“There’s no way this plan’s going to work,” Lina said with a scowl as she tromped out of the bedroom of Augustus’s hotel suite. Realizing he was on the phone, she winced, mouthing the word, “Sorry.”
“It’s alright. I’m on hold,” he said, his gaze doing a quick cut down her length. It might have been her imagination, but he seemed to linger appreciatively on her legs. “Marvelous,” he murmured. “It fits.”
Shortly after their return to the suite, the Bayshore Grand’s concierge had delivered a new Robert Cavalli suit for Augustus, and a silk Stella McCartney cocktail dress for Lina. It was quite possibly the most lovely dress she’d ever seen, much less put on her body; scarlet, with a V-shaped neckline that plunged nearly to her navel and a skirt that just barely skimmed the edge of her ass before transitioning into a panel of sheer fabric to her knees.
“Like a glove,” Lina said, adding to herself, Or a sausage skin. But if the truth be told, she loved the dress. She would never have bought anything like it for herself—or rather, a cheap knock-off of it, since the price tag of $1,500 had still been pinned to the dress upon its arrival. When she’d slipped it on in the hotel bedroom and admired her reflection in the mirror, for the first time in forever, she’d found herself beautiful. She’d never boasted much by way of a bosom, and she’d cringed at first to see the deep neckline. But once she put on the dress, she’d realized it was designed for women with smaller breasts, cut to help create the illusion of a more enhanced bust-line. The slight flare to the sheer panel in the skirt likewise suggested a more tapered waistline and flaring hips than she naturally possessed. It also showcased her long legs—which she’d always considered to be her best feature—and especially in the high-heeled sandals Augustus had bought to go along with it.
“Thank you again,” she said. He was still looking at her, and the unwavering attention made her feel uncharacteristically flustered. “For the dress, I mean. I…I left the tag on.” Pivoting to the right and lifting her arm slightly, she tugged it out from beneath the top of the dress. “In case you want to return it. I…I mean, I’m sure you’ll want to…”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He crossed the room to stand in front of her in two long strides. Reaching out, he caught the tag in his hand, and with a quick jerk, pulled it off. After smoothing down the blood-colored silk to make sure it hadn’t torn in the process, he smiled at her. “It’s yours.”
Lina felt her cheeks blaze with bright, hot color. “I…I just…wow,” she stammered. “Thank you, Augustus, but I…I couldn’t possibly…”
He lifted her hand gently with his own and silenced her protests as he kissed the back of her knuckles. “You’re welcome.”
That Augustus looked pretty damn good himself was definitely not her imagination. His dark blue suit, crisply pressed and finely tailored, was paired with a teal shirt that stood in marked contrast to his long, pale hair, and fashionably lacked a tie.
“It…it’s all arranged then?” she asked, clearing her throat and trying to get over feeling as fidgety as a high school virgin on her prom night.
Before he’d died, Téo had given contact information for Cervantes to Valien—just as Elías had suspected he would. Or rather, he’d given it to Duke, because Valien hadn’t been at the hospital, and Duke, in turn, had passed the information to Valien. Cervantes had been practically under the police department’s collective noses the entire time, in the luxurious Palm Shores neighborhood. He leased a house there, a sprawling, Mediterranean-style mansion situated near the Palm Shores Country Club golf course under the mundane pseudonym of Alejandro Nevarez. As she’d dressed in the adjacent room in the suite, Lina had overheard Augustus speaking at some length on the phone—specifically, she’d heard him remark, “It would seem you and I have a mutual interest in seeing Lamar Davenant fall from grace.” That it had been Cervantes on the other end of the line had seemed pretty much a given from that point.
Augustus nodded. “We’re to be there at ten o’clock. And of course this plan will work. As I suspected, Señor Cervantes proved more easily susceptible to the lure of money than our friend, Mr. Parker.”
Duke had agreed to lend them the cooperation and assistance of Valien’s remaining corillo members, but had refused the thousand dollars Augustus had offered him in return.
“Keep your damn cash,” he’d growled, shoving it back across the bar. “I got plenty of my own.”
“I wish I could hide a gun under this thing,” Lina remarked to Augustus in the hotel suite, tugging demonstratively at the hem of her red cocktail dress.
“I’m glad you can’t,” he said. “As I’m sure it wouldn’t do much to build good will if you could.”
“I don’t like the idea of going into this unarmed.” She didn’t like going anywhere unarmed, if the truth be told, but in that circumstance in particular, it would make her feel even more vulnerable and exposed.
“Would it help if I said I won’t let anything happen to you?”
“No.” She pretended to frown. “Because you can’t stop bullets with your mind.”
