’d know.”
What the hell? I stared back.
“We have a mole. Trust no one.”
I’d been so busy trying to convince myself that Mila wasn’t the mole that I hadn’t thought it through. And then all hell had broken loose.
But it made sense. Someone on the inside had to be feeding Andre intel. And not O’Brien. He hadn’t been part of the inner circle—not even close.
“I’m sorry.” Mila eyed me anxiously. “I wanted to tell you. So bad. But I couldn’t let them hurt Joey.”
“It’s okay, cher. I understand. But think—did he say how he’d know?”
A regretful shake of her head. “You have to understand, they didn’t tell me much. To them, I was just another empty-headed thrall. The best way to get to you.”
I drew her into my arms. “That’s where they fucked up.”
To my relief, Lougenia had made it to her safe room in time, although her assistant as well as the human gardener had died in the attack. I’d already given the housekeeper the all-clear, and as Mila and I took seats at the dining room table, she bustled about the kitchen in her uniform and fuzzy pink slippers, preparing a snack for us—a hamburger for Mila, a couple of rare steaks for me.
Daisy and Diesel settled under the table next to my feet. The wolfdogs were the heroes of the night. Daisy had singlehandedly held off two vampires before being knocked unconscious by a stun gun, and Diesel had made it to the helipad, drawing a trio of outside attackers who’d been dispatched by my security. Unfortunately, Redbone had realized in time that it was a trick and headed to the beach with Stefan and Martin while Airi and her team were occupied.
Mila was barefoot. I glanced down to see her scratching Diesel behind his ears with her toes. The dog’s eyes were slit in bliss. She’d made another friend.
Lougenia set our plates on the table and went back for two more rare steaks, one for each wolfdog. A promise is a promise, after all. The dogs waited for my nod before tearing into the meat. I attacked mine only a little less ravenously, chasing it down with gulps of blood-wine.
“Get some rest,” I told Lougenia. “everything else can wait until tomorrow.”
The housekeeper looked shell-shocked, her round cheeks pale. Her assistant had been killed right outside the safe room.
But she firmed her chin. “No, I’ll do it. I couldn’t sleep a wink now, anyway. I’ll be in the kitchen, cleaning up the mess those fils-putain left.”
Airi hurried into the dining room. Her hair was in its usual sleek ponytail, but there was a knife hole in her uniform over her heart. She looked pale, but otherwise all right, and I was in no mood to pamper her. As my chief of security, the blame for this rested squarely on her shoulders.
I invited her to sit, then leveled a look at her. “Report.”
Besides Airi, just two members of my security team had survived: Umar and Paco. That left four vampires and a dhampir dead, as well as Lougenia’s assistant Chandra and three human soldiers. But Redbone had lost people as well: the two men on the beach, and three more vampires at the heliport.
Tomas had been informed and was on his way out to Montauk with a couple of soldiers. We also had people looking for Redbone, but I didn’t hold out much hope. One of his men had probably already picked him up somewhere along the coast.
Meanwhile, no one was being allowed in or out. Umar and Paco were patrolling the grounds.
Airi straightened her already-straight spine another notch. “First, I want to apologize, sir. O’Brien was apparently working for Redbone.” O’Brien was a recent vampire hire.
I made an impatient movement. “You have nothing to apologize for. O’Brien came with a recommendation from Lieutenant Mraz, and he passed my checks as well.”
The enforcer nodded uncertainly.
“So I don’t want your apology, I want some goddamned answers. How the fuck did Redbone get through our security? And don’t tell me O’Brien let him in.”
Two red spots burned on the enforcer’s cheeks, but she met my gaze square on. “That’s exactly what happened, sir.”
“That system is airtight, with checks upon c
hecks.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So how did O’Brien get access to the system in the first place? The man was a soldier. He didn’t have that kind of clearance.”
“I don’t know how he got access,” she admitted, “but he introduced some kind of bug that took down our security for thirty seconds. By the time the backup system kicked in, Redbone and six other vampires were inside the grounds. And thanks to O’Brien, they knew every one of our weak spots.”
“O’Brien shouldn’t have been able to take the system down for two seconds, let alone thirty. I want to know what went wrong ASAP.” I didn’t raise my voice, but both women heard the lethal edge.
