"Teams located him at a motel in Brookhaven," Marcellus says. "He didn't resist. Came willingly once we explained we weren't going to kill him immediately."
"That remains to be seen." Maximus turns to face Cyrus fully. "Forty years. Forty years you've served me. And for the last three months, you've been feeding information to Konstantin."
Cyrus doesn't deny it. "Yes."
"Why?"
The single word hangs in the air. I watch Cyrus's face, the way his jaw works, the struggle to find words that might matter.
"He has them," Cyrus says finally. "My family. My daughter is fifty-three now. Has two kids of her own. They don't know I exist. Don't know, I've been watching over them since I was turned. But Konstantin found out." His voice cracks. "He sent me photos. My granddaughter at her school. My grandson at soccer practice. Mydaughter getting groceries. And then he sent me a video of his people standing outside their house."
The room is silent.
"He said if I didn't cooperate, he'd turn them. All of them. Let them wake up as vampires with no guidance, no support. Let them go feral." Cyrus's hands are shaking despite the restraints. "What was I supposed to do?"
I think about my sister Simone in Savannah. About the trust fund Maximus set up to take care of her. About what I would do if someone threatened her life.
I'm not sure my answer would be different from Cyrus's.
"You could have come to me," Maximus says. "Told me what was happening. We could have protected them."
"Could you?" Cyrus looks up, and there's something raw in his eyes. "Konstantin has people everywhere. He knew things about my family that even I didn't know. Where my granddaughter takes dance lessons. Which coffee shop my daughter goes to every morning. He's been watching them for months. Maybe years." He shakes his head. "If I told you, he would have known. And he would have killed them."
"So instead, you betrayed everyone here. Got six donors killed. Gave Konstantin three months of intelligence on our operations."
"I know." Cyrus's voice is barely a whisper. "I know what I did. I'm not asking for forgiveness. I'm just telling you why."
Maximus is silent for a long moment. I can't read his expression; it's locked down, controlled, revealing nothing.
"Where are they now?" he asks finally. "Your family."
"I don't know. Konstantin moved them after I left the compound. Insurance, he said. To make sure I didn't talk." Cyrus's laugh is bitter. "But I'm talking now. Because he's going to kill them anyway. I've served my purpose. They're just loose ends."
"You don't know that."
"I know him. I've been listening to his communications for three months. I know how he thinks." Cyrus looks at Maximus directly. "He doesn't leave loose ends. Ever."
The weight of that settles over the room.
"What do you know?" Maximus asks. "About his operations. His plans."
"I know where some of his safe houses are. I know the names of three other people he's tried to turn inside your organization; they refused, so he had them killed. Made it look like accidents." Cyrus swallows. "And I know what he's planning next."
"Tell me."
"He's not going to wait for you to surrender. He knew you'd refuse. The ultimatum didn't matter. He just needed you to refuse it publicly so he'd have justification for what comes next.
"Which is?"
"He's planning to expose the full scope of your network. Not to humans, not yet. But to the other vampire lords in Atlanta."
"They already know I have a network," Maximus says.
"They know you have a network. They don't know how big it's become." Cyrus's voice is hollow. "He has documentation of everything. Every donor, every safe house, every vampire who answers to you. The full map of your operations across the entire city. He's going to show them you control more of Atlanta than all of them combined."
I watch Maximus absorb this. His expression doesn't change, but something shifts behind his eyes.
"When?" he asks.
