Page 107 of The Monster and the Last Blood Match

Cassandra shrugged her lithe shoulders and sat back down demurely.

“Your evidence is circumstantial at best. Let’s lay it out there and say what all this is really about. Roland is pissed that I kept him from Reyna at the Vault and then beat him at his own game. He thought he could get back at me through Reyna, through this ruse, and he usedyou, Harrington, to do it. Let’s discuss his actions if we’re going to throw out accusations.”

Roland’s eyes blazed. She could see that he was losing ground with Beckham’s speech. “I would never come forth without a real belief that she has been working against us.”

“You’re a liar and a cheat,” Beckham said. “You wanted to sleep with her and you wanted to drink from her, but she’s not your Permanent. She’s not a fucking toy or a goddamn pet. She’s a human being, and she’smine.”

Everyone in the room was silent after Beckham’s declaration. Reyna’s heart was beating wildly in her chest. He had just defended her to everyone.

“Roland, is all of this true?” Harrington finally asked. Roland’s silence was answer enough. “I don’t want fighting within my upper rank. We should be pleased with the results of today, not bickering over a human. Unless you can bring forward more evidence, I’ll have to defer to Beckham’s judgment, as I always do. I want to find a matching blood type and get my full strength back. Then we can really move forward with our plans.”

Harrington gave Reyna a deadly look, and it took everything in her to hold that gaze. Even though she was safe for now, fear clawed at her.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Reyna and Beckham left Harrington’s office. Reyna had her camera back in hand. She had retrieved it from a sullen Roland. The look on his face told her that this wasn’t over.

They made it down the elevators and back outside in complete silence. Reyna held the camera close to her chest as Beckham’s driver appeared. She stepped inside first, and Beckham followed. The car started on the familiar drive back to Beckham’s penthouse, and Reyna released a big breath.

“That was awful,” she whispered.

Beckham nodded tensely. “It could have been so much worse.”

She agreed with that. Harrington’s trust of Beckham went so deep that he had let them go—though she was sure he was going to have them both watched more closely. She couldn’t gallivant around at night anymore. Not that she was going to break the new curfew anyway.

Reyna felt as if she were coming down from a buzz. After the rally, the near-death encounter, and the accusations at Visage, she was drained. The only good part was that Beckham had chosen her and now they were going back to his place together as a couple. It almost made everything else worth it.

Once they made it to his penthouse, Reyna finally let herself think about what this meant going forward. She was here now not as an employee or an investment. He wanted her here. They had made it. Now what?

“How are you feeling?” Beckham asked cautiously.

“Shaken up,” she admitted, “but I’m okay.”

“I’m sorry that Roland dragged you through all of that. I should have been paying more attention from the start. Then I would have noticed what his endgame was.”

“It’s really my fault. I should have told you when Roland was advancing on me. Then we wouldn’t be here and they never would have taken my camera.” She sighed and rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. “I can’t believe he stole it at the restaurant and I didn’t even know.”

“You were angry at me. It’s not your fault that he was trying to blame you,” Beckham told her.

“Well, I guess I should delete the website. It’s too risky at this point.” The thought of deleting it made her sick. She had put so much time and energy into that thing. The pictures would still be on her computer, but it was different. It didn’t seem to have as much life to her.

“No,” he said automatically. He reached forward and cupped her cheek. “If you delete it now, they’ll know that it was your website. I don’t want to do anything that might draw their attention. For now, the images are safe where they are. I programmed them so they are practically impenetrable.”

“Oh. Right. That makes sense.”

“You know I agree with your images, right?” he asked. His dark eyes were saying so much more than his words in that moment. She stopped fidgeting and got lost in their depths.

“You agree with them?” she whispered.

“Their message. I agree with the message you were trying to send. That there are people out there who need help. That equality is possible. We need to tackle the core issue of prejudice. That the rich sit on high when there are those that suffer. That was what I tried to capture in my work, too.” He gestured to the framed pictures on the walls of the penthouse. “I could only hang these, but I think you can still see the influence in them.”

“These are yours?” she asked in disbelief. “I admired them the first day I came here.”

“I know. It’s what made me think to give you the camera. No one notices the pictures. You have an eye for it.”

“Thank you. Your images really are amazing.”

“I appreciate that.”

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