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Chapter Forty-Five

Joy

Enzo escorted me out of the room, his arm looped through mine, his touch both possessive and protective.

The simple contact sent warmth spreading through me, a reminder of the night we’d shared.

My cheeks flushed at the thought of everyone knowing what we’d been doing behind closed doors—the marks on my neck would be impossible to hide, especially from vampire eyes that missed nothing.

But as we walked down the stairs, I heard voices drifting up from below—Angelo’s commanding tone, Serenity’s melodic responses, Dimitri’s sardonic drawl, and then the one I had longed to hear for so long.

Steve’s.

Excitement quickened my heartbeat at the prospect of spending more time with my brother. Relief and anticipation tangled with a thread of unease. Would he be different? Would he look at me with hunger rather than brotherly affection?

None of it mattered. He was still my brother, the boy who had built forts with me in the living room, who had held my hand during our mother’s funeral, who had promised to always protect me.

Enzo must have felt the change in my pulse, his heightened senses picking up my emotional shift. His fingers tightened slightly around mine as he frowned, dark eyes searching my face. “Are you okay?”

“Steve’s here,” I whispered, suddenly finding it hard to speak past the lump in my throat.

“I haven’t truly seen him for so long.” The words couldn’t begin to capture the tumult of emotions behind them—the time spent searching, putting up flyers, pleading with police who grew increasingly disinterested, crying myself to sleep wondering if he was alive or dead.

Now he was here, under the same roof, separated from me by just a flight of stairs. My steps quickened, drawing me toward the reunion I’d almost stopped believing would ever happen.

Steve stood in the living room, just like I had always remembered him.

Unlike Dimitri and Angelo, he didn’t wear a suit.

He had on a pair of black jeans and a leather jacket that looked worn in all the right places.

His long red hair flared over his broad shoulders like a flame, wild and untamed, and he had a bandanna tied around his head—the same red one he’d always favored.

Dark sunglasses were perched on top of his head, a shield ready to drop at a moment’s notice.

The sight of him, so familiar yet somehow different, made my heart constrict with emotion.

This was my brother, the one who had taught me to ride a bike, who had sneaked me candy when our parents said no, who had stood between me and the world’s dangers for as long as I could remember.

His stance was different now—more predatory, more alert—but the tilt of his head as he turned toward me was pure Steve, a gesture I would have recognized anywhere.

For a moment, I forgot everything else—the vampires surrounding us, the danger we were in, even Enzo at my side. All I could see was my brother, alive and whole, when for so long I’d feared he was gone forever.

His face lit up when he saw me. “Joy.”

I ran across the room as fast as I could and jumped into his outstretched arms. He still had a heartbeat just like Enzo, but his was quicker, less controlled, betraying his newness to vampire life.

He smelled like my brother—that familiar combination of pine soap and cinnamon gum he’d always favored—but with something new underneath, a subtle metallic note that hadn’t been there before.

Despite the change, the essence of him remained, triggering a flood of memories: late-night talks on our porch, shared secrets, inside jokes that no one else understood.

“I’ve missed you. God, I’ve missed you,” I whispered against his leather jacket, my fingers digging into the material as if he might disappear again if I didn’t hold tight enough.

He spun me around, his grip stronger than I remembered. “Missed you too, sis. You had us runnin’ all over this damn city lookin’ for you.”

“I know. I know.” The words felt inadequate for everything we’d both been through.

“But she’s home now,” Enzo said behind me.

Steve put me down, his eyes briefly meeting Enzo’s over my head in a look I couldn’t quite interpret. “The girls are safe, by the way. Angelo sent ‘em to a hotel with Lorenzo watchin’ over them. They’ll be back with their families soon.”

“Zoe’s with them?” I asked, suddenly remembering my friend who’d been there through the worst of it.

Guilt stabbed through me. How could I have forgotten her, even for a second? She’d stood by me when no one else would. The fact that I hadn’t asked about her first made my throat tighten.

Something in his eyes shifted, a flicker of interest that hadn’t been there before. “Yeah. Said to tell you to call her.” He gave a half-smile that reminded me of the old Steve. “Sounds like you two got tight in that hell hole.”

“Yes. I did everything I could to protect her and the other girls.” The memories of our captivity flashed through my mind—the darkness, the fear, the desperate whispers of comfort we’d shared in that horrible place.

