17. The Saint Legacy
THE SAINT LEGACY
Reign felt it the moment darkness settled over Richmond—that shift in his body, the way his senses sharpened, the way the hunger that had been gnawing at him all day finally eased into something manageable. He could move now. Could breathe without feeling like his skin was about to catch fire.
He drove straight to Smoke & Gold.
The hookah lounge was closed to the public tonight. No customers, no bottle girls, no music. Just the low hum of the ventilation system and the faint smell of apple-mint tobacco lingering in the air. The front doors were locked, but Reign had keys to everything his family owned.
He walked through the empty main room—plush couches, low tables, dim lighting designed to make people feel like they were somewhere exclusive—and headed toward the back. Past the bar. Past the storage room. Down a narrow hallway that led to a door most people didn't even know existed.
The private room.
Reign knocked once, then pushed the door open.
Cairo Saint sat at the head of a long mahogany table, a glass of dark liquor in front of him, smoke curling up from a cigar resting in a crystal ashtray.
He was dressed in all black—tailored slacks, a silk button-down, gold cufflinks catching the low light.
His locs were pulled back, silver threading through the black, and his face was unreadable.
He looked like money. Like power. Like someone who'd been alive long enough to see empires rise and fall.
"Sit down," Cairo said without looking up.
Reign closed the door behind him and took the seat across from his uncle.
The room smelled like expensive tobacco and old leather.
The walls were lined with bookshelves—first editions, rare texts, things Cairo had collected over centuries.
A reminder that this man had been building while Reign was still figuring out how to survive.
Cairo finally looked up, his dark eyes locking onto Reign's.
"You see what happened today," Cairo said. It wasn't a question.
"Yeah. I saw."
"Then you understand what we up against."
Reign leaned back in his chair, jaw tight. "Noctis got people moving in daylight. They got the serum already or they got somebody working on it."
"They got access," Cairo corrected. "But they don't got control. Not yet. That's the only reason we still breathing." He picked up his cigar, took a slow drag, then exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. "You know how long I been building this, Reign?"
"Long time."
"Two hundred and thirty-seven years." Cairo's voice was calm, measured, but there was weight behind every word.
"I came to Richmond in 1787. Wasn't nothing here but dirt roads and tobacco fields.
White folks running plantations, Black folks in chains, and a whole lot of darkness nobody was paying attention to. "
Reign stayed quiet, listening.
"I was turned in 1652," Cairo continued.
"West Africa. Before they dragged us across the water.
My maker was old—ancient even then. He taught me how to survive, how to hunt, how to move through the world without drawing attention.
But he also taught me something most vampires don't understand: discipline. "
Cairo tapped ash from his cigar into the tray.
"Most vampire families operate like animals. They feed reckless. They kill without thinking. They draw attention, and then they wonder why hunters come for them. Why humans start asking questions. Why their empires collapse." He shook his head. "I built different. I built smart."
"You built in the shadows," Reign said.
"Exactly." Cairo's eyes gleamed. "Nightlife. Clubs. Bars. Lounges. Places where people expect to see blood, expect to see chaos, expect to lose track of time. We feed in plain sight, but we do it careful. We control the narrative. We own the spaces where humans come to forget themselves."
Reign thought about After Dark, about Smoke & Gold, about every spot his family controlled across Richmond and the Tri-Cities. It wasn't just business. It was infrastructure. A feeding ground disguised as entertainment.
"And Noctis?" Reign asked.
Cairo's expression darkened.
"Noctis," he said slowly, "is everything I ain't. She old—older than me by at least a century. Came up in Europe during the plague years, when death was so common nobody noticed a few extra bodies. She learned to hunt without discipline, without strategy. Just pure predation."
"So why she here?"
"Because she want what I built." Cairo's voice was cold now. "She been watching Richmond for decades, waiting for the right moment to move in. She see the clubs, the money, the territory, and she want it. But it ain't just about business, Reign. It's personal."
"Y'all got history?"
Cairo smiled, but there was no warmth in it. "We was lovers once. Long time ago. Before I came to America. She wanted me to stay in Europe, keep hunting the way we always had. I wanted something different. Wanted to build something that could last."
"So you left."
"I left. And she never forgave me for it." Cairo took another drag from his cigar. "She think I went soft. Think I chose humans over my own nature. But what she don't understand is that survival ain't about being the strongest predator. It's about being the smartest."
Reign processed that. "And now she coming for everything you built."
"Now she coming to prove a point," Cairo corrected. "That my way don't work. That discipline is weakness. That the only way to survive is to take what you want and burn everything else to the ground."
The room was silent for a moment except for the faint hum of the ventilation system.
"She get that serum," Cairo said quietly, "and it's over. She can move during the day. Her crew can move during the day. They can hit our spots while we sleeping, drain our people, take our territory piece by piece. We lose our biggest advantage—the fact that we control the night."
Reign's hands curled into fists on the table. "So what you want me to do?"
Cairo leaned forward, his eyes boring into Reign's.
"I want you to get Arissa Sterling. Tonight. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Tonight."
"I told you, she need time to?—"
"We don't got time!" Cairo's voice cracked like a whip. "You think Noctis sitting around waiting? You think she ain't already got people watching that girl? You think she ain't already planning to take her?"
