Chapter 3
THREE
Luis was certain he was being punished for being too charming. Perhaps for being too handsome. It was entirely possible it was even because he was Dahlia’s new favorite cousin.
Either way, he’d been put on collections duty.
Debt collection was normally reserved for ambitious, mid-tier Amauris — those high enough in the hierarchy to be trusted but still low enough to happily take the annoying jobs others passed off.
It fell far below Luis’s normal purview, which typically entailed oversight of their various and quite successful gambling operations.
But Luis pissed off Felix, the head of their family, by briefly absconding with his bride for a night of Appalachian vampire fun, which had put him on the shit list.
He was lucky, he supposed. If Dahlia hadn’t had a grand time — both at the carnival and pissing off her man — Felix probably would’ve shot him. Seeing as she’d come home one over-sized dragon plushy richer and smiling from ear to ear, Felix had let him off easy.
Theoretically.
What should’ve been a slightly irritating errand had turned into a pain in his ass almost immediately.
Easton Wright had proven to be a slippery little bastard, which might’ve been fine if Luis hadn’t been in the worst mood of his life.
And this is goodbye? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
He hadn’t been able to get anything about Francesca out of his mind since the day he first happened upon her frowning at a synth stain on his carpet. Now everything was much, much worse.
Everything in him, every bit of what made a man a vampire, strained to hunt her down. It was utterly intolerable and completely impossible that she thought she could get away with kissing him and then running away.
But he had a job to do, and despite his laissez-faire attitude, he didn’t fuck around with the family business.
For months, he’d exercised what he believed to be momentous patience in his slow hunt for her. He could wait just a little bit longer. Hopefully.
Easton hadn’t been seen in any of his normal haunts, and his apartment had been abandoned a week before Luis kicked in the door. His cell phone had been dumped, too. If Luis didn’t have several credible rumors to go on, he would’ve assumed the vampire had skipped town.
That’s what Luis would’ve done if he owed a family like his five hundred thousand dollars and couldn’t pay up. He would’ve dropped everything, chartered a small plane with cash, and promptly air-dropped himself into the wildest part of the planet.
Of course, it wouldn’t have saved him. The Amauris were a dogged sort of people, and they pursued grudges to the very ends of the Earth — along with other, more pleasurable objects of their focus.
It would be only a matter of time before he was tracked down, and seeing as Luis was at least three to four times smarter than Easton…
The lock on the back door of the rented mansion was easy enough to pick.
No one had bothered to put any real security in place, seeing as it was mostly an event space, and all the guards were stationed in the front, where guests were beginning to stream in through the gate.
A flick of his wrist and a twist of a pin saw the door swing open.
Luis stashed his tools in the inner pocket of his tuxedo.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t necessary for him to dress up.
It wasn’t like he was going undercover — a hopeless prospect for any Amauri without a wig or expensive, witch-provided glamour — but he enjoyed a good costume every now and again. And who didn’t love a bowtie?
Straightening his broad shoulders, he gently closed the door and peered down the airy hallway. Distant sounds of music and conversation reached him, but the back of the sprawling home seemed otherwise empty.
He’d been to this particular mansion a few times for various parties and syndicate meetings.
It was one of several properties on the outskirts of United Washington that the upper crust of the vampire elite tended to rent out, since it was luxurious but nestled in woodland far enough away from the city to provide ample privacy for murder, bingo, orgies, whatever.
Rumor had it that this particular get-together was no average party, but Luis wasn’t interested in the goings on so much as the organizer of the festivities.
By rights, Luis could’ve waltzed through the front door with the rest of the syndicate elite, but there were two very important problems with that: first, that risked Easton seeing him and bolting. Second, it wasn’t nearly as much fun as sneaking in through the back.
Tucking his hands into his pockets, Luis strolled through halls of the mansion, whatever joy he might’ve taken in spoiling Easton’s plans salted by the tension he’d carried since his pretty housekeeper slipped through his claws.
Again.
Figuring that the best bet for finding the idiot was in the bedrooms, which were likely being used as a staging area and dressing rooms for the staff rather than how he’d used them in the past, Luis took a left by the unused kitchens.
