Page 136 of Bite Marks

“If we must,” she grumbled, reluctantly releasing me and stepping away for good measure. She gestured at the box dramatically. “Let’s see what mess he’s left behind.”

“Final chance to guess what’s in the box,” I said, fingers dancing over the metal lip. “I’m going with five collectors’ coins that aren’t worth shit and an out-of-date passport.”

“Solid guess, Pet. I will go with…. Three two-dollar bills and the manual to a car your family hasn’t owned since you were in middle school.”

I snorted a laugh, flipping the box open, and an involuntary shriek left me as my eyes threatened to pop right out of my skull at the contents.

The teller banged on the door. “Is everything alright in there?”

“Fine, fine!” Ren called, looking over my shoulder into the box with a low whistle. “That isnotan out-of-date passport.”

Banded and stamped bundles of hundreds filled the box, and my fingers trembled as I reached out to lift one of the stacks from the box. If I had to guess, I was looking at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash, maybe more.

I threw my bag down on the metal table, quickly tossing the money inside with an incredulous laugh. “Oh, Dad, you are the dumbest man?—”

I was so distracted by the cash, I barely noticed Ren hooking her finger into the box to pull out a large, legal-size manila envelope wrapped around a thick package.Her jaw ticked as she looked at the handwriting on the front.

Though the bundles of cash were only stacked two deep, not filling the entire box, under the parcel were jewelry boxes, precious metals, and a couple of checkbooks for accounts I didn’t recognize with my name scrawled along the top as the holder.

My heart was thrumming inside my chest so hard I was worried I was going to faint.

When did my dad have time to save up this kind of money?

How?

The vein in Ren’s throat pulsed as I tipped the rest of the contents into my bag, pushing the box aside to hold my hand out for the package she was holding.

“Babe, what's wrong?” I asked with a little laugh, the adrenaline of knowing my troubles were finally over making me feel lightheaded. “Did my dad have a secret family or something?”

She kept hold of the legal file without opening it, handing me the smaller, sealed-shut packet. I used my nail to slice it open, shaking the contents out onto the table with a quiet clatter.

The first thing I recognised was a flash drive with a dark red velvet ribbon slipped through the looped end tied to a small tag withWatch mewritten in elegant script that matched my name on the front.

Confusion quickly turned to unease as the thick stack of photographs on the table stopped being curiously amorphous, and my mouth fell open as I took in Juniper’s unmistakable coppery hair.

A sharp pain behind my left eye forced my eyes shut, my hand clenching around the edge of the table until my knuckles went white as I tried to stabilize myself.

A flood of pictures, tastes, and sounds assaulted me all at once, and it was like a dam breaking.

The early morning air was cold as I stepped through the heavy back door, balancing a crate of empty champagne bottles as I avoided chilly puddles in my heels.

Of course, it had rained.

We couldn't possibly have nice weather for a single day... Okay, not that it mattered much, given most of the party had been inside, but still—it was Juniper’s birthday! She might not get any sunshine in the Lower City, but at the very least, it could be clear.

“Just give me a sec,” I called back to the girls inside. “I'll drop these by the dumpster and meet you upstairs for leftover cake!”

“Oui,mon coeur! But you should really just leave it! We can clean up tomorrow!” Cherie's luxurious French accent drifted back to me before the door shut with a heavy thud between us.

The party went off relatively without a hitch, save for a few clients who'd gotten a little too brave near last call. We'd even hired a couple of temp bartenders to cover for us so that Ren, Cole, and I could enjoy the festivities.

But just because I was off the clock didn’t mean I was going to leave the place in shambles, not when I knew that it was going to bother Ren in the morning anyway.

Well… Late afternoon.

I drunk-wobbled a little as I hauled the heavy box over my head to drop it into the dumpster with a crash. Turning to head back inside, a darkened figure at the end of the alley caught my eye, the way my heart picked up in my chest as much a warning as the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

There was just something... off about the way the vampire approached. And then, when he was close enough, even in the limited light from the streetlamps, I could see the way he was looking at me.

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