Page 14 of Bullets and Blood (Hunting Hearts #1)

Chapter Eleven

Lance sat at the dining table on his laptop, pouring through everything he had on the Hadley family, looking for something, though he couldn’t say what.

Most of what he’d been given access to related directly to Nix.

Everything from where he’d gone to school—the same exclusive Melbourne boy’s school all the Hadleys attended.

His grades—which had been excellent until the last few months.

Lance could guess why. The cars he favored, who his driver was, the gun he used.

The brand of suits that he wore. Hell, Lance even knew what wax he used on his surfboard.

What he didn’t have was anything that could prove what Nix had said was true, and if he started digging too deeply or requesting more access to the family archives, his aunt might think something was up.

He switched to Nix’s sister, Zinnia, and then the raid on the Hadley mansion that had all but ended the family.

He didn’t need to go to the winery to make sure Nix hadn’t absconded.

Nix wasn’t going to run. Lance rubbed his neck.

On one side, there was barely a mark. That had been the first bite.

The other side was bruised, and while the puncture marks were gone, the scratches were still healing.

He’d put on a collared shirt when he’d gone out for breakfast and picked up some things from the supermarket, not wanting people to judge his hickey even though they wouldn’t know it was from a vampire.

He read through the official report that one of his aunts had made about the raid.

He’d only heard secondhand information when the amped-up-blooded vampires had climbed into the car where he was waiting.

Had he lied to Nix? No, he wasn’t there; he hadn’t fired a single shot.

But he had been down the road. There were a couple of other statements, including one from the man who claimed to have shot Nix.

A shot that should have immobilized him if the bullet had remained in his body for more than a few minutes.

Had he dug it out during the firefight? And Nix had run instead of killing the man. Why? That didn’t make sense.

Lance went back to the newspaper stories that had been written afterward.

‘Gangland warfare in suburbia’ is what it had been called.

The reporters had even interviewed the headmaster of the school since so many of the dead had been educated there.

The neighbors had, of course, been horrified, as the Hadleys seemed like such a nice, normal family.

A few humans who worked for the Orlans had been offered up by his aunt as those responsible. They’d been so thoroughly enchanted that they would have believed black was white.

There was nothing new in the write-ups.

He folded down the screen and stared at the laptop, unseeing.

He might be disobeying his family in allowing the truce, but they were still his family.

They had no reason to lie. Nix, on the other hand, had every reason to lie—it was his neck on the line.

And no matter what happened, Lance had to remember he was fucking the enemy.

His fingers brushed the bruise. He should be dead. He should’ve been dead a dozen times over before the truce. The more he learned about Nix, the man, not the body count or official profile, the less he made sense. Who was Nixon Hadley?

Did it matter when it would all come crashing down in twelve days?

He checked the time, figured Nix would be on his lunch break, and called him to make sure he was coming over—he didn’t want to let the leash get too long.

“Don’t call me on your phone,” Nix said as a greeting.

“What? Why?” That wasn’t what he’d expected after last night.

“Your calls will be monitored.” Nix muttered else that something Lance didn’t catch.

“I want to know if you’re planning on coming around?”

“Yeah. Later.” Nix hung up.

Lance stared at his phone. Then at the laptop. His calls wouldn’t be monitored. Would they? There had been a few times when he’d thought he was being tracked, when someone would call him and know a little too much about what he was doing.

His heart stopped for a moment.

No. They trusted him to do this job. Nix was overly worried. But the fear that someone was watching and reporting on him didn’t leave.

When Nix showed up at his door hours later, the knot in Lance’s stomach had only grown.

He couldn’t break the truce without proving Nix’s point about the Orlans being oath-breakers.

But he wasn’t sure how he could keep going.

He let Nix in even though he didn’t want to be seen with him.

Nix breezed in wearing jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and the faded cap with the surf logo, the same one he’d been wearing the first time Lance had seen him.

He pressed a kiss to Lance’s lips like they were lovers who’d been parted for months, not hours.

Lance stepped back, and then his back was to the wall. He should push Nix away, but the way Nix moved against him, all Lance wanted to do was pull him closer until there was nothing between them. Nix drew back to breathe.

Why was he not freaking out about being watched?

“Miss me?” Nix smiled as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

The bite mark on his neck throbbed in time with his pulse. “Are you trying to seduce me so I don’t turn you over?”

Nix lifted an eyebrow. “Is it working?”

“No.”

The smile fell from Nix’s face, and his features hardened as he walled himself up. That was the man he knew from the photos. Grim and hard. Trapped.

Lance grabbed his hand but then didn’t know what to do. Nix glanced at their hands and then at him. For a second, Lance didn’t know if he was about to be killed or kissed.

Nix did neither. He pulled his hand free. “Sorry to be so disappointing.”

“If I’d met you anywhere else?—”

“Or if we weren’t enemies?”

