Chapter 2
Ava
A week later
My life had turned into a nightmare, one that was constantly plagued with long bouts of insomnia and terrible dreams.
I don’t remember the last time I’d gotten a full night’s sleep. It had been weeks. Maybe even months because every time I lay down and closed my eyes, I saw my father’s last moments play out in my mind, over and over again for the world to see until the end of time.
Forever captured on video.
Forever a murderer.
My family would carry the stigma of it forever.
The gunshots echoed in my head, and I groaned with annoyance, pressing my face into the white cotton pillow beneath it. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to think of anything but the crazed look in his eyes as that fateful scene ran across my mind for the nine billionth time.
But it wouldn’t stop.
It never stopped.
Ever.
It had been a massacre. My father had walked into Café Du Monde, where tourists and locals alike were enjoying a coffee in the late morning with the powdery sugar-loaded beignets that they were so famous for and pulled out a submachine gun.
The person who had captured it all on film had been a traveling college student from England, a young man who’d been inordinately excited about trying the sugary pastries he’d seen on several videos on YouTube.
He’d brought his high school sweetheart to New Orleans with them, and he’d planned to propose that night at a fancy dinner at a steakhouse in the French Quarter.
I could still hear his voice like he was sitting there in the room with me, asking his girl if she wanted a coffee with her beignets.
She smiled at him, her eyes sparkling with excitement of visiting America for the first time.
She’d nodded with enthusiasm, looking forward to her breakfast just as much as he was.
I’d never forget the way her smile faltered as she looked over his shoulder, the camera still facing her and the way her mouth suddenly twisted in raw fear.
Everything went insane after that. The video flew back and forth as they rushed to hide beneath the table, taking cover on the floor amidst the powdered sugar and dirt beneath them.
The camera had panned back, and the shooting had started. In fear, the young man had dropped his equipment, but not before it captured the face of my father on film.
There’d been no doubt that it was him. None.
They called it a mental break of some kind, that he’d been fine one day and had just snapped the next, but that wasn’t enough for me. The people who had made that diagnosis had never even met him. They hadn’t known anything about him aside from the files that had been prepared about him.
I’d seen them.
They’d all been a lie. Every word.
Right up to the moment that a group of men had surrounded him and broken his neck in the middle of the busiest café in the French Quarter.
The file had said they were cops, but I knew better. I knew what they were.
They were vampires.
I knew because my father had told me about them.
I knew the man behind the monster the media had painted him to be.
My dad had been sweet and caring. Years ago, he’d been a respected professor at the University of Louisiana.
He’d taught mechanical engineering for years, but he’d stepped away from that in order to take a position as a consultant for a small company before he branched out on his own.
Taking control of his career had been far more lucrative, yet it brought a certain set of dangers along with it.
His clients were dangerous, sometimes crime families, sometimes monsters, sometimes both.
Some of them were shifters. Others were vampires.
There were more, but he didn’t tell me about them all.
He’d taught me to protect myself against them nonetheless, ever since I was a little girl.
I grew up knowing that much of the world was run by the hands of monsters.
I’d done my best to avoid them all my life, but then it had turned personal when they’d somehow turned my father into the villain that shot up Café Du Monde.
My father had never been a killer. I was convinced there was something more behind his death. I was sure of it.
Before he was killed, he’d started meeting with a new batch of clients. I’d known only the bare minimum in that they were members of the Venuti Clan, but he hadn’t told me what for or why, but I did know he’d taken a job with monsters and ended up dead.
I couldn’t accept what they said on the news. My father hadn’t been mentally ill. He hadn’t lost his sanity. He hadn’t decided to end it all.
No. I would never accept any of that. I couldn’t. I know he didn’t just snap. I needed to know who did that to him.
I needed to clear my family’s name.
What if the reason he broke was vampires? What if it had been the Venuti that had compelled him to act that way? What if they’d taken away his will and forced him to murder helpless innocents? I needed to know the reason.
I’d sacrifice everything to find those answers.
Honestly, I didn’t care if I wound up dead. I needed to know.
All I knew was that it had something to do with my father’s sunfire bullets.
He’d explained the science of them to me once. They had a solid magnesium ribbon inside the core. Once the gun was fired, it exposed the magnesium to oxygen and boom. An explosion of light and heat that could rival sunlight. The perfect weapon for killing vampires.
It was a secret he’d shared with me just days before he died. He’d taught me how to make them because he wanted to keep me safe.
With a sigh, I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling.
I was lucky if I slept more than three hours since I’d gone to bed somewhere around midnight.
The full moon shone through the maple leaves of the tree outside my window, sending my room into a flickering showcase of light and shadow.
It was really quite pretty, and on a normal night I might have enjoyed it.
But… something was different. Something felt off.
The hair on the back of my neck rose and I felt the sudden sensation that I was no longer alone in my own room. Someone was here in my room with me.
I’d learned to trust my gut a long time ago and this time would be no different.
With a nervous swallow, I pushed my hands against the bed so I could sit against my headboard.
As my upper back pressed against the padded leather surface, my gaze passed around the room to the soft recliner I had beside the window.
I had initially set it up as my own personal reading nook, but the gray fabric chair was currently occupied by a very large man in a very nice suit.
The light of the moon was just enough to illuminate him in shadow, but I could see enough of him to know that I’d come across him somewhere before.
I tried to rack my brain for any reason why and how a man like him would be sitting here in my room.
In a perfect world, he would be a male model.
His hair was dark gold, a perfect mix of mahogany and golden threads, a beautiful color that reminded me of a sandy beach after a sudden rainstorm.
It was full and thick, and long enough for me to run my fingers through and grab just enough to pull his head back by it.
His jawline was covered by a thick beard that was neat and trim and the sudden urge to feel the scrape of it against my skin passed through me.
I swallowed hard, annoyed at myself for thinking something like that.
It was obvious that he was well off. I wasn’t certain of the maker of his suit in the dark, but it was either Saint Laurent or Valentino by the look of it.
It was very fine black material with a hint of dark gray shimmer that happened to catch the moonlight perfectly.
A pristinely white button-up shirt was beneath it.
His tie was perfectly done, the fabric covered in a silvery gray rectangular pattern that shone like silk, which it probably was.
His matching slacks were flawlessly pressed, and his black leather shoes looked like they had been recently buffed and shined.
Everything about him spoke of money, but more than that, it spoke to his power.
His gaze bored into mine, sparkling with a certain amusement and an even harder edge hinting at a deeper darkness that should have scared me.
His irises were hazel, a captivating mixture of emerald and browns and yellows.
The colors only seemed to intensify under the light of the moon and as the branches shifted outside my window, they began to change.
In the shadows, they appeared to be greener, and, in the light, the yellow hue burned bright enough to shine like gold.
He was a wolf shifter.
He’d been the one to break open my cage in the Venuti tower. He’d been the one who had given me back my freedom and now he was sitting here in my room.
I knew enough about him from that night to know that he was dangerous. I’d need to protect myself from whatever this was.
I lifted my chin, pressing my lips firmly together and tensing hard. I didn’t look, but I prepared myself to grab the silver knife on my bedside table. I always kept it there beside a wooden stake just in case of times like this.
“Ava Winters,” he breathed, and I stiffened.
He knew my name…
“I know all about your recent adventures, little human. I’m here to ask you some questions and you’re going to answer.
If you cooperate, I will leave you here in peace.
If not, I’m going to have to punish you for your disobedience,” he purred, and I decided I didn’t like the way goosebumps were rising all over my arms just at the sound of his voice.
I pressed my thighs together anxiously and prepared myself to fight.