Chapter Forty-Two
If not for the adrenaline, Verity would have passed out from the pain as every step jostled her ribs. Theo’s hand never left her back, the other laced through hers. His touch so light, as if he feared he might break her further.
Theo already knew where Petra would be, leading them not toward the entrance where she’d last seen her, but deeper, down a corridor Verity had seen but never walked.
The grand, cold formality of it made her feel like she was being marched to her end.
Perhaps she was. They’d threatened Petra.
People didn’t walk away from that unscathed.
A vampire lounged outside a set of large wooden doors, raising an eyebrow at the sight of them stumbling toward her. She nodded them through, expression grave, as though she too knew the severity of what they’d done. The severity of the ire they approached.
This was the moment Verity had dreaded all night.
The moment she’d been worrying about since the idea first formed.
And now, somehow, the dread quieted under the louder ache in her ribs, the steady, loving hand in hers.
She’d already been through hell tonight.
What more could Petra possibly add to it?
She almost laughed when she saw the room Petra had chosen.
An actual courtroom. It was smaller than she expected.
A bottle of gin clutched in one hand, the fingers of the other drumming against the arm of her judge’s chair high on the platform before them.
Petra’s hair spilled over the armrest, nearly brushing the floor and covering more of her body than the tiny dress she wore.
Vivienne sat to her left. Jesse to her right. Neither smiled as Theo and Verity made their way down the aisle, between the empty benches. There would be no spectators for the Rose’s judgment tonight.
Jesse stared at the wall. Not blinking. Not breathing. It told them everything they needed to know about how Petra had received the articles. Vivienne, by contrast, looked straight at them, a sneer fixed on her face, as if whatever was wrong here was their fault.
“What took you so long?” Petra said, fingers still tracing the chair arm. “When I send for somebody, I expect them immediately. You have made me wait.”
The blood on Theo’s shirt, the cut on his cheek, the fact he was holding Verity upright, none of it registered. She was simply irritated at having been kept waiting. Not a good start.
“My apologies,” Theo said, his voice echoing off marble. “We were a little held up.” He shot a pointed look at Vivienne, who rolled her eyes as if she had no idea what he could possibly mean.
“Is that so?” Petra rose, leaning over the desk in front of her and jabbing a finger at the papers spread across it. Verity couldn’t see them from where she stood, just heard the rustle of pages as Petra loomed over them all. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten your place.”
“How could I...” Theo started, but Petra cut clean through him.
“You. And your human. Forget. Your. Place!” Each word landed louder than the last, clipped and deliberate, punctuated by her fist striking the table hard enough to make it shudder.
“As if that does not make your little ultimatum,” she said the word like it amused her, “bad enough. You have your brother drag me to your shit-hole city so you can hand it to me in person.”
Verity’s eyes flicked to Jesse, who kept staring at the wall. She felt a stab of guilt. It had been her idea, in the end they’d agreed Jesse would be the easiest one to get close to Petra, the only one who could get her alone.
“I had always intended to...” Theo said.
“Enough.” Petra’s voice cracked through the room. “How dare you? You drag me here. You tell me your little lies...”
“They’re not lies,” Verity said.
The room darkened at the words. The temperature dropped, or it felt like it did, a weight pressing down from every angle.
“What did you say?” Petra asked, the quiet in her voice somehow more lethal than the shouting.
Theo opened his mouth, but Petra raised one finger and he fell silent.
“What,” she said again.
Verity took a small, careful breath, tasting old wood, polish, paper, the scent of an institution that had failed everyone who’d trusted it.
“None of it is lies,” she said.
Petra studied her. Nobody in the room who didn’t need to breathe did. The only sounds were Verity’s wheezing and the rush of her pulse, loud enough, she was sure, for every vampire in the room to hear exactly how frightened she was.
Sinking back into her chair, slow and heavy, a smile spread across Petra’s face. Verity couldn’t tell if that was a good sign or the worst one yet.
