“And you don’t believe him? Or you do?” Steve asked.

  “I don’t know,” Della said. “I mean, this Douglas Stone guy really exists. He’s bad, and he was out to stop Chase from trying to prove this. So maybe I do believe my uncle didn’t do it. Oh,” she grabbed the file and flipped pages and pointed down, “and I just found in the transcripts of the 911 call that my dad told the operator ‘he’ broke in but that ‘they’ were hurting his sister. Doesn’t that mean there were two people there that night? And that kind of supports my uncle’s version, because he said Douglas Stone got there first and then he arrived.”

  Steve sat there thinking. “But why would he think your uncle was hurting his sister?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he was unconscious when Feng got there and just heard them screaming or something. But the thing is that my mom said that shortly after all this happened they had to put my dad in St. Mary’s hospital, that hospital for crazy people. Which is more proof that he saw something. But my dad’s lawyer is afraid to request the files because he thinks something in there could hurt the case.”

  “Or it could prove that he got attacked and that’s the reason his blood was on the knife. Those files might help his case.”

  Frustration welled up and started spilling out of her and she moaned. Really loud.

  Realizing how crazy she looked, she said, “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” Steve asked.

  “For bitching. I told you I wasn’t good company.”

  Steve hesitated. “Are you sure it was St. Mary’s Psychiatric Institution?”

  “That’s what my mom said, why?”

  “Well, what if you could get your hands on those files and find out if they would help or hurt your father’s case? And if they help, you can tell the lawyer to get them opened and used for evidence.”

  “How?” Della asked.

  Steve shrugged and looked hesitant to say it. “My mom works there one day a week. Well, she volunteers and visits some of the people who don’t have insurance. I don’t know if they have the old files there, but they might.”

  “Your mom would actually give them to me?” Della asked, not believing it.

  “Oh, hell, no,” Steve said. “I’m thinking if I found out where they keep the files, I could go, then leave a window open and you could take a peek at them.”

  “God, I love you,” Della said and hugged him.

  It only took a second for Della to realize what she’d said and to realize how awkward it felt. Her arms around Steve. Steve’s arms around her.

  Surely Steve didn’t think she meant that she loved him like … “love” love.

  Or did he?

  Oh, hell!

  * * *

  Chase moved faster up the steps. He saw the two guards start toward him as he entered the door.

  Kirk, along with the other councilmen, waited in the entryway.

  Chase stared at Kirk’s face, trying to read him. “What’s going on?”

  Chase heard the guard’s footsteps move up the porch.

  “Stop,” Kirk growled. “There will be no bloodshed!”

  The two sets of footsteps halted.

  Chase looked at the man whom he’d grown to love and trust, and just like that he knew he’d been wrong. Kirk knew about Stone. The whole council was in on this. “Why are you protecting Douglas Stone?”

  Councilman Powell’s shoulders gave, as if in defeat. “The guy you call Douglas Stone is my son.”

  Chase looked from Powell to Kirk. “And you knew who killed Eddie’s sister and you lied to him all these years?”

  “I didn’t know at first,” Kirk said.

  “None of us did,” Powell snapped.

  Chase felt his eyes grow hot and stared at Powell. “Your son is a monster. He not only killed Eddie’s sister, but he recently killed another woman. I watched them take her body, piece by piece, out of a house just yesterday. And someone in the gang he runs nearly killed a child.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Powell said. “I stopped trying to excuse his behavior years ago. I know what he is. I know he has to be stopped.”

  Chase looked back at Kirk. “Then what’s the problem? Tell me where he is and I’ll bring him in.”

  “That’s the problem,” Kirk said.

  Chase’s fury rose higher. “You’re protecting him, even knowing what he is?”

  “We’re not protecting him,” Kirk said. “Stopping him. Killing him isn’t a problem. But you can’t take him in to the FRU.”

  “Why not?” Chase asked.

