Page 95 of Missing Piece
Tariq handed Vincent a folded sheet of paper, his expression uncharacteristically serious. Vincent unfolded it and scrutinized the ID of a Hispanic woman, her features sharp and her stare into the camera dark and unsettling.
Adam leaned in, snatching the paper from Vincent’s grasp. “I’ve seen this woman before. She hangs out outside the local Narcotics Anonymous meetings, but she never went in for one.”
“Why?” Petrov asked.
Adam’s brow furrowed. “I just always assumed she was doing something shady, like tricking addicts into selling their organs for drug money.” He turned his gaze to Caleb. “Is this one of the people that attacked you the other night?”
Caleb’s eyes widened. “How do you know about that?”
Matteo signed with a big grin, and Vincent had to bite back his own amusement.
“He say in the video that they attack before you and Graves got a chance to fuck,” Petrov translated.
Vincent watched Caleb’s face flush with embarrassment, but he could feel Adam becoming tenser by the second. Time to change the subject.
“So you want to know who can make that kind of ID?” Vincent asked, steering them back on track. He already had a good idea—V, a small-time criminal who occasionally helped with fake IDs for the vampire dancers at Wild Side. But information was power, and Vincent wasn’t about to give it away for free.
His beast purred at the opportunity.Make him squirm. Showthem what you can do.
“What will you do for me in exchange for that information?” Vincent asked, allowing his eyes to shift, as his fangs slid into place. The two fangs on the left side cut into his lip, drawing blood. “I don’t do anything for free.”
Vincent watched as terror shot through Caleb’s features. The human’s whisper was barely audible, “What do you want?”
A slow smile spread across Vincent’s face as he leaned in close. “Close your eyes,” he whispered, his breath ghosting over Caleb’s ear.
Caleb’s eyes squeezed shut, his breath coming in shallow, rapid bursts. Vincent caught Tariq’s incredulous expression and Luka’s amused sip from his beer.
Push it a little further,Vincent thought.They need to leave with no doubts about what I’m capable of.
“You know what we can do with just a touch, correct?” Vincent whispered. “Do you want to know what I can do?”
Caleb’s head shook vehemently. “Just get it over with.”
“As you wish, Buttercup,” Vincent said smoothly.
Adam’s grip on Vincent’s thigh tightened urgently, as if sensing the escalation. Vincent’s hand moved to Caleb’s chin, forcing his head back with calculated pressure. He allowed just a trickle of his power to seep through their skin-to-skin contact, enough to make Caleb gasp and shudder.
Before he could reassure Adam or fully register Caleb’s reaction, fingers closed around his throat with vice-like strength, slamming him back against the wall. The gleaming tip of a knife appeared inches from his eye.
Marcus’s face loomed in front of him, furious and unyielding. His amber eyes practically glowed against his blacksclera, an unnerving contrast that made even Vincent’s beast waver.
“What the fuck did I tell you?” Marcus growled.
Vincent’s beast snarled, bristling at the sudden attack, but a small part of him couldn’t help but acknowledge they’d pushed too far. Vincent laughed, caught between his desire to maintain his reputation in front of Tariq and seeing a side of Marcus he thought was gone. “You’re supposed to buy a guy dinner before you get to the foreplay.”
“I told you not to fucking touch him!” Marcus bellowed, stabbing the knife into the wall beside Vincent’s head.
“We were just having some fun, I wasn’t actually going to do anything,” Vincent said, rolling his eyes.
Marcus’s face twitched. “How about I borrow yourpetfor some fun?”
The suggestion hit Vincent like a sucker punch. Possessive rage built within him, but he forced it back down. “That’s not a nice thing to joke about,” he managed through gritted teeth as the beast roared in his mind.Kill him. Fucking kill him. Adam is mine. Not his.
Over Marcus’s shoulder, Vincent caught sight of Adam. Tariq held the human’s arms back as though Adam had tried to intervene. Adam stared in silence, his eyes already glistening with tears, his face reddening. Vincent was overwhelmed by the desire to comfort him, to reassure him that Marcus’s suggestion was nothing more than posturing. But first, he needed to defuse this situation.
Silence stretched between them, each second an eternity as Vincent and Marcus stared each other down.
Vincent broke first. “Ugh, fine, I’m sorry, Caleb. I promise not to do it again.”
