“So, chief of security for Elmer Marsc. Wooow.” Rowan drew out the last word, grating on him. “I’m sure your parents are super proud.”

  Her chuckle was genuine, so she went with it.

  Stephen opened his mouth, and she slapped her palm down on the tabletop. “No. It’s not your turn to talk. I’ll tell you before you start squawking, yes, we have every right to hold you. Yes, you absolutely understand why you’re here and no, we’re not letting you go. So, to continue. I hear you and Elmer share a love of questionably young humans. What a thing to have people know about you. I mean, I guess if you’re Elmer’s lackey you don’t have any shame left.”

  Stephen’s face twisted in anger. If he was human, he’d be red-faced and panting. Goddess, she wished she could goad him into a heart attack. Sometimes things weren’t fair. Ah well, the least she could do was reduce him to tears.

  Before she sent him off to prison.

  “Everyone works for someone,” Stephen said. “Last I checked having a job wasn’t against the law.”

  She clucked a little. Disappointed. “Really? I’m cringing just imagining taking the fall for a pervert like Elmer. Dude, he’s just so fucking stupid and led by his dick, which isn’t that unusual for those who have dicks, even when they’re Vampires. I guess that’s something you knew was a possibility when you linked up with him in this scheme of his.”

  “I don’t need to manipulate boys who are barely over eighteen. Whatever his...predilections, they’ve been over eighteen, even if only by minutes, when he Made them. For the last four years.”

  “He means after I separated Jacques’s head from his body and you took over as Scion and started making them obey the laws,” she said to Clive, who fought a smile for a moment. “You’re the one who follows Elmer around cleaning up his messes, licking his boots. He laughed about that.”

  She was such a liar. Elmer hadn’t said anything like that. But Rowan could read Stephen like a book. And Stevie didn’t like Elmer and the idea that Elmer would mock him would uncork Steve’s truth.

  “Sanguis pays me. We mocked Elmer and his ridiculous life. The man is a degenerate, and he can face the sun for all I care.”

  “He’s a massive asshole, for sure. But you served him for how long?”

  “Seven years.”

  “Like a fanboy? Just sniffing after Elmer, trying to steal his shine?” That might be laying it on a little thick, but she went with it.

  Stephen’s curled lip cheered her. “Elmer was a direct connection to Jacques and then Eduard. Jacques used him for heavy jobs. So he had a lot of dirt on the old Scion. Enough to keep him alive. Plus, Elmer’s money, power, and connections have been of great use to Sanguis Principatus. And we built a nice little file on Elmer for when he outlived his usefulness. He can choke on his laughter.”

  “Oh, you mean on one of the multiple data cards you had tucked in the safe at your nest?” Clive asked. “My staff has busily been unlocking and decrypting the information and compiling it. I’m pleased to know we’ll have more evidence against Marsc.”

  “You entered my nest?” Oh, that tone wasn’t going to please her Scion.

  Which he proved when he spoke, voice icy and full of power. “I am the Scion of this entire continent. You provide overwatch to a Vampire who lurks at sports bars to prey on impressionable humans. We are not the same. I go where I please. And it pleased me to have your nest searched from top to bottom. Like it pleased me to remove every last one of your staff and blood servants and get them the support and help they need.”

  “Everything is unraveling, Stephen.” Rowan shrugged. “If Mardoc hadn’t played his little game and threatened Hunters I never would have looked twice at him. If the Procellas hadn’t gotten greedy and petitioned the Conclave to be allowed more power to coerce humans, the witches wouldn’t have taken note of their adept trafficking business. If you hadn’t abused Dorothy because she didn’t want you, she might not have run straight into my investigation. I knew there were some dark things going on, but I never would have put it all together if you all hadn’t let money and power go to your heads and got reckless. Entitlement makes people so lazy. Or maybe it’s lazy people are entitled. I don’t know. But what I do know is if I was involved in the process of kidnapping and selling adepts, I’d keep my shit locked down because it turns out that’s not legal. Even if it’s via a luxury concierge service. Especially one that has begun to resemble human organized crime, complete with public assassination attempts on enemies.”