  * * *

  As soon as Steve left, Della went inside. When Miranda and Kylie walked in from their last class three minutes later, Della sat at the kitchen table. She had three Diet Cokes waiting in the fridge and an apology resting on the tip of her tongue.

  “Looks like the vamp has finally decided to talk,” Miranda said.

  Kylie elbowed her. “Yes, and being her friends, we’re here to listen.”

  “I’m sorry.” Della stood up and got the three Diet Cokes out. “I was a real shit, wasn’t I?”

  “Yup.” Then Miranda ran over, throwing her arms around Della in one of those bear hugs that just about hurt. “But like Kylie said, we forgive you. We will always forgive you. But I hate it when I see you’re hurting and you won’t talk to us!” Her hug actually got tighter. “So can you please not do that anymore?”

  “I’ll try really hard,” Della managed to say. “But, speaking of hurting, can you stop hugging me now?”

  Miranda released her.

  They all sat down in their designated places.

  “Who’s going first?” Kylie asked.

  “I think Della should,” Miranda announced. “She’s the one who is worse off.”

  Della didn’t like to go first, but she put that aside. “My life is effed up.”

  “We’re gonna need more than that,” Miranda said.

  “Every time we think we have a lead on Douglas Stone, the guy who probably killed my aunt, it goes away. Now, not only is he responsible for killing my aunt but his gang is the one who killed Mr. and Mrs. Chi. My mom is losing it. My sister hates me. I’m pretty sure my dad thinks I’m a monster—of course I told you that, right?”

  Kylie nodded.

  Della inhaled and continued, “Chase thinks the Vampire Council knows something about Stone and he left to go there this morning and we haven’t heard a peep from him. I’m worried sick something has happened. And you might think things couldn’t get worse, but they do! I told Steve I love him.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  “Why can’t Stone be handed over to the FRU?” Chase asked, his patience waning, and waning fast. “Someone better start explaining.”

  “Eddie had been with us for almost a month,” Powell started talking. “We were helping him look for a man named Douglas Stone. It wasn’t until I saw the sketch that I became worried, but it wasn’t a perfect match for my son’s likeness. I confronted him. He swore it wasn’t him. I believed him. His mother lives in France. He went to live with her. But four years later, he came back to the States. Some old friends of his showed up. One of them mentioned a gang that they had belonged to. It was the gang Eddie had joined. That’s when I knew for sure.”

  The old man had to stop to catch his breath. If Chase hadn’t personally seen what a monster his son was, he might have felt sorry for him.

  “I told him that he needed to turn himself in. That I would go to Eddie and maybe he would find it in his heart to ask the rest of the council to go easy on him.”

  The old man closed his eyes. “He called me a fool. Told me that I would never turn him in. He said to go check the files and see what had been taken.”

  “What files?” Chase asked.

  Kirk stepped forward. “All of them, Chase. Every job the council had done for over fifty years had been cataloged in those files. Powell’s son swore that if anything ever happened to him he would leak the information to the FRU.”

  “But you never told Eddie?” Chase asked.

  “No. Stone left the country. We actually thought he’d been killed. But a few months ago, he came back. We got the files, but Powell’s son got away.”

  “But he knows things, Chase,” Powell said. “If the FRU got him, he could bring us all down.”

  “If you’re guilty of things like he did, then maybe you need to go down,” Chase snapped.

  Kirk shook his head. “It’s not like that, Chase. The things we did wrong were justified. It was war. We were protecting what we believed in.”

  “Then why are you so worried?” he asked.

  “Because it wouldn’t look like that to the FRU or the government,” Kirk insisted.

  “Tell him everything,” the elderly Powell said.

  “What?” Chase insisted, staring at the oldest of the councilmen.

  Powell looked at Kirk, who nodded, then the old man started talking. “It wasn’t just us. It was Eddie, too.”

  Chase curled his hand into a fist. “He wasn’t an agent, why would he be in there?”

  “Kirsha,” Kirk said. “Eddie’s wife. She was killed by an FRU agent.”

  Chase recalled the stories Eddie had told him. “No, she died in an explosion at the medical lab. Eddie told me.”

