Page 25 of High Stakes and Soulmates (Fanged Mistakes #3)

CYRUS

“Okay… so we were in the car for almost an hour, and you just remembered the part about a werewolf running an agility course? You didn’t think that could have been entertaining to talk about?” Joaquin asks while he parks the car in front of Donovan’s club.

“I don’t know. I was too enthralled by your tales of this woman you’re wooing.”

“Right? I was thinking about proposing,” he teases.

“Before meeting? That sounds promising.”

“Thank you,” he says. “She’ll reveal that she’s in her late sixties with a husband and seven kids and I’ll reveal that I’m a vampire. I think they cancel each other out alright.”

“Sounds healthy.”

“You better tell me about this damn dog show on the drive home.”

“I will,” I say with a grin.

We head inside the club where a woman greets us at the door.

“Good evening. You were hoping to speak to Donovan, right?” she asks as she gives Joaquin quite the smile.

“We were,” Joaquin replies.

“Right this way,” she says, leading us back to an office where Donovan is on the phone. He gives us a nod of greeting and after a minute or two, he hangs up.

“Sorry about that.”

“Not an issue at all,” Joaquin tells him. “I apologize that I couldn’t come yesterday.”

“I heard about what’s happening over there in Casimir’s territory. I swear the area is cursed or something. We’ve been ridiculously quiet here lately. No fun here at all. Just joking. We really don’t need much fun,” he says with a grin. “What can I do for you?”

“Have you heard anything else lately?” I ask.

Donovan slowly shakes his head. “I haven’t. It’s been four years at this point. It might be time to throw in the towel.”

It’s really not that easy, even if he thinks it is. “What about the person who told you Ezio was involved? You… the way you stated it made it sound like he was involved, as in… involved in playing a part in their deaths. But instead, he was assisting as a consultant on the case.”

“That’s what he told you?” Donovan asks.

“Why do you say it like it’s wrong?”

“I’m not, I’m just stating that if he really was involved, I don’t envision him giving you the truth, but I could be wrong.”

I ignore that jab because I know Ezio significantly better than this man and am confident that there’s no damn way that he’s lying to me.

“So that’s it? Your tip is that Ezio is probably lying and is secretly involved?” I ask.

Donovan stares at me for a long moment. I can tell from the tension in his body that he doesn’t think he should be dealing with me, but I’m sick of being jerked around.

“Just tell me who told you he was involved.” I really need something out of this, and if someone was trying to shift the blame onto Ezio, they might not be as innocent as they’re pretending to be.

“You think I remember? It was years ago,” he says.

Fuck.

“Why don’t you try and see what happens?” I ask, feeling irritated about the whole thing.

“Why don’t Cyrus and I get you two something to drink,” the woman who had lingered behind suggests, telling me that she thinks I should leave the room for some reason. It’s not like I’m saying anything wrong, but I’m surprised she knows my name when I don’t even remember giving it to her.

She leads me out of the room and gives me a soft smile. “He can be a bit of an ass to humans. Maybe Joaquin can get something better out of him,” she says as I look back and see a man slip into Donovan’s office.

“Who was that?”

“I don’t know. Must be a friend of Donovan’s. He gets a lot of visitors. I wanted to ask you about these… people who are dying in Casimir’s territory. Can you tell me more about them?”

I hesitate, well aware that as a detective, I shouldn’t be sharing the information, but since she’s a vampire, there’s the possibility that she could know something.

“We’re looking for an unregistered vampire who is moving around Casimir’s territory.

If you hear of anything, we would be really happy to know more. ”

“What makes you think they’re unregistered? Couldn’t they be one of the registered vampires?” she asks.

“They could, but at this point, we have alibis for almost all of them. The rest we are keeping an eye on, but the likelihood it’s one of them is slim. We’re not afraid to look into everyone. That being said, you know this area well?”

“I do.”

“I apologize. I feel rude that you know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“Clara,” she says.

“Sorry. I missed it the last time we were here, and it just got more awkward to ask the longer we talked.”

She laughs. “Don’t worry. It’s fine. So you were asking if I knew the area well.”

“Right. So, an elderly couple with the last name of Witt was murdered the other day. They had a son?—”

“Phil?” she guesses.

“Yeah. Can you tell me about him?”

Clara leans against the bar. “Uh… I don’t know him overly well. He did work here for a bit.” She motions to the bartender, who slides a drink to a patron before coming over.

“This is Lauren. You worked with Phil Witt for a bit, right?”

“I did. He didn’t stay long. He said he just picks up odd jobs here and there when he needs money, so he came to help with rush hours during the peak season,” she says quite loudly so I can hear over the live band.

“His parents were among the victims in Casimir’s district,” Clara tells her.

“Oh no! That’s awful. I forgot how young he was. It showed, I guess; I just never paid much attention to it. That must have been hard on him.”

“Do you know anything else about him?” I ask.

Lauren shakes her head. “Sorry, I don’t.”

I notice a vampire watching us, though I’m sure it’s just someone being nosy. She looks away the second she sees me looking, and Lauren and Clara talk a bit more about Phil, but it’s nothing much of interest.

“Thank you,” I say. “I’ll get those drinks now and head back.”

