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Okay. Good. The tension left my shoulders as soon as I knew he was far away from whatever this was. I turned my attention to the envelope and opened it. Inside was a collection of photographs but they weren’t just still images. They were time stamped like they’d been taken from CCTV footage.

It took me a minute to figure out what I was looking at but by the third image I’d worked it out.

This was evidence of the shitshow Lucia had just walked into my office. It was picture after picture of her and Remy fucking in some backwater motel and then the incident that occurred after. Remy attacking someone outside the building. What a fucking mess.

It wasn’t that we couldn’t have interspecies relations, it was more that we’d forbidden any kind of sexual relations between the Three Families to keep things on an even keel. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to reveal this mess to Marcelle, although, knowing him, he already knew anyway. That guy always knew any secret worth knowing.

“What else was delivered?” I asked.

“A box,” Vlad said simply.

I stood up and headed out of my office. “Where is it?”

“The foyer.”

I stopped short. “You left it in the foyer?”

“It’s a large box.”

I could hear Lucia’s heels clacking on the hardwood floor behind me as I picked up my pace. I didn’t care that she was following Vlad and me, I just wanted to prove myself wrong. That my mysterious hooded figure hadn’t delivered what I thought he had.

I could smell it before I could see it. Rancid and like old pennies.

A black box wrapped in a gold bow sat in the middle of my entrance hall. It stood at waist height and there was a tag hanging on the front. I reached out and flipped it over.

Damyr, I hope you like my gift. Make sure you do the right thing. Ronin xx

“Ronin. Who the fuck is Ronin?” Vlad growled.

I had no idea. “Guess we’d better open it.”

I undid the bow and lifted the lid. The smell intensified as the sides of the box fell to the floor with a soft thud.

There, right in the centre, was a body.

“My God,” Lucia gasped.

I didn’t need her reaction to realise this was the guy from the CCTV footage. And he was human. Fuck.

I stepped closer and crouched over the body. His head was twisted at and unnatural angle and bruises marred his face, arms and hands. He was mid-forties, well dressed and clearly came from money. There was a twinge of recognition as I stared at his face. There were three jagged slices across the apple of his cheek. Remy’s handiwork, no doubt. The flesh was cut right down to the bone.

Why did he seem familiar?

Something was taped to the man’s forehead. I peered closer and realised it was his drivers license, covered in bloody fingerprints.

“Who is it?” Vlad asked.

The only word that was easy enough to read was his surname.

My blood ran cold. “Montgomery.”

“Impossible,” Vlad mumbled.

“It’s Theo Montgomery.” Vlad was right. It was impossible for this man to be decomposing in my entrance hall.

“Who is that?” Lucia asked.

The black sheep of the monarchy and I’d killed him over ten years ago. Or so I’d thought.