Silence.
Had the call been dropped? “Dad?”
“I’m still here,” he said, his tone flat.
“I knew you probably wouldn’t be happy to hear that.”
Mateo, who’d been walking ten to fifteen feet in front of her, turned around. “Everything okay?” he mouthed, a concerned expression on his face.
She nodded, gave him a thumb’s up. He smiled and turned back around.
Her father exhaled slowly on the other end of the line. “I’m just…surprised, that’s all.”
“Yeah, I can imagine. But we’ve had some really good talks.” Now wasn’t that the understatement of the year, she thought as she ducked under a low branch.
There was another long stretch of silence—a pregnant pause, if ever there was one—before her father spoke again. “Honey, I’m only going to say this once, because it’s your life, and I can’t live it for you. I respect the choices you make for yourself. But are you sure he’s not just going to break your heart again? He put you through hell the last time.”
She thought about it for a moment. No, she couldn’t say with any certainty that her heart wouldn’t get broken again. But at least she knew the truth now. Four years ago, Mateo hadn’t left because he didn’t love her. He’d left because he did. “Dad, I appreciate your concern, but I’m a big girl, okay? So when does Marcella need that cake?”
Back at the mansion, the group gathered in the sitting room, and Selena told them what she knew about the research facility. How to get there. The surrounding area. The layout of the building—what little she’d seen of it.
“It was always Ms. Karza waiting for me in the lobby,” she said. “No one else. She tasted the samples there, and that’s where I delivered the food for their events. Never to a kitchen or a conference room. Citing security clearance issues, she said her employees would set up the food themselves.”
“There wasn’t even a receptionist?” Zeph dwarfed the piano bench he was sitting on, making it look more delicate than it was.
Selena shook her head. “I never saw anyone else, actually. Wait. I take that back. The first time I catered one of their events, I did see a few people. Three women walked across the back of the lobby, behind where Ms. Karza was standing, but that was it. I never saw anyone else.”
Roxy leaned forward in her seat and steepled her fingers. “Do you happen to remember what they were wearing?”
Selena had to think for a moment. It had been several months. “White smock-like robes. I assumed they were some sort of lab coats since it was a research facility.”
“That’s what they wear to a purification ceremony,” Roxy said. “They do them at every full moon.”
“Purification ceremony?” Selena asked, not sure she really wanted to know.
“It’s a blood ritual they perform to break their fast. They celebrate with food and drink afterward.” Something about Roxy reminded her of a college professor who was passionate about what she was teaching.
“Yeah, Selena’s food,” Zeph said. “Bitches.”
“And her blood,” Mateo added through gritted teeth.
My blood.Selena swallowed nervously and rubbed her throat as she tried to make sense of it all.
Roxy nodded. “It would appear so.”
Kip cleared his throat, breaking his silence. “You don’t think DBs found her and came to her house at night? Or took her back to their den? That’s what they usually do.”
“I didn’t detect any DB scent at her house,” Mateo said. “They didn’t come for her there.”
“I’m confused, though,” Selena said. “If they took my blood here, how did it get on the black market in New Orleans?”
“I suspect this particular sect is working with Darkbloods,” Roxy answered. “Unusual, but not unheard of. The DB network is more extensive than the Agency likes to admit.”
“Yeah, and it helps that the Agency is so fucking corrupt in New Orleans,” Mateo said with contempt. “The DBs down there are selling blood that comes from everywhere.”
Zeph nodded at Mateo’s assessment, “Unfortunate, but true.”
“Got blood you can’t sell on y’alls home turf?” Mateo said in a fake Southern accent. “Come here and we’ll sell it for ya.”
Selena’s throat went dry. That confirmed it then. She’d been an unwitting blood donor for a cult’s macabre ceremonies, not once, but several times.
Mateo cursed and put a protective arm around her. “I’m going to fix this, Selena. It’s never going to happen to you again. Never.”
She just hoped that Mateo was right.
