Page 51 of The Incubus and the Bodyguard

Vlad helped her carry the food to the island, impatience gnawing at his insides. It wasn’t until they’d downed their breakfast that she retrieved her laptop from the lounge and revealed what she’d discovered.

“Your new bartender isn’t who he claims to be.”

Vlad stiffened. “Andre?”

Delphine’s fingers moved quietly on the keyboard. “His real name is Delroy Knight.” She turned the screen so he could see. “He’s wanted by the DEA for drug trafficking offenses in Mexico, the US, and the Caribbean.” Her brow furrowed slightly. “Wanna know something even more interesting? His last location before he showed up in New York and took a job at your place was Kingston, Jamaica.”

Heat flushed through Vlad as he stared at the file on the screen, his mind racing at the implication of her words even as he ground his teeth.

Is Wei Chen in on this after all?!

“Show me the security footage,” he said in a hard voice.

Delphine pulled it up.

Vlad’s knuckles whitened as he watched the bartender let two men inside the restaurant and guide them to the third floor. Static filled the video when it ended. He met Delphine’s calm stare.

“You think that was them casing the joint ahead of the attack?”

“Probably. In which case, one of those men may very well be our sorcerer.” She paused, her expression growing strained. “There’s something else. I was curious about the video from the night of the attack so I reprocessed it through one of Gideon’s servers. We missed a vital clue when we were watching the original recording.”

She brought up the footage that had gone viral online and that they’d already seen a dozen times and slowed it right down.

Vlad frowned, not sure what he was seeing at first.

His breath caught when Delphine froze a shot and zoomed in. He leaned forward jerkily.

“Shit. Is that?—?!”

Delphine nodded, her eyes tight as she studied the objects that had appeared briefly in the bartender’s hands where he stood behind the serving counter in the private dining room. “Delroy had the voodoo dolls on him. My guess is the sorcerer was either in the restaurant or on the service stairs. It’s probably why they disabled the interior cameras.”

“Were they trying to use Delroy as a scapegoat?” Vlad said between gritted teeth.

“I suspect whoever is behind this whole thing wanted to make sure the sorcerer didn’t come to any harm. And having him in the room would have been a dead giveaway. You and Cortes would have sensed he was a sorcerer.”

A tense hush fell between them. Delphine broke the silence.

“Someone went to considerable trouble creating Delroy’s new identity,” she said in a steely voice. “The references he provided check out on paper, but they’re all fake. I suspect it was the work of Santana Isaacs, the man he went to visit in Kingston.”

The name meant nothing to Vlad.

“I checked the staff roster at the restaurant,” Delphine continued with a frown. “Delroy put in a request for leave this week. My guess is he’s going to disappear. We need to find him before he leaves the city.”

Tarang growled softly beside them, his hackles rising.

Vlad’s mouth flattened into a thin line. “I know exactly where to start looking.”

CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

“You sure this is the place?”Delphine asked twenty minutes later.

They were parked across from a dingy dive bar in Hell’s Kitchen. Though the neon sign above the door was dark, there were signs of movement inside. Steam curled from an extractor fan at the side of the establishment, indicating the kitchen was in use.

“Delroy mentioned this place to Antonio once.” Vlad drummed his fingers on the armrest of the Range Rover. “He said it reminded him of home.”

Delphine stared. “And you remember that tiny detail because…?”

“Because I make it my business to know everything about the people who work for me.” His jaw tightened. “Or I thought I did.”

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