Page 2 of Taken By The Vampire King

That old bastard. He was the reason I changed the safe combination every week—often enough that I was in danger of not getting back into it myself one day, it was so hard to keep them straight—just so he wouldn’t be able to open it and borrow the takings.

Because it was never stealing in his eyes. It was borrowing, or more likely investing.

But not this time.

For fuck’s sake. I kneeled down on the old, threadbare carpet—held together only by dust and the power of persuasion—and keyed in the latest combination. I closed my eyes. Dammit. How long had I been using these numbers? Long enough that typing them in was muscle memory, anyway. Shit.

I’d been so distracted by mounting bills, I hadn’t changed it on my usual schedule, and Dad had watched me empty the takings last week. Fuck. His beady little gambler’s eyes missed nothing at all.

And now, I was missing everything. Where there should have been a neat but small stack of green, there was only the bottom of the safe.

I leaned my back against the wall and rolled my head as I looked consideringly into the empty safe. Well, fuck. Fuckity fuck, fuck, fuck. I would have liked to have an actual coherent thought, but all I had was curse words and a slow buzz of panic that was gradually building to something larger and far more destructive.

One single tear escaped the corner of my eye, and I brushed it away impatiently. Like every other moment, I couldn’t give in to sorrow just now or I’d start crying and keep going all night. Harry and Pierre would find me as a dehydrated husk tomorrow.

Too many things ran through my head. Pierre would be disappointed with the lack of chicken wings on the menu tomorrow, but I couldn’t even afford a chicken feather right now, never mind a full wing. Of course, the rest of the customers would probably be more disappointed when the beer taps ran dry, but I couldn’t even prevent that.

Still, what did any of that matter when I couldn’t afford the rest of the bills anyway? I’d raised money through so many loans over the years, always desperate to retain the deeds to what was ours, avoiding remortgage in case we lost the house and bar in various attempts to keep us afloat, but now my lines of credit had stretched so thin I could no longer see them.

I had nowhere left to turn, no more tricks left to try.

Soul-deep panic numbed me and made everything feel eons away as I looked around the office. I had paperwork piled up from years before, and red bills littered my desk. Nausea started a slow roll in my gut.

Powerless. I’d never truly experienced having nothing left before. But this office, The Pour House, was little more than a mirage now. It would be gone soon enough.

And I’d tried so fucking hard to hang on to all of it.

I’d failed. And that hurt.

I still hadn’t moved when there was a shadow at the doorway and Dad stumbled into view, an oversized shot clutched in one hand. For a moment, I wanted to give in to the old hopefulness I used to have when I saw him—like he might suddenly have realigned his moral compass.

But I knew better than that these days.

“Not content with taking the profits? Drinking them too now?” My voice was hard but without real emotion. There wasn’t a day Dad hadn’t drunk at least part of our profits.

Today was no different simply because he’d stolen the takings, too.

“I had a tip on a Saints game.” His eyes were bleary and unfocused when they met mine, and he slurred his words.

The slurring was bad. He was never a bad tempered drunk. But he was a remorseful one.

And the exaggerated slurring today meant he was particularly remorseful.

I rolled my head toward him, and he watched me warily. Yeah, that was right. He needed to be wary.

“You had a tip?” I kept my voice light as I stood. “Another good tip?”

He shrugged but avoided my gaze. “Turned out not so good.”

“I bet.” I could barely stand to look at him. He wore his weakness like an ID badge these days, and it was a source of my shame that the biggest reason Pierre and Harry spent so much time protecting me was because they knew Dad couldn’t.

They never spoke of it, but we were all aware why they spent so much of their time quietly guarding my business.

“I needed the money. It would have made all of our problems go away.” Dad reached toward me, his eyes pleading for my understanding, but I moved away.

“No, Dad. Just fucking no.”

His eyes widened.

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