Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
Elliot
Sanguine occupies a glass-and-steel office building on the far edge of the city, all sharp lines and empty space. It looks important from the outside. From the inside, it feels unfinished. Like something pretending to be power.
There are no busy floors humming with purpose. No vampire and human employed army moving at Lucian’s command. Just a handful of people, spread thin, eyes flicking toward me and then away again, like they’re not sure what I am yet—or if I’ll last.
I shower in a bathroom that smells faintly of bleach and nothing else. No perfume. No warmth. I scrub until the water runs cold, until my skin aches and the blood beneath it feels too loud. When I’m done, Santiago has left clean clothes folded on the counter. Simple. Black. Practical.
I change slowly, carefully, as though if I move too fast I’ll splinter. At this point after everything that happened with Lucian and Kayla, I’m being held together by fraying threads.
By the time I step back into the main office area, my ruined dress is gone. My reflection in the mirror is calmer. Colder. More composed than I feel.
It should feel like freedom.
Instead, my chest hurts in a way that refuses to ease.
Lucian’s face won’t leave me. The way he looked at me—shocked, wounded, furious, all tangled together. The way he said my name, like it meant something sacred. Like it belonged to him.
And Kayla…
Kayla.
The image of her on that bed flashes behind my eyes again. Alive, but not the way she was supposed to be.
I press my fingers into my palms, grounding myself in the quiet hum of the building. I want to believe Lucian didn’t know. But I don’t know if I can. He’s lied to me so many times before. And if he has lied about Kayla, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive him for keeping this from me.
I sink to the edge of one of Sanguine’s sparse chairs, the leather cold beneath my thighs.
Lucian didn’t cage me with locks or chains.
He did it with proximity. With answers that almost came, with truths that hovered just out of reach.
With the illusion that I was choosing him freely while the world narrowed around us.
My heart twists painfully at the memory of walking away from him. At how much it took not to look back. At how badly I wanted him to follow me.
But he didn’t.
And maybe that’s all the proof I need.
Love isn’t supposed to feel curated. Like I’m being shaped to fit someone else’s life. And right now, I need to believe that walking away was the first real choice I’ve made.
I draw a slow breath, staring out at the familiar city beyond Sanguine’s unfamiliar windows.
“There you are.” I turn to see Santiago strolling into the room like he owns it. Which, I suppose, he does. “Settling in?”
I stand and nod even though the answer to his question is actually no.
He smiles. “You made the right choice,” he says. “Soon, Lucian and your time at VMR will be nothing more than a passing shadow, an insignificant moment measured against a lifetime of success.”
His fingers brush my elbow as he passes me to stare out the windows at the lightening sky. The touch is casual, almost absentminded.
My spine stiffens.
I don’t like it.
“Magnificent view, don’t you agree?”
Before I realize it, I’m drawn to his side to stare out the window.
“Think you could get used to this?” he asks.
“I told you I’ll only stay if you agree not to try to kill Lucian again,” I say.
He flicks a hand dismissively, as if the thought barely deserves air. “Yes, yes. I won’t waste my time trying to end him. Besides,” he adds smoothly, eyes still on the city, “I now have the thing he wants more than power.”
Me. He means me.
“And there are far more effective ways to knock a man off his pedestal.” His hand lifts to spin a curl around his finger, and heat crawls across my skin. Not from desire, but from warning.
I step away to put more space between us. “Don’t.”
Something flickers in his eyes. Surprise. Then quickly smoothed over with amusement.
“Right,” he says. “Too soon.”
Too telling.
He clears his throat. “Look, Elliot. You don’t have to be anything here unless you want to be.
You could have a real position at Sanguine.
Real influence. Pick your poison. Media.
Broadcast. Investigative journalism. You have instincts, sharp ones.
You could build something meaningful here. With me.”
For a second, a future opens in my mind. Me behind a desk, behind a camera, chasing truth instead of being buried under it. A life that’s mine, one I used to dream of while I was human.
“That’s…tempting,” I admit.
Santiago’s smile widens.
“Oh, it gets better,” he says. “See, Lucian’s empire looks untouchable from the outside. But inside?” He taps his temple. “It’s porous. Always has been.”
Facing him fully, I tilt my head, curious. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, like you, people get tired of being owned,” he says. “Especially our kind. So I give them options.”
