Page 77 of Thirst
Sometimes I still couldn’t believe I ended up here. The luxury felt like a costume, and me a stray dressed up in borrowed clothes. Yet here I was, a fucking syndicate lieutenant.
Two decades ago, even I wouldn’t have bet on me ending up as one of Brien’s righthand men. I flashed on myself, wild and half-starved, trailing Brien’s mother, Prima Lenore, into the castle’s foyer. I’d been wide-eyed at the sheer wealth, and the power behind it.
Tall and blond like her son, the prima had appeared in the island jail where me and Talon were doing thirty days to offer us both a deal: agree to be Brien’s bodyguards and she’d turn us.
The two of us had exchanged a slack-jawed look, then said “Yes, ma’am,” at the same time. We were nobody then, just a pair of idiots trying to prove what badasses we were.
As the willowy blond vampire had led us through the halls to the cavern beneath the lair where she would turn us, I made myself a promise. I’d survive transition, no matter what. No twenty-year-old kid wants to die, but I didn’t care that much about living.
What I wanted was payback, to shove my new status in my aunt and uncle’s faces.
And I’d done it. Over and over and over.
Talon had wondered why I didn’t simply off Baker, put the bastard out of his misery.
But I’d enjoyed humbling him. Had fucking loved hitting him again and again—in his pocketbook, where it hurt him the most.
It still hadn’t been enough. Nothing I did could make up for my aunt and uncle’s abuse. I hadn’t even wanted an apology. They could’ve crawled to me on their knees begging forgiveness, and I would’ve laughed and buried my boot in their soft bellies.
In the drawing room, Valente was on his feet, cradling a coffee cup in one long-fingered hand, studying the ornate gold clock on the mantel like he was trying to figure out how it was put together. A fifth-generation islander, he was tall and lean, and steady in that way locals trusted. I didn’t know him well, but he had a rep as a fair man.
“Lieutenant.” He set his cup on a saucer on the antique coffee table and calmly met my gaze. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“Of course.” We shook hands, then I waved at a pair of green brocade couches. “Sit, please.”
“I’ll stand, thanks anyway.” A grin creased his leathery cheek. “I spend too much time on my ass as it is.
I clasped my hands behind my back. “I hear you found Baker.”
“Yes.” He explained that his skull and few spare parts—a shin, a hand—had washed up on a beach a few kilometers south.
“You need me to identify him?” I asked.
“That won’t be necessary. The dental records confirmed it.”
Behind my back, I tapped one finger against the opposite wrist. “So why are you here?”
“Your uncle didn’t leave a will. That means the house will come to you.”
No fucking way.
“He has a sister,” I pointed out.
“Not anymore. The sister passed a couple of years ago. And her children aren’t keen on hanging onto some run-down place on a syndicate-run island. No offense, Lieutenant.”
I lifted a shoulder. “None taken.”
“So, that leaves you. The land will revert to the syndicate, of course, but the house will have to go through probate, which could take years. In the meantime, I’m sure you’ll want to maintain it.”
“Let the bank have it,” I said. “I hear he was about to lose it anyway.”
Valente’s gray eyes turned cold as the ocean in January. “I think we both know your syndicate owns the bank. So to my way of thinking, you already own it.”
My own eyes narrowed. “Then let it rot.”
His jaw worked—but he didn’t let up, like a terrier with a bone.
“I think we both want to avoid making waves, eh? I’ll write up Baker’s death as an unfortunate accident—guy went in the water and didn’t survive. All I’m asking is that you patch up his old place. It’s either you or the town footing the bill, and seeing as you’re set to inherit the building, it seems fair you step up. We’ve got young families here, decent folks who’d be happy to rent a big house like that from you.”
