Chapter 39
Chapter thirty-nine
Saiden
“Bianca Holgrem.”
Saiden snapped his head over to where his brother sat in front of the computer monitor. “You found her?”
They had been searching for almost an entire day for any information about the blonde vamp that attacked Cora.
Baylin had been able to pull only a single blurry still from the security cameras before the system went dark, and he’d been running it through an enhanced facial recognition program for the past ten hours.
Granted it would have been more like twelve hours except Saiden wasn’t particularly helpful in providing details at the beginning.
His family showed up at the compound shortly after he started Cora’s transformation, but he didn’t even bother asking where they’d been or what happened. All he cared about was his mate.
Without so much as a word, he’d taken her into his bedroom and stayed locked to her side for the first couple of hours.
Turning someone into a vampire wasn’t an instant process.
It could take anywhere from half a day to three days depending on the human, and the entire time they needed a slow trickle of Essence to keep the initial influx burning until completion.
It was why vampires almost always had family nearby before a change.
That way someone could step in and take over when the sire needed a break.
Tressa was with Cora right now, but Saiden couldn’t fight off the urge to return to his mate for much longer.
He’d stepped away once to tell them everything he knew about the attack, and a second one shortly after to demand answers from his family.
He may have also made a handful of idle threats against their lives and limbs, but his fury at them died off when he was reminded that his cell would work better if he kept it on him.
He’d been so wrapped up in his date with Cora that remembering something as trivial as a phone had fallen to the wayside.
It was all Eliana, they’d relayed once he calmed enough to see reason.
She’d seen something and pulled all the vamps from the compound at the last minute, leaving only the humans inside, clueless as to what was happening.
Minutes later gas filled the house, knocking everyone out, and Bianca showed up.
It was all too easy. Had to be an inside job, they’d determined.
Tressa was the one who eventually caught Donna trying to sneak out the back of the property.
It took little effort to wring the confession from their housekeeper, and the sound of hearts breaking could be heard throughout the compound.
She had been like family to them, and no one could fathom any possible reason for her betrayal.
Until they could figure out not only the how but the why, she was currently enjoying an indefinite stay in their five-star dungeon.
Saiden had made them all promise not to touch the human. Not until he had his chance first.
“Yeah,” Baylin said, pulling Saiden’s attention back to the task at hand. “I think so. Is this her?”
It would be a thousand years before he’d forget the face of the one who stole his mate’s life.
The one who stole his chance to convince her to turn willingly.
This Bianca had ripped everything away from him, and staring at the grainy snapshot on Baylin’s monitor caused an intense kind of anger to flare to life that he hadn’t felt in a long time.
The overwhelming urge for violence coursed through him. Not because it was his job and not because it was necessary. No. He wanted to fulfill every promise of pain he’d made to Bianca last night. He wanted her to suffer.
“Where is she?” he gritted out, clenching his fists so tight he might break his own bones again if he didn’t calm down.
“Unknown,” Baylin replied as screen after screen flashed up on the monitor.
Too fast and complicated for Saiden to understand, he collapsed into the chair next to his brother and tried to force the tension from his muscles. He needed to think rationally right now. Later, he promised himself. Later there would be blood. Oceans of it.
“Let me check one other thing…” Baylin trailed off, his eyes glued to the screen as his fingers danced over the keyboard with supernatural speed. “There!” he exclaimed triumphantly.
Saiden leaned forward. “Did you hack into the Ruling Coalition’s database?” He didn’t know much about computers, but he’d seen screenshots before and was confident that he was looking at the Coalition’s internal dossier on Bianca.
“Nah,” Baylin dismissed, scrolling through the document and sipping his Celsius energy drink.
“After the third time I broke their firewall, they just gave me access. Said it was easier than trying to find a programmer skilled enough to keep me out. We have an arrangement. I don’t use the database for anything nefarious, and so long as I do the occasional tech job for them here and there, they let me keep my head. It’s all good.”
“Right,” Saiden grunted, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll ignore the fact you’ve been hiding that from me if you can tell me where to find her.”
Baylin chuckled and continued scanning the document.
“She’s been on their radar for over a hundred years, it looks like.
Originally born in 1878 in Stockholm, she was sired by somebody named Gunther Larsson in 1897.
Looks like he wasn’t her mate, so the reasoning for her turn is unknown.
After that, she was a perfect vampire until she lost it in 1905 and murdered her sire.
She’s been tied to seven different minor rogue outbreaks throughout Europe, but they’ve never been able to catch her.
It’s her siren gift, apparently. Most enforcers end up dead or incapacitated, and she escapes to do it all again. ”
Saiden pushed himself out of the chair and paced anxiously around the room, waiting for his brother to tell him something helpful. Bianca murdered Cora. He didn’t care what her life story was. Didn’t care what drove her over the edge. He just wanted to make her pay.
“There’s some sort of flag on her file,” Baylin continued. “It’s not labeled, though. I can dig a little deeper, but your pacing isn’t exactly helping my concentration."
“So have another energy drink,” Saiden growled, but halted his attempts to wear a hole in his brother's floor. He grabbed the back of Baylin’s chair and leaned in to take a look at the file, his nails slicing into the leather upholstery with little pops while his eyes passed over Bianca’s grainy picture.