“Yes,” Lance agreed. Nix had an air about him that made it hard to look away. Lance wasn’t ensorcelled, but he might as well have been.

“Why are we enemies? Why are we fighting their bloody war?”

“Family honor,” Lance said. The words automatically rolled off his tongue.

Nix stepped back. “Is that what they tell you?”

“Amongst other things.” Like how the Hadleys were the scum of the earth. Violent and unfeeling. Uncaring.

All he could think about was Nix beneath him at the beach. That hadn’t been a man who didn’t care about his lover—Lance knew what that was like.

“They don’t tell you they monitor all communication? Every keystroke?” Nix pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. “This is my new number. Memorize it. Use a landline or a burner.” He pressed it into Lance’s palm. “You have to assume everything is monitored.”

“No, I don’t. You’re talking about my family.” His family wasn’t made up of monsters. But to the Hadleys the Orlans were the monsters in the same way the Hadleys were the bad guys in every tale the Orlans told.

Nix shot him a glare. “We monitored all technology. Traced all numbers. Everything. Your family will be no different.”

“Your mother monitored what you were doing?”

“Yes. I bought myself a junk phone with some birthday money because I didn’t want them checking out who I was dating or hanging out with. I wanted some privacy.”

“What happened when you were caught?”

Nix gave him a curious smile. “I wasn’t. I didn’t make every call on that phone.” Nix walked toward him and put his hands on Lance’s shoulders. “Honey, you have got to be more careful. We are dancing with a poisoned blade. One slip, and we are dead.”

“You asked for the truce.” And put them both in danger.

“Because I want to live. You agreed to it.”

Lance looked down, unable to hold Nix’s gaze. “Because I am a fool.” He shouldn’t have gotten sucked in by a smile.

“You like the dance.” Nix swayed a little closer.

Lance nodded, unable to say anything.

“I like it more now I can see my partner.” Nix’s lips brushed Lance’s, then he stopped. “Sure it’s not working?”

Lance turned his head away. “The end result won’t change.”

It couldn’t. He had to prove himself to his family and get blooded.

This was ruining everything. Nix’s breath was on his neck.

Their bodies almost touched. Lance wanted to shove him away.

He wished he’d never agreed to the stupid truce.

He’d be on his way home by now. But when he looked at Nix, he didn’t think he could shoot him and drag him home, alive but immobilized and vulnerable.

Did his aunt know how weak he was?

Is that why she hadn’t blooded him yet?

“I know.” Nix sighed. “But why not have some fun along the way.”

“I don’t need a pity fuck from a condemned man.”

“Harsh.” Nix’s hand slid off Lance’s shoulder as he stepped back. “Tell me, do I usually seduce my targets?”

Lance gritted his teeth. “No. But you’d do anything to save your life.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” He slapped his hand against the wall by Lance’s head and leaned in. Anger flared in his eyes. “I fucked you because I wanted to. No other reason. The truce? Yeah, that’s to buy me time to plan.”

“Run. You have an entire continent to get lost in.” And he could follow.

“I don’t want to run. That’s not living. I want more than existing and looking over my shoulder, wondering when I’ll be dragged back to Melbourne. I never wanted to be part of this fucking war.” He dropped his hand. “I should go.”

“I spent the day reading your file, reading my notes, and I still don’t know you.”

Nix shrugged. “You know enough to hunt me down.”

He did. But that wasn’t who Nix was. “That isn’t what I want to know.”

There was so much more to him than what was on paper. He wasn’t sure if half the things were true.

“You don’t get to know more. I’m not a bug to be studied.”

“You don’t trust me.” Nix had no reason to if he believed all the Orlans were liars.

“I don’t trust anyone, so don’t take it personally.”

Lance studied Nix for a moment. He was the kind of guy he’d have looked at twice.

If he’d been human and with no complications…

who was he kidding? It wouldn’t have gone anywhere.

Nothing ever did because he didn’t want to share anything about his life and family.

The money was great, the truth not so much.

He didn’t want a boyfriend who only cared about the size of his wallet.

Or one who’d be horrified at the violence.

He wanted Nix to trust him. The words formed on the tip of his tongue, but once spoken, they couldn’t be taken back, and he would be doing something far worse than kissing the enemy. “I’ll show you your file.”

Nix tilted his head. “The Orlan file on me?”

“Yeah…I don’t have anything to hide.” And if it was all true, neither did his family.

“Okay. You show me mine, and I’ll show you yours.”

“Did you want to seal that in blood?”

Nix’s lips curved into a sultry smile. “Later. Get your laptop and we’ll go to the library.”

Lance was about to argue, but if his laptop was being monitored and Nix logged into his family’s database, his aunt would know about it within minutes. “Okay. Are you sure you want to be seen in the car with me?”

“I’m not getting into the boot.” Nix grinned. “But I don’t mind the backseat.”