Page 101 of For Love and Blood and Fury

Zuri pulled Elena in, kissing her hard and deep and warning her with every swipe of her tongue and nip of her teeth that she better come back. That she better not break her heart. That she better end every piece of shit who would even dream about hurting her again.

Chapter Fifty-Five

The night wassilent after the rainstorm that had delayed their flight from Miami to a private airport south of Jacksonville.Airportwas generous. It was little more than a strip of asphalt bisecting an open field. Narine had been right. The purveyor was accustomed to helping drug traffickers slip under the FAA’s radar. He didn’t care what they were doing as long as the cash was good.

Split into several unassuming sedans, Elena and her inner circle took different routes to Baylor’s lair. Ten in number, they were Elena’s most trusted children. Before they’d left, each of them had dropped to their knees and asked to be compelled to prove their loyalty.

Elena hadn’t done it, much to Lib’s irritation. Giving in to paranoia was the fastest route to madness. She refused to indulge her lingering fear that there could be more daggers hidden inside cloaks.

Crammed together in something called aFord Fiesta, Librada drove while Elena sat impatiently in the passenger seat. “Couldn’t you wind this toy a little more tightly? Surely it should go faster than walking.”

“This vehicle will not draw unwanted attention, announcing us before we’ve made a move. There was no time to run reconnaissance. We can’t be sure there are not lookouts posted?—”

“They’re not an army. They are a pack of stray pups yipping at the moon. All bark and pissing in the house.” Openly annoyed that she’d gotten stuck with the backseat because she was petite, Sofia played with the moon’s reflection on the edge of her knife.

Most vampires had no need of weapons outside of their own fangs, but Sofia had always harbored a fondness for blades. They’d served her well as a vulnerable woman navigating the streets of Rome and she’d never abandoned them. A loyal friend.

Elena didn’t want to remember the night she’d found her slumped over, blood pouring over the cobblestones. She’d been left in an alley. Discarded and nearly dead. Elena had been drawn by the overwhelming stink of blood and rage.

When Elena kneeled at Sofia’s side, the woman, who looked no older than sixteen despite having seen her twenty-second birthday, tried to stab her. Even moments from death, Sofia had fought and fiercely.

It had only taken Elena a second to calculate that the man whose artery had painted the walls and ground with blood had likely not made it ten paces without expiring. She’d smiled and offered Sofia what a girl like her wanted most: the power to be untouchable. There would never be agood nightfor her, or anything she’d ever dogentlyagain. Not if she didn’t will it for herself.

For decades, Sofia carved a bloody path across Europe. From the cobblestones of Rome to the alleys of Paris and the gaslit streets of London, scores of men choked on their lies at the end of her blade. She only joined Elena in Havana in the early 1930s. Not too long later, the mafia followed.

It was another few decades before Sofia curbed the impulse to avenge. And here Elena was, asking her to do it again. Asking her only blood daughters to risk their lives for vengeance. Elena closed her eyes, Marisol’s voice in her mind.

She wasn’t wrong about violence begetting more violence. History was bursting at the seams with that lesson. Elena wasn’t ignorant, she was merely bereft of alternatives. Her only option was to strike completely and without flinching. To make a show of her power. To dissuade any future misguided idiot from needlessly forfeiting his life.

After leaving the gloss of gentrification, Librada didn’t have to tell them they were getting close to the abandoned church. The stink of Baylor’s men seeped into the car through the air conditioning vents, forcing Elena back to that night. To the horrific pain of loss and the ever-present memory of grief. In an instant, the heaviness in her chest disappeared to make room for reckoning.

They left the car in one of the many empty lots impaled withFor Salesigns. Small houses checkered their silent walk to the church, many in such disrepair that it was a surprise humans dwelled within. It was a testament that people never changed. That they would always deem some lives disposable and leave them to rot in the shadow of progress.

Dark streets provided good cover from human eyes, but not vampire. Spread out, they approached without making a sound. Focusing on her strongest sense, Elena sniffed the air. There was at least one of Baylor’s fiends on the flat roof of the church—a square building with its painted gold cross chipping. He was relaxed. So very relaxed that Elena was sure he was asleep. Is that how confident they were? How unafraid of her?

Bad night to be on watch, she thought with a fire rivaled only by the Earth’s molten core roiling in her chest.

Without a word, she found Sofia’s gleaming green eyes and signaled to her. They’d never needed the hand-signs Librada taught them after returning from The War in 1945, but they hadn’t forgotten them. Showing no hesitation, Sofia melted into the shadow of what had once been a pharmacy and disappeared.

At her side, Librada was a loaded weapon desperate to go off. Elena thought of her enlisted as Army Corporal Victor Serrano. Of all the evil Lib had single-handedly extinguished. Their targets were so outmatched, Elena could almost feel sorry for them. Almost.

Minutes later, they were moving along the perimeter of the church in complete silence. The rest of her most-trusted were hidden in the dark. When Sofia appeared on the roof, she leaned over the side and produced a freshly severed head. The first spoil of battle.

Joining Sofia on the roof, her entire band stood around a metal roof access hatch. If they opened it, they’d have a better idea of where Baylor’s goons were inside the building but once they did, they’d risk being detected. Even the most incompetent would detect the scent of that many vampires wafting in at once. They only had one opening strike. One chance to make the most of a surprise.

Using her superior hearing, Librada kneeled by the hatch and put her ear to the aluminum cover. She held up her hand to count the voices and other signs of life.

When Librada stopped at twenty-two, Elena looked around at her thirteen and smiled. Those were excellent odds. If Elena hadn’t made promises to Marisol and Zuri, she’d tell the rest of her children to stay on the roof while she defeated them on her own.

After sending a handful of her most experienced men out to the exterior egress points, she signaled for Librada to open the hatch. A patient heartbeat later, she gestured for Sofia to throwthe head through the hole. Baylor should know that Elena wasn’t the kind of guest to show up without a gift.

A gruff voice cursed, “What the fuck,” as soon as Sofia flung in her prize. And then it was on.

First through the hatch, Elena leapt without bothering with the ladder. She landed as light as a cat on the wooden platform bordering a huge open room like a balcony at the opera. Below, nearly thirty males were scrambling to their feet. Littered blood bags told Elena that she’d interrupted dinner.

She smiled. Maybe there would be some challenge before the slaughter.

The clueless pimple who was staring at his friend’s head at his feet found a second brain cell and lunged for her. High on the adrenaline of battle, Elena decided not to waste time with him.

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