I stay silent so that he will go on. He does.
“Over the years, I’ve quietly offered some of Lucian’s people…incentives. Double pay to feed me information. Access. Schedules. Weak points.” He shrugs. “Some stay. Others realize they’re safer with me and switch permanently to Sanguine’s payroll.”
My stomach turns, but I keep my face neutral. Impressed.
“You’ve been siphoning his operation,” I guess.
“Carefully,” he corrects. “Slowly enough that he wouldn’t notice a pattern. No sudden losses. No obvious betrayal. Just…erosion.”
Just theft, piece by piece.
He watches my reaction closely, clearly pleased. “Some people need a bit more convincing than others.” He nods to me. “But by the time Lucian realizes what’s happening, there won’t be enough left on his side to fight back.”
My eyes widen with forced admiration. “That’s…brilliant.”
But whether he meant to or not, Santiago’s just given away his plan.
I don’t know if it’s Lucian being my master that makes me feel such loyalty to him, even after everything, or if it’s because my heart is still struggling to let him go, but the answer I’m feeling is getting harder to keep hidden.
Santiago is still talking, still outlining his quiet war, but I barely hear him now.
Because I understand—
I just traded one monster for another.
“I don’t want Benicio de Santis’s holdings,” he is saying when I finally tune back in. “I want all of Tenebris. And I’ll have you with me every step of the way.”
Before I can respond, his hand snaps up, fingers closing around my chin. He forces my face up until I’m looking straight at him, his grip firm, owning.
“Maybe I’ll even indulge your sexual curiosities,” he whispers. “Bind you with ropes and hang you from the ceiling. Show you off like the magnificent piece of art you are.”
His thumb presses just beneath my lip, a mockery of tenderness.
“I can sate your appetite,” he murmurs, “better than Lucian ever could. He pretends restraint is virtue, but I know hunger and untapped potential when I see it.”
His words hit me wrong from every angle. He thinks he’s already claimed something that isn’t his.
Then he releases me abruptly, already turning away.
“Get some rest,” he adds over his shoulder. “You’re going to need it.”
Santiago leaves me alone after that.
I linger where he left me for a while, until I decide it’s time to learn more about Sanguine and the vampire who wants to own me.
I move cautiously through the floor, weaving between sparsely placed desks and a few workers.
My eyes drift to them, wondering how many once served under Lucian, how many had betrayed him by willingly handing themselves over to his enemy.
Like me, I guess.
Well, maybe not like me.
When a man rises from his desk, water bottle in hand, likely heading for a refill, I slip to his station on light feet. The monitor is asleep but unlocked.
I move the mouse to wake the screen and begin to skim through the windows already up on the screen. Digging a little deeper, I find interesting things. Financial ledgers disguised as shell accounts. Media subsidiaries that don’t exist. Payments funneled through charities that never file reports.
Then I find an even more interesting folder.
My fingers go cold as I open it.
Human trafficking routed through “exclusive donor events.” Blackmail archives on everyone from politicians to judges. Blood banks siphoned illegally, records altered to hide the dead.
Sanguine isn’t a legitimate media corporation like VMR. It’s a cover.
And I just found its rot. All of it damning.
I work fast then, determination sharpening me into something precise. I copy everything—every ledger, every email, every name—and route it through an encrypted dump, splitting it into pieces the best I can with the lame skills I have.
But who to send it to?
The cursor hovers over the send button.
This will be my last gift to Lucian. My final send-off.
I type in one of the emails I remember from when I sent in my resume what feels like centuries ago and click send. Someone in VMR will find it and know what to do with the information.
The progress bar crawls forward.
Then it’s done.
I wipe the access logs and return the computer to exactly the way I found it. As I see the employee rounding the corner, coming back to his desk, I hurry away.
Santiago once tried to burn Lucian and me alive. But I don’t need fire to bring Sanguine down. Now he’ll have no choice but to watch everything he has turn to ash.
The elevator is too slow, so I take the stairs, counting breaths, listening for footsteps, for raised voices, for the first crack of realization to what I’ve done. Nothing yet.
Good.
By the time I step out into the early morning, my pulse is like a war drum in my ears.
I don’t have much of a plan from here, but I don’t look back at the building. I don’t need to. Whatever Sanguine was, it’ll be dead soon enough.