Page 97 of Sinner's Secret

A cough. “Mr. Breznik has had an accident,” a man said.

Nope, she’d never heard him before.

“You’re needed to identify the body,” he continued.

Jesus, he sounded way too cheerful.

“Shouldn’t his cousin be the person to do that?”

Silence for a moment, then he spoke again. “I’m afraid he also had an accident. Time to come out. There is nowhere for you to go.” His tone was different, harsher and clipped, as if his patience had run out already.

What a creep.

“Some things are private.” She flushed the toilet, then ran the water in the sink. She took a position on the far side of the toilet. It wasn’t much of a barrier, but it was all she had to work with.

“Open the door, Bella.”

Bella? Was this how he picked up chicks?

What a dick.

“I need a bath.” She snapped the waistband of her comfy pajamas.

Something rammed the door, and it popped open.

“Really?” she said to the stranger standing in the doorway. “You thought I was taking my clothes off and decided that was the time to force your way in?”

The man was about six feet tall, with dark hair and dark brown eyes. He wore a suit, but he didn’t carry any extra weight anywhere. His tanned skin made him look like he could have come from any warm weather country in the world. Then he smiled, and nothing else mattered. He had the same sharp-pointed canines as Baz and Yvgeny. And now that she was looking, a bit of blood on one corner of his mouth.

Another vampire.

“I do apologize for my rude interruption and intrusion,” he said in a smooth, cold, polite tone that raised the hairs on her arms and neck. “But I’m on a tight schedule.”

“Schedule?” she asked. Stall for time, stall for time. “I don’t understand. Who are you?”

“I am Hernesto Fernando Ruiz.” He said it like it was supposed to mean something to her. It didn’t, so she studied him for several seconds. She had very few self-defence options, and one of them was keeping him off balance.

“What are you doing in my room Ferdie?” she asked.

His smile disappeared. “You may call me Hernesto.”

Ooh, touchy.

She waited. Letting her silence beat at his head for a while.

He cleared his throat. “I’m here to make you a queen,” he said with a magnanimous smile.

She blinked. “A what now?”

“I am going to make all your dreams come true.”

She shook her head slowly. “You know jack-shit about my dreams, Ferdie. Get out.”

This time, when he showed her his teeth, he wasn’t smiling. He took one step toward her, and she brought the gun up and started firing. The first two bullets hit him in the chest. The next two she put between his eyes.

She’d seen Baz and Yvgeny recover from body shots within minutes. Head shots had to take longer.

Ferdie slumped to the floor with a meaty thump that made her happy for a couple of seconds.

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