Page 22

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ZAND

I leaned back in my leather chair, watching the security monitors that lined one section of a wall in my office.

Normally, the monitors were hidden from view.

Tonight, I wanted to see everything happening downstairs at the club.

Each screen offered a different view. There was the dance floor packed with gyrating bodies, the lower-level VIP sections with their velvet ropes and bottle service, and the front and side entrances where my people stood guard.

There were video cameras in the upstairs VIP room also, but I wanted to give Chanel and Morgan their privacy.

I was the king of this small empire, and tonight, in due time, I would plot the expansion of my reign.

Harlen slouched in the chair across from my desk.

He had one leg draped over the armrest in a posture that was more human than vampire.

The events with Morgan changed him. Losing the human version of her, turning her, and helping her navigate her new existence had altered him.

My brother had always been chaos personified.

Now there was purpose in his actions and movements.

“What’s up with you?” I felt the need to check in, to see where his head was.

“I should’ve killed Teresa when I was back in L.A.” He grumbled. “Before she became a problem.”

“Hindsight.” I replied. Tracing the rim of my untouched whiskey glass filled with AB negative blood. I was working on my second glass of the crimson liquid. “She wasn’t always what she is now. I thought she would’ve been done with her antics after killing the pilates instructor.”

Harlen snorted. “She was always a snake. You just didn’t see it.”

He was right, but I didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, I turned my attention back to the monitors.

“When Teresa finds out about Marisol, she will be more careful. More desperate.”

“Good.” Harlen spewed. “Desperate people make mistakes.”

The heavy door opened, and Natasha entered. I’d called her down from the security room a few minutes before. She was my number one soldier reporting for duty.

“Any updates?” I asked as she approached my desk.

Natasha reached into the pocket of her tight black leather jacket and produced a black smartphone, Marisol’s. “I’ve bypassed her security pin.” She offered information. “But the contents are unusual.”

She placed the phone on my desk, and I resisted the urge to pick it up immediately. “Define unusual.”

“No names in the contacts.” Natasha explained, tapping the screen to wake it. The display illuminated with a cold blue light. “Just single-digit numbers instead of names as the contacts.”

“Odd.”

“The number One is attached to a number with a Chicago area code and it’s the same for contact, Two, Three and Four.”

Harlen leaned forward, abandoning his nonchalance. “Four contacts? That’s it?”

“It appeared to be a burner phone. There’s nothing personal on it. No pictures. No music. No social media apps or games.” Natasha said. “This phone is for a specific purpose only.”

I picked up the cellular device, scrolling through the sparse contact list. “A burner phone with no information,” I mused. “One of the numbers is for Teresa, obviously. But who are the other three contacts?”

“Allies.” Harlen suggested. “Other vampires she’s brought in. Remember the guy and girl I saw her with at Club Bailar Caliente? That could be two of the numbers.”

“Or humans working for her.” I countered. “She’s not above using humans. She was one not too long ago.”

The tall windows in front of my desk rattled as the bass reverberated through the glass from the club below.

The sound was faint and distant. It was irrelevant to the war council taking place in my office.

My fingers scrolled through the phone’s message history.

There were a few cryptic texts that didn’t give anything away.

Nothing revealing names, locations or specific plans.

“What about her call history?” I asked, handing the cell phone back to Natasha.

“It’s been cleared regularly. But I recovered fragments from the cache.” She scrolled to a series of timestamps. “Most calls were to contact One. Shorter calls to Two and Three. No communication with Four since last week.”

“One has to be Teresa.” Harlen said like he knew it for a fact. He didn’t. “She’d be the primary contact for sure. She had to be the one to make Marisol into a vamp.”

It made sense, but there was no evidence to etch it in stone. “Four contacts, four potential targets. How do we know which one to pursue first with no clarity on who they are?”

Natasha’s lips curved into the barest hint of a smile. “We don’t pursue. We wait.”

“For what?” Harlen asked. He was impatient for good reason.

“For them to call her.” I answered, understanding Natasha’s strategy instantly. “They don’t know she’s dead.”

“Precisely.” Natasha confirmed. “Marisol has been missing for less than twenty-four hours. Soon, someone will try to contact her.”

The implications ripple through the room. “We have Marisol’s phone. We have potential direct access to Teresa. We have the bait if we played this right.”

“When she calls, we could arrange a meeting.” Harlen said with excitement, replacing his earlier restlessness. “And set a trap.”

I studied the security monitors again, watching the oblivious humans below. They were dancing and drinking. They were unaware of the predators among them. “It’s risky. Teresa isn’t stupid. She’ll suspect something’s wrong if Marisol suddenly arranges a meeting via text.”

“Maybe not, if we’re careful.” Natasha argued. “Minimal communication. A text message with a location only, like an emergency signal.”

The impromptu plan formed in my mind. “Okay, if we draw her out with Marisol’s phone, then we control the location. It needs to be somewhere we can surround her. Somewhere with no easy way to escape.” I pondered.

Harlen’s posture was transformed completely now. His sluggish lounging facade was abandoned. He leaned forward and placed his elbows on my desk.

“The old brewery.” He suggested. “The one on the west side that you own. Concrete walls, limited exits, no civilians.”

His tactical thinking impressed me. This was a new Harlen. He was focused, strategic, and dangerous.

“We’d need to position our people in advance. Make sure Teresa can’t bring an army.” I added.

“I can have a team ready within the hour.” Natasha said. “Six of our best, armed with the Cripo Glocks.”

This was the endgame I had been working toward since Teresa first threatened Chanel. Since she orchestrated the death of innocents bearing my lover’s name. Victory felt tantalizingly close.

“We have to figure out an opportune time to text Teresa. Let’s proceed carefully.” I cautioned. “We need to?—”

On my desk, Marisol’s cell phone suddenly lit up. The screen displayed a single digit: 1.

