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She was talking about butchering their own child like one might talk about being forced to put down a favorite pet that had contracted rabies.

I looked at Dexter. “Is she talking about vampires, do you think?”

The Marine stared at the auburn-haired Virginie blankly.

He looked back at me and shrugged.

“I honestly don’t know, doc. It seems bigger than that, you know? Like if she just wanted the three of them to get changed into vamps, did shereallyneed to kill all those people? Either it’s all an excuse to commit tons of murder… or there’s something more behind it. I’m starting to wonder if maybe it’s not really about that at all.”

I nodded, thinking about his words.

I agreed with him.

I also wondered if Virginieknewshe didn’t need to do all of that.

Maybe she had some misinformation on the occult side of things.

From what Nick told me, the majority of vamps would turn a human who asked for a few grand in cash. Of course, you were taking a big chance that the vamp wouldn’t just take the money and kill you anyway, depending on whether they liked you or not.

You were also taking a big chance that a greedy vampire might not use their sire bond to takeallof your money, once you’d been turned.

Especially if you were rich.

Sires had some serious control over their offspring, especially in the beginning.

From what Nick told me, it took hundreds of years for young vampires to break that bond well enough to become fully autonomous, mentally and emotionally. It’s part of the reason vampires tended to target rich people to turn.

Or people with land or other assets they wanted.

It was also a big part of why older vamps didn’t generally trust young vamps, meaning those less than half a century or more old.

They assumed their sires were pulling their strings in various ways.

Brick was a young vamp, according to Nick, and to Brick himself.

Ridiculously young, for all the power he had.

Nick, by that standard, was a baby.

Nick confided in me that Brick should have a lot more power over him than he did. Nick theorized that Jem had interfered with that, by the two of them bonding as life-mates. The mate bond apparently outweighed the sire bond by a significant amount.

Still thinking about Virginie, about what she might really be after, I frowned.

“Maybe Brick hasn’t shown us that part because he doesn’t know for sure himself,” I said finally. “Or maybe he thinks he knows but he wants us to confirm it.”

“Or maybe he knows and he’s fucking with us… trying to force us to figure it out for reasons of his own,” Dex muttered.

We exchanged looks, and I saw worry in Dex’s eyes, more than anger.

I nudged him with my arm.

“Let’s go downstairs. Kiko isn’t up here.”

As soon as I said it, I knew it was true.

It hit me suddenly, that I knew exactly where she was.

Maybe Black knew too, given where he’d gone to look for her.