Wrapping herself in the blanket she now thought of as her own, she sat at the desk in the corner of the room and looked out across the study, trying to see it as Dorian might. She wondered how many family meetings had taken place in here—arguments as well as celebrations. She hoped there were more of the latter, but given what she’d observed so far from the Redthorne Royals, she didn’t see how that was possible.
Still, she understood why Dorian loved this room so much. It was elegant without being pretentious, offering a rare bit of cozy charm in a home whose vast halls echoed with loneliness.
Glancing down at the desk, Charley noticed what looked like an old scrapbook. She turned the cover, revealing a collection of newspaper articles dating back to the 1970s.
Each article was more horrifying than the last, detailing a series of gruesome murders attributed to a killer they’d nicknamed the Crimson City Devil. Charley wasn’t alive then, but she vaguely remembered her parents talking about it once, after seeing it mentioned on a TV show about serial killers and unsolved crimes.
Tucked into the back of the scrapbook, Charley found a spiral notebook full of names—pages and pages of neat, precise lettering she recognized as Dorian’s. Each name was identified as a son, daughter, cousin, or spouse, listed beside another name with a date of death.
For each entry, there were other notes too:
College tuition - Stanford connections?
Daughter needs heart transplant. Contact U. hospital to facilitate.
Mortgage in default. Call First National to make arrangements.
Some of the notes had check marks next to them, while others had question marks and follow-up notes Charley couldn’t even begin to decipher.
Were these Dorian’s business associates? How did he know these people?
Scanning through the pages, her eyes landed on a familiar name beside a small red checkmark.
Marshall Goldman. Curator, Jewish Historical Society. Son of Landon Goldman, DOD Aug. 10, 1972. Whitfield painting — possible interest?
Charley’s heart stalled.
Not associates, she realized.Victims.
The names and dates of death in the notebook matched those reported in the newspaper articles.
There were a lot of them. Easily over a hundred victims, each connected to more names than she could count.
Holy shit…
“Can’t sleep?” Aiden asked, startling her from the doorway. “If you need some reading material, you might try the library down the hall.”
He crossed the room and joined her at the desk, reaching down to close the books.
“Why does Dorian have this stuff?” Charley asked, not bothering to apologize for peeking. It was out on the desk, sitting there for anyone to see. “What is it? Some kind of sick trophy collection?”
A heavy sadness washed over Aiden’s face, drawing his mouth into a deep frown. “Not trophies, Ms. D’Amico. Penance.”
Penance?Charley’s hands trembled, her mouth dry. “For what?”
It was a stupid question—one she obviously knew the answer to, having read the articles. But she couldn’t bring herself to admit it.
When she tried to reconcile the Dorian Redthorne she’d fallen in love with and the so-called Crimson City Devil the papers had described, she couldn’t do it. The gulf between the two versions of her vampire was so wide, it damn near swallowed her up.
Aiden opened a desk drawer and placed the books inside, then slid it closed, his eyes shining with pity. “It’s not your place to sift through the skeletons of another man’s past, nor mine to help you assemble the bones.”
“It’s mine.” Dorian’s voice, dark and ominous, echoed across the small room, sending a shiver down Charley’s spine. He towered like a vengeful god in the doorway, the firelight reflected in his eyes, blood staining his shirt.
Crimson City Devil strikes again…
Charley gasped at the sight, and Dorian glared at her, his golden eyes blazing.
“Leave us, Aiden,” he ordered. “Ms. D’Amico and I have some things to discuss.”
