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The honest truth was that I wished I could just take Cara and leave it all behind. I suspected we could find some semblance of safety if we were willing to go far enough. But I also didn’t want to see a world where The Pact was a memory. I knew there were terribly cruel vampires who would do horrible things if unleashed.
Vlad belched loudly, then covered his mouth. “So, what’s the plan?”
“Did you get to Ana Black?” I asked.
Vlad held the fingers on one of his hands in a circle and then crudely inserted his stubby finger in and out of the circle a few times. “Got in ‘er. Out ‘er. Then back in. Quite enjoyable.”
Seraphina let out a disgusted noise. “Do we really need him?”
“Yes. Unfortunately,” I said. “Did you get her to agree to help us?”
“She wasn’t too keen on the whole thing with the pact. But, lucky for you, old Vlad knows she hates Dominic. Once she learned he was still toolin’ around, she agreed on the spot. Except, well, she said she couldn’t be bothered to actually show up. We can pretend she’s backing us without her removing our heads in our sleep, but it’ll just be words.”
“Will that be enough?” Cara asked me. She was standing close with her hands wrapped around my arm. She liked to stand like that, hugging some part of me she could reach.
I put my arm around her, pulling her a little closer. “If we make a wave. It might be. But I think we need to take Bennigan out of the picture.”
“You mean find where he sleeps, right?” Parker asked.
Vlad sniffed the air. “Who brought the virgin?”
Parker’s cheeks went red. “I know a lot about vampires. Okay? I’ve read all sorts of stuff online. But that’s true, right? You find where they sleep and that’s where they’re vulnerable.”
“And all you have to do to kill a tiger with your bare hands is punch through its chest and rip out its still-beating heart,” Alaric said. “Knowing is one thing. Doing is another.”
“Vampires still have to use money, right? Like you pay someone for your properties, I assume?” Parker asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“People sell information on the dark web. If one of you has the money to spare, I could probably buy a list of his expenditures for the last several years. It’d be pretty hard to hide where he’s got property, at the very least. If we were lucky, maybe one would be a place he sleeps.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I can give you the money you need. How long will this take?”
Parker shrugged. “It depends how careful he is. If he’s funneling money through other people, there will be more steps. But it is worth trying, right?”
“Give the virgin his money,” Seraphina said.
Parker cleared his throat. “When did we agree I was a virgin?”
Mooney laughed. “Everybody with functioning eyeballs agrees you’re a virgin the moment they see you, dork.”
We spent the next few hours making plans to find Bennigan’s resting place and hopefully put an end to him.
Cara’s roommates kept working with Alaric and Seraphina. Vlad had some mysterious place he needed to be, and I took Cara into one of the side rooms once our input wasn’t needed.
She slumped against the wall, resting her arms on her knees. “This is crazy. It feels like we’re planning some kind of military operation out there.”
“More or less,” I said. I took a spot beside her with my back against the wall.
Cara rested her head on my shoulder. “What happens to the bond now that I’m a vampire, anyway?”
“It’ll come and go. When we slept together, we sealed it. There will always be a faint connection. Extreme emotions or sensations may make it feel more intense at times.”
She was quiet for a while. “I’d kill to look at my blood under the microscope right about now. Yours, too. But I’m guessing they would be watching Anya’s. It’s where they’ve come for me twice now.”
I nodded. “It’s unfortunately out of the question, for the moment. I may not be able to promise your old life back to you, but I swear if we make it through this, I’ll try to find a way to give you as much of it back as I can.”
“It’s okay,” she said. She planted a soft kiss on my neck. “This new life has at least one major perk.”
“I’m going to get us through this.” I clenched my jaw, staring ahead at the peeling wallpaper. I wasn’t sure what it would take, but I was going to find a way to do what needed to be done. Dispatching Bennigan. Protecting The Pact. Finding Dominic and convincing him he had too much opposition to keep pressing for an uprising. I didn’t know how, but I knew I had to do it.
