Page 15 of Bullets and Blood (Hunting Hearts #1)

Chapter Twelve

The library was only open for another hour.

Nix paid cash for half an hour of computer time the way he’d done a dozen times over the last six months in various towns.

Each time, he hoped that when he logged in, he’d find someone else had survived.

And he dreaded the day when Zinnia stopped checking in.

While he didn’t use his email or his bank accounts, getting into the back of the family business site had so far been safe.

He and Zinnia had risked contacting the lawyer before disappearing.

They couldn’t get the small legitimate businesses the family owned—which he didn’t want anyway—or money until they came forward, and the moment they did that, they were dead.

But at least everything was being held in trust.

The cops didn’t seem to care that two Hadleys were being hunted down by the Orlans. They probably thought life would be easier without the turf war. They were probably right.

It had been nice while the peace had held. For them, for his family, and for everyone who had the misfortune of crossing paths with the two warring families.

He typed in half the website, then glanced at Lance. “I’d prefer that you didn’t watch me log in.”

Lance turned away to sort out his own info.

The login screen came up. He stared at it. He shouldn’t be sharing this with anyone, least of all Lance. But the Hadley family was all but gone, so what was he protecting?

He typed in a password that would make NASA proud, and his portal opened up. He didn’t have as much access as Zinnia, but he had enough.

The first thing he did was check their chat.

She’d checked in four days ago. A simple period.

No details. Standard protocol if something happened to the family home and they’d all had to go into hiding.

That there were only two of them hadn’t changed anything.

That’s all their chat had been for the last six months, except for the one postcard that had been handed to him by a werecroc.

After being found so easily, he’d avoided hanging around with shifters as well as vampires.

He missed Zinnia, but it was better they were alone. Safer.

He glanced at the man next to him. At least she was still free. He replied with a period as though everything were fine.

“What’s that?” Lance leaned over.

“Zinnia and I checking in that we’re still alive.” He flicked to another screen. “Before you ask, I don’t know where she is. And I have no way of tracking her.” He typed Lance’s name into the search, then clicked through to his page. “There you go. Everything we have on you.”

The dossier started with the basics. Age, height, eye and hair color, blooded status and place in the family.

Lance was three years younger than him. Couldn’t tell that by looking at them, given that Nix wouldn’t age until he was in his seventies or later if he took care of himself and fed regularly on blood.

Not that he’d ever seen an old vampire or even expected to live that long.

Nix scrolled down to the more interesting bits.

Jobs where his presence had been confirmed.

“You didn’t know who I was.”

“No. I only look up the people I’ve been told to…

” He lowered his voice. “Target.” Lance had been on a few jobs as part of a group, usually backup or driver.

He didn’t run any part of the business but was an all-rounder, helping where needed.

He had no confirmed kills. Nix highlighted that line. “Correct?”

“Yeah.” Lance glanced down as though embarrassed.

Lucky fucker. Nix would love a zero kill count. He’d like to erase the ones he’d killed in self-defense that weren’t on a database. “With no Hadleys, who will you lot sharpen your teeth on?”

“I don’t know.” Lance pushed the laptop toward him. “Here.”

For a moment, Nix couldn’t breathe. Excitement buzzed through his fingertips.

He was in the Orlan database. His mother would’ve given both her fangs to glimpse behind the Orlan fortress.

But she wasn’t here, and he doubted she’d approve of his methods.

As much as his relationship with his mother had become strained after he’d been turned, her death had been a blow that had left a bruise he doubted would ever fade—he wouldn’t live that long.

He forced out a shaky breath and read what Lance had been told about him.

The picture at the top was terrible. From the haircut, it looked like it had been taken when he was nineteen; he looked like he’d just swallowed a rat and was trying not to throw up. Maybe it had been taken after he’d killed. He’d never thrown up, but it had still made him sick.

He scrolled down. They knew he’d applied to uni; he’d still had hope before he turned eighteen.

