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I shrugged. “Lies. Put about by our enemies.”
“Hm.” Régis arched a skeptical brow, but he didn’t push me on it. “Still, if you should require an ally, you’ve impressed me this week.”
“Thank you. I appreciate the vote of confidence. But as you know, my father is still the Maritime primus.”
Régis inclined his head. “Of course.”
I sipped my wine. Did Régis mean it, or was he probing for weaknesses?
My father’s time as primus was rapidly coming to an end. When that happened, I wanted his allies to know me in my own right. In fact, I’d agreed to invest a sizeable amount in the QCS casino for just that reason.
The piped-in jazz stopped and the satin curtain fluttered.
“Ah.” My host settled back. “The auction is about to begin.”
I nodded absentmindedly. The rumors about my father were spreading. I had to do something before the other syndicates realized how bad he’d gotten and moved on us.
The curtain parted to reveal a woman in a slinky black dress, her back to the audience, her rich brown hair swept forward over one shoulder. The dress dipped to her waist, an erotic frame for the rose-and-dagger tattoo that ran the length of her spine like a crimson scar.
I eyed her without really seeing her, my mind on my father. Then my jaw dropped. A shock of recognition pierced me like a nail to the chest. My already slow-pumping lungs simply…stopped.
Carefully, without taking my gaze from the woman being auctioned, I put my glass on the table at my elbow.
What. The. Fuck?
I took in the thrall’s narrow, deceptively delicate body; her toned arms; the red, do-me heels. Returned to the scarlet tattoo.
It’s not her.
It couldn’t be. Lainey Q had short silver hair. And what in the name of Lilith would she be doing at a private auction?
It’s been two years. She could’ve grown her hair out, dyed it brown.
But she hadn’t had that tattoo. I’d seen her in a skimpy dress at my friend Zoe’s birthday ball, and I would’ve noticed it.
Besides, slayers didn’t have tattoos.
It’s not her.
After Lainey had disappeared, I’d moved heaven and earth trying to locate her—which hadn’t been easy, since I couldn’t let anyone, especially my parents, know how badly I wanted to find her.
I’d even wondered if she’d died, because she’d stopped posting to Instagram around the same time she’d disappeared. Her five-million-plus followers had been as baffled as I was.
I’d sent Talon and Cain to look for her, made discreet inquiries of my allies in other syndicates. I’d even hired a human private investigator. She was the one who’d discovered that the woman known as Lainey Q had never really existed. She was a front for a slayer, one who’d infiltrated the Tremblay Syndicate before vanishing. My friend Zoe, the new Tremblay Prima, had told me straight out that Lainey was a slayer, but I hadn’t believed it.
She’d seemed so genuine. I’d danced with her. Kissed her. Buried myself deep inside her.
The woman had fucking screamed for me. No one was that good of an actress.
Except clearly she was, and I was a jackass for thinking she’d actually wanted me. I’d told myself I’d dodged a bullet and stopped searching…only to stumble across her at a goddamned blood-slave auction.
Régis leaned across the table. “I told you the Chinese girl was a beauty.”
She’s not Chinese, you ass. She’s Korean. Korean-American, actually.
I finally remembered to breathe. “She is.” I kept my tone bored and hooded my eyes, hiding the blue I felt flickering in my irises.
No one could guess I wasthisclose to going full-out vampire and ripping out Régis’s fucking heart. But there were a dozen of them and only one of me, even if you counted Talon and Cain.
