Page 22 of Shadow Hunter

“You knew him, didn’t you?” she asked, the question falling from her lips.

He cleared his throat. “Listen, Shortcake—”

“Tiffany,” she corrected, her voice barely a whisper. “My name’s Tiffany, but…that’s not the first time you’ve heard my name before, is it? You knew him, didn’t you?”

“Tiffany,” Damon warned, his dark gaze flicking toward her.

The flash of grief in his eyes was enough to cut straight through her.

Of course. She’d expected as much. No wonder she’d trusted him from the start. In fact, she should have anticipated that Mark would have sent someone to look after her sooner, someone to look out for her if something happened to him. He was always thinking about her safety like that. Never his own, of course.

She cleared her throat. “Look, I get that most hunters have this overwhelming sense of duty to protect the innocent. My brother was the same way, always spouting at me about what to do if a vampire ever attacked me and feeding me horror stories so I wouldn’t stay out too late at night. But I don’t needprotecting. I may be a woman, but you seem to forget that I hunt vampires, too.”

Damon stared straight ahead at the road, his face unmoving and cold. “Not on my watch, you don’t.”

“And who gave you that authority?” she asked, challenging him.

He didn’t respond.

But she wanted to hear him say it. Wanted to feel that connection to her brother once more, more than anything. Anything that would help her feel like Mark wasn’t just…gone.

As if he and everything he’d worked for had died with him.

“You’re a member of the Execution Underground,” she said, watching Damon’s expression tentatively. “Just like my brother.”

And B...

The unwanted thought passed through her quickly.

Damon’s hands tightened on the wheel.

She grinned. She didn’t need his confirmation to know she was right.

“You’re a member of the Execution Underground, and you knew him,” she repeated, smiling. “Mark, I mean.”

It wasn’t a question. It didn’t need to be.

She’d suspected as much. She never would have let him whisk her out of the club like that otherwise. Sure, she’d been eager to get back to Caius, but this hunter had piqued her curiosity, and while it wasn’t like her to abandon her mission, Caius could wait.

But this…?

This chance to gain unfettered access to her brother’s memory, to the knowledge he and his former organization held.

She wasn’t foolish enough to allow an opportunity like that to pass her by.

While she didn’t know many specifics about the clandestine organization, she did know that they trained men to be elite, specialized hunters of the supernatural and dispatched them across the globe to protect humanity. The Execution Underground had recruited her brother shortly after they’d gotten wind of their parents’ brutal deaths. During the attack, Mark had managed to save her from the monster, though at the time, he was totally untrained. The Execution Underground had been interested in him from that point onward.

It hadn’t been long before they’d whisked him away to a private facility to train, whileshe’dbeen left behind, alone, forced to stay with their Aunt Cecelia.

But she’d never resented him for that. Not one bit. No, instead she’d thought her older brother valiant, brave even. Brave enough he’d went and gotten himself killed. Now, look where that blind admiration had gotten her?

She should have fought beside him when she had the chance.

She shook her head, trying to fight away the now painful memories that worked to claim her. Whenever Mark had visited, he’d never shared much about his organization with her. She’d always gotten the impression that she somehow wasn’t meant to know, and at the time she didn’t have the courage to question it. To this day, she still didn’t know which vampire had led the attack that killed her family, but Mark had been close to the knowledge, or so she’d been told, before he’d been killed, at least, and she was determined to find out what information her brother had found. Mark had worked every day after their deaths to find their parents’ killer and destroy the monsters that had stolen their parents’ lives, but Caius had taken Mark’s life just before her brother had the chance to avenge their family. That didn’t seem like a coincidence.

Now she wouldn’t rest until both Caiusandthe murderous vampire who destroyed their parents exploded like theoverstuffed blood bags they were. It was the least she could do for Mark, to save what was left of his legacy as he’d saved her. She had to continue his life’s work, and she had more than a passing feeling Damon was the key to the knowledge her brother had been keeping from her.

Without a word, Damon pulled the car to a stop outside Golisano Hospital, the silence between them long and pressing.

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