Our heads turned toward it. The unexpected interruption halted the beginnings of our strategic planning. Perfect stillness fell on the room as we all stared at the glowing screen. With the identity of the caller being only the number One, we could only hope it was Teresa.

I exchanged a quick glance with Natasha.

Her eyes were fixed on the phone. When I looked over at Harlen, he was mimicking Natasha.

This unexpected development could destroy our newly concocted plan.

But I had to do something. My finger hovered over the answer button, and I felt a spark of reluctance.

I had to remind myself that sometimes the best plans are the ones that form in the chaos of the moment. This could be one.

“Answer it.” Harlen hissed.

I pressed the green accept button on the screen. I quickly activated the speaker function with the tap of a finger. “Marisol Lopez’s phone.” I answered in a robotic tone. My voice was deliberately casual.

The silence on the other end lasted three seconds. I counted them while I watched the call timer tick upward on the screen. When Teresa finally spoke, her voice carried that familiar tone I had grown to loathe.

“Put Marisol on the phone.” She demanded without an introduction. “Now.”

I leaned back in my chair, making the leather crackle. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

There was another pause, a shorter one this time. “Zand?” The recognition in her voice shifted and added an edge that wasn’t there before. “What are you doing with Marisol’s phone?”

Harlen’s lips curled into a silent snarl. Natasha circled around my desk, positioning herself closer to the phone as if proximity might help her hear Teresa’s location.

“It came into my possession recently.” I replied, maintaining the conversational tone that I knew would infuriate her. “Along with its previous owner.”

“What have you done with Marisol?” The first sign of uncertainty crept into Teresa’s voice.

“Done with or done too, Marisol?”

“If you’ve hurt her—” Teresa ranted, but I cut her off.

“Hurt her? No, Teresa. That implies an ongoing state.” I paused, allowing the implication to settle into her dark heart. “Marisol is beyond hurt.”

The sound that came through the cell phone speaker wasn’t quite a gasp. The sound was sharper and more feral. It was the sound of a predator realizing they’ve lost something of value.

“You’re lying.” Teresa said when she was the one who told falsehoods and untruths. “You’re trying to provoke me.”

“Huh, am I?” I lifted the phone closer to my mouth. I wanted to ensure she heard every word. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. In Alexander Valentine getting his revenge, you must always trust.”

My rhyming taunt landed with precision. Teresa’s breath hitched, and when she spoke again, shock had replaced her confidence. “You, you burned her?”

“In the words of Jimmy Ellis from The Trammps, Burn, baby burn, disco inferno. Oh, how I loved the seventies.” I mocked her with a huge smile I wished she could see through the phone.

Harlen’s face split into a vicious grin. Natasha remained impassive, but I caught the approval in her eyes.

“You bastard!” Teresa hissed. “You’re an absolute monster. Killing humans is one thing, but you killed a vampire, your own kind.”

“It’s whatever.” I cheered. This was ironic, coming from a woman who used to be human not so long ago. “You had no problem systematically murdering innocent humans with the same name as my fiancée.”

My choice of words hung suspended between us, the word ‘fiancée’ ringing in the silence that followed. I hadn’t planned to reveal that information, but the opportunity to twist the knife was far too tempting to resist.

“Fiancée?” Teresa’s voice cracked. There was genuine surprise breaking through her rage. “You’re marrying the nurse?”

“I proposed last night, right over Marisol’s charbroiled body.” I confirmed. I watched Harlen’s eyebrows rise in surprise. This was news to him as well. I hadn’t gotten around to mentioning it to him. “She said yes, of course. We celebrated over Marisol’s remains.”

The open line filled with a sound that was half scream, half sob and a whole lot of fury. “I want to see you now!” Teresa commanded. Her words came faster and with less control. “Face to face. You and me. Bring your precious nurse. Let’s settle this once and for all.”

My jaw tightened at the mention of Chanel. It was an implicit threat, but I kept my voice level. “You’re hardly in a position to make demands.” I warned.

“I have more allies than you think.” She spit back. “You killed Marisol? I’ll replace her with ten more. You think you’re winning? You’ve barely seen what I’m capable of.”

Her threat slid off me. “I’ve seen enough. The desperate flailing of a vampire whore who’s already lost.”

“I want to meet!” she insisted. “Just us. No armies, no ambushes. You, me, and your human pet.”

I exchanged glances with Natasha, who gave me an almost imperceptible nod. Harlen mouthed something I couldn’t quite catch, but his eagerness was clear. He wanted this confrontation as much as I did.

“I’ll think about it.” I told Teresa. I was deliberately casual, as if her demand was of minimal interest. “I’ll call you back when I’ve decided.”

“You’ll think about it?!” Her voice rose. “No, Zand. You don’t get to dictate terms anymore. You bring that bitch to me, or I swear to God I’ll?—”

I ended the call. My finger pressed the button with finality. I cut off Teresa’s tirade mid-sentence.

“Well.” Harlen groaned. “That went better than expected.”

Natasha’s expression remained neutral. “The bitch is deranged. This makes her more dangerous.”

“And more predictable,” I countered, setting the phone down on my desk. “She’s emotional, making threats she can’t back up. Believe me, we have the advantage.”

“She’ll call back.” Harlen predicted, eyeing the phone. “Probably within minutes.”

“Let her.” I said, rising from my chair. I walked over to the one-way glass and looked out over the dance floor below me. “Let her rage. Let her threaten. Let her believe she still has power in Chicago.”

The lights of The Castle strobed and sparkled below. Teresa doesn’t realize it yet, but she’s already lost. Her death was determined the moment she threatened Chanel, and everything since then has been merely a prologue to her death. The final chapter was about to begin.