The subway uptown was packed with commuters. Zaq and I had to stand. We held onto the same pole, his front to my back, where he’d put himself.
The man was still protecting me, this time from being jostled by the crowd. He couldn’t help himself. He was an alpha male to the core, in the best way: strong, caring, comfortable in his own skin.
And I liked it.
Yeah, I could protect myself, but it made me believe he cared, at least a little. That I belonged to him.
It had been so long since I’d belonged to anyone, or had someone who belonged to me. Not since my mom had died, in fact.
His free arm came around my waist, and I leaned back against him. Soaking him in—his hard body, his special Zaq-scent, his breath against my hair.
We rode like that through Upper Manhattan. We couldn’t talk, of course—not about anything important—but I didn’t want to talk anyway.
I didn’t want to think, either, but I couldn’t help it. My chest was a tight mass of apprehension. Something was very wrong at Slayers, Inc.
The Crow flies crooked.
Zaq angled his head and looked at my face. “You okay?”
I blanked my expression. “Yeah. Just thinking.”
“Hmm.” He squeezed my shoulder and fell silent again.
My doubts about Operation Angel just wouldn’t go away. They drummed relentlessly at my brain.
Maybe Karoly Kral needed to be eliminated. Maybe those changes he was pushing for were the first step in taking away SI’s autonomy, and he wouldn’t stop until the syndicates ruled the show.
But why had the contract included his sons, too?
I was starting to wonder if Crow had a personal vendetta against the Krals. Yeah, the Board of Directors had approved Op A, but Crow had been the driving force behind the order to take out the entire family. It was what Victorine Tremblay had demanded, of course, but the Board could’ve refused.
I desperately needed to talk this over with someone.
It’s not like I could go to the BOD and ask. Like all of us, they used code names and switched identities regularly, and I didn’t know anyone on the Board anyway.
Directly below the BOD were the alphas, and Crow was the alpha of the North American Division, the division my squad of five slayers was assigned to. Crow was obviously out, and so was my squad lieutenant. I didn’t trust him not to report my doubts to her.
And Torch was dead, which left Twilight.
Back at the squat, I gave Dex another twenty bucks to cook supper for us again. He told us it wouldn’t be ready for at least an hour, so we went upstairs to wait in my room.
Zaq took off his boots and lay on the mattress, fingers interlaced behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
I texted Twilight. Can we talk?
Five minutes passed during which I second-guessed myself. My phone buzzed and I snatched it up.
Twilight: 15 min? I’ll call U
I replied in the affirmative and stood up. “I’m going for a walk,” I told Zaq.
He turned his head to look at me. “To talk to Twilight?”
“Yeah.”
He didn’t ask to come with me, just nodded. “The syndicate’s on edge. I know we haven’t seen anyone up here, but sooner or later they’re going to figure out where we are. Be careful, okay?” He meant it. His brow was wrinkled, his mouth tight and pulled toward the side.
His concern was like a shiv to my heart. How could the man worry about me after what I’d done to him? After what I might still do to him?
I scraped my fingers through my hair. “Zaq. Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t worry about me. Don’t care about me.”
“Ridley.” He imitated my tone. “I’ll worry about you if I want. I’ll care about you if I want. That’s on me, okay? And how you respond is on you.”
No, it’s not okay. Because you’re making me care right back.
“You’re too nice,” I blurted.
“It’s a weapon,” he said—and smiled. A nice smile, but a knowing one, too.
A flare of panic went over my skin.
I stared at him. Wanting. Wishing.
He spoke the truth. His niceness, his innate decency, was a weapon. A powerful, damn-his-sexy-ass weapon.
I fumbled for the doorknob. “I have to go.”
“Ridley?”
I huffed a breath and glanced over my shoulder. “What?”
He crossed the room and I turned around, my back to the door.
He captured my chin in his hand. His gaze snagged mine, and I flashed back to that morning at Charles de Gaulle. The intense green of his irises and how they’d reminded me of a jaguar’s.
