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Recognition? Regret?

“Lena,” he says hoarsely—my name like an apology on his lips.

He looks down at the blood staining both our skin, where it smears across our bodies like some violent claim of possession.His expression twists with self-loathing that cuts through what’s left of my haze.

“Lena,” he repeats brokenly.

I reach up with trembling fingers to touch his face—still smeared with dirt and hunger but unmistakably his own again—and see something else flicker there: disbelief that I’m still alive under all this ruin.

I manage a smile despite the spinning room and ache between us both. “You came back to me.”

“Oh god. God.” His eyes pinch shut. Anguish contorts his features. “He sent me to capture you. To bring you to him. I tried to fight it, but his voice was in my head, his commands…”

He shudders, rolling away from me to sit on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. “I would have done it. If you hadn’t reached me, I would have delivered you to him like a lamb to slaughter. Or maybe…maybe I would have slaughtered you myself.”

“But you didn’t,” I say firmly, sitting up to wrap my arms around him from behind. “You found your way back.”

He’s silent for a long moment, his body rigid beneath my touch. When he speaks again, his voice is hollow, defeated in a way I’ve never heard before.

“He told me things, Lena. About who I am. What I’ve done.” He draws a shaky breath. “I killed Elizabeth Short.”

The words hang in the air between us, terrible and final. I go still, arms still wrapped around him, my mind racing to process what he’s just confessed.

“Victor—”

“I’m the one who picked her up at the Biltmore,” he continues, the words coming faster now, as if he can’t stop them. “I took her to them. And after they tortured her for days, carved those symbols into her flesh, cut her in half, I…” His voicebreaks. “I drained her blood. I don’t remember doing it, but I know it’s true. I can feel it. I can taste it.”

I should be horrified. Should recoil from him in disgust. My friend’s killer, sitting naked and broken in my arms.

But all I feel is a profound sadness—for Betty, yes, but also for Victor. For the man who never asked for this legacy, who never chose to be a monster, who’s been manipulated and used by the creature who claims to be his father.

“It wasn’t you,” I say quietly. “Not the you that’s here now. Not the man I know.”

He laughs, a harsh, broken sound. “But it was. That’s what you don’t understand, Lena. The vampire side of me isn’t some separate entity. It’s me. All of me. The darkest, most primal parts, maybe, but still me.” He turns to face me, his eyes haunted. “I’m Dmitri’s son. His blood flows in my veins. His nature is my nature.”

I take his face in my hands, forcing him to meet my gaze. “Blood isn’t destiny, Victor. It’s just blood. Your choices define you, not your heritage. And you chose to fight him. Chose to warn me, even as you were compelled to capture me.”

“What if I can’t fight him next time?” he asks, fear evident in his voice. “What if he sends me after you again, and I can’t break free? What if I hurt you, or worse?”

I don’t have an answer that will ease his fears, because I share them. Dmitri’s compulsion over his own bloodline is clearly powerful, more so than I anticipated. But I know one thing with absolute certainty.

“Whatever happens next,” I tell him, “we face it together. I’m not leaving you to battle this alone.”

He stares at me, wonder breaking through the despair. “How can you still look at me like that? After what I just told you? After what I just did to you?”

“Because I know the man beneath the monster,” I say simply. “And that man is worth fighting for.”

30

CALLAHAN

Dawn isn’t far off, but it might as well be another lifetime away. The room around us has gone quiet—too quiet, the silence punctuated only by Lena’s steady breathing beside me. My confession hangs in the air between us, terrible and irrevocable.

I killed Elizabeth Short.

I expected revulsion, fear, even hatred. Instead, Lena’s fingers trace gentle swirls on my skin, her touch anchoring me to the present when every instinct screams for me to run, to disappear into the night where creatures like me belong.

“We should tell Abe,” she says finally, her voice surprisingly steady. “He needs to know what happened. What Dmitri did to you. What he made you do.”