Page 67 of Blood Mosaic

“They wouldn’t allow Zara in the caravan,” Mika said. “She’s cost them too much money since she moved to Istanbul. They have to let you in, and I guarantee Radu hates Zara far too much to allow it.”

“So she’s missing.” Oleg’s mind started to whirl. He turned and picked up his tesserae palette again, stepping back to look at the pattern as a whole. “You’ll increase the guards around Tatyana and her mother of course.”

“Obviously,” Mika said. “She’s our bait.”

This was an opportunity. His daughter had soiled his name in the vampire world, and Oleg had taken a hit to his reputation because of it.

Immortal progeny usually attained a level of independence from their sire at some point, but a bond remained, usually an affectionate one. Stronger than that of biological children, it was a relationship of shared blood and elemental power.

Zara had been Luana’s lover, but Sokolov blood ran through her veins.

There was one brutal lie he could tell that would shore up his reputation and isolate his daughter at the same time.

“Tell Radu that I’ve killed her.” He started placing a new row of square blue tiles.

Mika blinked. “Who?”

“Zara. I want you and Oksana to tell everyone you know, everyone you’ve met, everyone you can think of, that I have killed my child.”

Mika took a step closer. “Thatyoukilled her? Personally?”

“With my bare hands.” His extended clan would be horrified.

The Sokolov clan that their sire had left behind was bonded—despite all their internal rivalries—by the trauma of surviving Truvor. Killing those outside the clan? Expected. Completely reasonable in fact. Killing anyone directly related by blood?

Heinous.

It was something not even his own sire would have done, as brutal as Truvor had been. He would capture his sons, keep them captive, set his children against each other, make thembattle and brawl—even provoke them to walk into the sun to end their own life, which many of them did.

But not even Truvor had killed his own blood.

Vampire children killing their sires on the other hand?

Technically it was forbidden—as taboo as killing a child of your blood—but there were ways around it. Oleg had personal experience with that.

Mika asked, “Are you sure you want to do that? It will make allies question their trust in us.”

Oleg’s organization didn’t have akindreputation, but they were considered trustworthy. A wolf would always eat their kill first—that was the nature of things—but they left plenty on the bones for the ravens who came after.

Killing his own child might call his character into question, but it would make Zara desperate.

“It will isolate her. Even if she shows her face, people will question her. It will sow confusion, and many of her former allies will cut her loose.”

“And Laskaris?”

“He either threw her out or she left him.” Oleg smiled. “He won’t take her back.”

“They’ll call you a monster,” Mika said. “Beyond the Sokolovs, we might lose some goodwill in our legitimate channels. Your brothers will cut you off.”

“Cut off by a gang of thugs with concrete for brains in Moscow?” Oleg drawled. “How terrible.”

Mika persisted. “Let me do it. I’ll say that I fought her and?—”

“No.” Oleg picked up a blood-red tile and placed it on the wall. “Dead by my hand, Mika.”

His second was quiet for a long time. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.” Oleg stepped back and stared at the lone scarlet tile in the middle of a sea of blue and green. “She’s dead to theimmortal world anyway,” he said. “Because once I find her, she’ll never see the sky again.”

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