A beautiful cat, yes, but one you’d be wise not to underestimate.
I licked my lips and his gaze dropped to my mouth. His eyes darkened and he leaned in like he couldn’t help himself, like he was drawn to me as much as I was drawn to him, and nipped my lip. He soothed the small bite with his tongue, and then he was kissing me, a slow, thorough kiss that scrambled my brain and turned my knees into mush.
He lifted his head and released my chin. “I’m nice, not weak. Don’t confuse the two.”
My fingers were digging into his shoulders. I inhaled, made myself let go. “Got it.”
I fumbled behind my back for the doorknob and slipped into the hall.
Outside, I turned south toward the Bronx’s less populated, industrial section.
Twilight called right on time. “It’s me. What’s up?”
I touched my lips. I was still back in the room with Zaq, my body humming from his kiss.
I took a centering breath and concentrated on my reasons for contacting her. “You alone? It’s safe to talk?”
Our smartphones were encrypted in three different ways, and we changed them out every few weeks so that even if someone managed to infect them with spyware, they didn’t get much info. However, we still used a verbal code because no matter how good your tech, someone’s always raising the bar.
“Um…yeah.” Her caution came through loud and clear.
I understood. Twilight was my closest friend—we’d looked out for each other, back when we were teenagers at the same SI training facility—but even she didn’t know me that well. No one did.
I chewed my lower lip. How could I put this without giving too much away?
“Something’s off.” I stopped short of saying something was wrong at SI. I wanted to feel her out first. “The brothers—do you know why they’re involved?”
Why are Zaq, Gabriel and Rafe targets?
“You’re asking me? You’ve been on this op longer than me.”
“Yeah, but everything’s on a need-to-know basis. I thought if we pooled information…”
She expelled a breath. “What’s this about? Really?”
I glanced around. I was in a concrete wasteland of warehouses and auto repair shops that smelled of motor oil and the garbage cooking in a nearby dumpster. The only living things within sight were the spindly locust trees poking through grates in the sidewalk and the man spray-painting a car across the street at Juan’s Body Shop.
And I had to trust someone or I was never going to get to the bottom of this.
“Okay. Here’s the way it went down.” I dropped the code except to refer to the Krals by their numbers. “We took P2 as planned, but after that, it turned into a shitshow. P2 was chained to a wall with silver handcuffs day and night. The blood-suckers drank from him—twice—while he was restrained. The man couldn’t even defend himself. Much longer in there, and they’d have drained him dry.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. And the Bird approved it.” Twilight would know the Bird was Crow.
Twilight drew a shocked breath. “All of it?”
“I don’t think she knew they’d drink his blood. But the silver cuffs burned into his wrists. And he wasn’t allowed to sit or lie down, so he couldn’t sleep. It was torture, and she didn’t care. The only reason they released him was because I worked out a deal for him. If he stakes his father, they’ll let him and his brothers live.”
“Jesus,” she said again. “And they have P3 now.”
“Yeah. The bastards are using him to up the pressure on P2. He was told that if he doesn’t stake his father by Tuesday, they’ll sell P3 into blood slavery.”
“Fuck. That’s seriously messed up.”
“Yeah,” I said grimly.
“You sure about this? You have proof?”
“I was with P2 when they called. I heard every word. They said he has seven days to finish this. If anything goes wrong, they’ll sell P3 to a brothel.”
She exhaled, a worried, drawn-out sound, and fell silent.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s just—I saw something the other day. Something strange. The Bird was going into Philippe Moreau’s mansion.”
“I think she’s been working undercover as PF’s thrall.” PF was Leo de Froulay.
“She wasn’t with PF, and she wasn’t pretending to be a thrall. She was in her fancy-French-bitch disguise. I wouldn’t have recognized her—I wasn’t close enough to see her eyes—but I know that glamour.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” My head started to throb. “Did she see you?”
