by Zoe Allison
Table of Contents
Books by Zoe Allison
Title Page
Legal Page
Book Description
Acknowledgements
Trademark Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
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REVEALED
ZOE ALLISON
Revealed
ISBN # 978-1-83943-515-7
©Copyright Zoe Allison 2021
Cover Art by Erin Dameron-Hill ©Copyright June 2021
Interior text design by Claire Siemaszkiewicz
Totally Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2021 by Totally Bound Publishing, United Kingdom.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorised copies.
Totally Bound Publishing is an imprint of Totally Entwined Group Limited.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book”.
Valentino has a secret—but he’s not the only one.
Valentino Bianco is the leader of a covert league named The Organization. Made up of benevolent vampires, its objective is to thwart and destroy the malevolent of their kind and protect humanity. Operating under the anonymous guise of Mr. X, Valentino’s identity as leader is shrouded in secrecy, as is the very existence of vampires.
Victoria Black has her own secrets, one of which is that she’s in love with Valentino. However, that isn’t the only matter she must keep from him at all costs.
Valentino and Victoria, along with their allies, must investigate a devastating malevolent campaign that is destroying humankind on a massive scale. But can they unravel the mystery of who is behind it in time to prevent the fall of both humanity and The Organization? And in the end, will all the secrets be revealed?
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my brilliant husband Mark and my trusty beta reader Natalie, to Ruth Long for her advice on this novel as well as Impervious via the RNA New Writers’ Scheme, and thanks to Simon for teaching me the theory of hacking.
Trademark Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
James Bond: Ian Fleming
Carmen: Georges Bizet
Botox: Allergan Inc.
Chapter One
Valentino studied the data that Priyanka was displaying on the virtual screen.
“We now have the last of Glassmarsh’s allies in custody,” she said, as a list of names accompanied by pictures flashed up. “But none of them has yielded any information regarding the background of his sibling.”
“Therefore,” Vale said, “we are no further forward than when we captured him over ten years ago. The only advance is that we now know he is Glassmarsh’s brother.”
“Correct,” Priyanka said.
Victoria examined the details. “We don’t know where they came from?”
“No,” Priyanka confirmed.
“How can we find out,” Victoria asked, “if none of these guys knew anything?”
The three sat in silence for a moment. Vale stole a glance at Vic as she frowned and bit her lower lip. Her blue-green gaze seemed troubled. Priyanka tapped the keyboard and the screen changed to display intelligence from other agencies around the world. “We need to cast the net back out again,” she said.
The door opened and Lorenzo entered, followed by Gareth.
Lorenzo took his place next to Priyanka, leaning across the table to shake Vic’s hand. “Hi, we’ve not met in person yet. I’m Lorenzo, Priyanka’s deputy.”
Vic smiled. “Great to meet you. Victoria Black.”
Lorenzo smiled back. “I know. We’ve been very impressed with your work on this case so far.”
Vic flushed. Gareth approached her from the other side and kissed her cheek as he sat next to her. Vale blinked and looked away.
Priyanka frowned, glancing at Gareth and Vic as she moved some images around on the screen. “We’re checking to see if there’s anything here that could help us.”
Vale scanned the information, but it all pertained to human issues…mainly the latest spate of terrorist attacks that were sweeping Europe. He read through the details of the most recent bombing, in Berlin. Why do humans do it to each other? Their life spans were short enough without these atrocities.
There were no particulars that might aid them in their own cause, however.
“What’s that?” Vic asked.
“What’s what?” Vale said. “I cannot see anything here that would help us.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not something I see. It’s something I hear…outside.”
Vale tuned into his sensitive vampire hearing, detecting a subtle noise. He pressed a button on the desk and the tint of the glass wall morphed from opaque to transparent. He moved over to the window. The noise was a low-pitched rumbling, too low for the human ear to pick up. It was coming from the tallest building in London.
“What’s happening at The Shard?” Lorenzo said. He typed a few things into the keyboard but nothing of value appeared on the screen.
Vale peered more closely, trying to zoom in on any slight giveaway as to the source of the noise.
Just then, a boom emitted from The Shard, loud enough this time for the human ear to detect. Shattering glass sprayed out from the top floors. Everyone froze for a split second. Vale looked at Vic and the two of them broke into a sprint toward the stairs, Priyanka, Lorenzo and Gareth hot on their heels. Within seconds, they’d made it to the lobby of HQ.
