Page 109 of Bent Out of Shade
“What’s your problem?” I snapped, throwing my hands up over my face and almost taking my eye out with one of the handcuffs.
“Call me Officer Esposito again and I’ll throw you on Deadman’s Island.”
“You’re already throwing me there. Can’t do it twice.”
She drew a timeline on the board. “Start at the beginning and lay your investigation out.”
I slumped down. “Last Sunday, Vincenzo BatXoha contacted Tatiana from Vegas about a case.”
The left end of the line got marked with last Sunday’s date. Above the date she wrote “hired.” The longer I spoke, the more the board filled up. A missing person. Blood oath. My fears of gang reprisals. The meeting between Tom and BTS. The revelation that Sabrina was a vampire—and the rogue killing gang members. Taking her to Laurent’s hotel. The dybbuk and Sabrina’s inability to wake up after.
Ryann bent down to retrieve the dry erase brush that had fallen on the ground. “She was enthralled?”
“Yeah.”
She removed some crime scene photos from the folder and carefully compared the ones from before the parking lot murders to the ones that night while I used the hum of the furnace as white noise against my own thoughts.
Finally, she pulled a small key out of her hoodie pocket and uncuffed me. “Consider the charges dropped.”
The cuffs fell to the table with a soft clank.
“What?” I rubbed my chafed wrists, my head reeling, and Delilah exploded out of me.
Ryann didn’t bat an eye at my shadow looming over her. “If you hadn’t captured Sabrina and gotten the dybbuk out of her, how much further would she have escalated? A possessed vampire is a terrifying thought.” She tapped a photo of a severed head. “You didn’t abet murder; you prevented it.”
I understood law and order. Due process. Was I glad it could be bypassed so easily in my favor? Sure, but I wouldn’t have been locked up in the first place if the Lonestars didn’t have unlimited power, and there was a legal code they had to adhere to with provisions for this type of situation, instead of making decisions as they saw fit.
Take the win, Mir. I wrestled my magic down.
This next part of my story was tricky. Zev had made new vampires to replace those struck down by the contagion, but I wasn’t sure I should tell the Lonestars that. Things were so fraught between the vampires and Lonestars that I didn’t want to be the match on the pool of gasoline. Or violate the mutual respect pact with the vampire.
“Miriam?” Ryann prompted.
I faked a yawn. “Sorry. Tatiana and I went to see Zev because I was scared that Vincenzo would do something rash.” I flinched, remembering Kian’s comment about Zev no longer being of her line. “Is Zev alive?”
“As far as we know.” Her answer filled me with a complicated set of emotions, but oddly, mostly relief.
“We wanted to buy time for Sabrina to wake up and have a say in her life,” I said, “so we enlisted BatKian’s help. He didn’t want a war, not with you guys already breathing down his neck, and when I saw him last night, he wanted her sire found. Laurent and Emmett took Sabrina over to Blood Alley this morning at nine for safekeeping. Rod-Rodrigo met them.”
Ryann sighed sadly at my stuttered pronunciation of the Undertaker’s name. “We haven’t told Zev about Rodrigo yet because Blood Alley is still on lockdown.” She paused. “Juliette has been working on Laurent nonstop and Judith has Emmett. Their situations are…” She gathered the photos up and stuffed them in the folder. “I don’t know anything concrete.”
I swiped at my eyes. “Do Sadie and Eli know I’m here?”
“Yes. Did the handover go smoothly?” The Lonestar was all business again, back at the board, marker poised.
I took a breath to compose myself. “As far as I know. Emmett called to say Zev had found out where Vincenzo was hiding with his other vampires. He and Laurent were to follow Rodrigo there and kill them, while I’d try to wake Sabrina up before she was given to you.”
But nothing had worked out. Sabrina was still comatose and, given that Emmett and Laurent hadn’t been successful—I sucked in a breath—Vincenzo was still alive. There was hope for Sabrina to have something of a life she could choose herself.
Provided Ryann agreed not to prosecute her.
“That gels with Zev’s message to us. I didn’t believe it when I heard it.” Ryann scraped her fingers through her Easter egg blue and purple buzz cut and sank into a chair. “What happened between that and Blood Alley going into lockdown?”
“Kian.”
Ryann did a double take. “His estrie? She came back?”
“Short answer yes. Long answer, talk to Zev.” She nodded reluctantly and I continued. “Kian foiled Zev’s plans. I don’t know what happened on his end because I was kidnapped by Vincenzo, who I didn’t see again after I was imprisoned.”
