Page 21 of Love At the Gates of Hell (The Seven Sinners Trilogy #1)

twelve

The Warehouse

“Tell me.”

There was silence from the two men that knelt before him, heads bowed underneath their hoods, eyes trained on the floors beneath their feet.

It was a heavy silence, a quiet that almost reverberated off the warehouse walls surrounding them.

A syncopated rhythm matching the steady heartbeats from the men who surrounded them, all in matching dark hooded robes.

Well, some of them. Others had their own kind of silence within their rib cages. But they were waiting all the same.

Just like he could. He was a patient man. He had waited fifteen years, after all.

But he needed to hear it. He needed them to carry the weight of their failure.

“The witch evades us still, Master,” the man on the left said, his hands raw and blistered as if they had been held in a fire. “The brothers are protecting her.”

His face remained passive but he felt the fury beating within his veins.

“The Crawford brothers.”

“Yes, Master,” the other one replied, the vampire. “And another one. A woman.”

He drew his dagger from his inner pocket, the handle made of an opal that glittered in the morning sunlight that streamed through the warehouse skylights.

He toyed with the tip of it, letting it twirl around his fingertip until he could feel it cut through his skin.

But no blood appeared. The virgin sacrifices, the bath of the untouched blood, it had done its job.

He was due for the next step. Eager for it.

He stepped closer to them, until the polished toes of his leather brogues reached their kneecaps.

“And what will you do to rectify this mistake?”

He was met with silence again.

“Answer me.”

His voice became a low boom, enough to cause a shudder among the rest.

“We will f-find her,” the first one said. “We will bring her to you, Master.”

He had his doubts. He was promised an easy catch. A catch that had been in motion for years. Angelo Torretta employing the Crawford brothers did pose a problem. One he did not foresee. But no bother. He knew well enough how to handle them.

He would just have to do it himself.

“Very well.”

The dagger sank into the vampire’s shoulder, cutting into the sinew and twisting. He would heal, he knew. But he could still feel the pain. He could still bleed. And he needed the reminder. They all did.