Chapter Two
Viktor stormed into his boss’s mansion, not bothering to knock, or speak to anyone as he brushed past the crowd mingling in the downstairs areas. “Is he still up there?” He growled at someone loitering by the stairs. He barely waited for the nod before he took the stairs three at a time. Of course, Tony “The Hammer” Manzano would still be in bed. He never got up before dinner time.
“He’s not alone,” Giorgio, Tony’s main bodyguard, warned from his post just outside the master bedroom door. “There are four women with him. They’ve been there a while.”
Damn it. That means he’s probably drunk or high already. “Tough. This can’t wait.” Viktor didn’t even knock, just stormed into the room and pointed at the women who were in various states of undress. The stench of drugs and sex filled the air. “Out.” He pointed at the door. “Now.”
“Hey, Vik, what’s got up your ass and died?” Tony stretched his naked body, patting the space beside him with a smirk. “Strip off and join us. I’m sure Maria here can make you feel better.”
“I don’t have time for that. I’ve just come from court.” Viktor glowered at the man who was – coincidentally - above average height, although not as tall as Viktor. The same man who had brilliant green eyes and short dark hair. “Duncan’s confession didn’t hold up in front of the judge.”
The change in Tony was instant. “What the fuck? I paid out hush money to Duncan’s mother just last night. Out, out. Get out now.” He shooed the women from his bed, rolling off the mattress and grabbing a robe.
Viktor closed the door behind the disgruntled women while Tony covered himself up.
“What happened?” Tony asked, tying the robe firmly around his waist. “I had that one in the bag. Banks is on the payroll, all he had to do was make sure Duncan got the least amount of jail time possible. The whole thing was rock solid.”
“Not if there was a witness to the crime,” Viktor said, wondering how much he should say. On the one hand, he’d spent a lot of years keeping Tony’s ass out of trouble, but on the other… I don’t want that intriguing psychic coming to Tony’s notice.
“What do you mean witness? Banks never mentioned a witness and I swear I didn’t see anyone else in the park that night.” Tony stalked over to the well-stocked bar that took up a quarter of his bedroom. “If there’d been a witness, Banks should’ve told me about it.”
Realizing Banks was going to spill the beans about the psychic anyway, Viktor said, “The prosecution brought in a psychic who read the scene. He described the same events you did when you told me what you’d done, events that didn’t tie in with Duncan’s confession.”
“Shit!” Tossing back a shot of whiskey, Tony slammed his glass down on the wooden counter. “Okay, okay. We can still salvage this. A psychic, you say. Seems like Prosecutor Hammond is getting cutesy which could be a pain in my ass. But it’s not a lost cause. Find this psychic and pay him to change his testimony. From what I’ve heard, all those magic users are academics with barely two cents to rub together. Shouldn’t cost me much to shut him down.”
Viktor hesitated. While there was a part of him that really wanted to hunt down the enigmatic Doctor Anthony Channon and find out what made that man tick, he couldn’t afford to be too hasty. He definitely didn’t want to be hunting down the psychic on Tony’s say-so. Better to get Tony off that idea and onto something else.
“Even if I could convince the psychic to change his testimony,” Viktor said slowly, “it won’t make any difference to Duncan’s case. It might be best to save your money. The judge has already ruled that Duncan’s not responsible for the murder. The police are holding him for wasting their time and resources. They’re not going to change their mind.” He didn’t mention that the psychic had described Tony perfectly. “The prosecution believes Duncan knows who the murderer is, and he’ll be questioned on that before he’s ever let go, if he’s released.”
Tony’s eyes sharpened as he met Viktor’s ice-blue ones. “Is he likely to talk?”
“You know him better than I do.” Duncan was Tony’s second cousin’s, Annie’s, boyfriend. “I assumed you chose him to be your fall guy for a reason.”
“He’s eager to prove his loyalty to the family. Fair panting with it.” Tony’s laugh was totally devoid of humor. “I got the impression that he believed if he served time for me, I’d see him right in the future.”
“You’ve set a bit of a precedent for that sort of thing,” Viktor said drily. It wasn’t something he agreed with. Sure, he lived his life in shades of gray, but he still had a strong sense of morals and justice. Tony left himself open to blackmail every time he did something stupid. Which was roughly once a month.
“He’s eyeing your job.” Tony smirked, leaving Viktor’s hand itching to smack his mouth off his face. “He was planning on making an honest woman out of Annie when he gets out of jail, and he’s not the first person to point out my righthand man’s not technically family by blood.”
Ah, now they were in familiar territory. Part of Tony’s success, and something that could easily prove to be his biggest downfall, was his insistence on people being tied to him and his organization in every way possible.
Vincent showed off his fangs. “I’ve told you before, paranormals don’t tie themselves down to anyone except the one they’re fated for. Life can get far too messy if they do. I’m not marrying or bonding with your sister or your aunt. If I haven’t proven myself to you by now, I never will, and frankly, I don’t give a shit. I’ll still be running around having my own brand of fun when you and Duncan are pushing up daisies.” An unnecessary dig Viktor blamed on his erratic mood.
“You could always turn me.” Tony’s eyes narrowed. “I know your lot don’t do that very often, but I’ve read about it. It can be done.”