Airi swallowed audibly, and beside me, Mila tensed.
I ignored her to keep my gaze on Airi. If Mila was going to be my mate—and I was damned if I’d let her go a second time—then she might as well see what life with me meant. I’d been attacked in my own house, my woman endangered.
If O’Brien wasn’t already dust, I’d have ripped his head right off his body. And if Airi didn’t explain the failure in my security to my satisfaction, she was going to follow O’Brien to her final grave by sunrise.
“Yes, sir,” the enforcer replied. “I’ll get on it right away.”
I jerked my chin in acknowledgement. “Lieutenant Mraz will be here in a couple of hours. He’ll want a full report.”
Airi looked a little sick. Nobody wanted to get on Tomas’s bad side.
“Of course,” she murmured, and rose to return to the vampire bunker, where the op room and the bulk of our security equipment was located.
“Take Daisy and Diesel with you. They can patrol the perimeter until Tomas arrives with reinforcements.” I snapped my fingers at the wolfdogs. “Go with Airi. Outside.”
When we were alone, I turned to Mila. “You haven’t eaten.”
“I can’t,” she said with a listless shrug. “I keep thinking about Joey.”
“Just a few bites,” I coaxed, cutting her hamburger into quarters. “Here.” I brought a piece to her mouth.
She took a tiny bite.
I sighed. “Mila. You have to eat. You’ve lost too much blood in the past couple of days. You need red meat.”
When she just shook her head, I set the piece back on her plate and took her hand. “You’re not doing your brother any good by starving yourself.”
Her chest heaved. “I’m so scared,” she confessed. “You don’t know what they’re like. Martin and Stefan—they kept touching me, watching me. Like they fucking owned me. I had to ask permission even to go to the bathroom.”
My jaw tightened. I took a harsh breath. “Redbone?”
She shook her head. “Martin and Stefan. But Redbone knew what was happening. He said…” Her throat worked. “He promised me to them first.”
“He’s dead,” I said coldly. “That’s a promise.”
“Good.” But she stared down at her plate with a worried frown that wrenched my heart. “How soon do you think we’ll know anything?”
“The Fagans are the best in the business. They should have answers for us by morning. Now eat, cher.” I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “For Joey—and for me. Please?”
She straightened. Her face took on that too-serene look, but she picked up one of the pieces I’d cut for her and determinedly chewed.
I finished the last of my steak. Of all the things that had come out tonight, I was most disturbed by Redbone’s warning that if Mila helped me in any way, he’d know.
Could Rafe’s mole be that highly placed—maybe even someone in my father’s inner circle?
Or had Redbone been bluffing? Just planting doubt in Mila’s mind had been enough to keep her quiet.
The uncertainty was making me edgy.
I just hoped Tomas had discovered something that might be of help. The lieutenant was already on his way out to Montauk. We might have our differences, but he was my father’s oldest friend, his brother-in-arms.
Right now, he was the only man at headquarters I trusted completely.
19
Mila
Gabriel urged me to rest while he stayed up to speak to the lieutenant who was on his way out from Manhattan. I made him promise to wake me as soon as he heard anything about Joey and returned to his suite.
His rooms were larger than mine, but as simply furnished. The bedroom had a large painting of a thunderstorm looming over the ocean and a four-poster bed made of bleached wood. The coverlet was a soft pigeon-gray.
I brushed my teeth and stripped down to a T-shirt and boy-shorts. Leaving all the lights on, I crawled onto the king-sized mattress and passed out. I don’t know how long I’d slept, but Gabriel still hadn’t come to bed when I jerked awake, terror for my brother pressing on my chest like a sack of rocks.
Andre would’ve made it back to Manhattan by now. Which meant Joey might already be a blood slave. It might be illegal, but everyone knew that some vampires kept blood slaves anyway.
And Andre was furious with me. Not only had I helped Gabriel fight him off, I’d staked Stefan myself.
I moaned and pressed my knuckles to my mouth. Oh, God, Joey. I’m sorry.
I told myself I’d had no choice but to fight back. But every time I shut my eyes, I pictured my brother locked in one of those basement cells, pale and drawn, waiting for the vampires to come for him.
When Gabriel finally came to bed, I was staring tensely up at the ceiling.