“No. I was in the shadows. She wasn’t alone—she was with PT.”
Prima Tremblay.
I massaged my forehead. “They were together?”
“Oh, yeah. They seemed real cozy, if you know what I mean.”
“Maybe it was something to do with the contract.” The contract between Prima Tremblay and Slayers, Inc. that the Board planned to use to pin this on Victorine Tremblay and the blood feud. “Maybe the Bird needed more intel from PT.”
“What intel?” asked Twilight. “Op A has been launched. We don’t need anything from PT.”
“I don’t know. Maybe…” I trailed off. I was grasping at straws and I knew it.
The Crow flies crooked.
My chest ached.
No, not my chest—my heart. Crow was my mentor, the slayer I most admired. I’d modeled myself after her.
I switched the phone to my left hand, and with my right, removed my switchblade.
I extended and retracted the blade. Trying to calm myself.
Snick-snick. Snick-snick.
“P2 has contacts in the New York underworld,” I said at last. “One of them pulled me aside and warned me that the Bird is ‘crooked.’ I figured the guy had his head up his ass, but now I’m not so sure.”
“That’s all the guy said?”
“Yeah. He was cryptic as fuck, to be honest. But why would he lie? He has no skin in this game. He’s some kind of underworld lord with no connection to PK’s syndicate.”
A pause. I waited it out, giving Twilight time to think. Her current cover might be Lainey Q, an airheaded, hashtag-spouting “Stylist to the Stars,” but beneath those trendy, carefully curated outfits was a brilliant strategist.
“If you’re saying what I think you are…”
I let out a puff of air. “I’m not sure what I’m saying. Except that this op has felt wrong from the day we kidnapped P2. After nine years, I know when a vampire is bad—and P2’s not. He feels like you or me, know what I mean?”
“Yeah. After a while you just know. Same goes for P3—he’s not all sweetness and light, but he’s not bad. He was only in Moreau’s lair to get P2 out. They wouldn’t have caught him if someone in his own syndicate hadn’t ratted him out.”
“So why are they targets? Other than because of their father, that is?”
“Damn if I know. But I don’t think Crow’s a traitor. I think she’s obsessed. You know how she gets.”
“Yeah. If she had her way, she’d wipe out the syndicates completely.”
“She probably saw this chance to take out PK and his sons in one blow, and took it. Losing that many people at the top will throw their syndicate into disarray for years.”
I grunted in agreement. “There’d be challenges, infighting… Fuck. You might be right about Crow.”
Twilight made a low, confused sound. “The hell with it. I’m going to get P3 out. You know how they caught him? He was protecting the Ice Queen’s daughter from her own mom and that creepy blond lieutenant. They were slapping her around in front of a roomful of people.”
“Huh. Didn’t think Prince Charming had the balls to go up against a roomful of vampires.”
“Man’s tougher than he looks.”
“So’s his brother.”
She grunted. “You like him, don’t you? P2.”
A dirty white semi-truck rumbled by on the way to one of the Hunters Point food distribution centers. I gripped my switchblade. My lips still tingled from that last kiss, and I could feel his fingers firm on my chin.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“Just…be careful, all right? These guys are smart. They’d never have lasted as dhampirs in a vampire syndicate if they weren’t. P2 could be playing you.”
“Noted.” But I’d gone way past careful already. And if Zaq was playing me, could I blame him? “So you can do that? Spring P3?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I vote you go for it. This whole op stinks like a pile of three-day-old shit.”
“Agreed.” She took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m on it. But we never talked, okay? Nobody can know it was me.”
“Not even P2?”
Because damn, Zaq could use some good news. The pressure was getting to him, and he’d never completely recovered from what those pricks had done to him. He was still too thin, and he seemed hungry all the time.
“Especially not him,” was her reply. “He can’t know until everyone else does—you don’t know who he might tell or how it would change how he acts. This can’t point back to me. If it does, I’m dead. You know that.”
