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“Done with or done too, Marisol?”

“If you’ve hurt her—” Teresa ranted, but I cut her off.

“Hurt her? No, Teresa. That implies an ongoing state.” I paused, allowing the implication to settle into her dark heart. “Marisol is beyond hurt.”

The sound that came through the cell phone speaker wasn’t quite a gasp. The sound was sharper and more feral. It was the sound of a predator realizing they’ve lost something of value.

“You’re lying.” Teresa said when she was the one who told falsehoods and untruths. “You’re trying to provoke me.”

“Huh, am I?” I lifted the phone closer to my mouth. I wanted to ensure she heard every word. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. In Alexander Valentine getting his revenge, you must always trust.”

My rhyming taunt landed with precision. Teresa’s breath hitched, and when she spoke again, shock had replaced her confidence. “You, you burned her?”

“In the words of Jimmy Ellis from The Trammps, Burn, baby burn, disco inferno. Oh, how I loved the seventies.” I mocked her with a huge smile I wished she could see through the phone.

Harlen’s face split into a vicious grin. Natasha remained impassive, but I caught the approval in her eyes.

“You bastard!” Teresa hissed. “You’re an absolute monster. Killing humans is one thing, but you killed a vampire, your own kind.”

“It’s whatever.” I cheered. This was ironic, coming from a woman who used to be human not so long ago. “You had no problem systematically murdering innocent humans with the same name as my fiancée.”

My choice of words hung suspended between us, the word ‘fiancée’ ringing in the silence that followed. I hadn’t planned to reveal that information, but the opportunity to twist the knife was far too tempting to resist.

“Fiancée?” Teresa’s voice cracked. There was genuine surprise breaking through her rage. “You’re marrying the nurse?”

“I proposed last night, right over Marisol’s charbroiled body.” I confirmed. I watched Harlen’s eyebrows rise in surprise. This was news to him as well. I hadn’t gotten around to mentioning it to him. “She said yes, of course. We celebrated over Marisol’s remains.”

The open line filled with a sound that was half scream, half sob and a whole lot of fury. “I want to see you now!” Teresa commanded. Her words came faster and with less control. “Face to face. You and me. Bring your precious nurse. Let’s settle this once and for all.”

My jaw tightened at the mention of Chanel. It was an implicit threat, but I kept my voice level. “You’re hardly in a position to make demands.” I warned.

“I have more allies than you think.” She spit back. “You killed Marisol? I’ll replace her with ten more. You think you’re winning? You’ve barely seen what I’m capable of.”

Her threat slid off me. “I’ve seen enough. The desperate flailing of a vampire whore who’s already lost.”

“I want to meet!” she insisted. “Just us. No armies, no ambushes. You, me, and your human pet.”

I exchanged glances with Natasha, who gave me an almost imperceptible nod. Harlen mouthed something I couldn’t quite catch, but his eagerness was clear. He wanted this confrontation as much as I did.

“I’ll think about it.” I told Teresa. I was deliberately casual, as if her demand was of minimal interest. “I’ll call you back when I’ve decided.”

“You’ll think about it?!” Her voice rose. “No, Zand. You don’t get to dictate terms anymore. You bring that bitch to me, or I swear to God I’ll?—”

I ended the call. My finger pressed the button with finality. I cut off Teresa’s tirade mid-sentence.

“Well.” Harlen groaned. “That went better than expected.”

Natasha’s expression remained neutral. “The bitch is deranged. This makes her more dangerous.”

“And more predictable,” I countered, setting the phone down on my desk. “She’s emotional, making threats she can’t back up. Believe me, we have the advantage.”

“She’ll call back.” Harlen predicted, eyeing the phone. “Probably within minutes.”

“Let her.” I said, rising from my chair. I walked over to the one-way glass and looked out over the dance floor below me. “Let her rage. Let her threaten. Let her believe she still has power in Chicago.”

The lights of The Castle strobed and sparkled below. Teresa doesn’t realize it yet, but she’s already lost. Her death wasdetermined the moment she threatened Chanel, and everything since then has been merely a prologue to her death. The final chapter was about to begin.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN