The whirr of the helicopter blades was muted beneath my headphones. “How much longer?” I asked the pilot into my mic.
Boston’s skyline stood out against the deep-blue sky, the glare of the setting sun gleaming off the John Hancock Tower.
“We’re five minutes out,” the pilot replied.
Tripp tossed a look over his shoulder from the seat beside the pilot. “Webb just radioed.”
Jo clutched her chest and pushed out a squeaky sigh. “Thank God.”
I grabbed her other hand and squeezed. “Dad will be okay too.” I infused as much confidence into my tone as I could.
“Jonah, Webb, and a team of guardians are trying to move rubble to get to your father,” Tripp said.
Jonah, my father’s personal guardian, wouldn’t let my old man die. Jonah and my father had become friends when they were both in prison. My father had been accused of murdering the secretary of the navy, and Jonah had been our enemy, working under Edmund Rain until Jonah learned Edmund had killed his soulmate.
“Any word on Roman?” I asked.
Jonah had called Tripp when we boarded the chopper to give him an update. Apparently, the explosion had taken out the tunnel that connected the prison cells to the transport loading dock. “Nothing yet,” Tripp said.
Hopefully, the fucker croaked. I leaned back in my seat and gazed out, praying my old man would make it and that Abbey’s vision wouldn’t come true.
A 747 approached the runway at Logan Airport to our right, and to our left, the skyscrapers stood tall and ominous. The traffic below was at a standstill for rush hour. I was grateful we had the chopper. Otherwise, we would have had no chance of saving my father.
The pilot banked left, skirting past Logan Airport and over the Charles River. Our headquarters weren’t far from Fenway Park.
Jo bounced her knee, ready to tear out as soon as the helicopter touched down.
I squeezed her hand again and gave her a reassuring grin.
She feigned a smile as her anxiety seeped from her pores. “Did you get ahold of the scout in Montana?”
“Yeah.” I’d called Conrad, a scout on our payroll, just before boarding the helo. “Conrad says he hasn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. But he’s investigating.”
About two minutes later, the pilot landed on the eight-story building that was home to the Council of Elders and all of the vampire administration services for North America. The stone structure spanned a city block and was enclosed with a high security fence and guards who patrolled the grounds. Humans thought the building was home to a data center owned by one of the bigger cable companies in the country.
Webb stood by the open door of the building, waiting for the pilot to power down the engine. Jo, on the other hand, didn’t. She took off her seat belt and jumped out with the rotor blades still spinning. She threw herself at Webb. He caught her in an emotional embrace, as though they’d been separated for years.
Sighing at the knowledge that at least one person I loved wasn’t dead, I climbed out, threading my fingers through my hair. I stalked up to my brother-in-law while Tripp talked to the pilot.
Webb gave Jo a hard and fast kiss before the two separated. Then Webb and I exchanged a quick hug.
“I’m glad you’re okay, man,” I said. “And my father?”
Webb frowned as he regarded his wife. “We’re still clearing the rubble.”
Jo bolted inside.
Webb clutched my shoulder. “I need to talk to Tripp. Take the stairs down to the basement. The elevators aren’t working.”
I darted in. “Sis, the elevators aren’t working,” I said loudly.
Her footsteps echoed as she pounded down at a rapid rate. I wasn’t that far behind her, jumping several steps at a time.
An hour had passed since Abbey told us about my dad. I hoped we weren’t too late.
In less than five minutes, Jo and I were in a hallway in the basement. To my left, things were clear. To my right, it was chaos, with five vampires all covered in stone dust as they’d formed a line, handing off large pieces of the building to one another. The vamp at the tail end tossed a large boulder into a hole in the wall that led into an interrogation room.
Jo plowed through the line, pushing each of the men out of the way until she reached Jonah. His curly blond hair was tied back with a leather strap. His blue eyes stood out beneath the dust covering his face.
“I hear his heartbeat,” Jonah said. “It’s weak.”
Jo leaned into a small opening at the top of the pile of debris and listened. After a second, she briefly closed her eyes. “I hear it too.” Then she started to lift rocks.
I was about to join the fray when my phone rang. I snagged it from the side pocket of my cargo pants. The number on the screen was a Montana area code and not Layla’s. It was probably Conrad with news about Layla.
“Hey, man,” I answered.
“Sam,” the familiar female voice said, “this is Tabitha Aberdeen.”
She didn’t sound as harsh and mad as she had when I’d spoken to her earlier, but I panicked.
I pressed my fingers to my chest to get the piercing pain to subside. I was a tough motherfucker. I could withstand anything. Hell, I had for years as a human and vampire, but everyone had a breaking point, including me. “What’s wrong?”
“I only have a minute,” she whispered. “You need to help Layla. You need to come and get her.”
I choked on her last statement, but that wasn’t the issue at the moment. “What did your husband do to her?”
“Nothing,” she said, sounding horrified. “Something is off with Layla. She’s been sick for the last three or four days, and today—”
“Who are you talking to?” Jack Aberdeen asked in the background.
“The doctor who saw Layla a few days ago,” Tabitha responded to her husband. “I’ll be out shortly.”
A beat of silence ensued until his footsteps faded.
“What happened, Tabitha?” I asked.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Don’t hang up on me.” I was ready to jump through the phone. “What type of sickness?” It had to be nonhuman if Tabitha wanted my help, but I had no idea what it could be.
As vampires, we didn’t get sick. All the symptoms Layla had experienced had been a direct result of her drinking my blood, but enough time had passed that my blood was out of her system.
Unless what I’d suspected all along was true: Layla had vampire DNA, and she was experiencing tendencies like craving blood. She couldn’t turn into one of us. She would need blood from her father. One, he was dead, and two, even if he had been alive, he wasn’t a vampire, which was the key to make the change.
“I don’t know. I can’t talk. Just help her.” Then she was gone.
I stared at the phone for a second before I redialed. The line rang and rang.
“Sam.” Jo’s voice punctured my sensitive hearing. “Get over here.”
Growling, I tapped out a text to Conrad, hoping he could find out what was going on with Layla. Then I jogged over to my sister, climbing the mountain of debris just as she was crawling through the opening they’d made.
“Dad!” Jo’s voice echoed in the distance. “Dad.”
I was about to follow my sister when Jonah caught my arm. “Man, I want to warn you.” His anguish gave me whiplash. “Roman isn’t in there. He got away.”
The blood in my veins gelled. If Roman had been able to escape, then he was gunning for Abbey. “Webb know?”
He nodded. “But Jo doesn’t. Webb has a team looking for Roman now.”
“Sam!” Jo screamed at the top of her lungs.
I dove into action, crawling through the tight and narrow opening. When I emerged on the other side, I took a breath to calm my racing mind and pulse. It felt as though my brain was on a collision course with a train and my heart was about to bulldoze its way out of my chest.
In the span of a few hours, the world had come crashing down.
Layla was in some kind of trouble. My father’s life was on the line, and now Roman had escaped, which meant Abbey was in danger, and Layla could be as well.