Page 80 of Sinner's Secret

She pinched her lips together for a moment. “Yeah, he is.”

“How long has he been acting that way?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t really notice...” her voice trailed off. “After Martin got shot, maybe? He was all in favor of me pretending to be a down and out waitress.”

“What if you called him?” Yvgeny asked Nika. “You could say that you don’t know who to trust, but you got away, and you need help.”

“Where could I have been since getting away from the creeps?”

Yvgeny considered that for a moment. “What about a women’s shelter?”

“That might work,” Nika said. “I could go to one and use their phone to call him. Maybe arrange to meet him somewhere nearby.”

“He’s going to be watched,” Baz said. “If he’s involved, they’re going to be watching him.”

“Good,” Yvgeny said. “We will watch for the watchers.” His air of comedy dissolved into nothing. “I’m tired of being on the defensive. I want to be offensive. Very, very offensive.”

“Do we need to have another discussion about the laws in this country and not breaking them?” Nika asked.

Yvgeny stared at her coldly. “What do you plan to do with her?” he asked Baz, though he never took his eyes off her.

“None of your damned business,” Baz said, shifting on his feet so he faced his cousin. “But let’s be clear. She’s mine. Touch her and I will end you.”

Yvgeny laughed, and it sent a shiver up her back.

“Women are your Achilles Heel,” Yvgeny told him. “What happens when this one is killed? Will you go to war with the whole world this time? Will you bring about the destruction of us all?”

Baz grabbed his cousin by the front of his suit jacket and lifted him off the ground. “Are you threatening her?”

“No, but someone will.” There was a surprising note of empathy in Yvgeny’s tone. “Protect her by changing her into one of us. She is strong in mind and body. She would make an excellent partner for you. You could take your place as our leader as you once did.”

Baz let Yvgeny go and backed away from him. “What are you talking about?”

“You were—are the strongest of us,” Yvgeny said. “You were building a strong empire when your wife died, and her death destroyed it. You could rule again, but this time with a woman who is as strong as you are.” Yvgeny took Baz by the shoulders, his grin wide. “Think of it. It would be glorious.”

“Glorious?” Baz jerked out of his hold. “It wasn’t glorious, I was a despot. A creature only barely hanging onto my humanity by the tips of my fingernails. The only reason I didn’t become the devil himself was because of my wife.” His voice rose until he was shouting. “And now you want me to try to change the one person who cares for me? What if she dies, Yvgeny? You know the success rate is less than ten percent.”

He grabbed Yvgeny again and Nika could see his expression close down, and settle into that of a cold, ruthless, deadly creature. The one who killed the man who was going to sell her.

Yvgeny was seconds away from having his head ripped off.

Nika strode up to them and smacked the back of Yvgeny’s head. “Idiot.”

He and Baz glanced at her with identical startled expressions.

Good.

“Baz, let go of him.”

“But,” he began.

She interrupted. “I don’t think he was asking you to kill me.”

“I wasn’t,” Yvgeny said, then he sagged in Baz’s hold. “I sort of forgot about the poor success rate. I was just thinking about your happiness and what it could mean for all of us.”

“My happiness?” Baz asked. His fists tightened until she was pretty sure Yvgeny couldn’t breathe. “All of us? What are you talking about Yvgeny? We’re scattered across the world, in hiding. There are seven who make decisions—”

Yvgeny snorted. “Not so many decrees in the last ten years or so. They argue more than anything now, and some of them want to come out of hiding. The church doesn’t back governments like they did hundreds of years ago. They think the regular humans will use them as weapons and let them do what ever they want in return.”

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