Page 40 of Death Deals

“I listened to you telling me to stay behind once before, and that resulted in me finding you dead on the floor. There’s no way in hell I’m letting that happen again,” he said.

I didn’t say anything to that. I could only imagine the grief and turmoil he’d gone through that day. And every day after. Something told me his drug use may have been a result of it, too.

“Besides,” he went on after a moment, “whatever you did to me before, it was like you gave me a new life. I’ve had no cravings for—” He stopped himself, suddenly embarrassed.

“Just dope, right?” I said, remember our conversation from my last living memory.

He looked up at the dropping numbers, shame making his shoulders curl in.

“Look, you don’t need to explain anything to me. You have a second chance now. Use it,” I said.

“Yeah, until the Knights get word of me being here and kill me.”

The elevator reached the basement. As we walked into the humid, laundry-scented air, Cornelius stirred in his chains. The rattling echoed loudly in the otherwise empty space. I blinked against the darkness until my eyes fully adjusted.

At least we seemed to be alone down here. All the other vampires had retired for the day.

Ricky leaned in close to me. “Looks like he isn’t dead,” he whispered next to my ear.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

“What do we do now?” he asked me.

“We make sure you’re out of the Knights for good,” I replied.

Ricky’s sharp intake of breath told me he didn’t like the sound of that.

“Have you come to gloat as well?” Cornelius called over to us.

Cautiously, we got closer. I made sure to keep Ricky behind me, not trusting him, even with the chains.

In the light of the single bulb hanging above him, I could see the pool of blood under his knees. Most of it had disappeared down the drain, but it was clear he’d lost a lot. He shifted, jingling the chains again.

Wait, hadn’t he been paralyzed before? By a bullet in the heart?

When his head lifted to meet my gaze, the translucent, sunken look to his skin made me gasp. It was as if he’d been cut open and drained of his blood, to the moment just before death.

“What did they do to you?” I asked, acid churning my gut.

“What’s the matter, doll? Didn’t expect your Lord to be capable of torture and cruelty?” He scoffed, but it came out more like a wheeze. “It’s what they do. The DeMontes.”

The hatred between their families wasn’t anything new. They’d been killing each other for years, but seeing evidence of such brutality and knowing it’d been Andre who’d done it… Well, it was stomach-wrenching.

“They cut the bullet out of me before they did it,” he went on. “Did he tell you that?”

It really shouldn’t have bothered me. They were in a war, after all, but it did seem strange for someone who claimed to want peace to participate in torture like this. Extract the bullet so he could feel the pain before they drained him close to death? Monstrous. No wonder he’d made me leave. He hadn’t wanted me to see this side of him.

If I’d stayed, there’s no way I would have let it get that far—supposed enemy or not—and maybe that’d been another reason to send me away.

Vampire affairs were way out of my comfort zone here, but even I knew this had gone too far. How could they ever achieve peace this way?

“Why are you here?” Cornelius asked.

WhywasI here? I couldn’t remember at the moment.

“Jade?” Ricky called to me in a low whisper. “Maybe we should just go.”

“Listen to the scrub,” the vampire barked. “This fight isn’t yours.”

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