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I jerked my chin in acknowledgement. “Lieutenant Mraz will be here in a couple of hours. He’ll want a full report.”
Airi looked a little sick. Nobody wanted to get on Tomas’s bad side.
“Of course,” she murmured, and rose to return to the vampire bunker, where the op room and the bulk of our security equipment was located.
“Take Daisy and Diesel with you. They can patrol the perimeter until Tomas arrives with reinforcements.” I snapped my fingers at the wolfdogs. “Go with Airi. Outside.”
When we were alone, I turned to Mila. “You haven’t eaten.”
“I can’t,” she said with a listless shrug. “I keep thinking about Joey.”
“Just a few bites,” I coaxed, cutting her hamburger into quarters. “Here.” I brought a piece to her mouth.
She took a tiny bite.
I sighed. “Mila. You have to eat. You’ve lost too much blood in the past couple of days. You need red meat.”
When she just shook her head, I set the piece back on her plate and took her hand. “You’re not doing your brother any good by starving yourself.”
Her chest heaved. “I’m so scared,” she confessed. “You don’t know what they’re like. Martin and Stefan—they kept touching me, watching me. Like they fuckingownedme. I had to ask permission even to go to the bathroom.”
My jaw tightened. I took a harsh breath. “Redbone?”
She shook her head. “Martin and Stefan. But Redbone knew what was happening. He said…” Her throat worked. “He promised me to them first.”
“He’s dead,” I said coldly. “That’s a promise.”
“Good.” But she stared down at her plate with a worried frown that wrenched my heart. “How soon do you think we’ll know anything?”
“The Fagans are the best in the business. They should have answers for us by morning. Now eat,cher.” I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “For Joey—and for me. Please?”
She straightened. Her face took on that too-serene look, but she picked up one of the pieces I’d cut for her and determinedly chewed.
I finished the last of my steak. Of all the things that had come out tonight, I was most disturbed by Redbone’s warning that if Mila helped me in any way, he’d know.
Could Rafe’s mole be that highly placed—maybe even someone in my father’s inner circle?
Or had Redbone been bluffing? Just planting doubt in Mila’s mind had been enough to keep her quiet.
The uncertainty was making me edgy.
I just hoped Tomas had discovered something that might be of help. The lieutenant was already on his way out to Montauk. We might have our differences, but he was my father’s oldest friend, his brother-in-arms.
Right now, he was the only man at headquarters I trusted completely.
19
Mila
Gabriel urged me to rest while he stayed up to speak to the lieutenant who was on his way out from Manhattan. I made him promise to wake me as soon as he heard anything about Joey and returned to his suite.
His rooms were larger than mine, but as simply furnished. The bedroom had a large painting of a thunderstorm looming over the ocean and a four-poster bed made of bleached wood. The coverlet was a soft pigeon-gray.
I brushed my teeth and stripped down to a T-shirt and boy-shorts. Leaving all the lights on, I crawled onto the king-sized mattress and passed out. I don’t know how long I’d slept, but Gabriel still hadn’t come to bed when I jerked awake, terror for my brother pressing on my chest like a sack of rocks.
Andre would’ve made it back to Manhattan by now. Which meant Joey might already be a blood slave. It might be illegal, but everyone knew that some vampires kept blood slaves anyway.
And Andre was furious with me. Not only had I helped Gabriel fight him off, I’d staked Stefan myself.