The next line made him stop. They knew he’d been tapped to work on the legal operations.

He didn’t know that. He’d confided in Zinnia that he didn’t want a part of the drugs and gambling. Had Zinnia told their mother?

Bitterness curdled in his gut. Everything he’d wanted had been within his grasp until the damn peace talks had turned violent.

“What were you going to be doing?”

The screen blurred, and Nix shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter because when the peace talk failed, it all fell over.

” Because the Orlans had shot it in the back.

“The plan never progressed.” He considered keeping the secret, then shrugged.

It no longer mattered. “We were getting out of the usual business. Your aunt had no reason to do any of it.” He blinked to clear his vision.

If not for Lance’s aunt, he’d be happily running a winery, cleaning the family money, and branching out.

Anger bubbled in his blood, and the pressure in the roof of his mouth increased.

He pressed his tongue against the smooth spikes of fang, refusing to let them drop.

He kept reading. The description of him being cold and ruthless made him smile. It was better they believed that than the truth that he hated it. That he had to brick up the horror of dragging a body into the sun every time.

“This isn’t right. I wasn’t at the peace talk.”

Lance looked at him. “They say you were.”

“I was seventeen. Unblooded. I was on a school camp that week. I came back to chaos. I did not fire the first shot.” He faced Lance. “I didn’t do that. Why would I when I was tapped to do something else?”

“Because you enjoy it.” He pointed to the next line, where the dossier claimed he took pleasure and pride in his kill count. The names of the dead were listed below.

Nix swallowed and read each name. “That wasn’t me. Nor was that one.”

“But there are others not listed?”

He nodded. “Each one was an order. I never stepped outside of that.”

“Albury and Broome?”

Nix winced. He’d tried not to kill either of the men.

One had been armed and eager for two minutes of fun.

The other had been high on meth and wanted to spill blood.

He’d fed on both and emptied their wallets.

He couldn’t ensorcell when panicked and fighting for his life.

It was something he needed to work on—when he had the time.

If he ever got the time. “I was attacked and didn’t have a choice. ”

“You didn’t kill the man who shot you in your house.”

“He wasn’t aiming for me. He wanted Zinnia. It was more important to run.”

Lance stared at him like he was some kind of puzzle he couldn’t figure out. “If I believe that you weren’t at the peace talks, then everything I know is a lie.”

That was entirely possible. Nix had done plenty of awful things; there was really no need to make up more. “Pull your report on the peace talks, and I’ll do the same.”

The reports didn’t agree, except for the body count at the end.

They stared at the screens in silence. Nix broke first. “Why did your aunt want war?”

“I don’t know.”

Nix’s gaze flicked between the two screens. He was running out of time. “What does your dossier on Zinna say?”

“I don’t have access.”

Lance had even less access than him, which made sense given that he was a glorified errand boy. “What else do you have access to?”

“Documents that link to you.” Lance logged out.

A relatively small set that could’ve been doctored before Lance was given access. Nix also logged out and then erased the history. “If I was everything they claim I am, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“I know.” Lance stared at the blank screen of his laptop, his lips pressed into a thin line. “But why?”

That’s what the Orlans did. They were dishonorable rats.

Which didn’t explain why Lance hadn’t broken his word and turned him in.

Not that Nix was complaining. He’d wanted extra time, and he’d gained it.

He couldn’t tell Lance his family were lying oath breakers again.

Lance needed to figure that out on his own.

Nix sighed. “Maybe they figured when I was begging for my life in the boot of your car, it would be better for you to think every word out of my mouth was a lie?”

Lance glanced at him, face grim. “You aren’t the begging type.”

Nix smiled. Lance didn’t know everything about him. “True...mostly.”

Lance put his hand on Nix’s thigh. “Let’s have dinner and sleep on it.”

Prickly half-truths didn’t make the best mattresses, but then they probably wouldn’t be doing much sleeping if Nix had his way.