I rubbed a hand down my face, wanting to argue but knowing Twilight was right. She was risking a lot as it was.
“Got it. We never talked.”
“And lose this number,” she added. “I won’t be answering it anyway. If I succeed, this cover will be blown.”
“Will do.” I ended the call, put away my knife and headed back to the squat. I’d only gone a half-block when my phone buzzed again. Somehow I knew it was Crow even though I didn’t recognize the caller ID.
I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering over Accept.
Ignore it. You can make some excuse, tell her you were tied up.
Except then I’d still have to contact her later.
And what was wrong with me? Did I honestly believe that my alpha—the woman who’d saved me from the streets and given me a reason to live—would go after innocent men?
Yeah, said a small voice. She would. If they were part of a vampire syndicate.
I accepted the call and kept walking. “It’s me.”
“You clear?”
“Yeah.” I turned at the corner and headed down another industrial block toward the East River.
“Good. Where are you?”
My hand was sweaty. Damn heat. It even radiated off the pavement.
I switched my phone to the other hand, wiped my damp fingers on my pants—and lied to my alpha. Again.
“In Brooklyn. A rented room.”
“P2 is still with you?”
“Of course.”
“I wondered. You haven’t made contact with PK, so…”
My brow puckered. Crow was right, but why did she sound so certain? Unless her informant in the Kral Syndicate had told her.
“No. He’s stayed on the move. We haven’t been able to pin down his location. He seems to have gone dark.”
An exasperated breath. “You’ve been here in the city for three days. That’s all you’ve got for me? Can P2 get to him or not?”
I paused by a small park, a tiny emerald oasis in the industrial desert. The centerpiece was an abandoned cemetery, its moldy gravestones knee-deep in weeds. Above the East River, a jet sliced a trail through the blue sky.
I had to give Crow something. I couldn’t tell her Zaq was digging for the truth, trying to figure out whether if his father had been framed or if he really was manipulating things behind the scenes.
And that I was helping Zaq because I wanted to know the truth myself.
“Zaq’s sources tell him there’s a coup in the making against PK.”
“That’s it?” she asked coldly. “You know how many coup attempts PK has fought off? At least five, maybe even more. The man has nine lives.”
Yeah, but was his own son behind any of those attempts?
I didn’t say it. I had no proof Gabriel was behind this, and I wasn’t sure how Crow would use the information.
“Time’s up,” she said. “Tell P2 to come up with a plan for taking PK out—stat—or the deal we made with him is off.”
“Understood. He—we—need a couple more days, is all.”
“Who’s in charge, you or him?”
“Me. But without his cooperation, I wouldn’t get within fifty yards of PK.” As Crow damn well knew.
“Hmm.”
I winced. The woman could infuse more doubt in a simple hmm than most people could in an entire paragraph.
She expelled a breath. “Not tonight, though. I just received intel that PK took a helicopter out of the city with his mate, his son and some human woman. My source says he won’t be back until tomorrow night, or Saturday at the latest.”
Yes. I mentally pumped a fist. “I’ll pass that on to P2.”
“Pass this on to him, too—maybe it will get him off his ass. His own people are saying his father’s blood mad.”
I blinked, frowned. “You sure?”
Usually you heard whispers when a vampire had started to lose it, and I’d heard nothing about Karoly Kral being blood mad.
“Positive,” Crow said.
“I see.” A cold fear skated up my spine. A blood-mad vampire was scary as shit, cunning in the way a serial killer is. They craved blood—lots of blood—and would do anything, break any rules, to get it.
“He’d be in the early stages, then,” I said, thinking aloud.
Then my breath hitched as a traitorous thought occurred to me. Was Crow telling the truth about Karoly?
I shook my head, telling myself she wouldn’t lie about something this big.
“He’s been purging the syndicate of his own men,” Crow added. “A kapitán named Andre Redbone. Apparently all the kapitáns are hunkered down, wondering who to trust.”