“Get to the main entrance of The Shard,” Vale told them. “We can sneak in while everyone is running scared, then divide up to search for survivors and pull them out.”
They ran
onto the sidewalk and toward the damaged building. The panic on the street was palpable as people ran past them in the opposite direction. No wonder they call it terrorism.
It didn’t take long to get there. They couldn’t go flat out and alert the public to their superhuman speed, but they could go faster than usual because the petrified humans were too focused on escaping danger to realize the velocity of their group.
They entered the building. Something didn’t sit right with Vale. “Why is no one exiting?” he asked the others. “This lobby is deserted and there was no one coming out of the main doors.”
“There were a lot of people on the street running away,” Vic said. “Maybe whoever could get away is out already?”
He shook his head. “They didn’t look as if they had come out of the building—more like passers-by on the street who were fleeing.”
“Let’s stick with Vale’s plan,” Lorenzo said, determination in his dark eyes. “Divide and conquer.”
The others made noises of agreement.
Vale adjusted his earpiece. They all carried them to stay in contact during such situations. “Take a section each and start searching.”
Priyanka gestured to the rear of the lobby. “Use the stairs, because the elevators will be out of commission.”
Gareth smiled. “We’re faster than the elevators anyway.”
Priyanka glanced at him and he gave her a wink.
“Fall out,” Vale said. “I will take the top.”
They entered the stairs and Vale streaked ahead, arriving on the highest habitable floor within seconds. A smoky atmosphere greeted him, but it impaired neither his enhanced vision nor his breathing. He listened for the sound of injured humans but could only hear silence, and it increased his unease.
He walked into one of the bars and scanned the room. Bodies were apparent, lying on the floor and the chairs, yet none of them made a sound or any movements. The blast cannot have immediately killed everybody in here. Someone must still be alive.
Vale checked the lifeless form of the nearest person. Nothing…and not the next. He rubbed his forehead as he scanned the area and something occurred to him. None of these people had a mark on them. For all intents and purposes, they appeared to be sleeping. A gut feeling told him to check their necks. As he moved the nearest person’s head to the side, two small puncture wounds on the neckline became apparent—very neat, with no laceration of the flesh.
His insides turned to ice. “Guys,” he said, speaking to the others via their earpieces.
“I know,” came Vic’s reply. “I see it too.”
“So do I,” Priyanka said. “This is the work of the malevolent.”
“Everyone,” Lorenzo said. “They’re all drained. But how?”
Vale exited the bar. “So what was the meaning of the explosion?”
“A cover-up,” Gareth said.
“But it isn’t covered up,” Priyanka replied. “The authorities will find these bodies once the search and rescue get here, which could be any minute.”
The true meaning behind it hit Vale, just as another rumbling started deep below them. “Get out!” he said. “The building is coming down!”
He dashed to the stairs and joined the group zipping down and out onto the street, where they accelerated into a sprint. Another huge explosion ripped through the building as they traveled flat-out along the road, a huge cloud of dust and debris overtaking them.
Chapter Two
Valentino brushed off his clothing while Priyanka moved various pieces of information around on the virtual screen. They had managed to outrun the worst of the falling debris to reach their HQ. Getting caught in the rubble would have led to trouble, with questions being asked when they climbed out unscathed. The existence of their subspecies was the biggest secret in human history.
Vic was staring out of the window toward the dust cloud that had once been the tallest building in London, her face twisted into a pained expression. Vale walked over and lifted his hand to a piece of debris in her blonde ponytail. She startled out of her seemingly uncomfortable rumination to look at him.
“Are you all right?” Vale asked.
Vic glanced at his hand as he trailed the scrap of rubble out of her hair. “Yeah,” she said, “I’m okay.” She shifted her gaze away from him and back out of the window.
Vale frowned. It was and had been a traumatic experience but they had witnessed equally disturbing events in their time, so he wasn’t sure why she was uncharacteristically subdued. He wanted to ask what was really wrong but was interrupted by Priyanka.
“Vale, come see this.”
He took another glance at Vic, who remained in her pensive stance, then reluctantly moved away to go over to the screen by Priyanka and Lorenzo. As Vale reached the others, Gareth walked over to Vic and put his arm around her shoulders. Vale frowned and turned to look at the data.
“Look…” Priyanka told him.