“Oh, of course,” Clara agrees. “Some blood for Donovan and Joaquin, then, and what would you like, Cyrus?”

“How about a Coke?” I ask.

“No alcohol?” Lauren questions.

“No, thank you,” I say, not really wanting to get a buzz when I’m more interested in getting answers.

As I wait for the drinks, I notice the woman glance at me again before she moves toward a booth at the front of the club.

I grab the three drinks, and instead of heading toward the back, I start her way, wading through vampires and the occasional human.

I don’t exactly know my plan… like am I going to just strike up a conversation and say, “I noticed you being nosy at the bar so you must know something?” But I don’t need to worry because she almost instantly gives me a tilt of her head. I walk over and she smiles at me.

“You were asking about Phil Witt? I noticed they happened to leave out the part where he was fired because he was luring humans into some strange… group or something. He was drawing too much attention to himself. I mean, you can look around and tell that the humans are here because they know about vampires—they want to be fed on by vampires—so he must have been doing something quite alarming to make the people in the club anxious enough about the attention he was drawing to himself to fire him.”

“What kind of group was he luring them to?”

“I don’t know what he was promising the humans, but I can’t fathom it was anything good.

This is what happens when there’s no regulation in these parts, and instead, there are just a couple of vampires who think they’re doing a fine job of controlling things only when they get out of hand.

” She glances over at the bar where the two women are watching us.

The look they’re giving us is making me feel uneasy.

It makes me want to get back to Joaquin.

I hate being surrounded by so many vampires.

“That’s all I have to say,” she concludes as she gives me a smile and waves to a human man who hurries over to sit with her.

I assume that means she’s done with me, so I head back to deliver the drinks to Joaquin and Donovan, all the while pretending I don’t notice eyes on me.

Was it wrong of me to stop and talk to her?

I mean… they allowed her in the club, so she can’t be that bad.

Or is it that they don’t like what she might have told me?

I reach for the door and push it open before freezing.

The noise from the band is booming behind me, the drums escalating as I look at the desk that’s been flipped over and the room that’s been torn apart.

Papers are fluttered everywhere, but my eyes are drawn to the flecks of blood discoloring them.

There’s a secondary door open that I slowly inch toward, confused what the fuck has happened…

until I see blood streaked along the floor like someone had dragged someone who was bleeding.

I step into the adjoining room where I see Donovan lying on a crushed crate.

He’s been absolutely torn apart. His intestines are strung across the room, his head torn from his body. Blood coats the room as panic hits me.

“Joaquin?” I call, but there are no other doors out of this room and I don’t see him anywhere. If he fled into the club, wouldn’t he have come to me? The only thing in this room is an open window.

I rush over to the window, looking out into the dark night. Where’s Joaquin? Where’s the man who entered the room? He never came out… did they both leave through the window? Did he kill Donovan while Joaquin fled? Why the fuck wouldn’t he have come for me…

Unless it was… that man. Unless Joaquin didn’t want to draw him to me to keep me safe. I didn’t get a good enough look at him to know if he’s the man who killed my parents, but I feel like I’d have known… right? I would have…

I try to think about what the killer looked like, but all I can see is the blood. Screaming… sobbing… so much blood. It was so dark that night… I just remember the pain and my brother dying. My mother and father torn apart in front of me…

The smell is choking me, and I realize I’m still holding the glasses. Hastily, I set them down.

I debate going back into the club as I realize that I don’t know what to do… I don’t know who to trust. My hand is shaking when I hear a scream outside the window, and my eyes fixate on the darkness. Was that Joaquin? It was too far away to tell.

Fuck.

I dash to the window, scrambling through it. I have my gun, at least. I’m not sure what the fuck it’ll do to a vampire, but I have it. I have it… and…

Should I go back? Yes, I should go back. I’m completely vulnerable out here… but I can’t get myself to turn around.

Fuck.

Quickly, I pull out my phone, but I’m afraid to call Joaquin. What if he’s hiding and the ring alerts the killer?

I call Ezio, feeling like he’s the only person I can rely on at this moment.

“Hey,” he says. “I’ve been wanting to get ahold of you. You won’t believe?—”

“Ezio, I need your help. I need you and Casimir… I’m at that club I told you about. I came here with my brother.”

“Joaquin? He’s… dead… isn’t he?”

“He was turned into a vampire. It’s why they never found the body…

I lied and told them I saw the vampire kill him.

It was a lie to keep him safe because we knew the vampire was hunting him down.

But someone attacked Donovan… they killed him, and I don’t know what happened to Joaquin…

I think it’s the guy who killed my family.

I don’t know who to trust here at the club. Do I go back inside?”

“I’m heading there now. It’s about an hour’s drive, but I’ll run and make it there faster. I promise I will. Just go back to your car. I’ll talk to Casimir, see who he knows from the club and whether he can get someone to go with you. Please, be careful.”

“I will,” I say before hanging up. I hesitate, knowing that I don’t want to leave Joaquin alone when I could help… but do I even know where they went? And could I even catch up? I’m not a vampire. I can’t run as fast as one. And I sure as hell can’t fight like one.

I anxiously glance into the dark before looking back at my car. But when I do, I see two golden glowing eyes looking back at me.