  He froze for a brief moment. Not so brief she missed it. I’ve got you, motherfucker.

  “Fiona Clare is looking for you.” She smiled at him. “She thought you’d ghosted her after you went and damaged the whole-ass witch you attempted to buy like she was a new car. Dorothy. She’s amazing. Strong. Courageous. She remembers everything. Some witches, it turns out, have varying levels of immunity to coercion magic. You tortured her to break her, and that, Steve, makes me dislike you intensely.”

  He opened his mouth to speak before thinking better of it and closing it again.

  “Look at you. Learning like a big boy. I have a dozen other witnesses, all now free of the geas Fiona Clare had put on them, chatting like their lives depended on it. And they do. The First and Andros have had Mardoc and his ridiculous little lords in a dungeon and they’ve all seen the wisdom in telling the truth. You’re fucked. So if you want to help yourself, dispense with all the excuses and lies and tell the truth.”

  Clive said, “This is your opportunity to help us understand your perspective. Because, as Rowan said, we have a dozen other perspectives, and as you might imagine, their portrayal of you isn’t the most flattering.”

  “I can see from your expression that you’re considering continuing to deny the truth. So I’m going to stand up and leave this room if you don’t start telling us what we want to know. Then I’ll go next door where your buddy Elmer is waiting. I’m sure he has loads of helpful things to share.”

  “In the decades Sanguis Principatus has worked with the witches to procure adepts, less than a handful has needed convincing,” he finally said. “A handful! Less than a dozen who are all settled now serving their Vampires as they were meant to! In the end they all want it. Dorothy and modern women like her don’t know what they want at first. So we help them be what they’re born to.”

  “Gonna be honest here, I’m having trouble finding something to say. Give me a moment.”

  Rowan breathed carefully through her anger. All these machinations were about control and loss of control so the last thing she needed to do was emulate that.

  But oh how she wanted to hurt these Vampires and witches who’d just decided a whole group of people didn’t deserve even the most basic rights of bodily autonomy because adepts have blood that tastes better.

  “It has been Elmer from the start. He’s the problem! He was never satisfied. Caused issues to the point where the workgroup refused to let him use their services. He started hunting on his own again. Getting high off blood feeds with nineteen-year-old humans like an embarrassment. Calling attention to himself in ways that would have harmed the rest of us. So I stayed to keep him in line. Then Mardoc and that stupid fucking stunt he pulled put so much heat on us we couldn’t handle Elmer in the way we’d planned for the last year. Too much attention someone might have noticed him missing. Elmer and Mardoc both are to blame for this mess. Sanguis Principatus and her members have done nothing wrong.”

  “Except for that whole kidnapping, false imprisonment, assault, and murder stuff, yeah.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Clive placed a hand at her elbow to stay her.

  They’d interviewed multiple Vampires and witches and a werewolf or two over hours and hours and had been able to piece together the big picture of what exactly had happened.

  She turned, her features softening in question.

  “It’s two in the morning. Might I tempt you into going home, eating a meal with me, and decompressing from everything we’ve learned over the last three days?”

  Her brows drew together as she frowned. “I have to write up everything. I need to conference call with London and the other chapterhouses. I should check in with the clinic. Genevieve went over there to inform them in person when we got the news about Kerry.”

  He took her hand and tugged her close. They were alone so she allowed it. Which only made him want her to rest more. “You can do all that from home. David and Vihan are already working on writing everything up. You can add your perspective when they’re finished. Rowan, you’re knackered. Physically and emotionally. You’ve flown back and forth to Southern California multiple times in the last few days. You’ve kicked doors down and broken ever so much rich people shit, as you so charmingly put it. Even a Vessel needs some downtime.” Especially when one was still recovering from multiple attempts on one’s life.