Baylin tapped at a small marker on the screen.
“Found it. That red flag indicates she is NCM. Non Compos Mentis. It means the Coalition believes her to be insane more or less. Completely unpredictable. No enforcer is allowed to go after her alone.” Baylin cast Saiden a dubious look.
“That means you too, bro. No cowboy shit. I know what she did but—”
“You have no idea just how much damage she did,” Saiden snarled, pushing back from the desk. “Knowing I’ve lost my mate is tearing me up inside. I feel like the other half of my soul has been ripped out.”
“You don’t know that you’ve lost her,” Baylin offered. “She might be okay with it.”
Sure, Saiden thought, and maybe you’ll take up drinking tea.
“Does it say where she was last spotted?”
Baylin scanned the screen. “Looks like she was seen entering the U.S. from Canada about a decade ago but nothing since. She’s an expert at avoiding detection. I can run the photo through a wider database of traffic cameras, but it will take a while.”
Saiden spun around and started toward the door. “I’m not waiting for her to get away. I doubt she went far, and I’m going to find her.”
“How, Saiden?” Baylin called after him. “You going to knock on every door between here and the East Coast?”
“If I have to,” he replied, halting long enough to grab a blood bag.
“But I’m starting with Donna. My mate is in there hooked up to an IV because she nearly bled to death, and any minute she’s going to wake up to a terrifying new life.
I don’t care how long Donna worked for us.
I don’t care how much everyone loved her.
If I need to break every bone in her frail human body to get the answers I want, then I will. ”
“She’s human, remember? You can always try compelling the answers from her,” Baylin pointed out, his words stopping Saiden at the door.
Rotating slowly to face his brother, Saiden’s lip curled up into a snarl. “She doesn’t deserve the easy way out.”
The amount of concern Baylin showed should have made Saiden pause to consider if he was going too far, but he already knew he’d gone off the rails. Now it was time to get back on track.
“I’m going to swing by Cora’s room to check on her, then I’ll be in the dungeons if you find anything else.”
Saiden spun on his heels and sped away before his brother could try to dump more useless logic on him.
Baylin hadn’t tangled with Bianca, so he didn’t know just how accurate the NCM flag was.
It also meant she wouldn’t leave her toys behind.
She wanted to keep playing with Saiden, wanted to keep breaking him, so she had to be nearby. Somewhere.
He was halfway down the main hall when a strong hand clamping on his shoulder halted his movement, and his momentum nearly forced his feet out from under him. Regaining his footing, he turned to see Marquin standing behind him with a dark expression.
Lilith save me, what now?
Saiden didn’t think he could handle any more tragedies. He was about to tear his skin off if he didn’t get back to Cora for at least a little while.
“We have a problem,” Marquin stated grimly.
Of course they did. When it rains it pours. Except in his case it felt like acid.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, scratching at his arm. The prickles under his skin were getting worse. A sire wasn’t meant to be away from their changing progeny for this long.
“The Coalition knows.”
Saiden’s entire body locked up at the three words nobody ever wanted to hear. “Knows what exactly?”
“About Cora.”
All the fight left Saiden, and his body deflated alongside any remaining trace of hope. Slumping back against the wall, he slid down to the shiny marble floor. That was it, then. Game over.
“Who told them?” he asked weakly when Marquin knelt beside him.
“Anonymous tip,” his sire answered, taking the blood bag from Saiden and setting it aside. “Probably your blonde attacker wanted to twist the knife a little deeper.”
Saiden sat quietly for a moment. He should have known Bianca would try something. It was his job to anticipate his enemies’ next move, and while he’d known she would do something, it hadn’t occurred to him just how deeply she would bury the knife. Some enforcer he was.
“I knew the risk,” he stated, forcing himself to meet the sadness in Marquin’s eyes. “And I would do the same thing again a million times over. I couldn’t just let her die.”
“I know,” Marquin agreed solemnly. “I never told any of you, but when Eliana saved me as a rogue I was in the process of trying to end my own life. I wanted nothing more than to be spared this tortuous existence. But I was her mate, and she refused to let me go despite knowing how I felt about being a vampire. It was her love that changed my mind in the end. I owe her everything, Saiden. Perhaps someday Cora will feel the same.”
Someday. He’d spent so long clinging to the hope that someday they would get the chance to be happy. The problem with someday is that you rarely get to see it. The only thing you could ever count on was today.
“How much time do I have?”
Marquin sighed. “The Praetorians arrive Sunday morning.”
Shit. Less than a day and a half. Might as well be in twenty minutes for all the good it would do him.
“Options?”
“Plead your case, I guess. But you know the laws, Saiden.”
Of course he knew the laws. He was the one who enforced them.
He closed his eyes and wondered for a second who the Coalition would bring with them.
Andre was based out of Bucharest these days, close enough to their headquarters to easily join them.
Or maybe they’d call in one of the other North American assets.
Sanya always liked him since they’d worked a few high-profile cases together.
Not that she would be any help. She knew the job the same as he did.
Didn’t matter. None of it mattered except Cora.
He pushed up off the floor, and Marquin followed suit.
“So what now?” his sire asked.
“Now, I’m going to see my mate.”