Page 33 of Darius

“A long time?”

“Yes. Alaric is the oldest of us. No one has any clue how many years he’s walked on this earth. Marcus fought as a gladiator.”

“Like in ancient Rome?” she asked.

“Yeah, ask him that. Stress the ancient thing. He loves that.”

“Are you that old?”

“No, Zoí mou. I am only a few hundred years old.”

“I made love to a supercentenarian? You’ve got moves for an old guy.”

“Old guy, huh?” Darius pulled her fully on top of him. “And I was going to let you rest.” Before she could ask what that meant, he pulled her lips down to his. The sweet, sexy kiss that followed curled her toes. Her vampire had picked up some amazing skills throughout a few lifetimes.

Chapter

Thirteen

Darius delivered Mara personally to the bank doors the next morning with a tracker in her pocket and a promise that she wouldn’t go anywhere without telling him. While he would be happiest locking her in a secure room, he understood his mate enjoyed her job and would be very unhappy. She’d saluted as if he were being overbearing, but Darius heard her heart rate settle when he came up with a plan to ensure her safety. He didn’t tell her that someone from the clan would watch over her until they dealt with this threat.

As he drove from the bank to Nightfall, Darius dragged his focus back to the clan’s interests. He wanted to hear what Bram had uncovered about the penthouse and the kidnappers. Were they somehow linked to Enzo Costa? He’d been quiet for several weeks now. The take-action thug wouldn’t give up and fade away completely. Men like Enzo would die before surrendering.

Without Mara’s quick mind and attention to detail that had clued him in on something fishy happening, Darius doubted he would have picked up on the small transactions she had spotted. Was the problem caused by a person going in and meddling with the amounts or a sophisticated program? Either way, whoever had designed this money-mining effort was smart and wealthy. With the thousands or millions of transactions the bank conducted every day, diverting even a few cents would add up. If they didn’t get greedy, they could skate under the radar without detection.

Until Mara spotted the error.

Anger built inside him as he processed what a threat his Little girl posed for someone who’d already shown how unscrupulous they were. She had a target painted in scarlet red on her back after reaching out to the bank patrons. Fortunately, they’d have to go through him to get to her. If she hadn’t been his mate, Darius had no doubt they would have already eliminated Mara. But they hadn’t killed her from afar. Did they need information from her?

Arriving at Nightfall, he headed into the building and went straight to the conference room where the Nightfall clan leadership meeting convened. He was a few minutes ahead of time, but Marcus and Bram already sat in their usual chairs. He nodded to them as he took his chair. Darius wanted to grill Bram about what he’d found but would wait until everyone was there to hear.

“Mara is well?” Bram asked.

“She is. I delivered her personally to the bank and set a guard outside to keep an eye on everything,” Darius reported.

“Smart.”

Darius could tell by the one-word answer that Bram had information to share. Marcus must have picked up on that impression as well, for the big guy sat up straighter in his chair. Darius met Marcus’s gaze, and the two Daddies exchanged a glance that expressed concern for a precious Little girl.

Donovan entered in time to catch the exchange. “Stop rubbing our faces in the fact that you’ve found your mates.”

“We’re living the dream, Donovan. Surely with all those women you’re attracting to Nightfall to dance, yours will boogie in on five-inch stilettos,” Marcus said, not appearing sorry at all.

“I’ll take her in any shoes or barefoot,” Donovan said, dropping into the chair with a weary sigh.

“Ditto.” Bram looked down at his computer and clicked to bring something up as Alaric and Titus entered. “Now that the whole gang is here, see what you think of this.”

The enormous display screen at the side of the room lit up. Bram pulled up a graphic that resembled a family tree, except this one held the bank’s chain of command, starting with the tellers who processed the deposits and the bill-pay department. He stood and walked to the monitor as he reviewed the bank’s hierarchy of checks and balances.

“Despite the eyes and sophisticated accounting software that tracks this information, money is being siphoned off sporadically. Since I don’t have access to all the bank’s internal workings, I can’t pinpoint exactly where the theft is happening and who is benefitting, but I have a good idea.”

“Mid-level disgruntled workers or fat cats at the top?” Titus asked.

“This has to be coming from upper management. The changes are woven seamlessly into too many layers. An employee or two setting this up would require others to help them. Reaching out to fellow staff members to ask them to risk their jobs doing something illegal couldn’t have a one hundred percent success rate. Someone would feel guilty or refuse and alert those above them to what was happening,” Bram said.

All the vampires around the table nodded. Human nature couldn’t be predicted at that level of success.

“Mind control could account for no one reporting a problem. Could another clan be involved?” Alaric asked.