Page 45 of A Velvet Kiss After Dark

"Were you…born there?"

"Yes," he said tightly after a long pause.

"And, where is your family?"

He looked down at her as they walked quickly, irritation flitting in his dark eyes. "Dead."

"Oh," she said, sadness engulfing her. "Well, I never knew my mother, if it helps, and my father abandoned me years ago, and I haven't seen or heard from him since I was twenty-one."

His brow furrowed at this news. "What do you mean he abandoned you?"

Tabitha shrugged negligently, playing it cool, but the truth was she'd never been able to make peace with her dad. "One day he was at work and he lived at such and such address, and then he vanished. House was sold, phone line dead—it's like he disappeared."

Kane's gaze sharpened on her. "Sounds like he wanted to avoid someone bad."

Tabitha sucked in a sharp breath. "What do you mean?" For the life of her, no matter how good of a detective she was, and she thought she was rather elite at her job, using everything from disguises to fake ID's to enter into areas she'd normally never be allowed as a civilian human in order to uncover all the juiciest gossip on werewolf and vampire affairs, news that she deeply wanted the rest of humanity to know about. Hence, also, why she used the alias Alaina Morrison for her career. The last thing she wanted was to be outed as a human posing as a vampire, which is exactly what she did for her job.

Kane shrugged. "Usually when someone ups and vanishes like that, it's because they want to move off-grid or not get busted by someone who's after them. Who were his enemies?"

Tabitha's brain ran a mile a minute as she dredged up every little detail she could ever recall. "He never spoke about business to me. He was in the real estate industry and he was a shareholder for TravelCare, an insurance company that provided for those who were traveling overseas. One day, I went to visit him, and his doors were locked tight, windows covered, the place empty. When I called his phone, it was dead. I filed a missing person’s report, but they said it looked like he moved of his own volition and there was nothing they could do about it; that people move all the time, and they were sorry he didn't inform me. Later, I hired a private detective, and he couldn't trace him either. It was like he vanished, went 'off-grid', as you said. He never even called me."

"Bad people can scare even the darkest of souls," Kane said.

Tabitha rolled her eyes. "My dad was not a shady person. He worked in real estate selling mansions and other large properties, and he worked for TravelCare, as I said. Nothing mischievous here!"

He merely shrugged in response. "We all keep our secrets in the dark, especially from those we love." He looked at her as he said the latter, and she broke the connection quickly, not liking the squirrelly sensation that bloomed in her stomach.

"He was never a bad man. I just wished I knew what happened to him or why he left without saying anything to me."

"I could find him for you," Kane offered. "When we return."

Tabitha bulked at that and laughed at the absurdity of this werewolf mercenary for hire doing anything nice for her. "Oh, please, what on earth could you possible discover that I haven't already done in the seven years he's been gone?"

One corner of his mouth quirked upward. "I have my own resources, Tabitha. I'd be happy to oblige."

Her stomach did that little move again, which she associated with nerves, and she rather detested that she found this man handsome at all. If only he wasn't psychotic and a killer, she might actually like him. Being as it was, she'd rather him be gone forever from her life.

"I don't think I need your help. He's been missing for seven years. I figure he's dead by now, or that someone held a gun to his head to make him sell his property. I never even got to bury him." Heck, she'd never gotten any answers. Was he alive, was he dead? She'd never know the truth. It was a seriously difficult pill to swallow.

"What of your mother?" Kane asked. "What happened to her?"

"She died when I was two. She had cancer. I was raised by my dad my whole life, until he woke up one day and vanished. Here I was in college getting my journalism degree, and he just never returned my calls, never sent me a letter or anything. When I went to his house, it was vacant. The only thing the PI could uncover was that he'd sold it to a separate real estate agency for a good price, and there'd been no sign of his car, or him, ever since. It was like he vanished." She shrugged helplessly, not liking this line of conversation one bit. After all, she was supposed to be figuring him out, not the other way around! "Besides, we were talking about you, not me. What happened to your family?"

"Dead," he said succinctly. "My brother was killed by a vampire." He looked down at her as he said this, his hand forming a fist like he wanted to hurt something at them mention of it. "It was brutal and gross, and I'll leave it at that. You can say that that's where I get my hatred of vampire-folk from. My father, he died soon after I lost Konner, he was already sick. I grew up poor, Tabitha, so all that you've seen of me now, I earned through sheer hard work and willpower."

She rolled her eyes at that. She'd seen his very high-tech underground house once before with its fingerprint scanners and digital codes and gated complex and squeaky clean floors. Yup, he was a secretive one alright.

"Well, I am sorry about that, Kánnérd," she said softly.

He rolled his neck around. "Just call me Kane, please."

"Fine. Kane it is."

He smiled down at her and her toes nearly curled in dirty shoes. Oh, yikes, was he flirting with her? Oh my God. It was hardly the first time, but she never took him seriously. He always oozed player to her, someone who'd flirt with any female in a skirt, but this dark atmosphere and intimate environment made his lingo all the more seductive.

"So, you speak a different language then?"

"A few," he responded.

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