And now this song and dance. Seriously, this is getting tedious. Tony had brought up the same idea every time he thought his righthand man had advantages over him. Fortunately, the man had a very limited knowledge about paranormals and vampires in particular.
Viktor laughed. “You want to give all this up?” He waved at the bed. “If I turned you, then I’d be your sire . That means I’d be the boss of you. You wouldn’t be able to piss without my permission, and your days of sex and drugs would be over. The only one your cock would work for, for at least the first two hundred years, would be me, because you’d be so under my thrall and panting all over me. Is that what you want? Did you want to give up your ass for me in the hopes I’d let you climax once in a blue moon?”
Tony shivered and grimaced. Clearly that was a no. Tony had a pathological hatred of anything he considered gay.
“Exactly.” Viktor sheathed his fangs. “Stop your nonsense. If you want to give Duncan my job, you’re well within your rights, and I won’t complain. As you say, I’m not blood. I’ll step aside. It’s no skin off my nose. It’s probably about time I started thinking about my future interests anyway. I’ve been around a while.”
And so have you, he thought. The only reason Tony’s hair wasn’t completely gray was because he paid a private hair stylist a small fortune every week to touch up his roots.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Tony snapped. Viktor internally smirked. If there was one thing Tony hated more than anything else was his perception of losing control over members of his “family.” “What are you going to do about Duncan?”
“I assume you’ll have Banks take care of him. If I turn up at the police station, the police are going to know within five seconds that he has ties to the family. Might be an idea to let your cousin know not to visit him either.”
“Oh, gods. Annie’s going to be crying buckets if her man goes to jail for anything less than murder. Are you sure we can’t get the psychic to change his mind? Convince him he ‘saw’ details of a separate case?”
Viktor hated that Tony used air quotes as if that made him seem more intelligent. “You’d be better using your influence on Banks and let him know he needs to straighten out if he wants your work in future. The man crumbled so badly in the courtroom he embarrassed himself.
“He would’ve been notified a psychic was going to testify. He had a full day to plan his cross examination, which he insisted on, when he should’ve just kept his mouth shut. All he did was insult the man in question, very poorly I might add, and then collapse into his seat moaning about how he wanted a recess when that didn’t work. If that’s the best representation your money can buy…”
“Pay Banks a visit tonight.” Tony glowered. “Remind him if Duncan talks, it’ll be his balls in a sling as well as Duncan’s.”
Oh, no. Viktor wasn’t touching that with a ten foot pole. He’d only gone to the court in the first place because he wanted to see how badly Tony could be in the shit. “You’ll have to send Giorgio. I’ve got things to do. I need to feed.” He didn’t but Tony had no idea how often, or not, a vampire had to take in blood.
Viktor also couldn’t be blamed if Tony got the idea that Viktor had to hunt for his sustenance. Viktor hadn’t done that in at least fifty years, but telling Tony he needed to take sustenance gave him a night off at least once a week. Personally, his feeding involved a nicely heated glass of the red stuff he kept stored in a private refrigerator while he was stretched out in his favorite armchair reading a book.
“Feed on the lawyer. That should shut him up.”
“I’ve got tastes, and he doesn’t have the right blood type for me. You know if you hadn’t been wildly intoxicated and took it into your head to go chasing a man with a sword through the park, you wouldn’t be having these problems. What the hell were you thinking?” Viktor was still trying to wrap his head around that.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Tony pouted. He was the boss of the largest gang on the West Coast, and he still pouted like a two-year-old if his fun was taken away from him. “I thought the man was an unhoused person no one would care about. I wanted to know what it was like to hunt someone. You know, the same thing you do at least once a week.”
“I do not go chasing random innocents through a park in the middle of the night brandishing a bloody sword. Seriously, I think that shit you’re snorting is killing off your brain cells.” Viktor was done with the conversation. “I’ll be back by lunch tomorrow. Try not to kill anyone else, at least until the police have someone in jail for the Fallows murder.”
“I think you’re forgetting who the boss of this family is,” Tony snarled.
“No.” Viktor let his eyes bleed red and saw Tony’s flinch. “I haven’t forgotten, but if you want to throw away your life by behaving like an idiot, then there’s going to come a time real soon when I’m just going to step back and wash my hands of this life and you. You’ve got some good deals going on, you’re making bank every single day. Ask yourself who’s responsible for making sure that all runs smoothly, allowing you time for your women and pleasurable activities.
“If you’re really that stupid to throw it all away because you’ve got some ridiculous paranormal envy going on, then don’t be surprised if you turn around one day and find I’m not guarding your back the way you thought I should be. I’m here by choice, not because I have to be.” Viktor strode toward the door. “I’ll check in by lunch tomorrow.”
“Happy hunting, blood sucker.”
Viktor rolled his eyes at the insult and let himself out of the room.
Remind me why I’m here again? The problem was, he really wasn’t sure. Striding back through the house, Viktor heard someone calling his name, but he ignored it. The startling eyes and fragile innocence of the psychic came into his mind unbidden. Suddenly, Viktor thought about Tony’s last words about hunting. Maybe it’s time to hunt down a psychic. Because if there was one thing Viktor knew as a fact – that man was proving difficult to forget, and he was determined to find out why.