Vale read through the information regarding the terror attack in Berlin. It described an initial smaller explosion sending everyone in the vicinity running, before a larger, more destructive detonation brought the building down. The events sounded identical.
“Do you think that was also them?” Lorenzo asked Priyanka.
“Yes,” she said. “And here.” She pointed to recent events in Lisbon. “Here and here,” indicating Rome and Monaco.
Vale rubbed the back of his neck. “The scale is getting larger.”
Priyanka fired him a grave look.
Vic and Gareth appeared at Vale’s side.
“The same person did all this?” Vic asked.
Priyanka magnified some of the details on the screen. “I think ‘people’, rather than ‘person’.”
Gareth shook his head, a shock of dark hair falling nearly to his eye. “The malevolent work alone.”
Vale folded his arms. “Not anymore.”
Vic massaged her temples. “That was different. Glassmarsh was the first and only one to do that.”
Vale blew his breath out through pursed lips. “Times are changing, it seems.”
Priyanka nodded. “This cannot be the work of a single malevolent. One vampire isn’t fast enough to drain a whole building full of people within minutes.”
Vale stared into the middle distance. “A group of malevolents working together hadn’t been seen until Glassmarsh. Now we are seeking his sibling, and this is the breaking news…”
Vic frowned. “You think the person behind it is the Glassmarsh sibling?”
“Don’t you?” he asked, bringing his gaze back onto her.
Vic didn’t reply.
Lorenzo brought up a picture of Glassmarsh alongside a grainy picture of a wizened man with long gray hair, which flowed into his beard. “This is the only photo we have of the sibling. It was taken over a decade ago, when he was captured for that short period prior to Angelique liberating him.”
“There’s not much similarity,” Vic said, quietly.
“I think only because of age,” Vale said. “The sibling had let himself advance to an ancient level then kept himself static with blood. Glassmarsh was biologically in his fifties when he died.”
Vic stayed silent.
Vale studied her, wondering what her aversion was to the seemingly clear link between the current atrocities and the Glassmarsh sibling. “You don’t believe that they are even siblings? Glassmarsh already told us as much.”
“Like we can trust anything he said,” Vic replied. She shook her head. “But I’m not denying that part. I’m sure they are brothers.”
Vale examined her demeanor. She was contradicting herself and still wasn’t projecting her usual outgoing persona.
“Sometimes,” Vic said, “I feel like it was almost a shame that Hayden killed Angelique. She freed the Glassmarsh sibling and so might have had some knowledge of his activities. We really could do with pumping her for information right now.”
An icy grip seized Valentino’s chest. “She would not have been i
nclined to tell us anything anyway.”
“Perhaps not,” Vic said. “But maybe we could have made it look like it was in her best interests.”
Vale felt keen to change the subject. Luckily, Priyanka did it for him. “This should be our next move,” she said.
Images of the recently destroyed building in Berlin were on the screen.
“Go to Berlin?” Gareth said.
“Yes,” Priyanka replied. “It was the most recent site before London. We need to confirm similarities. I’ll okay it with Mr. X.” She glanced at Vale imperceptibly.
Vale met her eyes through the virtual screen as he flicked through the images. “I will go.”
“You’ll need a partner,” Priyanka said. “I’ll assign Vic to help you.”
Vale looked at her. A smile was playing at the corner of her mouth. What was she up to?
He shifted his gaze toward Vic, who still seemed distracted. “Vic?” he said.
She seemed to snap out of her ruminative state. “Yeah,” she said, brightly. “Awesome idea. I’ll tag along with Vale.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, studying her expression.
“Of course,” she said quickly. Then she winked at him, seeming more like herself. “I’m your woman.”
Something about that statement caused his heart rate to spike. Just then, a video call came up on the virtual screen and Priyanka answered it.
“Prime Minister,” Priyanka said.
“Good morning,” the PM replied. “Though I have to say it’s far from good so far. Apologies that I’m later than expected. The events of this morning have overtaken matters and I’ll have to be brief.”
“No problem,” Priyanka said. “We have a lead. We’re planning to investigate both the London and Berlin bombings.”
“Oh?” the PM raised her eyebrow. “Isn’t that a human matter?”
“We aren’t so sure,” Priyanka replied.
“Very well,” the PM said. “I trust Mr. X’s judgment. Keep us updated.”