  “Yes,” Kirk said. “But it was intentionally set by the FRU. Eddie had just discovered the treatment for AIDS. He was about to release it. They didn’t want the council getting credit, so they stole his work, and then, afraid we would claim rights to the work, they put the bomb in the lab.”

  “Eddie and Kirsha weren’t supposed to be there, but Kirsha had left her purse. When they entered the building they heard someone run out. Eddie made Kirsha wait inside while he ran after the intruder. He had just caught the man when … the building exploded. Eddie lost it. He killed the FRU agent.”

  Chase could barely breathe. He didn’t want to believe it, but with Eddie’s dislike of the FRU it made sense.

  Chase turned and stared out the window at the water, his heart on Eddie. On how crazy it was that he hated the FRU because they’d taken his bondmate from him, and Chase had joined them to win his bondmate?

  Was there justice anywhere in this world?

  “But you see,” Kirk said, “all of this will go away if you can make sure Stone is dead before the FRU get him.”

  Chase turned and faced Kirk. “You’re not asking me to get justice. You’re asking me to kill.”

  “He deserves to die,” Kirk said. “You’d just be saving the FRU the money it would cost them to incarcerate him and hold a trial.”

  * * *

  “Wow,” Miranda said. “You love Steve. I’ve been thinking it was going to be Chase. I’d practically written Steve off.”

  “I didn’t mean it,” Della said. “I mean, I love him, but I don’t … love him? You understand?”

  If the expressions of her two best friends were any indication, they didn’t. And maybe she shouldn’t be surprised. She sure as hell didn’t have a friggin’ clue what she meant.

  Or did she? She heard Chase’s words.

  You need time to trust this, to trust love and to trust me, and I get that.

  “Of course you don’t understand.” Della dropped her head on the table with a loud thump.

  “Wait,” Kylie said. “Don’t panic, I’m trying to understand. You love Steve, but you don’t love him, like … true love, right?”

  Della raised her head. “Yeah, kind of.”

  Kylie spoke up again. “Earlier you said that Steve made you feel safe. Does he still make you feel safe?”

  Della considered the question and remembered sitting with him on the porch. “Yeah, still safe.” She recalled when she hugged him. It had been awkward, but not unsafe.

  Miranda piped up. “And safe’s good, right?”

  “Yeah,” Della said. “But love’s not safe. Not for me. You get it?”

  “No.” Miranda looked at Kylie. “Do you understand any of this?”

  Kylie looked back at Della and made her “sorry” kind of face. “Not a bit.”

  “Okay,” Della said, trying to think of how to explain. “Steve used to be scary. I mean, I was always scared because I had feelings for him. It was like a shadow following me around and it made me want to run and keep running.”

  “And now Steve doesn’t scare you,” Kylie said, but still looked unsure.

  “Right.” Della inhaled.

  “I’m still lost,” Miranda said.

  Kylie held a hand out to Miranda. “I think I’m figuring it out.”

  * * *

  Chase walked out. He saw two vampire guards standing on the side of the porch, and he walked past them. Part of him wished they’d try something; a good fight would suit him right now.

  A fight. But he wouldn’t kill them. He wasn’t a killer. He went down the stairs.

  “Chase?” Kirk shot in front of him. “I know this is hard.”

  Chase stared at him. “Hard is knowing you’ve deceived Eddie all these years. Which means you deceived me.”

  “I was protecting Eddie, Chase,” Kirk’s eyes grew bright with anger at the accusation. “What do you think would happen to him if the FRU found out he killed one of their own? You’ve preached your justice talk for years, Chase. But where is the justice in Eddie being put to death? And that’s what they will do. You know that.” Kirk shook his head. “Eddie killed the man who murdered the woman he loved. Can you fault him for that?”

  Chase stared out at the water. His chest hurt. “Maybe there is no justice in this world.”

  “Don’t do it for the council. Do it for Eddie. Word is that the FRU are after Stone. We can’t get any of our guys to go after him for fear they’ll get tangled up in this. You could do it.”