He laughed, then apparently Cervantes returned to the line, because he lapsed abruptly into Spanish, speaking so rapidly, with such a fluent ease, there was no way Lina could even begin to keep up with him. Whatever he was saying, he seemed to have established good will, as he’d called it, because his facial expression and posture remained relaxed and unbothered for the rest of the call, and even from a distance, Lina could hear the periodic sound of Cervantes laughing along with something Augustus would say.
“Sounds like he likes you,” she remarked as he disconnected the call.
“No, but he likes what I have to say,” Augustus told her pointedly as he tucked the phone into his suit jacket pocket. “And more importantly, he doesn’t like working for Lamar Davenant, which makes him more than amenable to the idea of working with me. What is it you told me…? ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’”
As he approached, she caught a pleasant whiff of his cologne—Serge Lutens’ Borneo 1874. She’d surreptitiously discovered this while in the bathroom, when she’d taken a quick peek inside his leather toiletries bag. An equally clandestine search on her phone had revealed said cologne ran about $150 a bottle—way out of her price range for her own fragrance, never mind a boyfriend’s, but cheap shit by Augustus’s standards, she figured.
“I need to place some telepathic shields in your mind,” he told her, distracting her from her musing. “I have no idea how strong Tejano Cervantes’s abilities may be, but if Valien Cadana is any basis for comparison, we have to assume he’s at least as powerful and skilled.”
“That’s fair,” Lina said. If none of Valien’s compadres had heard from him, it couldn’t mean anything good. And even though she wasn’t particularly fond of the guy, she suspected Valien never would have allowed Jackson to accompany him into any situation in which he felt less than capable of defending him, at least telepathically.
“I’m going to construct the shields as carefully as possible,” Augustus continued, reaching up to press the palm of his hand against the side of her face. Brandon had once told her it wasn’t necessary for them to touch a person in order to wield telepathy against them, but for tasks of a more intimate nature, such as this, the physical connection could help make the psionic one easier. “I don’t want him to sense anything that will contradict our backstory. But if he realizes we’re blocking anything deliberately within your mind, he’ll be suspicious.”
Lina had suggested that Augustus give her another appearance, just like when he’d disguised himself as Elías at the police station. She had no doubt that Cervantes had been keeping a very close eye on the progress of both the local and federal investigations into both his presence and activities in the Bayshore area since his arrival. That he might have even had spies within the department was not out of the realm of possibility, either. “What if they know my face?”
However, in as diplomatic a fashion as possible, Augustus had explained that subterfuge like that only worked against humans; Brethren, with their inherent telepathic abilities, would immediately see through the illusion.
“You mean only humans are too stupid to fall for it,” she’d said, but she’d only been teasing, where once upon a time—not so long ago, in fact—she would have fired this at him in all seriousness.
“But giving you a disguise is a good idea,” he’d conceded. Thus, she’d wound up wearing make up again. And that killer red dress. She doubted even Latisha would recognize her.
Together they had also come up with a backstory to accompany their ruse, one that would ring true in Lina’s mind, even on an unconscious level: they had met only recently in Lake Tahoe through a mutual acquaintance (which was true). She had left California to visit her ailing mother in Florida (true). He had followed shortly thereafter, joining her (also true).
From there, however, things would become a bit more muddied, or so Augustus had explained; a little more difficult because he’d have to create false memories—ones in which she’d become a sort of pet to him during their time in California, a human he fed from periodically and who was bound to him unerringly.
“You mean a whore,” Lina had said by way of translation when he’d proposed this to her—and she hadn’t been happy about it, not one damn bit. “I’m going to be your blood whore.”
Augustus had supposedly learned of Cervantes, Nikolić, and the soc, or juice, when he’d recently discovered that Lamar Davenant had been embezzling money from Bloodhorse Industries to finance his illegal activities. He’d been looking for the opportunity for revenge ever since—and it had presented itself when Cervantes had arrived in Bayshore, as well-documented on the local news broadcasts of late.
All of this was true, at least in part, but Lina was still dubious that Cervantes would buy the fact that Augustus had only by chance happened to wind up in the same city, at the same time, to meet up with him.
“He’s never going to buy it,” she’d said.
Augustus had only offered her an aloof sort of smile. “Ma chéri, up until six or seven months ago, I made a living negotiating multi-million dollar deals on a daily basis.” With a wink, he’d added, “I think I can handle this.”
Arrogant though the claim had been, she had to admit, he’d been right, at least judging by the lengthy conversation he’d had with Cervantes on the phone, and the decidedly amicable tone with which it had concluded.
In addition to planting memories in her mind, Augustus had also deliberately blocked others from anyone else’s telepathic awareness. Specifically, those of Brandon, Jackie and Valien. “If he knows about you and Brandon, or realizes you are Jackson’s sister, he could use it against you—against both of us,” he cautioned.
