Vampire born, p.37
Vampire Born, page 37
“Yeah, about that…” I was laying half across his torso, my chin propped on one hand as I traced circles on his chest with the other. “Angie put me on an unpaid leave pending the outcome of my court case.”
“What?” Nick moved to partially sit up, dislodging me. “Why did she do that?”
“She was under pressure from some of our donors, and she said she can’t risk the negative publicity. They think I have an anger management problem and that I escalated the situation with Greg.”
“That’s bullshit!”
“Is it? I mean, I had no business going over there, and I likely made it a lot worse on Cazzie. He broke into our house to beat me up, so who knows what he would do to Cazzie because of me? None of this would have happened if I’d listened to Angie and stayed away from there.”
“He would still hurt Cazzie whether you’d gone there or not. I’m not so sure you’re still going to have a court case, though. I have every reason to believe that after our…conversation…tonight, Greg will be rescinding his statement about what happened at the house, and he’ll be dropping his request to press charges.”
I sat up and looked down at him, surprised and hopeful. “He told you that?”
“I told him that, but he readily agreed.”
“Do I even want to know how you convinced him to do that?”
The corner of Nick’s mouth lifted in a wicked smirk. “Probably not. Let’s just say I can be very persuasive.
I shuddered at the memory of Nick in vampire vengeance mode, but I was still relieved to hear that Greg was backing down. My relief was short-lived as I recalled Officer Daugherty’s insistence that I had to be arrested.
“The cop said because I put Greg in a chokehold, it’s an automatic charge. Will it even matter if Greg doesn’t want to press charges?”
“It’s possible the prosecutor could move forward, but doubtful. You have no prior record. You were defending Cazzie, which Greg agreed to admit, and his stunt tonight clearly shows he’s the threat, not you. We’ll still meet with the attorney to make sure we’re prepared either way, but I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said with a heavy sigh. “Though even if the Greg issue goes away, we still have plenty to worry about.”
It was time to tell him about Mike. I’d put it off as long as I could. He needed to know.
But before I could get the words out, he reached to take my hand.
“I have something I need to tell you,” he said, rubbing his thumb back and forth across the back of my hand. “I don’t know how you’re going to react, and I feel so close to you right now that I hesitate to bring up something that might endanger that. Part of me wants to just pretend everything’s okay until tomorrow or even the next day, but I don’t want to keep any secrets or delay telling you something and you feel like I was hiding it.”
Concerned, I sat up straighter and crossed my legs beneath me. “What is it?”
“Remember I told you that the head of security had called a meeting to discuss developments in my father’s investigation?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, they think my father was somehow mortal when he died.”
I ran through the mental files of everything he had told me so far about immortals dying, which seemed an oxymoron. “How does that happen?”
“It doesn’t, normally. We have no idea why he’s presenting as human. They’re trying to determine if it was something he was exposed to in the lab, but his head of security thinks it’s possible someone shifted him the same way I was shifted and then murdered him.”
“No!”
“Yeah, and the kicker is, she seems to think I’m responsible.”
My astonishment was multiplied times ten. “What? Why would she think that?”
“Because I showed up the day my dad died? Because he and I hadn’t spoken in years?”
“I haven’t spoken to my parents in years. That doesn’t mean if one of them dies that I killed them!”
“She just finds the timing suspicious, which I guess, if I was looking in from her point of view, I can understand. And there’s more.”
“If that’s your lead-in, I’m really freaking nervous to hear more.”
He adjusted his position to sit more squarely against the massive headboard. “My father had a new will drawn up recently, and he didn’t tell anyone in my family. Not my mother. Not my stepmother or my stepbrother. No one in the Gilde’s legal team was consulted. No one knew.” He cleared his throat and locked eyes with me. “Papa left me everything. His holdings, his shares, his stake in the Gilde. He even drew up papers ceding all his company roles to me.”
My brain tried to grasp all the complex layers of what that meant, but it was an impossible task.
“Holy shit,” I finally managed to say.
“I know.” He rubbed his hand over his head and kicked a foot out from under the sheet. “So, as you can imagine, that caused a bit of drama with the rest of my family.”
“What are you going to do?”
He shrugged with a scowl. “I don’t know. I’m damned sure not going to quit my job and take over the Gilde or run VCBI.”
My first reaction was relief, but then as I considered the immensity of the news and its ramifications, I questioned whether a flat no was truly the best answer.
“Not even if it means you could help more people?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know much about VanCleave Blood Industries. I’ve only heard of them in passing because they’re such a large player in the industry, but you told me they’re the world’s largest distributor and provider of blood services. So much of your work at Blood for All is spent trying to establish contacts, find vendors, and secure supplies in all these remote places. I’m thinking VCBI must have contacts and resources already in place all over the world. They’d have equipment, staffing, all of it. Look how hard you’ve worked the past several years to scrape together enough to build just a handful of clinics and keep them running. Imagine how much more we could accomplish through your family’s company!”
