Page 39 of Three Bites

“And the meerkat?”

“Not every smile is a mask,” I said.

“Hm. Thank you for offering a new perspective. I’m looking forward to seeing how this story progresses,” Will respondedwith a smile that tried to hide how monumental what I just did was.

I told him to trust Tristan and Theo.

My fingers clutched at the phone as I hoped I wasn’t going to regret my decision.

Chapter Eighteen

Tristan

On the morning of the ninth day of our stay at Cornello’s Sunset Manor Theo and I made a trip to the local hospital. I had made a deal to supply blood not only for my party of three but to other vampires in the area as well, widening the network of suppliers I already had in place. As always, the information spread quickly among my kind, and the hospital enjoyed the influx of money that came from catering to our unusual appetites. The cut I got for setting this up would be enough to consider this side venture a success but today the hospital played an additional part in my plan.

“Reena!” Theo enthused, approaching the lone figure in the room. We have been led here by the hospital staff to wait for the freshest possible supply of blood.

“Theo, my dear,” Reena purred, after doing the routine of air kisses with Theo. “We haven’t seen each other in too long. You must come to party with me again. And you, Tristan, you can’t just keep him doingbusiness,” she said the last word withdisgust. “Such a social butterfly needs to spread his wings and fly.”

My lips quirked at the vampire in front of me. If anyone was a social butterfly it was her. She loved to be in the middle of things and that sometimes landed her in hot water, which is how I got a favor to use with her.

“I assure you, Theo is getting proper enrichment,” I said, sitting on one of the ugly plastic chairs.

“Improper too,” Theo winked. “But that’s not why we are here. How did it go at the club?”

A slow smile spread on Reena’s face.

“I managed to feed Jonas the info I was a vampire quite early in the evening. At first, I thought he wouldn’t take the bait but when my scandalous affair was dangled in front of him he couldn’t resist the upper hand,” Reena said, pleased like a cat who just got cream.

“That’s what he is blackmailing you for? An affair?” Theo asked with a raised brow. “But doesn’t your Sire have an open relationship with you?”

“You know that but Jonas doesn’t,” Reena pointed out. “He only had the word of the people in the club and, when he asked around, he got a very clear answer that Elijah was going to be pissed if he knew what I was doing.” Her eyes twinkled. “It’s always best to put a drop of truth in a lie so I went and fucked one of Elijah’s exes. He is going to beso mad. I can’t wait for the spanking.”

I snorted at how she beamed. Glutton for punishment, that one.

“So, Jonas really did it? Blackmailed you to be introduced to your Sire to pursue his dreams of becoming a vampire?”

Reena nodded.

Just as I thought, Jonas couldn’t get the idea of ‘immortality’ and cutting his daft son out of the line of succession out of hismind. It was easy to make him commit one of the gravest crimes in the supernatural community: blackmailing one of us to get to our secrets.

The hospital attendant came into the room with three fresh bags of blood. When she left I raised my bag in a toast and the other two followed before we drank to the job well done.

With that hasty move, Jonas sealed his fate, setting the supernatural community against him.

Victoria wasn’t going to be safe, even if I paid off her brother’s debt — that was one of the things I realized when I learned the whole scope of her situation. Mere money would work if we didn’t put a spotlight on her with our wide eyes, hungry stares, and protective stances. When Jonas saw our reactions it became a game with higher stakes than just paying the debt.

Observing Carl and Jonas at those first meetings clued me in Victoria wasn’t going to be safe even after the deal with Jonas was completed. First, there was Carl and his seething obsession, which posed a real danger to Victoria. Secondly, aligning myself with Jonas and his way of doing business made it impossible not to get involved in abhorrent dealings by association. Sooner or later Victoria would learn about that and hate me. Hate us.

Yes, the Sanguine were considered part of organized crime as well but compared to what the Cornello’s did... my stomach roiled at some of the things Jonas mentioned during our talks. Hard drugs, human trafficking, forced prostitution...

I wanted that man and his hellspawn gone. Only then was Victoria going to be truly safe. But taking on a whole mafia full of trained killers when I had only a small, specialized contingentof loyal workers wasn’t going to be easy. Thus, I took the route of deception and laid the groundwork that was going to allow me to turn on Jonas after we got Victoria out and gained some allies.

But for that to work I had one more important step to take before tomorrow, when the contract with Jonas was going to be sealed.

Will Clement got up slowly when Theo and I entered the room. Our first meeting wasn’t the most... optimal... because for all his faults Jonas wasn’t stupid and when Victoria became central to his interests he put a tail on her brother. That resulted in a need for a carefully arranged situation to get the stalker’s eyes off of Will for five minutes while he was in transit to a business meeting. With no prior contact with the man and such a limited time window, I acted swiftly and mercilessly to get us the needed privacy to talk.

Will didn’t appreciate being dragged into a dark alley by two strangers.

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