She wouldn’t be aware of any of these changes he might make, he’d assured her. The memories he was building would be based on real ones he was gleaning from her mind, but altered enough to fool Cervantes into believing their past relationship was real.
“Look at me, ma chéri,” he murmured, brushing his thumb against the arch of her cheek, the tickling sensation snapping her from her distracted thoughts. “I can’t do this, can’t focus without you looking at me.”
She obliged, but found his gaze so intense, his dark brown eyes boring into her, seeming to spear through to her soul, a slight crimp creasing the otherwise smooth plane of his brow, she couldn’t help but giggle.
“This is like something out of those old cheesy vampire movies,” she said. “You know, the whole ‘Loooook een-to my eyes…I vant to heep-no-tize you’ thing.”
“I’m not hypnotizing you,” he said. “Quiet, please.”
But she couldn’t help it. He was too close; he was staring at her too hard and it made her nervous. “I vant to suck your bloooood,” she said, snorting out more laughter.
He shot her an exasperated, pleading sort of look. “I can’t do this if you keep breaking my concentration.”
Heaving a sigh, Lina nodded. She pressed her lips together and struggled to tamp down the urge to cackle. She couldn’t resist one last crack, however. “You’re not going to suck my blood, are you?”
“It’s a tempting thought,” he remarked. “I haven’t fed in awhile.”
His words made her shiver, snapping her immediately out of her goofy mood. She’d thought he would protest or refuse her. With rare exception, Brandon always had. Being fed from elicited all kinds of powerful physiological responses—like an orgasm a thousand times over. Lina had frankly come to love the sensations it sent coursing through her—and to crave them like a drug. But giving in to the bloodlust and feeding from her had still been relatively new to Brandon; he’d refuse to—no matter how she’d beg—because he’d been terrified of losing control and hurting, or even killing her.
But instead of the apprehension she’d see in Brandon’s face, at her playful taunt, Augustus’s eyes flashed with anticipation. He didn’t share Brandon’s inexperience—or his lack of confidence in his ability to exercise conscious restraint. In that moment, she realized Augustus was a vampire who had fed many, many times and understood the immense pleasure it could bring. And he was exceptionally skilled at the task.
“Telekinesis can’t stop a bullet.” She’d meant to say this with some indignant fire, but all that came out was a warble.
He chuckled. “May I continue, please?”
Lina tugged at her dress again, then managed to huff out what sounded like an aloof, if not somewhat exasperated sigh, even though she had to admit, she was now turned on as hell. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”
* * *
As they crossed the resort lobby together, she didn’t miss the admiring glances they garnered from the crowd of guests. It wasn’t until Augustus approached the parking valet’s desk that Lina realized they may have stumbled on a problem. While Latisha’s Honda was a reliable little car, and still in pretty good shape considering the mileage on it, they were about to head into the wealthiest neighborhood in Bayshore, considered by many to be the “Little Palm Beach” of Florida. Bentleys were the rule of thumb there; she doubted even Augustus’s rented Lexus would have the luxury chops to fit in.
Thus when the valet pulled up to the hotel in a champagne-colored Aston Martin coupe that Lina had never seen before, her eyes widened.
“Wow! What in the…?” she sputtered. “Where on earth…? Whose…?”
“It’s mine,” Augustus said with a smile, reaching down and gallantly opening the passenger-side door for her as the valet stepped out from behind the wheel. “I made a few phone calls, ordered it while you were getting dressed. I thought we’d need something a little more…posh than my rental to make the appropriate impression.”
Though he made no specific mention of the Accord, he didn’t have to. Her mother’s little Honda seemed like Fred Flintstone’s foot-pedaled car by comparison.
“It’s beautiful.” Lina had to admit the ride was sweet. The buttery leather seats were soft and fragrant, and she’d settled into them as if sinking into an upholstered cloud. Glancing up at him through the doorway, she managed to frown. “You bought this over the phone?”
“Digital signature on the title, yes,” he said with a nod. “Instant transfer through online banking.”
“And what? They beamed the keys to you?”
He tipped his head back and laughed. “No. Those were delivered by courier.”
After he closed the door, she watched him tip the kid from the valet service with a fifty dollar bill. The kid looked like he’d just won the lottery; his face lit up, his mouth spreading in a toothy grin as he pumped Augustus’s hand in an overly enthusiastic shake. “Thank you, Mr. Noble,” he gushed. “Enjoy your evening, sir!”
As Augustus settled in behind the wheel, using the button controls to adjust the seat to his liking, she studied him. “What’s it like?” she asked, and when he glanced at her, looking puzzled, she said, “Being so rich? I mean, you are that so-called one percent.”
