Chapter 15 - Ameera
15
AMEERA
Anson jerks away and surges to his feet with wide, panicked eyes. His reaction is just as negative as I expected, though not as violent as it could’ve been since he’s not attacking me.
“No,” he says as he points at me. “No fucking way.” He turns and starts pacing back and forth in the space between his desk and the sitting area with his hands on his head, mussing his curls. “He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t he?” I ask in a careful voice. “He hired an assassin to eliminate the vampire who attacked Amber. Why wouldn’t he do the same to the vampire who murdered his son?”
“Because you didn’t murder me,” he says as he faces me again, his voice rising and his eyes darkening with his surging emotions. “You told him that.”
“Would you believe the vampire who hurt your sister if he’d told you he was innocent back then?”
His shoulders slump as all the anger leaches out of him. “No.” He looks away, his expression bleak. “I wanted that bastard dead as much as my father did. Hell, it was my idea to hire the assassin.” He shakes his head. “This is all my fault.”
I rise to my feet and go to him, my knees wobbling a bit. Healing any wound caused by silver takes a lot more energy than a mundane injury would, and I’ll need to feed again soon to regain my strength. I stop in front of him and cup his distraught face in my hands.
“You know it’s not your fault, zem?r,” I say as I slide my hands down to his chest, enjoying the feel of his solid muscles under my palms. “Any more than Vanessa shooting you was yours, mine, or anyone else’s fault but hers. Besides, I could very well be wrong about his involvement. It could’ve been someone else trying to kill me. Lord knows I’ve accumulated other enemies over the centuries.”
He purses his lips, not looking convinced any more than I am. Then he glances toward the coffee table and I follow his gaze to the mangled bloody bullet still lying on the glass top.
“We need to figure out who did this,” he says. “I’ll ask Dre to run ballistics on the bullet. Maybe it can tell us who shot you.”
I nod in agreement with his idea. Though I’m certain he’s well aware as much as I am that the likelihood of a trained killer being foolish enough to leave behind any incriminating evidence is quite low.
“What about any traffic or security cam footage in the area?” I ask.
“I can ask Dre to look into that, too,” he says as he pulls his phone out. “Besides, I owe the man a thank you for setting me straight.”
“About?”
“About what a clueless, ungrateful asshole I’ve been,” he says with a grimace.
“Ah,” I reply with a slight a smirk. “Then be sure to give him my thanks, too.”
That gets a hint of a smile out of him as he places his call.
“Please tell me you’ve pulled your head out of your ass and made up with Ameera,” Dre says as a greeting.
Anson’s smile widens, and he reaches out to take my hand and twines his fingers with mine. “We’re getting there.”
“Good,” Dre says. “Now you can tell me why you’re waking me up in the middle of the night.”
Anson’s smile vanishes. “Someone shot Ameera with a silver bullet outside Haven Hall tonight.”
“Oh my God,” Dre replies. “Is she okay?”
“She is now,” Anson says.
“What happened?”
Anson describes the details of the shooting as he tightens his grip on my hand with a ghost of the panic that was on his face while the bullet was still inside me. He doesn’t once mention my suspicion that his father is responsible.
“Any idea who did it?”
“I need your help with that,” he says. “I’m hoping you can use the bullet to find out. And maybe you can check if there’s any street cam or security footage of the shooter, too.”
“Done and done,” Dre replies.
“I’ll leave the bullet with Harrison at the house. You can get it from him in the morning.”
“Will do,” Dre says. “Hopefully, I’ll have some answers for you tomorrow night.” His voice grows serious. “Until then… watch your backs.”
“We will,” Anson says. “And, Dre? Thanks… for everything.”
“That’s what friends do,” Dre says. “They call each other out on their bullshit. I’d expect the same from you. See you tomorrow night, brother.”
“Later,” Anson replies, then huffs out a breath as he ends the call. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
I touch his arm. “You came here to check on your club,” I say. “There’s still time for that before dawn.”
He glances down at the blood on my chest and clothes. “We’re not exactly in any condition to be socializing with blood all over us. And to be honest, I couldn’t care less about my club right now. I’d just assume we go home before someone tries to hurt you again.”
I’m relieved he wants to leave, since I can feel my bloodlust keenly right now. It sits like a hollow knot in my belly, urging me to lure one of Anson’s employees to a dark corner so I can glamour them and drink my fill. It’s been a while since I’ve let myself grow weak enough to be tempted like this, so it’s probably for the best that we leave.
“Shall we?” I ask as I move toward the door. My knees wobble again and Anson darts over to grab my arm.
“You okay?” he asks with a frown.
“There’s far too much temptation out there,” I say as I wave a hand toward the main room. “I need to feed soon.”
“Let’s go,” he says.
My phone rings in my jacket pocket and I pull it out and glance at the screen. Well, well. It’s the mage council responding to my voicemail. I show the screen to Anson, knowing he’ll recognize the phone number, then answer the call. Protocol dictates that I don’t answer it and let it go to voice mail. But the sudden surge of rage that arises at the very thought of the council being responsible for shooting Anson and me tonight makes me impulsive.
“Yes?” I say, smirking at the long moment of silence that follows as Anson steps closer with a disapproving frown.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you’d break protocol and answer this call,” the snide male voice on the line says, and I know it’s Allen Hale because he sounds so eerily like his son. Anson’s eyes widen as he recognizes his father’s voice, too.
