Page 76 of Let Sleeping Vampires Lie

“Yeah?”

“If you find out who is selling that formula, I want their name.”

His smile faded into something colder. “So do I.”

Manu folded his arms, looking from me to Con. “In the meantime, you prepare for the warehouse. Once Julian confirms your invitation, you will be fighting on two fronts.”

Con’s jaw tightened. “We can handle it.”

I felt the weight of his statement settle over both of us. We had handled worse. We would handle this. Because we had to. There was no alternative.

I straightened. “Then let us not waste the night.”

Julian turned back to his code.

Manu shuffled through files, pulling out schematics for the warehouse.

Con shifted closer to my side, the familiar gravity of his presence sliding into place.

The map glowed on the screen, red dot pulsing like a warning.

The game had changed. The stakes had not.

We were still hunting a fragment to save our king’s life.

Now we were also racing to keep the blueprint for an army out of the wrong hands.

One mistake, and the world we knew would end in a flood of crafted monsters and human greed.

So we did what we always did.

We planned a heist.

And prepared for war.

CHAPTER 13

Julian opened his laptop in a theatrical way with equal parts drama and a side of code wizard ego.

“All right,” he said, stretching his arms. “Give me a couple hours. Two, maybe three. I need to finesse this data so the system thinks Cass has been shopping in the dark for years.”

I arched a brow. “Can you do it without accidentally marrying my alias to a demon prince?”

“No promises,” he said. “Though it might improve your credit score.”

Con exhaled slowly. “We’ll check back in later.”

Julian waved a hand, already diving into his keyboard. “Go rest. Both of you. You’ll need your heads clear before the warehouse run.”

Manu agreed with a curt nod. “Once the invitation arrives, there will be very little pause between infiltration, retrieval, and extraction. Better to be sharp.”

Con didn’t need more prompting.

He touched the small of my back, light and steady, then guided me out of the conference room.

I didn’t fight him. Not yet. My body still carried the echo of the magic burn, though the fever had cooled.

As we stepped into the hallway, the mansion felt quieter, dimmed by the coming night. Lamps cast soft-gold over the floorboards, enough to see but not enough to chase away the shadows folding between empty rooms.