He rubbed the back of my neck, a familiar gesture from childhood that somehow bridged the gap between what he had been and what he was now. “You always do. And now I hear you have a shadow trick?”

I focused on him, not ready to face Angelo yet. I could feel the vampire king’s presence like a coiled snake in the room, but for now, I wanted to stay in this bubble with my brother.

But I wasn’t alone in my wariness.

Enzo lounged against the bar, his posture lazy, but the tension in him crackling tight beneath the surface. His gaze swept the room—not restless, but calculating—as if already deciding whose throat he’d tear out first if things turned.

The focus of too many powerful beings watching me made my skin prickle, nerves raw with awareness. “I’m not sure what it is, but yes. I can draw on the shadows.”

Steve’s expression shifted slightly, and I caught him glancing over my shoulder. The warmth in his eyes dimmed, replaced by something more cautious. Whatever moment we’d been sharing was about to end.

I felt Angelo’s presence intensify behind me, his patience wearing thin. The air itself seemed to thicken with his barely restrained authority.

“Joy.” Angelo’s voice cut through my brother’s and my reunion like a blade, commanding attention even as I tried to avoid it. I turned reluctantly, my hand instinctively reaching for Steve’s arm as if he could anchor me to this moment of normalcy.

Angelo stood with the casual confidence of someone accustomed to being obeyed, his green eyes fixed on me with unsettling intensity. “I have a call into Keir Rankin, king of the Unseelie family.” Another apex predator to contend with. He raised a brow. “You know you’re half Unseelie, right?”

My mind recoiled from his words. “No.” The denial burst from me with surprising force. “Louis DuPont is my father.” I shook my head violently, rejecting the very idea. “Marsha must have put a spell on me.” My voice rose in pitch, edged with desperation.

Enzo was supposed to bite me. The one to tell me what I was. I should’ve asked him.

Instead, I was standing here one breath away from a full-blown panic attack—in front of the vampire mafia king, no less.

I rubbed my arms frantically, trying to warm away the chill that crept through me at the mention of her name. Phantom pains flared where her fists had connected with my body, again and again—bruises that Serenity had healed but my mind couldn’t forget.

My breathing became shallow as memories flooded back: the suffocating darkness of the metal box, the walls closing in, the air growing thinner with each panicked breath, Marsha’s voice taunting me that I had to use the shadows to get me out of the box. No one would release me.

Not until Enzo came.

Enzo was immediately at my side, his presence easing my fear like a balm.

His arm slipped around my waist, strong and steady, anchoring me to the present.

From across the room, I caught Serenity’s concerned gaze, her eyes filled with the understanding that only a true friend could offer.

She knew me before all this—before vampires and Dark Demons and discoveries about my heritage.

Her silent support reminded me that no matter what I learned about myself, I was still Joy to her.

Angelo ignored my outburst as if he knew it was obvious that Louis DuPont wasn’t my father.

His green eyes remained impassive, unmoved by my denial.

“Keir may have some answers for you. One of his men has the same ability and he may be able to teach you how to control it so you’re not a danger to anyone. ”

The words were polite. The meaning wasn’t.

If I couldn’t control this, I wouldn’t be given the chance to keep trying. Not with men like Angelo.

The weight of that realization settled over me, cold and suffocating.

This was a king who didn’t get his hands dirty. He didn’t need to. One word from him, and someone else would do the ending for him.

And no one would question it.

I stepped closer to Enzo. Without a word, he clasped my hand, his fingers curling around mine with a quiet promise: I’ve got you.

I remembered what he’d told me last night—that he wouldn’t let anyone hurt me again. And I believed him.

The steady warmth of his grip grounded me, a silent reminder that I wasn’t facing this alone.

My brother was at my other side, his presence a familiar comfort even in his new vampire form. My two protectors forming a barrier between me and the terrifying possibilities of what I might be.

I needed to change the subject. The tension was suffocating, but more than that, there was a question burning in my chest, one that had been eating at me since I realized Steve was here—but someone else wasn’t.

“Where’s my dad?”

Panic pricked at the edges of my composure. Dad should’ve been here. He always was when things went sideways. When I scraped my knee as a kid, when Steve got in trouble, when Mom?—