He chuckled. “I have not always been that one percent, ma chéri. There have been times in my life when I have been far less.”
“What, when you were a millionaire, not a billionaire?” she asked with a dubious snort. “Brandon told me your ancestors were noble-something-or-anothers way back in France.”
“Noblesse chevaleresque, yes,” Augustus conceded, dropping the car into gear and pulling away from the hotel entrance. “But we lost that distinction when we came to the Americas in 1775. Though my father and the clan Elders were able to bring with us a substantial amount of funds, the bulk of our ancestral wealth remained tied to the lands they left behind in France—lands Louis XVI seized after we abandoned them.” He glanced at her. “I was a child at the time. I don’t remember much, not with any clarity. But I know we left because my father and the Elders were afraid of the humans who worked on our lands, peasants they said had planned to revolt against us. Times were very hard then for everyone—but especially the poor, as they always are. Years later, after we settled in Kentucky, the poor of France indeed revolted. There were Brethren clans that had remained when we left—my father used to say that four of his brothers had been among them, and they—along with their entire families—lost their heads to the guillotines.”
Lina sat in dumbstruck silence. It was entirely too easy to forget just how old Augustus really was—over three hundred years old—and how much he’d lived through, the things he’d seen and experienced in all of that time.
“We were rich when we came to the Americas, yes,” Augustus said. “But nothing by the standards by which we’d lived in France. And then my father made the acquaintance of a man named William Whitley, who convinced him to leave Virginia and accompany him west, to settle in Kentucky. France had helped America during its revolution, so as its own boiled to a head, there was little sympathy for refugees from the French nobility. Whitley offered the clans sanctuary—for a price. We paid out the ass to settle in Kentucky, primarily because none of us knew a damn thing about farming, much less defending ourselves from Indian attacks. Whitley and his fellows—George Rogers Clark, Daniel Boone—they helped us along the way. And never for free.”
“You met Daniel Boone,” Lina said, dumbfounded.
“Several times.”
“Daniel Boone,” Lina repeated, and he nodded. “As in…” Decidedly off-key, she sang: “‘Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee…killed him a bear when…’”
Augustus glanced at her, brow cocked. “That would be Davy Crockett. And no, I never met him. But Daniel Boone, the so-called founder of the Wilderness Trail, yes. He smelled like a barn, if memory serves. My original point was that by the time we settled in Kentucky, we lived by very modest standards. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Whitley introducing my father to the hobby of horseracing and encouraging him to invest in his own horses, we probably never would have recovered financially. Money’s hard to come by, yes, ma chéri, but it’s even harder to keep.
“Through our eventual success in horseracing, I was introduced to John Jacob Astor, who bred horses, but also built hotels—and convinced me to partner with him on many of his investments. Had I not taken advantage of this opportunity, using the profits we’d gained from bourbon, we would have been bankrupted during Prohibition, despite the fact I’d managed to haggle with the government to keep our distilleries open.” With a wink, he added, “For medicinal production, of course.”
He glanced at her again. “I suppose the point of all this rambling is that we haven’t always been in the ‘one percent,’ as you call it. And I have personally worked very hard—and usually at a significant personal cost—to get my family, all of the Brethren families, where we are today.”
She wanted to tell him it didn’t count; having ancestors beheaded or slumming it with Daniel Boone wasn’t the same as growing up with a single mom who’d often worked seven days a week just to be sure her kids grew up in a good neighborhood with good schools. It wasn’t the same as wearing second-hand clothes and knowing the other kids in your class would whisper behind your back about your “thrift store” winter coat, or too-big shoes that your mother had bought anyway because “you’d grow into them in a few months” and they’d last longer that way. It wasn’t the same as finding a bunch of unpaid bills neither you nor your mother could possibly hope to afford—not even in your wildest dreams—for the medical treatments necessary to keep her alive. It wasn’t the same at all, but instead she simply said, “Wow,” because the truth was, she was impressed. And astonished.
“You should write a book,” she told him. When he laughed, she said, “I’m serious. That’s…everything you’re telling me…it’s amazing. I can’t even imagine.”
He cut her a glance and smiled. “I’m sure you’ve had your own share of adventures in life.”
“Nothing like that,” she insisted. “You need to write it all down.”
“I’ve kept journals occasionally. You’re welcome to read them, if you’d like.”
“Really?” Lina blinked, surprised but delighted. “I’d love to! If we survive this, I mean.”
He chuckled, reaching down and covering her hand lightly with his own. “We’re going to survive. Trust me, Angelina.”
“I’d be a lot more convinced if I had a gun,” she said.
“You seem to find a lot of security in firearms.”
“That’s because I’m a very good shot,” she replied.