  He handed Chase a piece of paper. “Here’s all of Powell’s son’s hangouts. A list of all his friends. Take care of this.”

  Chase curled his fist around the paper and stared at the man he no longer respected. “If I kill Stone without handing him over to the FRU Della’s father will get tried for murder. And—”

  “And you would choose him over Eddie?” Kirk spouted out.

  The love and devotion Chase carried for Eddie rose in his chest until the point of pain.

  Chase scowled at Kirk. “Don’t you get it? Eddie told me his plans. If it appears his twin brother will go down for this murder, he’s going to come forward and confess to a killing he didn’t do. Either way, I lose Eddie!”

  “No, you won’t,” Kirk said. “I’ll talk to Eddie. I can talk him out of it. Besides, you don’t even know they will convict her father. The lawyers can get him off. We know the FRU are on it. You take care of Stone. I’ll take care of Eddie.”

  Chase stood there and wondered how the man he had once respected so much could ask him to do this.

  “Promise me, Chase,” Kirk said. “Promise you’ll take care of this.”

  Without saying a word, Chase got in his car and drove off.

  * * *

  Why had Della tried to explain this? She couldn’t.

  “Yup, I think I got it,” Kylie said and looked back at Della. “Steve doesn’t scare you, but Chase does, right?”

  Della took a deep breath. She didn’t want to admit that, not because it wasn’t true, but because admitting it seemed awful close to admitting something else. But she couldn’t lie to her friends.

  “Right.” Della dropped her head back down.

  “I thought so,” Kylie said.

  “Thought what?” Miranda asked.

  “Della’s afraid of falling in love. And Steve doesn’t scare her because she’s not falling. She’s falling—or has fallen—for Chase. So she’s in love with—”

  “Don’t say it,” Della said. “Please. Just don’t say it.”

  Right then Della’s phone rang. She nearly jumped out of her skin. She snatched it up.

  “Is it Chase?” Miranda asked. “Just tell him you love him.”

  Della looked at the number. “No.” Della stood up. She wouldn’t. Couldn’t tell Chase she loved him. Because she still didn’t trust love. “It’s not Chase. It’s Steve. I need to talk to him … in private.” She started to her bedroom, but remembering her door wouldn’t close all the way, she took off outside.

  “I don’t get it,” Della heard Miranda say. “She thinks she’s in love with Chase, but Steve calls, and she bolts out because she needs privacy. That girl is missing a few of her marbles, if you ask me.”

  * * *

  Worried Miranda might eavesdrop, Della took off for a long stroll in the woods. She’d just hung up with Steve. He had spoken with his mom. She was going to be at the office in St. Mary’s tomorrow. Steve was going to skip his morning class and was going to visit his mom. Before he left, he planned on transforming himself into something small so he could sneak around and find where the old files were kept. If he found them, he’d leave a window open so Della could get in and read the files for herself.

  At first Della considered going to Burnett, but what if Burnett refused to let her do it? She couldn’t let him stop her.

  But she trusted Chase to understand. The realization hit, and hit hard. She trusted him. He would help her.

  He would if he were still alive. Why the hell hadn’t he texted her or called her?

  She texted him again. Where are you?

  Then she tucked her phone into her pocket and started walking back to her cabin. She cleared the woods, and had just gotten on the trail when she heard someone walking down the path. She turned. Listened to the footfalls. Raised her nose in the air. And then took off.

  “Where have you been?” she asked him.

  “I was just texting you,” Chase said.

  “But I texted you like five times.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, but he didn’t sound all that apologetic. “Crazy day.”

  She looked at him, noting something different. “What happened?”

  “What do you mean?” Chase asked.

  “I mean what happened? Burnett said you were going to confront Kirk. Did you?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “And?” she asked impatiently.

  He ran a hand through his hair. “And Douglas Stone is Powell’s son.”

  “Shit,” Della said. “Did my uncle know this? Was he protecting—”