Page 25 of Vipers and Vendettas

Who’s Jack?

With narrow eyes, I read through the messages. They seem to be friends. I send screenshots along with the number to my PI and put the phone back where I found it. I go to her bookshelf, finding some fiction novels and nonfiction books on various subjects, including more than one on pregnancy, which strikes me as odd, but these places usually come with whatever furnishings have been left by previous tenants, so I move on to the thick, hollowed out book. I take it out and open it, finding wads of cash from her waitress job. I clean it out, putting the cash in my pocket and smiling nastily as I put the book back. I hope I’m here when she finds she’s been robbed.

I do another walk-around of the apartment, finding very little food in the cupboards and fridge.

I feel an unwelcome pang of concern for her that I try to quash with little success as I glance at her drawn features. She clearly has the money to eat. Why isn’t she? I remember her vomiting when she got in, and I frown. Is she sick? Humans get sick all the time.

They die all the time.

I think about putting the money back, but what’s she going to do with it? She’s clearly not going to use it to buy any groceries other than those horrible white crackers she was dunking into her tea.

I slip out her door as I get a message from my PI with this Jack’s address. Time to see who Jack is and what he’s been doing with my clan’s property. I take one last look at her sleeping form before I close the door.

‘See you tomorrow,’ I whisper with a grin.

I take a look at the information I’ve been sent on Jack and find that his place of business is very close by.

Jack Montenegro. Vampire.

My skin crawls. It would be a vamp.

Thief and purveyor of stolen goods.

I chuckle into the dark as I walk toward the offices of Jack Enterprises.

‘I know what you do for her,’ I whisper.

At the door, a troll greets me and asks me for a password. I demon-up and burst through the door, knocking the prick unconscious.

I take a deep breath in through my nose, detecting the unique mustiness of vamp. There’s a fork in the hall, but I already know he’s to the left, not the right. I can smell the fucker.

I stride down the hall, still in demon form, and my surroundings quickly turn into an office.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ asks the brown-haired vamp sitting behind the desk.

He looks surprised but not afraid of me.

Not yet.

He probably thinks the guy at the door let me in. I sneer at him, ready to tear off his head if he makes one wrong move.

‘Daemon Mackenzie.’

His eyes narrow.

The realization that he recognizes my name makes me feel vaguely ill. I try not to think of how he knows it.

‘She’s not here,’ he growls, standing up, ‘and I’m not going to tell you shit.’

‘I already found her,’ I scoff.

His eyes flash, and now he does start to look a little scared. ‘You son of a bitch.’

He pulls out his phone from his breast pocket.

‘What did you do to her?’

‘You tell her I’m here, and I’ll tell the authorities you were the mastermind behind the attempt to steal that fae artifact today,’ I snarl.