AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We don’t know yet. She’s still buried. Gabriel hasn’t left her side.”
I’d never witnessed the transition from human to dhampir myself, but I knew it was rough, that Camila might not make it through. I set my hand on Rafe’s, offering comfort.
He curled his fingers around mine. “I’ll call him,” he told his father.
Karoly shook his head. “Later in the week, perhaps. He’s not himself right now. He mated with her while she was still human. Their fates are intertwined now.”
Rafe’s throat worked. I squeezed his hand. If Gabriel had formed a mate bond with Camila, her death would devastate him. He might never mate again.
“She’ll make it,” Rafe said firmly.
He straightened up and drew a breath. “I have something to tell you, sir.”
“Go ahead,” Karoly said.
“I staked Victorine’s lieutenant. The blood feud is back on.”
Rafe sat stiff-backed, hand tight on mine, clearly expecting his father to be angry.
“He did it for me—,” I started to say, but Karoly spoke at the same time.
“Good. The sonofabitch was part of the group that kidnapped your brother. I’d have staked him myself, but he’d left Paris by the time I got there.”
I blinked. Something else Victorine had kept from me. But it made sense; she wouldn’t have risked going to Paris herself. Sending Étan was the next best thing.
Beside me, Rafe relaxed. “If I’d known about Zaq, I’d have staked him in Montreal. The bastard was slapping Zoe around.”
The two men shared a look. “Then, of course,” Karoly agreed in soft tones, “you had to kill him.”
The limo crossed the bridge from Queens to Manhattan. A few minutes later, we stopped in front of an eight-story high-rise on the Upper East Side. I knew from the file we kept on Rafe that he had a penthouse in New York, but it turned out he owned the entire building.
Karoly had fallen silent, but now he stirred in his seat. “For now, it’s best if you stay in Manhattan. Let people see you two together. I will let Victorine know you’re under my protection.”
“She’s not going to give up,” Rafe said. “She told me—and I quote—that she wanted to ‘wipe my family from the face of the earth.’”
A chill went down my spine. I hadn’t known that.
“I can handle Victorine,” his father said. “It’s you and Zoe I’m worried about.”
“Zoe has an idea about that,” Rafe said.
“Go ahead,” Karoly told me.
I gave him a rough sketch of my plan. That if my mother didn’t agree to give up the vendetta against the Krals, then I’d go public with how she’d hired Slayers, Inc. to kill Karoly’s sons and heirs.
“I’m going to upload the evidence to a secret server,” I added.
“I’ll want backup,” Karoly said.
I hesitated. “Of course.”
Rafe understood the reason for my hesitation. “Are you sure Tomas is the only mole?”
Karoly’s features sharpened into something feral. “No, I’m not sure. Andre Redbone was another traitor. But Gabriel eliminated that little problem.”
“Ah,” said Rafe. “Redbone was the New Orleans kapitán,” he told me.
I nodded.