“Cher.” He dimmed the lights and pulled me into his arms. “Did you get any sleep at all?”
“A little.” I moved a shoulder in a shrug and cuddled into him. “What if they—?” My breath scraped in.
“Tell me.”
My fingers spread out on his bare chest. Beneath my hand, his heart beat slow and steady. I moved my fingers lower to feather over the healed-over knife wounds. Wounds that would’ve left a human in intensive care for weeks—or dead.
“What if they kill him?” I whispered, as if speaking it out loud would somehow make it happen.
His grip on me tightened. “They won’t.”
“How can you be so sure? You didn’t see Andre, I did. The agreement was that if I did anything to help you, Joey was his.”
Gabriel went rigid, but when he spoke, his voice was even. “I’m sure because they’re smart. As long as Joey’s still useful to them, they won’t hurt him.”
“Useful to them? How?”
“As bait,” he said succinctly. “They know I’ll come after him.”
I closed my eyes. “Because I agreed to the blood bond?”
He nodded against my hair. “But even without the bond, I’d go after Joey. This is personal now. They used him to threaten you, and then planted you right in my household. I can’t let them get away with that.”
“Oh, God.” Bile filled my throat. “I didn’t want this. I never wanted this.”
“There was nothing you could do to stop it. It’s been coming for a long time. Now, relax.” His fingers stroked down my spine, powerful, comforting.
My breath sighed out. Gradually, my muscles released. I cuddled closer, careful not to press against his wounds. His enticing scent filled my head.
He continued to murmur to me. Telling me I was safe now, to let go, get some sleep.
My eyelids drifted down, but I forced them open and drew his head to my neck. “You’re still hurting. Drink from me.”
I felt his hesitation. “I shouldn’t. You’ve already given me too much today.”
“Gabriel,” I said. “You need it. How are you going to stake that prick if you’re too weak?”
His mouth curved against my skin. “And here I thought you were all sweetness and light.”
I snorted. “Stop talking and drink already.”
“Yes, Mam’selle,” he said in a meek tone that didn’t fool me for a second. But I felt the prick of his fangs, and then the suck of his mouth.
Something warm curled through me. Not the high I’d gotten when he’d fed from me
during sex, but something more profound. My heart turned over in my chest.
In that moment, I knew I was in deep. Way deeper than last time.
He didn’t take much before licking the small wounds closed. “Thank you. You were right—I did need fresh blood.”
“Mm.” I stroked his nape. Was it wrong to feel so happy when my brother was still Andre’s prisoner? But I sank into the good, contented feeling, enjoying it while I could.
Gabriel sighed, a low, satisfied sound. When he tried to move away, I tightened my grip, keeping his head on my shoulder. His eyelids drifted down to form thick black crescents against his cheeks. His body went lax, and his breathing slowed to almost nothing.
A short while later, my eyes closed, too. This time my sleep was dreamless.
The next thing I knew, he was gently shaking me awake. “We found him, Mila.”
My eyes popped open. “Joey?”
A somber nod. “It’s like you thought. He’s locked in one of the basement cells.”
I swung my legs out of bed. “You’re sure?”
“As sure as I can be. George Fagan says one of their thralls confirmed Joey’s still there. We’re going to send a couple of men to check it out, but I’m leaving now.”
“Yes.” I looked around for my shorts, then halted, frowning. “You’re leaving now?”
He nodded. “It’s almost morning. Most of the vampires will be asleep by the time I get to Manhattan. Even if they’re not, they’ll be sluggish.”
“But…you’re taking me, right?” When he pursed his lips, I grabbed his arm. “You are not leaving me here. I’ll go crazy, wondering what’s up. And Joey’s going to need me—you said so yourself.”
“Fine.” He blew out a breath. “You can come. But only to Manhattan. You can wait at my penthouse. It’s only ten minutes away.”
“Fair enough.” I glanced at his body, naked except for a pair of black boxers. The wounds were barely visible red lines on his lightly tanned stomach, but I couldn’t forget how much blood he’d lost, and not just from the knife wounds. Andre had ripped into his throat like an animal.
Pursued: A Vampire Syndicate Paranormal Romance (The Vampire Syndicate Book 1) Page 15
