Page 14 of Blood Moon

Maybe I would make it a point to get to know her. I wondered if she would even consider giving me a chance. If she did, it would soothe my curiosity. It also had the bonus of pissing Vik off. Perhaps an apology was in order. I didn’t usually behave that way. Generally, if I did, I would apologize. It only made sense. There was something about that man that brought out the ugly in me. I arranged for flowers to be delivered the next day. I wouldn’t want him to think he’d won. I made sure to include a card that would definitely get a rise out of him.

Once all of that was settled, I called Joe in acquisitions. We needed a game plan to combat Maxwell Incorporated doubling our supply cost. I wanted to hit him where it hurt. “Joe, this is Strain. Gather your team and come to the conference room.” I paused to allow him to respond.

“Now, sir?” His voice was higher than usual. I must have caught him off guard.

“Yes, now. We’re having an emergency meeting. Bring everything you have on the supply chain.” I dropped the phone onto its base and sat back in my chair.

I was the CEO and owner of my company, but no one would ever suspect it unless they knew. I refused to wear suits, no matter who I was dealing with. I was the exact opposite of Vik and my mentor. Shawn had been a good man, but he leaned toward the old ways. Our rules were updated when I took over.

My employees were encouraged to be themselves. If that meant blue hair, visible tattoos and piercings on the Human Resources Manager, then so be it. Amber was way too qualified for me to hold her personal choices against her.

Everyone on my payroll was treated with that respect, and because of it, no one tried to take advantage, or very few did, at least. My company was also one of the few that was vampire owned that had humans on the payroll. Only a few in the inner circle knew who they were actually working for. Others just assumed I was some eccentric rich guy who hated suits. Not that being a vampire had anything to do with my decisions. I was still the same as I had been before the transformation. Mostly. I just needed an implant to be in the sun now, and drank blood. Neither of those things was a big deal.

It amused me that Viktor’s company had been the one to come up with the implant idea, but mine had perfected it. I was able to create a small device that provided an internal UV shield to vampires. The ultrasonic pulses it emitted were low wave enough to be virtually unnoticable while altering a vampire’s skin cells to allow the sunlight to bounce right off. It was almost like having tinted windows on my skin, but without anyone being able to tell. The team I was about to meet with had been instrumental in the development of the device, so I was certain they’d find the answers I was looking for.

I grabbed my laptop and tablet, checked my pocket for my cell, then headed to the conference room. To be fair, we had dozens of conference rooms. Some people might have had to ask which one I meant. But Joe knew which one I preferred and had his team waiting patiently when I arrived.

“Okay, there’s no point in sugar coating this—Midnight was bought out by Maxwell Inc. Vik’s taking point. He’s doubling our supply cost. We need alternatives. All feasible ideas will be considered,” I explained, “so get to work.”

The team started brainstorming while I busied myself setting up my laptop and connecting to the projector. I was hoping someone would come up with a good idea, and fast.

“Mr. Strain, I’m not sure there’s anything we can do. He has the market cornered for supply. It’s not like we can boycott or do without.” Joe said after three hours of brainstorming.

An intern raised his hand. I gestured and he spoke. “We went over every option before we settled on Midnight’s operation, sir. If there had been something else, we would have found it.” He looked apologetic, so I nodded. The kid wasn’t wrong. The only other option was to ask for volunteers and that meant outing vamps to the humans. I wasn’t ready for that yet.

His team had gone over every possible solution and with each, someone had a logical reason why it wouldn’t work. I was stuck paying whatever Vik charged. Unless I found a way to make him change his mind. The only other option was to move my entire operation to another city. The cost of that was prohibitive, but I told the team to keep running numbers. I didn’t want to move, but if it was the only way, I’d have to consider it. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the girl went with me.

“Keep working on everything, and keep me updated. We can dismiss the meeting for now. You’ve all worked so hard this afternoon, take the rest of the day off. If you come up with any new ideas, let me know. Sometimes taking a break helps. Besides, I have some things to take care of,” I announced to the room before picking up my laptop and tablet. I walked out into the hall and headed back toward my office.

I wanted to scream and throw things, but I knew that wouldn’t solve anything. I should go back to the gym and work out this rage, but I didn’t want to let go of it yet. Damn you, Vik. We used to be brothers and now I wanted to ring his neck. Thinking about him led me back to thinking about her. I needed to know her name at least.

I settled in at my desk after locking the door and closing the blinds. No one would dare to disturb me—they all knew better. Unless my door was open, no one came in. I opened my laptop and started searching. If she worked at Midnight, there would be employment reports. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out who she was.

Delilah Stone. Twenty minutes later, her name was on my tongue. I found her social media accounts and her credit history quickly enough and discovered that Delilah Stone had nearly perfect credit. She had an apartment a couple of blocks from the bar. Apparently, she’d worked there since she turned eighteen, although the look of the records was that she was there a few years before that. I wondered what made Vinny hire an underage girl. I couldn’t prove it, but I was confident with a little more digging I’d have exactly what I needed to take Vinny down if needed. The whole thing seemed a little creepy. I hoped there was nothing shady going on there.

I wasn’t able to find anything about her family. It was like she didn’t exist until she made it to Midnight. That was strange. I would have to do more digging. Something was pulling me toward this woman. I needed to know why.

I set up a program to keep searching, digging through her records to find anything that would tell me who she was, who her family was. She couldn’t have just popped into existence at the age of fifteen. That wasn’t possible. There had to be a birth record somewhere. If it existed, I would find it.

Once I was satisfied that the search would run on its own, I packed up and went home. There was no reason to babysit the program. I decided to spend a few hours in the pool this evening swimming laps.

Chapter 13

Delilah

A day off was just what I’d needed to get my head straight. I had spent the day mourning poor choices and berating myself for what I had allowed—hell, encouraged, to happen. I was done pining for Viktor. He was a married man after all, and not one with good morals. Hopefully his wife was understanding. I would hate to have to explain what had happened. Surely, she knew about his womanizing ways. With thoughts of Mrs. Maxwell in my head, I started my day as usual, by going downstairs and stocking the bar.

Viktor must have had Uncle Vinny run my shift yesterday, because the place was a mess. I had to clean everything before I could stock. And we were out of almost everything. It must have been a busy night. I didn’t mind the extra work, though. It kept me too busy to wonder what could have been between us.

While I was bringing out new bottles, Uncle Vinny came to find me. “Thanks for covering for me yesterday,” I offered.

“You’re welcome, even though I didn’t have a choice. Besides, Mr. Maxwell took the bar for a couple of hours. Anyway, you have a delivery,” he said, pointing to the bar.

I looked over and sitting on the bar was the biggest bunch of wildflowers I’d ever seen. It was a gorgeous bouquet, full of daisies, roses, dahlias, and carnations, along with a few others I didn’t recognize. The colors were bright and cheery like a summer day.

I instantly thought Viktor felt terrible about lying to me and was trying to make it up to me. I wasn’t sure if I would accept his offer or not. I turned to Uncle Vinny, “Have you met Mr. Maxwell’s wife?”

He shook his head. “She’s been dead for a long time. Why would you ask about her now?” He kept shaking his head and mumbling to himself as he walked away.

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