  She gave him a raised brow and then she snorted. “I’m too tired to argue.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t until they’d safely arrived home and had settled at the table with a meal—Elisabeth had it all ready when they arrived—that Rowan said, “My Goddess. All the twists and turns over the last few weeks. Like a fuckin’ ride at one of those carnivals they set up in abandoned mall parking lots. Screws all over the ground. Smells like gasoline, puke, kettle corn, and the blue stuff they squirt on snow cones.”

  Having never experienced such a horror—gladly—he still got the basic idea.

  “For decades they had their little business. Sketchy at times, but from those adepts we’ve been able to speak to, consensual. The witches are making bank. The Vampires are able to get their sweet adepts via a process that makes them feel even more important. They even add their side businesses in with day trips to woo the adepts and all that shit.”

  Greed and self-importance wrecked the best of things.

  “Teresa flitted around, doing her thing, making deals, tucking away her cash, collecting rich lovers to get those connections and to further the life she wanted to live. Also, whatever, plenty of people do stuff like that and for years she’s able to do what she wanted. But Hugo, oh he’s got this gift that means we can just keep all the adepts we pull into our net! The rest, literally all the rest just went along with it! I don’t care what they say now they’ve been caught. If a bad bitch like Fiona doesn’t want to do something, it’s not going to be Teresa who makes her. They all knew and they all at the very least tolerated it.”

  “I rather wanted to throttle the fourth one of them who claimed it was only a handful of witches and humans who’d been bespelled or harmed to achieve compliance.”

  “They’re going to stick to that forever. Until they believe it. How else do you face the world if you don’t downplay your monstrousness?”

  They’d been able to identify seven adepts, four humans and three witches, who’d been abused by Hugo’s magic. Two of their Vampires had physically dealt with Hugo when he’d started sniffing around after their adepts he’d used his magic on. Clive had to pull Patience off to the side after that had been revealed when she flew across the room, nails out, toward Hugo when he confessed that bit.

  “I do appreciate your leaving the Vampires involved with the purchase of these adepts who’d been tampered with by Hugo to the Nation,” he told Rowan.

  “I trust you to handle it. And if the Nation doesn’t, those Vampires are known to me, and they will be held responsible one way or another.” She shrugged one shoulder. “The Conclave is dealing with the witches from this workgroup, so it seemed best to let Vampires do the same. They’re already in your custody and Theo’s custody as it is. Why make more work for myself if I don’t have to?”

  “But you’ll watch us?” he teased.

  “I’ll watch you and the witches too because this happened right under our noses and we didn’t know until a few weeks ago when we went to that house on Holly where Dorothy, Jaylin, and Kerry lived and had gone missing. And when we’re in Prague for the Joint Tribunal, you can bet I’ll expect a full accounting from the Nation regarding this issue. And, while I’m willing to accept Takahiro’s and Tahar’s word that their involvement was only as a Scion passing on concerns of their Vampires to their leader, understand Hunter Corp. is already paying far more attention to them than we have before. If even a whisper of wrongdoing reaches me, there will be a problem.”

  Clive grimaced. “These lords are radioactive. Any involvement or perception of involvement with them will be sure to gain your father’s attention. In the worst way. If I believed either of those Scions knew in advance of this outcome or this adept scheme, I’d kill them both myself.”

  “Aw, romantic! Scions stepping out of their lane will always gain Theo’s attention. Well, Nadir or Recht’s first, and then his. It’s not like either Scion is new to this, so they’re welcome to whatever this stirs up. As for these pathetic lords? The two who’d been freed will most likely remain so. But the others in the dungeon? Most of them will probably be freed after a decade. Armas knew more and fooled Andros, so that’s going to hurt. He’ll be there as long as Mardoc now.” She shook her head. “If he’s released before at least a century, I’d be surprised.”

  “My territory has registered a strong recommendation that Mardoc be executed.” Clive wanted to kill Mardoc himself for all his part in not only the suffering he’d caused the kidnapped adepts, but the ruthless attacks on Rowan.