“I see.” I didn’t tell her I already knew about Redbone. But the fact that she mentioned it made me inclined to trust the rest of her intel, because Redbone had definitely been staked, although according to Zaq, it had been Gabriel doing the staking, not his father.
“There’s more,” she said. “PK is working the phones, pushing for a seat on the Board. Telling people we made a deal with Victorine Tremblay. The BOD has denied it, of course.”
“Hell.” I briefly closed my eyes.
“We can’t let him get a seat on the Board. There’s no telling what a blood-mad vampire would do with access to the kind of intel the Board has. And we can’t slay him ourselves. He’s too prominent. The other primuses trust him, and now with him telling this story about Zaquiel, all hell will break loose if we go after him directly. That’s why it has to be one of his sons.”
“Understood.” I raised my chin, even though she couldn’t see it. “Don’t worry, I have this under control.”
There was a long silence. A disbelieving silence.
My mouth flattened. “Have I ever let you down?”
The question hung there for several beats. “Not yet,” she said and ended the call.
I stared at the phone. Not yet?
Fuck. The last thing I needed was her deciding I couldn’t handle this and interfering. I grimaced and started back to the squat.
I was a block away when I stopped dead.
“Hey!” A woman nearly ploughed into me.
“Sorry,” I muttered and moved to the side. She hurried past with an exasperated look in my direction.
Crow had said here, as in, “You’ve been here in the city for three days.” Not “You’ve been there for three days.”
She was in New York. But why hadn’t she told me? Unless she was working her own angle—or having doubts about me.
And she hadn’t mentioned Rafe Kral either. She must know he’d been captured by Philippe Moreau. Twilight would’ve informed her. So why hadn’t Crow told me?
I should never have let her see how much Moreau’s treatment of Zaq bothered me. She was keeping information from me now.
Added to the fact that she’d followed me and Zaq to New York, and a horrible certainty welled up in me.
Crow was here to stake Zaq if he failed to kill his father. Because she didn’t trust me to do it—and she was right.
I swallowed sickly.
Damn, damn, damn.
A fine perspiration prickled my forehead. I swiped it away with the back of my hand. Thank God I hadn’t told her our real location, and she couldn’t track me through my phone.
You still have time. She won’t do anything with Karoly out of the city.
She was clearly waiting to see if Zaq could get to his father.
So I’d just have to see that he did.
Back at the squat, I found Zaq in the kitchen, learning how to make another of Dex’s abuela’s special dishes. Dex had Zaq slicing tomatoes, the two of them chatting like old friends. Zaq’s sun-streaked hair was tucked behind his ears, his T-shirt loose around his too-thin body.
Longing welled up in me. I wanted to go to him, wrap my arms around his waist and rest my head against his back the way I’d seen other women do with their men. Beg him to leave New York before it was too late, to save himself.
Think like a slayer.
For once, the mantra didn’t energize me, and it brought me zero comfort. I couldn’t even bring myself to finish it.
Because I wasn’t just a slayer. I was a woman, too. A woman who wanted the same things most women did.
A life partner, an existence outside my rigid world of training and undercover operations.
Maybe even a child.
Joy.
Something deep in my chest constricted. I wasn’t happy and hadn’t been for a long time. The idea of happiness hadn’t even been on my radar.
Zaq frowned at me. “What’s up?”
I gave a small shake of my head. “After we eat.”
He gave me another searching look, then glanced at Dex and went back to the tomato he was slicing.
To my surprise, I enjoyed dinner. We were joined by two other people from the squat and several of Dex’s friends, all human. We talked about their world—the economy, politics, music, the best place for fried chicken. We laughed, me and Zaq sharing did-you-get-that? looks across the plank table.
After helping clean up, Zaq and I went for a walk, ending up in a park by the East River. Dusk was falling and the park had started to empty. We found a path along the river and took it.
