Page 68 of The Vampire Kingpin

I let my arm fall back to my side, my voice hardening. “Yeah. I do.”

17

Spider

I almost left. I almost believed Lark’s crap.

I mean, it fit.

The background check we’d run had been enough to prove she had a checkered history. With the aid of a facial recognition app, Monster had found multiple aliases: Lark as a fancy thrall in a tight red dress, her hair dyed blond and piled on top of her head. Lark as the down-to-earth girl-next-door in a T-shirt and jeans, hair in a long red braid. Lark as a high-ranking member of a San Francisco syndicate.

But six months ago, around the time she showed up in New York? Nada.

It was like she’d dropped off the face of the earth when she’d joined Grimclaw’s lair.

So it fit that Lark was playing me. Like my mama used to say, leopards don’t change their spots.

But…this show she was putting on seemed fake. I’d stake my life that Lark was lying—that everything she’d said since I’d walked into the cell was a lie.

She needed my help, dammit, but was too stubborn—or proud—to ask me for it.

Lark released a ragged breath. “Just go, Spider,” she told me. “Don’t make this something it’s not.”

“Shut up.” I backed her into a corner. “Just shut up, will you?”

Her mouth opened in outrage but her gaze flicked past me.

I gently gripped her face and gave her a soft kiss, mindful of her hurt mouth, before she said something we’d both regret. She pressed her lips together, refusing to kiss me back, and when I released her, glared at me like I was the bad guy.

“Don’t…” She wiped a hand across her mouth like I’d left a bad taste. “Don’t make me hate you.”

I eyed her, feeling at a loss. Why couldn’t I get through to her?

There. That flicker again as she looked over my shoulder like someone else was in the cell with us.

The dots connected like a string of Halloween lights.

Troll.

He could’ve circled back in the shadows and darted inside. Jacko and Zayne had left the Cavern door open when they’d rushed to my aid.

And here I’d been wasting time trying to have a heart-to-heart with Lark.

I swung around, pushing Lark behind me so Troll—or whoever the fuck it was—would have to go through me first, and pulled my dagger from its holster. “Show yourself, you motherfucker.”

Behind me Lark made a small, agonized sound. “Spider…”

“Tell me someone’s not in here,” I snapped back. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Nobody’s—” Her hand touched my back. “Be…careful,” she whispered. And even softer, “I’m so sick of the lies.”

Troll dropped out of the shadows—and staggered. He slumped against a wall, a hand to his injury, clearly out of juice.

I stalked toward him, not even caring if he might have valuable information. I just wanted to end him. The gods knew what he’d said to Lark before I arrived, but I’d bet a year’s tributes that he’d threatened her in some way.

Troll held up his hand, breath sawing in and out. “Wait,” he rasped. “We can split the money, okay? A million for you and a million for me. But stake me and you won’t see a penny.”

Two million?