  Vampires were bloodthirsty. They battled and bloodied one another all the time. Sometimes they went too far, and one might die. Regrettable, but not frowned upon, usually. But they were also rare. Old ones like Mardoc rarer still. But officially sanctioning true death was only for the most acute violations of their laws. In most other circumstances, Clive would support imprisonment, as would the other Scions.

  But his wife wasn’t just anyone, and she’d had enough violence from the Vampire Nation. Mardoc’s crimes had put the Nation in danger of being exposed, and he’d created major political problems with the witches and humans.

  “That’s one of the sweetest things you’ve ever done for me.”

  He took her hand, kissing it.

  “He’s too old to be this reckless. It’s a danger to us all. As for my internal leak problem, every single employee at Die Mitte, as well as all Scion-funded and -controlled positions in Las Vegas, are undergoing upgraded training and security screens. It helps that Eduard and Stephen kept such good records pointing us in the right direction. Every contact that we discover will be rounded up and dealt with.”

  “This won’t be the end of Sanguis Principatus,” Rowan said as she dipped her bread in balsamic and olive oil.

  “No. But this cell here in the West was controlled by Vampires most of whom are in my custody. That will leave them off-balance for a while. It’s too much to hope they’ll go away entirely. And for those who weren’t part of this kidnapping scheme with the witches, they’re staying on the right side of Nation law. They’ll lick their wounds and, in the meantime, I’ll be working to destabilize them across the territory.”

  “Good idea. Get yourself someone like Andros and Recht combined. A spy who can get into their leadership and rip them apart.” Rowan hummed her approval of that idea. “What’s the situation with Elmer, then?”

  “He’s being transferred to Recht’s custody in a few days,” Clive told her. “He’ll serve his sentence in Munich.”

  Theo kept a Nation prison just outside the city. High security. Light tight. And not Clive’s problem.

  “Brrr.” Rowan shivered. “The Conclave is transferring many of the witches to their various null facilities. Then I sincerely hope they do some major deep cleaning. I think they will, at least given what I know from Genevieve and Konrad. If Hugo and his grandpa weren’t so greedy, how many more would have been taken before they were found out? These are unprecedented times and the risks we all face grow every day. They have to pay attention.”

  “I think it’s fate,” Clive said, surprising them both. He gave a slight rise of his right shoulder, slightly embarrassed.

  She took him seriously immediately. Turning her gaze to him. “How so?”

  “There are times when a situation hits a sort of mass. Roiling, building to something far worse. Over my life there have been instances when coincidences began to build up to the point they could no longer be ignored. First the Procellas put in their request, but it sat on someone’s desk because Genevieve’s time had been taken up on the sorcerer crisis. Even as it began to work its way through the system to get to her, Mardoc had begun his campaign to the Scions to be added to the official Nation response to Hunter Corp. in the wake of your announcement of hiring Vampires. That took time as well. That both inciting events finally surfaced within such a relatively brief time between them, in such disparate ways, says to me this was meant for you. Which I find myself hating because of how beaten up you are every time you take on an enemy. But your record of overcoming your enemies is undefeated, so I hold that confidence in your ability. And now I know I have this rot in my territory, and it needs to be burned out.”

  “You can’t hold yourself responsible for what Jacques germinated for a century before he was terminated. Ha. Terminated. See what I did there?”

  “I can hold myself responsible as Scion for what happens in my territory. I thought I was brutal when I came into the position, but I clearly showed too much mercy. A fact I will spend the next year correcting.”

  “You know how sexy I find it when you’re very tough. But. I want to say mercy is never a mistake.” She reached over to cup his cheek a moment. “I’m not arguing with the fact you have a mess to clean up. I’ll happily watch you do it and lend a fist whenever you need it. I don’t doubt your ability. Vampires are notoriously troublesome. You’re going to have to create a process to be more thorough in each major quadrant of North America. If Patience wouldn’t be offended, I’m happy to talk about some of the ways Hunter Corp. is attempting to clean our own house worldwide.”