“You’re telling me,” Petra said, gazing into the middle distance as if working through a puzzle, “that Vivienne, whom I have known for centuries longer than you have existed, has been purposefully tearing down my life’s work? All of it? Why, pray tell, would she do such a thing?”
Petra’s eyes cut to Theo, and Verity realised, with a strange sense of amusement, that he had raised his hand like a schoolboy.
“Lord Chapel?” Petra said, gesturing for him to speak.
“Sport,” he said. “That’s what she told me.”
She had called it sport? Verity gasped at the sick implication and Petra’s gaze snapped back to her.
“I don’t...” Vivienne had barely spoken before the ancient vampire raised a hand to silence her.
“Sport?” Petra asked, flat. She blinked, the first crack in her composure, unsure what to make of Theo’s statement.
It took Verity a second to realise the question was for her.
“I didn’t hear her use that word specifically,” she said.
“But I know that the documents we gave you are real. Someone...” she turned to look directly at Vivienne, “has been hiding donor disappearances. Falsifying donor records. Funding the protests that led to the attack that nearly killed Theo.”
Vivienne snorted. “And you think I would do such a thing?”
“Well, I know your donor was planting evidence.” Verity smiled.
She held Vivienne’s eye through every word. The vampire gave nothing away. Just watched.
“I know,” Verity went on, “that the trade envoy from Salvation was taken to Cliffhaven and shown around as if it were something to be proud of. And because of that, Abraham will no longer give us a trade deal.”
Vivienne smiled, cold and thin. “No, I think you’ll find Abe rather liked Cliffhaven. He even brought a couple of souvenirs home with him.”
“A little young for his taste, he told me. But he couldn’t leave them in a hellhole nobody cared enough to fix.”
“You told me it was under control,” Petra snapped, turning on Vivienne. “You said it was almost finished.”
“It will be. These things take time. You remember how long it took to set up the original system...”
“I remember a great many things,” Petra said. “Including you telling me it would take a couple of months. It has been a year.”
Theo’s grip on Verity’s hand tightened as they all felt the crack widening.
“We are working to fix...” Vivienne started.
“I was there last month,” Jesse chimed in. “Nothing’s getting fixed.”
“Don’t.” Petra rounded on him.
“I was there,” Jesse said again, faster now, getting the words out before she could silence him entirely. “It’s carnage. Humans are being attacked in the streets and nothing’s being done to help them.”
Petra’s lip curled. “I said ‘don’t’.” There was enough venom in it to make Verity wince on Jesse’s behalf. For all his swagger, all the winking bravado, he shrank visibly under her glare, the tiny woman he’d summoned at their request.
“That reminds me of something else,” Petra said, turning, finger raised at Theo. “You. You are the one who told me human-vampire relations should not be encouraged.”
Theo said nothing.
“And yet here you are parading your human around. Encouraging others to do the same.” Her gaze flicked to Verity.
“Do not think I failed to hear of your little telephone call to Elliot Wysall, asking him to bring along any cross-species couples he knew of. You drag me to your wretched little city so I can watch everyone wandering about pretending to be equal,” she spat the word, “and then your brother goes and publishes an article about you.” She looked at Verity. “About what a cute couple you make.”
Verity’s eyes cut to Jesse, who gave her an apologetic shrug.
The article outing them, that had been Jesse’s idea. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who failed to consult the group before acting.
She shook her head, suppressing a smile.
He probably should have considered that other papers would run their own versions.
But it was done now, and with everything that followed, she couldn’t say she’d have done it differently.
Even if calling themselves a cute couple would have felt a little much coming from her.
A public declaration, normalising what they were to each other, she failed to see the harm in it.
Petra scoffed. “Well?”
Verity shook her head. “I didn’t write that.”
“So, you simply wrote me these?” Petra gestured at the two articles she held.
Verity nodded.
Petra read the headlines aloud. “Roses Damn Cliffhaven. Or, Roses Save Cliffhaven.” She looked up. “And what, exactly, am I meant to do with two articles that explain the same failures either way?”
