Page 25 of Ellie 3

“And you saved both of us from shitty circumstances and protected us,” the first added. “We remember our friends.”

“Amen, girl,” Carla chuckled. “Now let’s go kick some ass because I want blood.” She smirked at Ha-joon. “And to see you in action. I know what you did to Joel. Those are deep claw marks going for a kidney.”

“He tried to shoot Ellie in the back so he could get the formula for the blood additive.”

I froze when the witches shared a look, but they didn’t say anything, wishing us luck and opening a portal.

“Can you do that?” Carla asked. She sighed when I snorted. “Damn, that would have been nice. Okay, let’s do this the old-fashioned way and drive.”

“I wouldn’t rely on me much but in emergencies,” I warned her, pointing to Joel. “That is supposed to be unnoticeable fromwhat I know. He lost a chunk of hisbrainand memories. I have no fucking clue what I’m doing and it’s always just survival.”

“We all do the best we can, pup,” she comforted.

“Well, I feel better about her calling me pup if she does it to you too,” Ha-joon drawled. “Who’s driving?”

I wasn’t the only one who chuckled.

We enlisted a bit more help, so a few other department heads caught the other former board members. It turned out that of the five bogus agreements, only four were used. The other one chickened out at the last minute. I wanted to know how they used them, but it turned out the deal included being glamoured to be at the meeting.

So we had four employees to fire? They let someone else go in their place? How did that all work out?

More fun to uncover later.

Luckily, two others didn’t tell anyone like Joel, too paranoid that even their own spouse or family would blab and people would trace it back to them. They hadn’t made a move yet because they were deciding what to do. Both were furious that Joel was such a hothead and made such a rash move in anger that got them all caught.

I honestly didn’t blame them. I doubted snakes and assholes picked the best people to be their mates. They were untrustworthy money-grubbing fuckers, so… Who would mate them besides other untrustworthy money-grubbing fuckers?

Shocking, right?

“Well, he was a moron to start, so at least the world isn’t losing a genius or anyone useful,” Dr. Sean James chuckled as he dropped the man like disgusting garbage, wiping his hands on his pants even.

“Oh please, he’s the harshest of us most days,” Carla drawled when I gave Sean a look like I’d never seen him before. “He was always voting for most of the board to have accidents andthat would be how the board fell apart without you having to be stressed. People would think it was cursed and we’d only get pushovers or no one to join.”

“Glad you like me now after I know you weren’t kidding with your threats,” Ha-joon muttered, scrolling through the guy’s phone to make sure we weren’t missing something.

“You threatened him?” I hissed at Sean.

He simply snorted. “I’m pretty sure we all did, Ellie. We let things go with Fitz because it seemed what you wanted. None of us knew he was abusing you on top of being a cad. I regret not being a better uncle and stepping in, and I wasn’t going to let it happen again.”

“Oh geez, you’re all…” I sighed. Heavily. I looked at Ha-joon who simply shrugged but then studied Sean.

“He’s not shocked at what you could do. At all.”

Yeah, that was a good point, and I was glad he was there to back me up and catch things when I was missing too much.

Sean didn’t make me ask. “I knew you were different, Ellie. When—you didn’t have the control you do now. When this all started, you used to look around me all of the time like magics do. You were checking my aura. Vampires can’t do that.” He shrugged as if that said it all.

So he’d known for over a hundred years and never said anything to make me feel uncomfortable or be nosy.

“Thanks, Sean.”

He simply leaned in and kissed my cheek.

“Got the answer,” Ha-joon interrupted. “The warlock had the list of employees from HR. They found five people who couldn’t come to the early meeting or were off that day and didn’t care. I’m looking over the solid reasons employees weren’t there. Resident doctor on vacation. Nurse who volunteered to chaperone a field trip.”

“So it included a glamour as employees, forge their names, and no one was wiser,” I surmised, sighing when he nodded. “Okay, so we need to check every employee who attended was really the one who attended.”

“Or former employee now that some left,” Carla grumbled. “Fucking snakes.”

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