Reign's jaw clenched. "I can get her to come willingly. I just need?—"
"I don't care if she come willingly or not." Cairo's voice dropped back to that cold, controlled tone. "I care that she end up in our hands with her research intact and her cooperation secured. You understand me?"
"Yeah. I understand."
"Do you?" Cairo stood up, walking around the table until he was standing directly in front of Reign. "Because from where I'm sitting, it look like you distracted. It look like you got feelings getting in the way of family business."
Reign stood too, meeting his uncle's eyes. "I ain't distracted."
"You sure? Because Soleil told me you hesitated when she offered to handle the chemist. You told her you could do it better, that you could get the girl to cooperate.
" Cairo's expression was unreadable. "That sound like strategy to you?
Or that sound like a man who saw a pretty face and started thinking with the wrong head? "
"It's strategy," Reign said through gritted teeth. "Arissa smart. She got options. We come at her wrong, she run to Noctis out of spite or she destroy her research before we can get it. I can close this. I just need you to trust me."
Cairo stared at him for a long moment, then nodded slowly.
"Aight. I'ma trust you. But understand something, nephew.
" He stepped closer, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper.
"This ain't about romance. This ain't about what you want or what make you feel good.
This about survival. This about protecting everything I built, everything your mama and your daddy died protecting, everything that keep Sevyn and Soleil and every other vampire in this city alive. "
Reign felt the weight of that—the legacy, the responsibility, the blood that had been spilled to build what they had.
"You get that girl and her research by dawn," Cairo continued. "You bring her here, you make sure she understand she working for us now, and you make sure Noctis can't get to her. You do that, and we got a chance. You don't..." He trailed off, letting the implication hang in the air.
"And if she refuse?" Reign asked quietly.
Cairo's expression didn't change. "Then you make her understand she don't got a choice. By any means necessary, Reign. I don't care if you gotta seduce her, threaten her, or drag her out that lab by her hair. She end up in our hands tonight or we all dead by next week."
Reign's phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, glancing at the screen.
Soreya (8:52 PM): Can we please talk? I'm sorry about earlier. I just need to understand what's going on.
His chest tightened.
Cairo saw the look on his face and shook his head. "That's the other problem."
"What?"
"Soreya." Cairo said her name like it was a disease. "You still ain't handled that situation."
"I'm handling it."
"You ain't handling shit. You got a human woman who know too much, who asking too many questions, who getting too close to the truth. That's a liability, Reign."
"She ain't a liability. She just?—"
"She just what? She just the woman you love?
" Cairo's voice was mocking now. "You think love matter in this world?
You think love gonna protect her when Noctis figure out you care about her?
You think love gonna stop her from running to the police or the news or whoever else when she finally see what you really are? "
"She wouldn't do that."
"You don't know what she'd do. That's the problem." Cairo moved back to his seat, picking up his glass. "You want my advice? You end it. Tonight. You tell her it's over, you cut her loose, you make sure she can't connect you to nothing that's about to go down."
"I can't do that."
"Then you better be ready to turn her or kill her. Because those the only two options that keep this family safe."
The words hit Reign like a punch to the gut.
Turn her or kill her.
He thought about Soreya—her smile, her laugh, the way she looked at him like he was still human. The way she'd stood in the sunlight today, crying over Imani, demanding answers he couldn't give.
"I ain't killing her," Reign said, his voice hard.
"Then you turning her?"
Reign didn't answer.
Cairo sighed, shaking his head. "You in love with the idea of being human, Reign.
That's your problem. You think if you keep one foot in their world, you can pretend you ain't what you are.
But you can't. You a vampire. You always gonna be a vampire.
And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can make the hard choices that keep you alive. "
Reign's phone buzzed again.
Soreya (8:55 PM): Please. I'm scared and I don't know what to do.
He stared at the message, his jaw clenched so tight it ached.
Cairo stood up, buttoning his jacket. "You got until dawn to bring me Arissa Sterling.
After that, Soleil taking over and she ain't gonna be as gentle as you.
" He walked toward the door, then paused, looking back.
"And Reign? Handle the Soreya situation.
One way or another. Because if you don't, I will. "
The door closed behind him, leaving Reign alone in the room.
He sat there for a long moment, staring at his phone. At Soreya's messages. At the weight of everything Cairo had just laid on him.
Get Arissa Sterling by dawn.
Handle Soreya.
Choose between love and survival.
Choose between what he wanted and what his family needed.
Reign stood up, pocketing his phone. He walked out of Smoke & Gold and climbed into the Hellcat, the engine roaring to life.
He had two stops to make tonight.
First, Arissa Sterling. He'd get her cooperation, secure the serum, and bring her back to Cairo before sunrise. He'd use every bit of charm, every bit of strategy, every bit of manipulation he had to make her see that working with the Saint family was her best option.
And then he'd go to Soreya.
He'd tell her the truth—all of it. What he was. What his family was. What the world she'd stumbled into really looked like.
And then he'd give her the same choice Cairo had given him.
Stay and become part of this world.
Or leave and never look back.
Reign pulled out of the parking lot, heading toward Petersburg.
The night was just beginning.
And by the time the sun came up, everything would be different.