Page 37 of Sinner's Salvation

“You’re looking a bit worse for wear as well,” Luca said, with a smirk. “Looks like you had a bit of a headache.”

Enzo chuckled, a slimy, sarcastic sound.

Her rage, which had been simmering in the back of her head, flared up, nearly choking her.They knew. Those bastards. Those stupid, short-sightedbastards.

She would bet half of her very large fortune that they were behind the Homeland Security agent’s attack and kidnapping of her and Brian. But why would they do it? Giving any information to a government agent, especially one as high up as Ledger was...suicidal.

“Why?” she asked, tempering her tone with confusion rather than threat. If she wanted information, threats wouldn’t give it to her. Not with these two narcissistic, chauvinistic idiots. “We have a treaty.”

“Which is of no use to us,” Enzo said. “When it results in us getting picked off one at a time.”

Their words turned her anger into something colder and harder. “What are you talking about?”

The two Italians just grinned at her.

“Has boredom and paranoia driven you both mad or is there a real threat?” she asked, as if she didn’t care about the answer.

“Oh, it’s definitely boredom,” Enzo said.

“That and watching our Portuguese cousins get tortured by some secret organization,” Luca added.

“Until they were destroyed in a huge explosion,” Enzo said, with an empty kind of glee. “That certainly gave us a show to watch. We figure they were close to escaping and someone pressed their self-destruct button.”

“I was told that communication with them had been cut,” Anna said, frowning. “All of the them are dead?” she asked. “Are you sure?”

“Nothing could have survived that explosion,” Luca said. “We were attacked too. Most of our people are gone.” His face fell, but after a moment his empty grin came back. “That’s when we remembered. Your family has found potential.”

Both men looked at Brian.

They weren’t after her at all. They wanted what they didn’t have, more people with the potential to become vampires.

“What a pity you’ve both lost touch with reality,” she said, as she sat up straight and shifted her body to get off the gurney she was on. “Do you remember what I said to you the first time I had to clean up your mess? Do you remember what I promised?”

The smiles fell off their faces.

“You’re hardly in a position to deliver on those promises,” Enzo said, his lip curling in disgust.

“I don’t know what’s going on here—” the paramedic began.

Luca leaped toward him, hands reaching.

Anna was closer. She grabbed the paramedic by his collar and jerked him over her and up against the bank of latched metal storage boxes built into the side of the vehicle.

By the time he was sliding down to flop on the gurney next to her, she was reaching for Luca’s throat.

Pain bloomed in her chest as she wrapped her fingers around his neck. She squeezed hard enough to crush his trachea and esophagus, then grind the soft tissues into the bones of his spine.

Luca collapsed to his hands and knees, making a series of grunts and choking noises.

Why did her chest hurt so much? Anna looked down to see a knife hilt sticking out from between two of her ribs. He’d stabbed her in the heart.

The world grayed and her hearing became fuzzy with white noise.

Two loud shots, far too close to her ears, slapped her, grabbing her attention. She glanced up and saw Evan with his gun in his hands, pointed at Enzo, who now had bullet holes in his head and chest.

He dropped to his knees, then fell forward onto his face, hitting the edge of the ambulance. His body slithered out of sight.

Evan turned to look at her and his eyes widened. “Anna?”

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