Page 24 of Siege of Blood and Betrayal

Taking a deep breath, I grab the burner phone sitting in a docking station on the desk and access the contact list my father and Bran left for me. Scrolling through the names of our allies and business partners, I decide to speak to the other Fondatori rulers first.

Ashikaga Hikotaka from Kyoto is one of my father’s longest-standing friends.

Taking a deep breath, I dial his number. The phone rings twice before a familiar voice answers.

“Hikotaka-san, it is Zane Vasari.”

“Zane,” he repeats, his tone respectful but cautious. “What’s the situation?”

“My father is dead,” I say bluntly. “Assassinated this evening by a turned seethe.”

“Turned by who?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out.”

“Is the diamond dagger secured?”

“It is.”Sort of… I think.

There’s a pause at the other end of the line. “You have my condolences, Zane. What do you need from me?”

“Loyalty,” I say, my voice hardening. “I will stabilize the seethe and secure our interests. If you learn anything that you believe might help me, I would appreciate a heads-up.”

“Your father has always had my loyalty, son, and now you will as well. I will find out what I can. Stay safe.”

“That’s the plan.”

“And Zane… make them suffer. Your father was a man unlike any other.”

“He was. Thank you for saying so.”

The call ends and I let out a long breath as I scroll down to the next name on the list.

This is going to be a long night.

CHAPTER SIX

Huntley

Iwake in a rush, my heart thundering behind my ribs, my instinct to kill fully unhinged. Why? What happened? I sit up with a jolt. Where the fuck am I? It takes a beat to realize I’m in the latest condo rental Francesco sent us to.

I feel like roadkill, and my neck…

I tilt my head from side to side, and the telltale ache of having my neck snapped brings things back into focus.

The little bitch. Seriously? Has she been waiting seven years to get back at me?

I force my legs to accept my weight and stand. Fuck. It’s like I’m an underfed deer teetering on ice. Well, I refuse to Bambi onto the ground if Scotland McCullough is in the house to witness it. “Zane? Scotland?”

“There’s no one here.”

I turn to where Jaxon is sitting at the dining room table smoking a hand-rolled cigarette of haze. Nervy but hey, it’s his funeral if he gets caught drugging on company time. “I grabbedus some takeout after dropping off Zane’s fuck buddies and when I got back, I found you downed, and Zane gone. What the fuck did I miss?”

I breathe deep and an olfactory overload fills my senses: haze, Zane, sex, Scotland—she wasn’t part of the sex, but I smell her blood. Lots of her blood.

“You better butt that the fuck out. The king will end us if he finds out I was unconscious, and you were toking while Zane’s out there getting himself killed and Scotland is bleeding to death.”

“Scotland? Bran’s daughter? Was she here?”

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