Page 82 of The Sins That Bleed
I scan for Azara, my eyes landing on the woman I’ve come to know as Sunny. I want to hug her, cry with her, and take her away from Valeska to keep her safe, but we need to take Alaric out of the equation first.
“I’m so sorry, Rai,” Valeska says, but I ignore her.
“Sorry to interrupt this reunion, but there’s more, isn’t there, Nico?” The bastard isn’t sorry at all.
What the fuck is going on?
“We had a deal, Alaric. I did my part so don’t back out now,” Nico spits.
I look at my partner, my best friend and brother, for a clue as to what they’re talking about, but he fixes his stare on the man in the centre of this mess.
“Yes, well, that was before I found out you sabotaged me. You did a great job with those pictures you took behind the walls of her little empire,” he gestures to Valeska, “they were invaluable, but you tipped her dog Zyon off about my compound having acquired a taste for blood, didn’t you?”
“You’re a fucking prick!” Nico snarls, but he doesn’t move.
None of us do, it’s like someone has paused time and everyone around me is responsible for cleaving my heart in two. Betraying me for the sake of their own gain. I’ve losteverything.
“Why?” I plead with Nico, shattering the stillness.
He looks at me with tears in his eyes and regret on his face. “He told me he had information on what happened to my family, Rai, he knows who killed them,” he sobs.
I don’t know what to fucking do, I want to hug him and tell him it’ll be alright, but he sacrificed us all instead of asking us to help him. I shake my head in disbelief as the weight of everyone’s deception keeps me rooted to the spot, when all I want to do is flee.
“Rai, I’m so fucking sorry, brother,” Nico whispers.
I can’t look at him.
My eyes find Alaric’s and his grin is wide as he opens his mouth to speak, “Me too.”
That’s when I see the gun drawn and I throw Valeska and Nico behind me as I prepare for the bullet to hit me. The gun goes off with a deafening bang and I prepare myself to feel the hot pain explode somewhere on my skin, to mix with the raging storm within my heart.
But it never comes, and I realise too late that the gun is aimed at my sister, a bullet flying towards her that will land squarely between the eyes and I’ll lose her all over again. She might be immortal, but even vampires need their brains to live.
My scream tears from my throat, echoed by the one unleashed from Nico, but we’re too slow as we dive for Alaricand his men. Agents pour in from all areas of the restaurant before this becomes a massive bloodbath with bullets flying everywhere.
The distinct sound of a bullet piercing flesh ricochets through the restaurant. We manage to get some of the men pinned down and cuffed but the others are in a stand-off. I take stock of the situation so we can take them all.
Alaric and four of his men have their backs to the wall, Valeska faces off with them with only her dagger in her hand. I have her back to me, but I need to get to Azara. I expect to see her with a bullet between the eyes, but she is perfectly fine. There’s not a scratch on her, and she’s trying to get to Valeska’s side.
I won’t allow it.
And neither will Nico by the looks of it, we both hold her, the need to protect her now when I couldn’t back then stronger than anything else I’ve ever felt. Azara tries to shake us but we hold firm. The need to protect her overriding the rift that has formed between us.
“Get the fuck off me, I need to help her!” she shouts but we can’t do that, not when I just got her back. “I will tear you both to shreds if you don’t let me go right now.”
She struggles harder and it’s a fight to hold on, but she stops suddenly and gasps, and Nico and I turn to watch the scene unfold. Valeska has taken down the four men in quick succession, stabbing them with her wicked silver dagger as they lay in a pile at her feet. She’s stepping over them and pinning Alaric to the wall.
“What the fuck did you say to me, motherfucker?” I hear her deadly words in the now quiet restaurant.
Those of us that remain are unable to move—we are an audience to this moment in time, as if the very balance of natureteeters on a knife’s edge. We stand and watch the horror unfold before us.
“I said, you killed myfather! I came to take back what I was owed, and you’ve ruined it. We could have had it all! You stole what was rightfully mine, I should have been the one to inherit his empire, but you pilfered it like the gold-digging slut that you are.” His words seem to echo in the stillness of the air.
“Father? He-he had a son? I didn’t know, but how? Vampires can’t have children.” Valeska stumbles over her words, shock obvious in them.
Alaric laughs but stays pressed against the wall, his gun nowhere near him now. “No, they can’t, but he chose me! He knew he couldn’t trust a dirty, used whore like you, so he found me. Turned me in secret and stashed me away, teaching me everything I needed to know about running an empire. We had plans, big fucking plans, but you went and ruined it! I told him he couldn’t trust you, but he always was a sucker for that tight cunt of yo?—”
He never gets a chance to finish that sentence. Dark blood oozes from his mouth as he slides down the wall. Valeska steps back, and from this angle I can see she is holding something in her right hand, the dagger still pressed in her left.
