“He’s managed to evade me at every turn, but one of my sources spotted him entering and leaving Bloodbath on more than one occasion.”
“I thought Bloodbath was closed down indefinitely,” Cole said.
“To the public, yes,” Gabriel said. “But House Duchanes still owns the building. They’ve been more careful due to the increase in police presence after the murders in the area, but they’re still around.”
“So our brother was spotted cavorting with Duchanes vampires?” Dorian asked.
Gabriel nodded. “As well as vampires from house Mirren.”
“Mirren?” Dorian sipped his scotch, trying to place the name. “Doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Relatively new on the scene, though the older sires were around when Father first started making inroads here.” Gabriel retrieved the phone from his jacket pocket. “Young vampire by the name of Dominic, and another my contact wasn’t familiar with. He took these pictures.”
“Dominic… Why do I know that name?” Dorian reached for the phone, glancing down at the screen. There were two vampires in the shot—one he didn’t recognize. The other, however, made his blood boil. His face was partially obscured by the shadows, but there was no mistaking that smug, youthful arrogance. “For fuck’s sake. Dominic was at the bloody council meeting.”
Gabriel leaned his head back and sighed. “Fuck. You’re right. I barely gave him a second glance that night.”
“Nor did I. Just long enough to put him in his place.” Dorian recalled the little twat who’d insulted him at that sham of a meeting.
House Redthorne is not united… How can you keep our communities safe and at peace when you can’t even keep your own house in order?
Well. The boy had certainly pressedthatadvantage, hadn’t he? Parlaying it right into a friendship with the one Redthorne brother who seemed to agree with him.
“Malcolm’s gone full-on turncoat.” Dorian tipped back his glass, wishing the alcohol would burn the taste of his brother’s name from his lips.
“There’s more. The bad kind of more.” Gabriel slid a folded newspaper from his inside pocket and handed it over—today’s Times. “Looks like our brother and his new friends have been doing a bit of midnight snacking.”
A fresh hole burned through Dorian’s gut, and he knew before he even finished scanning the article what he’d find.
crimson city devil copycat strikes again
Two more bodies were discovered late last night in a dumpster in the East Village. Both victims appear to have suffered massive blood loss from puncture wounds at the neck and thigh. Police are not sharing additional details about the scene and are not speculating on the exact cause of the wounds, but have released sketches of three suspects compiled from key witness reports. Suspects are to be considered armed and extremely dangerous. Anyone with information is asked to contact the authorities immediately. A midnight curfew remains in effect for all of Manhattan.
The first two sketches looked very much like the vampires in the photo Gabriel had just shared.
The third was a dead ringer for Malcolm, and the sight of it nearly brought Dorian to his knees.
All the bloody battles. The arguing. The cruel words. The threats and betrayals. The heartbreak.
And this is what it had come to.
“Witness reports can be unreliable,” Dorian said anyway, tossing the newspaper back at Gabriel. “We can’t assume—”
“I’m not assuming anything, brother. But we need to consider the possibility that Malcolm is… not himself.”
Not himself.Dorian would’ve laughed if the thought hadn’t so deeply gutted him.
Fifty years after Dorian had terrorized the city he so loved, chasing away his brothers in the process, Malcolm was following in his footsteps. Could Dorian honestly judge him? Was this savagery part of their so-called curse? Would all of them fall prey to it in time?
Who would be the next to succumb?
Gabriel, with those cold and calculating eyes, the anger always simmering just beneath the surface, desperate for an outlet?
Colin, swept away by his endless quest for answers, chasing their father’s ghost as he sought, even now, to recreate the cure that would surely kill them all?
Aiden—kind, loyal Aiden—whose only fault was that he’d remained a friend to the family whose fucked-up history had damned him to the same cursed eternity?
Dorian caught his friend’s gaze across the study, and the last of the breath rushed from his lungs.
