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“You need both hands to shoot this bitch.” She said, and she didn’t back away. My queen stood her ground beside me.

The boat emerged completely from the fog. It was close enough now that even human eyes could make out its occupants. Teresa stood at the bow, her platinum blonde hair whipping around her face in the breeze. She wore black. Behind her stood three vampires I didn’t recognize until I did. One of the women was familiar. She had helped Marisol attack Chanel back at the apartments. The one with the jet-black hair was new to me. The fifth figure that froze my blood, the man.

Lonzo Lopez stepped from behind Teresa and appeared at the center of the boat. His familiar face now had the unmistakable pallor of vampirism. His dark eyes, once merely cruel, now held the vacant glare of the undead. He stared directly at me, his lips curled in a smirk that revealed the points of fangs.

Beside me, Chanel gasped, audibly. Her body went rigid with shock. Her fingers dug into my arm with enough force to bruise a human.

“Zand.” She choked out my name. “That’s, that’s?—”

“Impossible.” I muttered, though the evidence was headed toward me. Lonzo Lopez, the man I personally killed and disposed of in this very lake. He lived. He existed, reanimated in vampire form. How?

The boat scraped against the rocky shore and came to a halt. Teresa leaped out onto a rock, followed by Lonzo, who made a show of it. He jumped in the air and landed smoothly next to Teresa. The other three vampires joined them on the shore.

“Surprise! Surprise!” Teresa greeted us. Her voice carried easily across the short distance that separated us. Her smile was triumphant. “You should see your face, Alexander. It’s almost as shocked as it was when you found me in bed with your father.”

I didn’t respond to her taunt. My eyes remained fixed on Lonzo, cataloging the evidence of his transformation. This bitch turned him and never gave anything away. I should’ve never tossed him in the lake. I should’ve burned him at the crematorium. It was a vital mistake, a miscalculation that I couldn’t change.

“How?” I finally asked, but I knew exactly how.

Teresa’s laugh rang out over the rocks and echoed over the water. “I saw you put Mr. Lopez in the truck of that old ugly Chevy. I followed you and fished him out when you left. Did you have to kill this man for that bitch?” She continued. “I had more than enough time to resurrect the dead. “Humans are surprisingly resilient when they have the right motivation.” She stroked Lonzo’s cheek like he was a pet pitbull. “And he had excellent motivation—revenge.”

The implications cascaded through my mind. She had been planning this betrayal longer than I realized. She was deranged and obsessed. I miscalculated her cunningness. I had to stay sharp in the moment and beat myself up later.

Lonzo came forward, his eyes fixed were not on me but on Chanel. “Hey, baby girl.” He said with a voice carrying the new timbre of vampirism. “Did you miss me?”

Chanel’s heartbeat spiked. “Fuck! You!”

“Whoa, Zand you kiss her potty mouth.” Teresa’s smile widened at the exchange. She took a step closer, and her twofemale vampire guards and one male fanned out behind her and Lonzo. They created a defensive formation that mirrored our own. The air between us felt charged, like the moment before lightning struck. “Zand, did you lose your voice?”

“Never. We’ve talked too much.”

“Surprised to see your handiwork undone?” Teresa toyed with me and spread her arms as if presenting Lonzo as a gift. “You should be more thorough when disposing of bodies. Some things refuse to stay buried just like out past.”

I felt Chanel pressed against my side. I wanted to hold her and tell her she was safe, but I had to focus all my attention on my enemies.

“Zand, you had so much to say over the phone. Where’s that blonde bitch that’s always at your side?”

“I don’t need her.” I saw Harlen and Morgan to my right. They were ready to pounce. Then there was Natasha’s barely visible silhouette on higher ground to my left. The trap was set. The players were assembled.

“But you bring the baby vamp with you instead?” Teresa glanced over at Morgan. “Sorry babes, I really thought Harlen was too stupid to make a vampire. I wanted you dead.” Teresa waited for a response. “Hello, Mariah Carey. Are you mute?”

Morgan’s eyes stayed fixed on Teresa, but her mouth didn’t have any words. We rehearsed our plan. Morgan’s silence irritated Teresa. She wanted a reaction, and I was proud that our new vampire didn’t give her one.

“Well, okay.” Teresa signed. “I’m a little disappointed with your team of Avengers. You have a human nurse, a biracial newbie, your creepy brother and your WWE chauffeur. Husband, you know you brought a nail file to a knife fight?”

Tension hung in the air. My every muscle was primed for violence. Lonzo’s eyes only left Chanel’s face when he was undressing her with his eyes. I couldn’t wait to kill him once andfor all. The mention of truce was always fiction. It was a thin veneer of civility stretched over mutual hatred.

I was done with all the talking. “Teresa, do you ever shut up?”

“Let’s make a deal. Give me the nurse.”

“Never.”

Teresa licked her lips and let her eyes trail down my body. “Do you have a noise maker on your hip? Guns don’t work on vampires. None of my people are humans.”

I wanted to say something, but I was confused. Was this a trick? Layla. Layla. Layla. Did she tell…

Wait. Layla saw my security officers with guns, but I never told her what the gun was used for. Cripo Glocks resembled regular 9mm Glocks. The guns were classified weapons. Only a few of my people knew their true function. Layla wasn’t a part of my security team. She wasn’t privy to anything regarding this weapon or any of the previous prototypes. The possibility existed that Layla never shared this intel because she didn’t know anything about this invention.