Page 54 of The Mafia Bloodline
The demon in him hissed at the edges of his speech. I felt the static buzz of it, like a hand running along an exposed wire.
I could have ended it there. My fingers itched for the knife. The brothers were angry and hungry for blood. Roman would have given me his blessing with a look; Viking would have loved the violence. Lucien would have calculated the briefest, most efficient strike and then moved on.
But instead, I pulled my phone, the one we used for necessary, mortal things and thumbed a quick, curt message to Draugr. Containment now,one vested, Runa’s father.Possessed, also vampire bites.Bring the doctor and the ritual kit. No open flame in the room. Bring chains. And bring answers.
The comms clicked alive inside the office like a chorus. Draugr’s voice over the line was a low, steady anchor.On my way. Lock it down. Don’t let him leave that room.
I looked back at Colm. He was babbling now, half-syllables colliding. The demon’s hold made him reach for my throat at moments and then weep like a child the next. He was not sane. He was danger. But he was also, in a shredded, ruined way, the man who had raised Runa. A man who had cracked and failed and loved in his dodgy, harmful fashion. For Runa’s sake, I couldn’t throw him away without trying something else first.
I moved fast then, the decision like a blade finding its scabbard. I pulled a spare piece of rope from my pocket and, with hands that shook, secured Colm’s wrists gently but firmly. I wanted restraint, not pain. They would bring sedatives when they came, but not yet. I did not want to brutalize him in a fashion that would leave Runa scarred for life if she ever saw the result.
I dragged a dirty, old blanket over him and pressed my weight so the sudden movement didn’t trigger him to lunge. Then I stepped out and barked orders to the men on the docks first, then to the car that had waited in the shadow. We needed specialists, a vampire doctor who could tell us whether the bite had created a pathogen, an exorcist or a ritualist who could weaken demon hold, and brothers who could do what needed doing if those methods failed.
Draugr arrived first, quiet as always, and his eyes swept the room once before settling on the hunched figure in the corner. He smelled the demon’s residue and his face darkened. “He’s not alone inside that skull,” Draugr said, blunt, the words like stones. “This thing crawled into him.”
Lucien came after, still stained with ash. He crouched at my shoulder, fingers brushing the back of Colm’s head, searching in ways I couldn’t name. “Did you see evidence of binding?” he asked. “Ritual sigils? A summoning?”
I shook my head. “Not here. Just the aftermath.” My throat tightened at the sound of Runa’s name in my mouth. Do not tell her. The thought was a hard crust in my head. I needed to keep whatever I could from her until we had a plan, until the doctor had run tests.
The vampire doctor arrived last, a precise man with tired eyes and a satchel of instruments. He moved with the calm of someone who’d seen this particular brand of horror before. He examined Colm under a lamp, lips pressed tight, fingers mapping the track of dark veins and bite punctures.
“This is bad,” he said at last, voice neutral. “He’s doubly compromised. The vampires who bit him either tried to save him or marked him, I can’t tell yet, and the demon imprint is active. If the demon is suppressed without being removed, it will burrow deeper, and the human will rot from the inside.”
“Can you remove it?” I asked, not offering hope.
The doctor didn’t look up. “Maybe. With ritual help and a cleaning, this is a job for both blood and shadow. If we try to purge without stabilizing his blood, we’ll lose him. If we don’t try, the demon will feed, breed, and use him as a node. There’sa chance we can excise the corruption, but it will cost him something.”
Lucien’s jaw tightened; Draugr’s eyes narrowed. I felt my blood lift inside me, the part that wanted to tear down and eradicate. But I forced it down. For Runa. For the tiny life growing inside her.
“We secure him,” I said. “We bring him back. We lock him in a containment room with heavy wards, no sunlight risk, and full-time watch. We put him under sedation so he can’t hurt himself or the men trying to help him. And we do a sweep and find who brought him here. I want names, routes, all of it. If Caesar’s dogs were involved, I want them found and made to answer.”
Draugr’s gaze met mine, and in it I saw a weight that mirrored my own. “We’ll need to move fast. I’ll take two men and the ritual kit.”
I had already made the choice not to tell Runa. We would bring her father back, keep him alive, if possible, hide him from her until we could decide how and when to tell the truth, if we ever told it at all.
I hated the lie. I hated holding back the truth from someone who’d already bled enough. But I could not let the mother of my child carry this weight now. She needed the fragile, bright possibility she’d found in me. She needed to be light and optimistic, not drag the rotten truth of Colm’s ruin into her belly.
Draugr nodded to Lucien, who set about organizing his sedation, a careful transfer, wards. I went back to Colm, crouched down, and for a mad, tiny second, I let myself remember the man Runa had described, the one who taught her to fix a bike, who was a gambler and a liar but also her father. Colm’s fingers found my wrist and closed with a childlike dependence. He whisperedsomething that could have been my name or the syllables of a memory. I didn’t know whether to rage at him or cradle him.
So, I did the only brutal, human thing left, I pressed my forehead to his knuckles, then stood, gripped, and barked orders until the doctor and the brothers were ready.
They lifted Colm like he was a wrecked thing that belonged to the past. We carried him out under a net of wards and into the blacked-out van that would take him to a locked wing of the mansion, a place we cleared years ago for containment and sensitive work. I watched the van drive away, lights fading into the night, and I felt something like a hollow crack open in me.
Did I make the right call? I didn’t know. I knew only that I couldn’t let the woman I loved learn this truth raw and ragged. Not now. Not while she carried our child.
When I returned to the pier, the brothers were already standing in a loose half-circle, the air around them tasting of defeat. Draugr had found traces of footprints, a smear of oil that marked the courier’s escape route, shards of ritual silver. “They use men as tools and toss them,” he said quietly. “Caesar’s not the only bastard. There are hands in the dark that move for money and power.”
I let my anger flow then, a slow, cold thing. “We need to find them,” I said. “All of them. Whoever touched my mate’s father will die for it. And if Caesar shows his face again, he’ll wish he’d never learned our name.”
Roman’s eyes met mine. No words were necessary. He understood the promise in everything I’d done. He understood the secret I’d chosen to keep.
We left the docks together, the convoy light swallowing the distance. As we drove back to the mansion, I stared out at the dark city and felt the shape of the coming war settle over me like lead. I had Runa’s father alive in a box of wards and masks and tethers. I had a mate sleeping in our room with the soft swell of our child stirring beneath her ribs. I had a dozen enemies who thought they could pull the Dragic family apart with whispers and silver.
And I had a choice, one I would keep making again and again, to protect them at any cost.
The van carrying Colm disappeared into the night. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and whispered the only promise that mattered. “I’ll fix this,” I told the dark. “I’ll make it right.”
Then I sent a single, sharp order over the comms:No one tells Runa. Not yet. Lock the wing. Full watch. And find me Caesar’s trail.