Verity straightened. If Petra was going to kill her, this was the moment.
“An article will automatically send in,” she glanced at the clock, “fifteen minutes. You choose which but either way every newspaper in Havenshire will know that there is no flu in Cliffhaven. If I don’t change it then the article goes out telling them the whole truth, and that nobody in power wanted to fix it.
That we’re no safer here than we’d be under the Henbrants. ”
Vincit Omnia Veritas, bitch.
Petra’s eyes closed briefly at the mention of the Henbrants.
“You think these papers would actually print such drivel?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Verity said. “It only takes one.” She glanced at Jesse. “You saw what happened with the article about me and Theo. One paper ran it, and everyone else followed.”
“You dare to give me an ultimatum.”
Verity didn’t answer.
Petra turned on Vivienne instead. “Do you have nothing to say to any of this?”
Vivienne offered the defence they’d already anticipated. “It wasn’t me,” she said. “The Director of the Exchange here, Harris. He’s the one who...”
Theo raised his hand again.
Petra turned to him, exasperated. “What?”
“We have footage of one of Vivienne’s donors planting falsified documents in Harris’s office to frame him. The same man who attacked Verity tonight.”
Petra’s gaze dropped to Verity’s ribs, as though noticing the injury for the first time. She turned back to Vivienne, eyebrows raised, waiting.
“I spoke to Teddy,” Vivienne said. “Teddy said...”
Petra’s fist hit the table, the sound of splintering wood echoing through the courtroom.
“You went to Teddy about this?”
Vivienne opened her mouth, visibly shaking, finding nothing to say.
“Teddy,” Petra said, “knows what you’ve been doing in Cliffhaven?”
“Teddy wanted the sport,” Vivienne said slowly, piecing together her excuse as she spoke. “He told me it’s what he wanted...”
“I do not care what Teddy wanted!” Petra rose to her feet. “You think it’s acceptable that I learn of Teddy’s plans to gut my territory from a human?”
Vivienne went quiet. Something like defeat settled over her face. “I’m sorry, Petra.”
“We are going to have words,” Petra said, her voice flat with finality. “You will fix this.” Her gaze shifted, finding Verity. “And you will fix the newspaper thing. Now.” She glanced at the clock.
Verity nodded, reaching into her pocket for her phone before remembering she’d lost it. She looked up at Theo, who patted his own pockets uselessly and Jesse rolled his eyes.
“May I?” he asked Petra, who waved him off without looking.
He came down, pulled his phone out and handed it over.
Verity typed in her password, deleted the scheduled email, and replaced it with one declaring the Roses had uncovered the truth and would punish anyone who attacked the Exchange, anyone who fed without consent, anyone who endangered a donor, and that they would personally oversee Cliffhaven’s restoration.
Apparently, Petra didn't know how easy would be for someone to hack emails. How easy to stop the email being sent, as Jesse had predicted.
Petra was murmuring something to Vivienne now, about doing better, about coming to her before going to Teddy, about not letting it happen again.
Theo huffed at the sound of it, the two of them talked like old friends settling a minor disagreement.
The sight sickened her, knotting her aching chest. Verity could see exactly how Vivienne would talk her way back into Petra’s good graces.
Not today, not tomorrow, maybe not for a decade, or in Verity’s lifetime, but something about that woman told Verity she’d try again, given enough time.
She glanced at Theo and saw the same understanding on his face.
The two women existed in a club neither of them would ever be allowed to join.
Jesse and Theo’s eyes met. Something passed between them. The wordless language of two brothers, protecting each other for centuries.
Jesse moved.
It happened faster than Verity’s eyes could track. One moment he was beside them. The next his hand vanished into Theo’s jacket. A flash of metal as he drew the gun free.
She cried out as Theo crushed her against his chest, his hands covering her ears.
The gunshot tore through the room. Sudden and absolute.