Page 29 of Malice

“Right?” She laughs. “Really though, I was talking to a patient’s mom about how it’s so much safer in some countries because the crimes are punished harshly. It makes people actually think twice before committing a petty offense. The same thing happened here. The pack just went over the numbers recently too.”

“Numbers? Like crime stats?”

“Yeah, and vampire-on-human violence. It’s significantly less here and in the surrounding areas than in other places with less vampire presence.”

“Interesting,” I say, wondering if it’s because Xavier has his own rules vampires follow or if he’s just better at covering it up. Logically, I’d say it’s a mix of both. “We’ll get it all figured out. The Order and the Malus family go way back, actually, and have come to peace treaties before. Something will be figured out again.”

“Xavier’s doing a good job so far. Social media loves him.”

“I heard about the immortal mafia hashtag today.”

Delphi laughs. “He’d make a good politician, that’s for sure.” She takes a sip of her water and raises her eyebrows. “There’s another rumor that’s actually been going around since before all this mess went down, but with the recent news coverage, it’s resurfaced.”

“What is it?”

“Xavier is going to run for mayor.”

“The VC wants him to,” I admit. “I don’t know if he will.”

“I’d vote for him.”

The waitress brings us our cocktails and I take a big drink. Xavier insisted Hector drive me today, so why not day drink? “Okay, enough about that,” I say. “Tell me about this guy!”

Delphi grabs her phone and shows me a photo. “His name is Andrew and he’s a single dad.”

“Is he a werewolf too?”

“No, so long term might be iffy, but whatever, right? I haven’t really dated since my divorce.”

“He’s cute,” I tell her, looking at the dark haired man on the screen. “How’d you meet him?”

“His mom actually lives in my neighborhood and has been trying to introduce us forever. He’s also divorced.”

“How long has he been divorced?” My eyes narrow. “Recently divorced men need to work on themselves. And why did he get divorced?”

“He’s been divorced for over two years now and has had a couple several month long relationships that didn’t pan out, so I won’t be the bad pancake.”

“Reason for the divorce?” I echo.

“From what his mom said and then what I gathered from him is that his ex-wife got pregnant pretty early after they started dating and they got married for the sake of the kids and tried to make it work for a while but it just didn’t in the end and they decided to end things rather than have resentment build.”

“If that is true, then it was a very mature decision. However, I just don’t trust men.”

“Oh, I don’t either. He does have fifty-fifty custody of the girls and he seems like an actual good dad, not just one for show. But I looked up his ex and, Wren, she’s like a literal Disney princess.” She picks up the phone again and goes to the ex-wife’s Instagram. “I mean look at her! She’s gorgeous and she has bunnies that just like hop around her house.”

“She’s pretty,” I note, looking at the dark-haired woman on screen. Her whole feed is very aesthetic. “Is she an artist?”

“Yeah, and she’s like pretty successful from what I can see. She does activities with old people at an assisted living facility and does nice stuff like that. Look at this mural she did for them!”

“A mural isn’t going to solve world hunger or anything like that,” I try, wanting to side with Delphi no matter what.

She swipes to another photo. “And she writes these cute little handwritten notes to put in her daughter’s lunchboxes every day. She says the kids keep them in a special drawer in their room.”

“Okay, that is kinda cute.”

“If this works out, how can I not be seen as the evil stepmother?”

I give her a look. “You would not be an evil stepmother. It’s not you’re going to take the cute handwritten notes their mom wrote them and throw them away.”