“I don’t want my family attached to what we’re doing at Blood for All. I don’t want to have to ask permission for every single project or fight for every single dollar.”
“But you already do that. You answer to your donors, and you have to fight for every dollar they give you. This would be far beyond what we’d hoped to gain with Shelia’s funding. I see this as you being given the opportunity to take your mission and expand it beyond your wildest dreams.”
“You don’t understand.” He climbed out of bed and walked over to the glass to look out at the emerging light in the sky. “I tried to get the clinics project off the ground while I was still part of VCBI’s leadership board. They wanted no part of it.”
“That was then. What about now?” I rolled off the bed and went to join him by the window. “Back then, it was an untested idea. Now, you can show them the research. The results. Show them what makes us an attractive proposal for the other companies who have donated. You told me before it didn’t work because your father didn’t see the need for it. If he left you in charge, you could make different decisions.”
“It won’t matter who’s in charge. VCBI’s focus has always been on research and profit to fund research. They’re not a do-good company. They’re cutthroat.”
“Your father had to know when he named you as his replacement that you wouldn’t run it that way. Maybe that’s why he chose you. Maybe your influence can change the company’s culture.”
He turned and leaned his back against the window. “It doesn’t work like that, Angel. Just because I would be in charge wouldn’t mean I could write a blank check and do whatever I want. Every decision made by VCBI must be approved by the board. And anything we do that affects human lives has to be reviewed by the Council, the governing body for immortals. Besides, I’m not accepting the position, so it doesn’t matter what I’d do differently.”
I drew back and looked at his profile. “You already made that decision? Without even telling me?”
“I’m telling you now,” he said as he turned to face me. “I only found this out this afternoon, and it’s been a little crazy since then, don’t you think? This is the first time we’ve had the chance to discuss it.”
“It’s not a discussion if you already made a decision.”
“Aria, I don’t want to run a global corporation of this size and be responsible for all that entails. I was brought up being told it was my destiny, and I worked hard to escape that fate. Have you forgotten I walked away from that company to live my own life, form my own foundation, and to marry you? I thought you’d be adamantly opposed to even the suggestion of me doing this.”
“I’m not necessarily opposed or in favor, and ultimately, I’ll support you no matter what you decide. But I don’t think you should make a knee-jerk call based on how you felt about your father and how you left the company. It’s a major life decision; you need to take some time to weigh out the pros and cons.”
He lifted a brow in question. “This from the woman who makes virtually every decision on impulse and never researches anything?”
I stuck my tongue out with all the sass I could muster as I crossed my arms over my chest. “Maybe I do, but you don’t. You always do your research and decide what’s best before moving forward. But with this? You’re making a decision based solely on emotion, not facts. And that may not be what’s best in the long run for you, or VCBI, or Blood for All.”
“I wouldn’t be able to do both, Aria. This would be a huge responsibility. I’d have to give up Blood for All if I took this on. It would likely fold.”
“It doesn’t have to. You have an excellent team in place. They’re just overstretched and understaffed. Properly funded, we could hire more people. Hell, until this assault mess is behind me, I need a job. I could work there. I helped you many an hour before I went back to school.”
“We don’t even know if the will is valid yet.” He leaned forward to rest his forehead on the glass. “Mam is having the Gilde’s legal team check it out. I still can’t believe Papa did this. I just wish I understood why. What was he hoping to accomplish?”
“I think that’s up to you. He’s giving you the opportunity, but you have to decide what to do with it.” I moved closer and lifted my hand to his hair, smoothing the tousled locks. “At least look at the big picture objectively, babe. You didn’t expect this, and I get that you don’t want it, but when something this far-reaching gets handed to you, I think you should consider the possibilities and the benefits before you turn it down.”
FORTY-TWO
NICK
Aria’s words made sense, but I wasn’t ready to hear them. Not yet. It was all still too fresh.
I needed time to process it all, and I knew she needed rest.
Pushing off the window, I took her hand in mine to put an extended pause on the conversation and lead her back to bed. “C’mon. You’re tired, and these aren’t decisions we need to make right now. I probably should have waited until tomorrow to even tell you about the will, but I wanted us to have everything out in the open.”
To my surprise, she resisted my pull and tugged her hand from mine.
“Everything isn’t out in the open yet.” Her shoulders lifted and fell as she took in a deep breath and released it forcefully.
Confusion set in as I questioned why she thought I hadn’t told her everything, but then it turned to apprehension when I realized the news was hers to reveal. “What do you mean?”
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, and with everything else going on, there never seemed to be a right time. Which is ironic, considering how hard I’ve railed at you for keeping secrets. But I honestly wasn’t trying to keep it a secret, and there’s a chance nothing will come of it. Maybe he’ll just go away and disappear back into whatever cockroach-infested woodwork he crawled out of.”
My apprehension grew, and her obvious distress triggered my need to protect her. “Who? What are you talking about?”
She looked down at her fingers, clasped tightly together, and then she looked back up at me with a quick exhale. “Mike.”
