Dark Debt (Chicagoland Vampires 11)

My father nodded. “When I realized he was shadowing you, I called your grandfather, told them where you were, where to find you. And then I saw the Ferrari flip, and my heart stopped.” Eyes on me, his gaze darkened. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“I’m all right,” I said quietly. My father and I didn’t get along, and weren’t especially close, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t sympathize with his fear for his child. My sister, the first Caroline, had died in a car accident that left my parents nearly unscathed. I’d been, or I’d always felt that I’d been, her replacement. It must have wrecked him to have witnessed the crash, to fear history would repeat itself and he’d lose another daughter—and his connection to that beautiful child he’d lost.

“You saw us,” Ethan said, “but you didn’t help?” There was a note of disapproval in his voice.

“By the time I got to the vehicles, Merit’s grandfather had arrived, and the ambulances.” My father looked down, clearly embarrassed, a rare condition for him.

“You were in good hands,” he continued after a moment, when his eyes had hardened again like chalcedony. “And I had other business. I went back to Reed’s house.”

I didn’t scare easily. Not anymore. But that scared me. “You went back? After what had happened? Why?”

“I told him I’d seen Maguire, that I knew who he was, that I’d seen what he tried to do to you and Ethan. Reed was cagey, but said you’d gone to his house to harass him, had probably led Maguire to his doorstep, and that security hadn’t let Maguire in.”

Convenient, and likely scripted by Reed just in case someone was watching, Ethan observed silently. He is very, very clever.

“This is our fault.”

We all looked at Morgan, saw the guilt etched in his face.

“If it wasn’t for her, for Navarre, you wouldn’t be in this position. None of you. Not if Celina had been satisfied with what she’d had. Not if she’d had any self-control.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe I can sell the building. It must be worth something. Maybe that would take care of part of the debt. I could sell the art, the furnishings.”

“You don’t have to do that,” my father said. “It’s unnecessary.”

Ethan went very still. “What do you mean, Joshua?”

“I gave him Towerline.”

For a moment, I didn’t understand what my father had said, the implication of it. “What do you mean?”

“I gave Adrien Reed my interest in Towerline. In the investment, in the building.”

I was staggered. Baffled. Utterly bewildered by the act, the apparent sacrifice. I stood in silence for several long seconds—just trying to catch up with my raging emotions—before looking at my father again. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. You paid off Adrien Reed?”

“He didn’t call it that.” His tone was dry. “Said it was a good-faith proffer against our future business.”

“I can’t say I’d recommend any future business with Adrien Reed,” Ethan said.

“I can’t say I disagree with you. The suggestion was his, but carefully couched, of course.” Talking about business seemed to return my father’s color, his poise. “But he said it settled the debt of the Navarre vampires, and he’d draw up the paperwork accordingly.”

“Thank you,” Morgan said. “My God, those two words are staggeringly insufficient, but they’re all I can think to say. Thank you.”

My father nodded.

“How much of a hit will Merit Properties take?” Ethan asked.

“Towerline was a . . . substantial investment. It’s a hit. We can recover, but not this year.”

I was still flummoxed, still trying to come to terms with the sacrifice my father had made, the fact that he’d simply handed over his pet project in order to keep me, us, safe. And that wasn’t all.

“I can’t believe Reed gave up so easily,” I said. “Not because the project isn’t worth a lot”—it was skyscrapers in Chicago, after all—“but because he’d be giving up Navarre House. Reed seems like the type who’d want to draw out the punishment as long as possible. Or, in this case, the extortion and loan-sharking.”

“He is tenacious,” my father said, and looked at Ethan. “He said something about the game not being done. He may be done with Navarre. But I suspect he isn’t done with vampires. And I would be very, very careful where Adrien Reed is concerned.”

Ethan looked at me. The Investiture.

His connection with Balthasar, I agreed. He isn’t giving up Navarre House out of some sudden sense of magnanimity. He’s finishing the first round of his game—Navarre—in order to focus on the second. Which would be Cadogan House.

But one thing bothered me, and I looked back at my father. “The party at Reed’s house. He was surprised to see us—didn’t expect to see us there. He didn’t invite us?”