Climbing the service stairs to the second floor in an impatient gallop, he paused at the landing for a moment to smooth the white streak of hair that had fallen over his forehead back into place.
That done, he headed in the direction of the primary suite.
He figured he was in the right place when a flash of scarlet hair caught his eye.
Ducking into a partially open doorway, he pressed himself into the shadows to watch as Maxine Wright, Easton’s squeaky-clean cousin, marched past him.
Statuesque, curvaceous to a nearly criminal degree, and known for being the lawyer all smart vampires with a bit of cash came to when they got into trouble, she was passingly familiar to Luis through reputation more than personal experience.
He narrowed his eyes as he tracked her quick steps down the hall.
Dressed in a gown and radiating elegance, she still managed to look like she wished she was anywhere else.
No doubt she did. As far as Luis knew, Maxine The Law Wright did everything in her power to avoid direct contact with the less savory side of syndicate life.
And there was nothing savory about what would happen tonight.
When the click of her heels faded, Luis slipped out of the dark guest room he’d hidden in and headed for the double doors at the end of the hall.
No sound came through the wood except for soft footfalls and the rustle of fabric. The hair on the back of his neck lifted as his fingers wrapped around the handle. A strange awareness rose in a wave through him, awakening the sharp hunting instincts all vampires possessed.
His prey lay beyond those doors. He was absolutely certain of it.
Wicked smile curling his lips, he slowly turned the knob.
The door opened silently, its hinges well-oiled, and he prowled across the threshold.
A lavish sitting room lay before him, its windows partially open to let in the cool night breeze.
Only a handful of lights had been turned on.
The room was heavily shadowed save for a long stretch of warm light that fell across the floor like a path, beckoning him toward the opened door of the bedroom.
The moment he closed the door behind him, he knew something was wrong.
There was no heavy cologne in the air. There was no prickling, instinctive unease of another vampire’s presence. There was only the luscious, mouthwatering scent of brown sugar and a woman’s freshly washed skin.
He knew he hadn’t made any noise when he entered, but still, somehow, a woman called out, “Oh, thank the gods you came back so fast! I need your help.”
A feeling almost like pain tightened his muscles and made his cock twitch. That soft, exasperated voice came from the bedroom and it was most certainly not Easton.
No.
His mind stalled, unable to process what his nose and instinct knew for a fact.
She couldn’t be in this place. It was impossible.
Francesca didn’t know anyone. She didn’t party or schmooze with the vampire elite.
As he damn well knew, she worked too hard and too often to do anything other than sleep in her off hours.
And she was cagey. She hated talking about herself not because she was mysterious but because she was introverted and violently independent.
Months he’d been working, slowly but surely, to chip away at that armor, and all he’d gotten was glimpses of a woman whose smile haunted him.
The idea that he’d only seen her the previous night and she might’ve been planning to be here, of all places, made him feel a bit like he was losing his mind.
It occurred to him that he should turn around and continue with his job. It was embarrassing enough to have taken a whole week to track down his prey. He’d never hear the end of it if he reported back that Easton got away because he’d been distracted by a woman he’d been chasing.
The fact that he had to chase at all would be enough to send Felix into hysterics, which would quickly be followed by more punishment for his failure. He might even be forced to take the little Amauris to The Dolphin Cove, a water park and a franchise where nightmares were made.
But Luis was not in the habit of denying himself anything, and the thought of leaving her in this place, with these people, made him want to claw the walls. Easton could wait. Francesca was worth far more than him, anyway.
His expensive dress shoes didn’t make a sound as he crossed the sitting room. Drawn toward the warm glow of the bedroom, his senses sharpened to the point of a blade aimed squarely at the unsuspecting woman.
In one way, he’d been correct. The primary suite was used as something of a staging area. It just wasn’t Easton’s staging area.
It was like someone had set off a bomb full of feminine shrapnel in the bedroom. Makeup, heels, dresses in all shapes and colors, and sparkling bits of jewelry were cast hither and yon. And amidst it all, standing with her back to him, was… her.