Page 60 of The Donor’s Dilemma

“I will.”

With one last grimace she got out and rushed up the road to the café.

The drive into work was short, his knuckles white on the steering wheel as he parked. Breathing wasn’t exactly necessary for a vampire, but he tried. Tried to breathe through the rage that flowed through his veins but it was no use.

Marching through the building, Theo was aware of Stella calling him as he passed his office.

“Theo? Sir? Your eight o’clock…”

He didn’t care. They could wait.

Harris’s office sat at the end of the corridor. The plaque on his door read "Director of the Vital Exchange". More like conspiracy theorist.

The door crashed against the wall, plaster cracking, as Theo burst into the room. A small office compared to Theo’s but just as grand with a large mahogany desk and a scowling vampire sitting behind it.

“Chapel…” Harris started but there wasn’t time for another word as Theo’s fist connected with his jaw. The chair tipped back but Theo was on him before Harris’s head hit the floor. Throwing another punch that split his lip, Theo knelt on his chest and grabbed his collar.

“You go anywhere near Verity again, I’ll fucking kill you!” Theo roared in the other vampire’s face and Harris had the good sense to look shaken.

“Theo, I don’t know what…”

“You don’t know?” he shouted. “You don’t know that your bitch donor drugged Verity?”

Harris’s hand pushed on Theo’s chest, trying to escape the near feral vampire looming over him.

“Sienna would never…”

Theo punched him again, feeling the crack of bone beneath his fist. The punch would have killed a human, but sadly Harris would be fine. Theo stood, raking shaking hands through his hair before pausing. His knuckles were split. Taking Harris’s jacket from the back of the door, he wiped the blood from his hand.

“It isn’t Sienna’s fault if your little donor can’t handle her drink.”

Theo froze. Turning slowly, he watched Harris climb back to his feet, holding his jaw.

Theo raised a finger, ready to damn the other man. A symbolic gesture perhaps, but one that any vampire would take seriously. A point and a promise were enough to strike fear into even the coldest of hearts.

“Sienna wouldn’t!” Harris snapped.

“We’re done. You stay away from me, and you stay the fuck away from Verity.”

He turned to leave when Harris spoke again, not knowing when to stop. “Why are you really mad, Chapel? Because Verity got sick, or because Sienna told her the truth?”

“It isn’t the fucking truth!” Theo screamed, charging forward until the desk was all that stood between them.

Harris shrugged with forced nonchalance. “We’ll see. Maybe you won’t listen to me, but I can’t imagine that little reporter of yours will let it go so easy. Maybe you’ll listen to her.”

“You don’t… have proof,” he ground out through gritted teeth.

Harris pulled his chair up and sat down heavy, licking the blood from his already healing lip. “We’ll see,” he said again, turning to his computer and pretending Theo didn’t exist.

He didn’t have proof. He didn’t have sources or evidence. Nothing.

Theo turned, marching down the corridor, past a wide-eyed Stella and into his office. Whoever his eight o’clock had been seemed to have left, so he sat at his desk.

How could Harris be so sure? Sure, enough to risk his donor. Sure, enough to take a beating without throwing a single punch in return.

Sliding open the bottom drawer of his desk, Theo found the “report” Harris had given him.

Donor numbers, email correspondents, projections. And at the back, newspaper articles from Cliffhaven, from the weeks leading up to the quarantine.