"Ben, please. Let Nora go and use me instead. I'm the one who took the flash drive, not her. She's not involved in this--"
"Tell me where you put the drive, and maybe I'll let her go, how's that, Doc? Fair enough for you?"
"I don't have it," she murmured. "I took it out of the examination table where you hid it, but I don't have it anymore."
He fixed that unfeeling stare on her, a muscle ticking in his jaw. "What did you do with it?" "Let her go," Tess hedged. "Let her go, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know."
Ben's mouth lifted at the corner. He eyed the knife he held, toying with the razor edge of the blade. Then, in a flash of motion, he pivoted around and stuck Nora in the stomach with it.
"No!" Tess screamed. "Oh, God--no!"
Ben swung back to her, cool as could be. "That's just a gut wound, Doc. She can survive that if she gets help soon enough, but you'd better start talking fast."
Tess's knees buckled beneath her. Nora was bleeding badly, her eyes rolling back in her head from shock. "Goddamn you, Ben. I hate you."
"And I no longer care what you feel about me, Tess. All I care about is getting that flash drive back. So. Where the fuck is it?"
"I gave it to someone."
"Who?"
"Dante."
That caused a spark of animosity to flicker in Ben's dull gaze. "You mean that guy--the one you're screwing? Do you have any idea what you've done? Any idea what he is?">And maybe she wasn't, Tess thought, reflecting on all that Dante had told her--everything she had seen and been a part of in the past several hours. The past several days, she corrected herself, thinking back on Halloween night, when she'd truly first seen Dante.
When he'd sunk his fangs into her neck and turned her normal world upside down.
But maybe she wasn't being totally fair. Tess couldn't remember a time when she'd really felt a part of anything normal. She had always been... different. Her unusual ability, even more than her troubled past, had always kept her separate from other people. She'd always felt like a misfit, an outsider, unable to trust anyone with her secrets.
Until Dante.
He had opened her eyes to so much. He'd made her feel, made her desire in ways she never had before. He'd made her hope for things she'd only dreamed of. He'd made her feel safe and understood. Worse than that, he had made her feel loved.
But that had all been based on lies. Now she had the truth--incredible as it was--and she would give just about anything to pretend it wasn't real.
Vampires and blood bonds. A mounting war between creatures who shouldn't exist outside the realm of the imagination, of nightmares.
It was all true, though.
It was real. As real as her feelings for Dante, which only made his deception cut deeper. She loved him, and she'd never been more terrified of anything in her life. She had fallen in love with a dangerous vigilante. A vampire.
The admission weighed her down as she stepped off the subway car and made her way up to street level in her North End neighborhood. The local shops were bustling with morning patrons, the outdoor market enjoying a steady flow of regular customers. Tess passed a knot of tourists who'd stopped to browse autumn melons and squash, weathering a chill that had little to do with the crisp fall air.
The closer she got to home, the deeper her sense of dread grew. One of the tenants came out as she reached the front stoop. Although she didn't know the old man by name, he smiled at her and held open the door for her to enter. Tess went inside and climbed the flight of stairs to her unit. Before she got within ten feet of the door, she realized that it had been broken into. The jamb was chewed up near the doorknob, as if it had been jimmied open and then closed to make it appear that nothing was out of place.
Tess froze, panic dousing her. She took a backward step, ready to turn around and bolt. Her spine connected with a solid mass, someone standing right behind her. A strong arm snaked around her waist, yanking her off balance, and a length of cold, sharp steel pressed meaningfully below her jaw.
"Morning, Doc. About fucking time you showed up."
"You can't be serious, Dante."
Although all of the warriors, including Chase, were gathered in the training facility watching him gear up for battle, Gideon was the first to challenge him.
"Do I look like I'm kidding?" Dante took a pistol out of one of the gun cabinets and grabbed a handful of rounds. "I've never been more serious in my life."
"Jesus Christ, D. In case you hadn't noticed, it's just after ten o'clock in the morning. That means full-on daylight."
"I know what it means."