Zaq caught my right hand and interlaced his fingers through mine. “You’re worried. Why?”
I was no longer surprised at his ability to pick up my emotions. It went both ways. Something between us—something I refused to examine too closely—made it possible.
Guilt tightened my throat. Dex’s excellent meal turned to lead in my stomach.
I pulled my hand from his. “It’s about your father. I know you’re having a hard time believing he’s behind this. But what if he’s blood mad? He wouldn’t be thinking clearly.”
He recoiled and narrowed his eyes at me.
“What?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Just…there’s a rumor going around the syndicate to that effect.”
I pounced. “What if it’s the truth?”
“It’s not. You don’t know my dad. He is not blood mad.”
“You might not know.”
“I’d know. And even if he hid it from me and my brothers, you think he could hide it from my mom? They’re mates. Sometimes you’d swear they have one brain.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Have you ever met a mad vampire? Because I have. They’re smart, insanely so. Some have hidden it from everyone for years, especially in the early stages.”
“How many of them had mates?”
“None,” I admitted. “But this came straight from my alpha. A blood-mad vampire is irrational—your father might honestly believe you three are plotting a coup. He may even believe you’ve figured out that he’s going insane and he wants to take you out before you report him to SI.”
He started to argue and I lifted a hand. “Just consider it, okay? She says it’s not just you and your brothers, that he’s purging the syndicate of his top people. Andre Redbone was just the first.”
His mouth turned down. “But then, there are the rumors that it’s me, Gabriel and Rafe who are going after the syndicate’s kapitáns.” He fingered his chin. “I wish I knew where these rumors are coming from. Your alpha, did she say anything about Rafe?”
“No,” I said, too quickly. It was the truth, though. Crow hadn’t said anything new about Rafe, Twilight had.
His gaze sharpened.
The promise I’d made to Twilight grated at me. But it was her call, not mine.
“Your turn,” I said before he could push me on it. “Any other intel you want to share?”
“That’s it—that rumor, and the ones I already told you about. What about you?”
I heaved a breath. “My alpha’s in the city.”
“I take it that’s not good.”
“No, it’s not. She didn’t tell me straight out, either. I figured it out from something she said. So that’s…odd, that she’s hiding it from me. We have to be careful. You have to be careful. There could be other slayers in the city, too—I don’t know. She did pass along a useful piece of intel—your father’s not in the city tonight and he may not be back for a couple of days.”
I deliberately chose not to tell him his father was with Gabriel. There was nothing Zaq could do about it anyway, and I honestly didn’t care if Gabriel lived or died.
Zaq was my priority.
“Hell.” He rubbed his forehead. “So we lose another night. Your alpha didn’t tell you where my dad was going?”
“No. I don’t think she knew.”
“All right.” He glanced at the sky. “It’s getting dark. We should get back.”
“She’s a dhampir,” I blurted. “My alpha, that is. Most of us are.”
“I know; dhampirs make the best slayers. And yeah, I get it—we have to stay alert no matter what. We go out at night, we have to worry about my father’s people. And during the day, it’s the dhampirs. We’ll just have to be careful.”
We headed out of the park.
“I need to feed,” Zaq said. “I’m still feeling the aftereffects of the silver poisoning. I’m going to—” He named a block in Hunters Point known for its prostitutes. They were primarily sex workers, but for the right price, some would let you drink their blood. “Wanna come?”
“I told you, I don’t drink it fresh.”
He moved a shoulder. “Suit yourself.”
“You have enough cash?”
“Yeah.”
“Take this anyway.” I slipped him a handful of twenties.
“Thanks.” He slanted me a curious look and tucked the bills into the pocket of his jeans.
I answered his unspoken question. “You shouldn’t have to ask every time you need money.”
“Well, again—thanks. And don’t worry. I’m good for it.”
“Hey, it’s not my money.”
“So SI is picking up my tab?” His mouth twisted in a sardonic grin. “Well, isn’t that ironic?”