“Mike? Your ex, Mike?”
The name alone made my temper flare, and I was immediately prepared to pummel. Even as a human, it had taken everything in me to keep from hunting him down and making him pay for every bruise or heartache she’d ever suffered at his hands.
“Yeah. He got in touch with Angie recently. Said he’s gotten sober and went back home for a visit. I guess he was asking around about me and some idiot told him that I came back to town pregnant when I left him. Then, someone else told him I moved away with Angie.”
The mere thought of this asshole daring to try to contact Aria after the way he’d treated her made me feel downright murderous.
“Angie told him nothing,” Aria said, moving past me to sit on the bed with her knees hugged to her chest. “He suspected she knew something, though, so he was searching the internet for anything with her name tagged. When I got arrested for the whole Greg thing—the gift that keeps on giving—one of the local papers here did an article and posted it on their website. It mentioned I was employed at the outreach center and that Angie runs it. He called earlier and point blank asked if I’d been pregnant and if Sage was his.”
My vision clouded with red, and my blood felt like lava in my veins. There was no way in hell some abusive prick was going to come after my daughter. Or my wife. “What did you tell him?”
“I told him she wasn’t his, and I told him not to ever call Angie or me again because we had nothing to discuss.”
“And?”
“And we hung up. Do you think he’ll try to find us?”
I rushed to wrap her in my arms, partly to comfort her and partly to keep myself from tearing the room apart in a rage. “It doesn’t matter if he does. He won’t get to either of you. I won’t let him.”
“How can you stop him?” She pulled back inside my embrace and looked up at me. “What are you going to do?”
I wanted to hunt him down and give him exactly what he deserved, but since she was the one he’d harmed, the decision was hers to make. “What do you want me to do?”
Shrugging, she twisted in my arms to lay back against my chest. “I don’t know. To be honest, there’s a part of me that wants you to find him and do whatever it takes to make sure he won’t ever come in contact with Sage.”
I tightened my arms around her and bent to press my lips to the top of her head, prepared to commit to fulfilling that request.
“But at the same time,” she continued, “as relieved as I’d be knowing Mike was no longer on this earth, I don’t want that on your hands or mine. I wish there was a way to just make him disappear, like, legally somehow.”
“Men like him have no respect for the law. You know that.”
She tilted her head to the side to rest it on my shoulder as she gazed up at me with solemn eyes. “I do know that. But I don’t want us to become monsters just because he is. Do you think there’s a chance he believed me when I told him she wasn’t his? Do you think maybe that was the end of it, and he’ll just leave us alone?”
“Do you?”
“No,” she whispered.
She shuddered and curled further into me, and I wrapped myself around her even more tightly.
“Aria, I won’t let him hurt you or Sage. I told you before, when it comes to my loved ones, I’ll do what I must. Not only to protect you but also to ensure you don’t have to look over your shoulder every damned day.”
“It’s so odd to think that this is what I’ve been training for. When I first wandered into a martial arts studio, it was to learn how to defend myself in case he found us. But then I fell in love with it, and it became my passion. That’s when I really started to excel at it. I enjoyed the discipline it gave me. The confidence I gained. The strength that came with the hard work. And, if I’m being completely honest, I straight up love taking someone down and knowing that I can kick some ass if I need to.”
“Yes, you can.” I grinned, despite the somber mood. “Your absolute badassery is one of the many things I love about you.”
She moved to sit up, and I relaxed my embrace to give her space.
“I’d hoped that Sage would love it too,” she said with a sigh. “I wanted to know she could defend herself if she needed to. But you were right about letting her take a break from classes. She never enjoyed it, and she’s much happier doing her own thing with dance or soccer.”
“It doesn’t mean she won’t ever pick it back up, you know.”
“I know, but all I keep thinking is this is it. Everything I’ve accomplished on the mat was supposed to prepare me for the possibility of Mike returning, and now that he has, I don’t feel prepared at all. My skills only help us if I end up in the same room with him. I can’t put Sage in a bubble to protect her, and I can’t know where he’s going to be at all times.” Intertwining her fingers with mine, she bit down on her lip as she looked up at me. “You have people looking for shifters. Would it be possible to have someone look for Mike?”
“Of course.” I had already planned to do that the moment she mentioned his call, but I was curious about her line of thinking. “What do you want me to do with him when I find him?”
“Nothing. For now, anyway. I just want to know where he is and what he’s up to. I want to know if he gets anywhere near us.”
“He won’t. I can promise you that.” I put my arm around her to pull her in closer, and then I pressed my lips to her temple, ignoring the flare of thirst and desire caused by the thrum of her pulse just beneath the skin. “I’ll get someone on it first thing in the morning. I’d like to talk to Angie about pulling the phone records at the center. Maybe he used his own number to call.”
“I’m sure she won’t have a problem with it.”
“I’ll need any details you can give me as well. Family names, past employers, anything you can think of to build a profile for us to go on.”