“I imagine not as surprised as you are that I was capable of answering it at all,” I reply, hoping to get him to confess to putting a hit out on me.
He ignores my attempt to bait him and says, “The council accepts your request for a parley.”
“So you have nothing to say about what you’ve done?” I demand. “About how you hurt your son in the process?”
“I don’t have a son anymore,” he says, his voice a low growl, still not giving anything away. “You made sure of that. Whatever happens to him now is on you.” Then he takes in a deep breath and continues in a brusque voice. “The Unity Botanical Garden at midnight tomorrow night. Do you accept these terms for the parley?”
“I accept,” I answer, and then Allen Hale ends the call before I can say another word, let alone goad him into incriminating himself.
“Bloody hell,” I mutter as I scowl at the phone in my hand.
I shake my head as I tuck it back in my pocket, then look at Anson. He heard everything his father said loud and clear, and the stricken expression on his face breaks my heart.
“He didn’t mean that,” I say. “He’s not thinking clearly right now.”
Anson ignores me as he goes over to the coffee table and picks up the bullet, then puts it in his pocket. Then he walks over to his desk and opens one of the large bottom drawers and pulls out a pistol. He checks it over before tucking into the back waistband of his jeans.
“I’ve never seen you use a gun before,” I say as he closes the drawer.
“It’s not my preferred weapon,” he says with a scowl. “But I don’t exactly have any other options anymore, now do I?”
His tone has a barbed edge with that passive aggressive comment, but instead of responding with guilt, like I have so many other times, I respond with anger. We may have made up, but I don’t have to tolerate backhanded comments like that, no matter how upset he is.
“Would you rather be dead, with no bloody options at all?” I say, my voice waspish.
Anson glares at me, his eyes darkening for a moment before he gets a grip on his emotions again. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” I say as I lift my chin. “Now let’s go home.”
I turn and stalk out of the room, then head down the hall toward the alley door with Anson following me in silence. I’m still too angry to accept his apology. Maybe after I’ve fed, I’ll be more amenable to it, but for now, keeping my mouth shut is best before I say something I’ll regret. I reach the door and pause long enough to draw my pistol from the belly band holster tucked into the waistband of my pants. No one’s bloody well getting the drop on me again tonight.
I glance back to find that he’s drawn his gun as well. I give him a terse nod, and then we hurry out the door with our guns at the ready in case the shooter has another go at me. We make it to the Porsche without a hint of trouble. This time I drive, needing something to focus on besides my bloodlust and my resentment toward the man sitting next to me. I take my usual aggressive driving style to new heights in my haste to get home where it’s safe, and revel a bit each time Anson grips the dash and the door handle with a worried frown.
“I really am sorry,” Anson says in a subdued voice as we stop at a traffic light a few blocks from home.
“I know,” I reply, my voice brusque since I’m still upset with him.
“You’re the only family I have left now,” he says. “I can’t stomach you turning your back on me, too.”
I look at him and see the heartbreak in his eyes, and it cracks the stony wall I’d put up between us. “That’s never going to happen,” I say as I place my hand on his knee. “I can be angry with you and still love you.”
“I know that. I just…” He shakes his head. “I feel like everything that matters to me is being taken away from me one by one, and I can’t afford to lose anything or anyone else,” he says as he clasps my hand in his. “It’s like some kind of karmic fuck-you from the universe that I don’t even know what I did to deserve. Hell, my own father is trying to kill the woman I love. How fucked up is that?”
“We don’t know if he’s responsible for that,” I say. “For all we know, it could be someone else.”
He nods at my words but appears no more persuaded by them than he was earlier. “If I could just have my magic back,” he says, his forlorn words feeding my guilt. “Then I could keep you safe and I wouldn’t have to lose someone else I care about.”
He makes it sound as if it’s a foregone conclusion that he’s going to lose me, and it only makes me feel worse about the part I played in all the other things he’s already lost. But my guilt won’t accomplish anything, so maybe it’s time I consider doing something more proactive about it.
“You should at least try to talk to your sister again,” I say as the light turns green and we continue on our way.
“Why?” he asks, his tone bitter. “So I can scare the shit out of her all over again? I’d just make things worse for her. She’s better off without me in her life now.”
I don’t believe that for a second, but getting him to realize that himself isn’t something I’ll be able to do. He needs to talk to Amber, but he’s too stubborn for me to convince him to do it. She needs to be the one to reach out to him, but she’s probably too afraid to do so after seeing him as a vampire for the first time last night. But maybe I can do something about that. I just have to figure out how.
“We need a plan in case tomorrow night turns into a shit show,” Anson says, changing the subject.
“You don’t think your father will honor the parley?”
“After tonight?” he asks. “Who knows what he’s capable of?”
This time, I don’t bother reminding him we don’t definitively know if his father put a hit out on me. It’s the most logical explanation, and I don’t think either of us really believe anyone else but Allen Hale was responsible. Just because I want it to be wrong doesn’t make it any less likely to be true.
“All we can do is protect ourselves in the event the parley goes south,” I say. “Anything else will violate the truce of the parley, and I refuse to do that.”
“The brood is lucky to have you.”
“Not as lucky as I am to have you,” I say with a smile as I pull to a stop outside the gate of my property.
Anson smiles back at me as it slides open, though there’s still a deep and abiding sadness in his eyes that pains me. I want that sadness gone, and as I drive through the now open gate, I vow to myself to do everything within my power to make it go away.