Page 99 of Sinner's Secret

If this dude could sing, he’d do great in an opera.

“That man,” she pointed at the dick still unmoving on the bathroom floor. “Is your brother?”

“Of course he is.”

“He, uh, didn’t say why he broke into my room.”

The dude stared at her, then glanced at his brother, who was breathing. She could see his chest rising and falling. Damn it, he was still alive.

“He didn’t introduce himself?”

“Well, yes, he told me his name, but that’s all. Once I saw his teeth and the blood on his mouth, I did what any woman would do when a strange man breaks into her room. Especially a strange man who thinks flashing a bloody smile at her is sexy. I shot him.”

The dude’s face darkened like a thunderstorm rolling in, carrying rain, hail, and tornados.

“What would you have done if you were me?” she asked before the promised storm burst out of him.

Her question derailed his train of thought.

Since the tactic was working, she’d run with it. “Wait, is he the reason I was kidnapped, tazed, and traumatized?” She didn’t give anyone time to answer. “Do you know what they did to me? What they were going to do to me?”

The dude waved her complaints and questions away as if they were meaningless. “There are only a few hundred people in the world with the right genes to become what we are,” the dude said. “We have information on all of them. Of the females, you stood out.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Stood out?” She touched her sore neck with one hand. Stall, stall, stall.

Baz was hundreds of years old. She had no idea how long these dudes had been vampires, but maybe she could take advantage of their older cultural habits. The ones around polite behavior with women.

She let her lower lip tremble with all her stress and worry. Tears welled up and rolled down her face. “Three men burst into my bathroom. One of them, spouts nonsense about queens without a proper introduction, and after everything I’ve gone through in the last couple of days, I panicked.”

One of Baz’s hands moved, and it wasn’t a muscle twitch. It curled into a fist. She couldn’t see the other one, but figured he was testing things before trying to get up. When he moved, he had to make the best of it, or the goons would be on him again.

“What is all this about?” she said through her tears. “Please, explain it to me.”

The dude drew himself up, but the storm on his face had paused, hovering. “You have the potential to become a vampire.”

She let her jaw fall open.

“You are not completely ignorant of what we are,” he said to her. “That disgusting pig, Bazyli Breznik, is one of us.”

“No.” She made a show of swallowing. “I just thought he was a skilled martial arts fighter. Vampires are...fiction.”

The dude drew himself up, actually puffed out his chest. “No, we are not.” He smiled. “Grab the Breznik.”

His men turned and picked up Baz off the floor.

He struggled, but she could see that the effects of the Tazing hampered him.

The dude came over and grabbed Baz’s face, holding him still. “I have waited a long time to do this.”

“Do what?” Baz asked. “Die? You first.”

“Joke, joke, joke,” the dude sneered. “That’s all you Brezniks do is pretend life is a joke. There are better things to do with your time, wealth, and influence.”

“I’m not wealthy and I have no influence. As for time,” Baz said with just a hint of a smile. “I spend it on pain.”

“You should have stayed in your self-enforced prison.” The dude turned to look at the bar. “You should have stayed disinterested and minded your own business.”

“You made it my business when you took people off my streets.”

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