Dark Debt (Chicagoland Vampires 11)

“He’d said a day or two before he wanted to meet you, although he hadn’t mentioned the party specifically.” His expression dimmed with obvious irritation. “He took care to remind me of that.”

Ethan nodded. “He knew the Navarre vampires would attempt to take out King. He wanted a front row seat, but he hadn’t wanted us there to interfere. Which is precisely what we did.”

My father nodded, and I belatedly realized how tired he looked. His cheeks were drawn, and there were shadows beneath his eyes. “Do you want us to call Grandpa? He can pick you up. Take you home.”

“No. You should tell him what you know now, and that Navarre’s debt has been settled. But leave me and Towerline out of it.”

My eyes widened. “Leave you—you’re a witness. You saw Maguire go into the house. We can’t leave you out of it.”

“But I didn’t,” my father said. “Not really. Just as Reed said, I saw him refused entry at Reed’s house. And I want no one to know about Towerline. Our business will recover, but publicity about the reason for the transfer won’t help that. I promised him I wouldn’t. That was part of our transaction.”

“And you trust him to keep his word?” Ethan asked.

“He is a keen and brilliant businessman. Looking back, I cannot say how much of that is hard work, skill, luck, grift. But we have a truce, and I won’t be the one to break it.” My father rose. “My car’s outside. I want to go home and see my wife.”

I nodded, rose as well. “I should say thank you, but I feel like that wouldn’t be enough. You did a very generous thing. It’s not the kind of thing I’ll ever be able to repay.”

My father looked down at me from his few extra inches of height. “I am a decision maker. For my company, for my family. I make decisions using the best available information, the best data. That data does not include liability. It does not factor popularity. My family, my company, are not democracies. When everything falls down, I fix it, because that is my job. That is my responsibility. That is my weight to carry.”

He looked at Ethan, stared at him for a good, long while. “You’ll protect her?”

The question, the moment, hung in the air like smoke. It was a changing of the guard, not because I needed protecting from either of them (I didn’t), but because the obligation to protect me was passing from one to the other.

“I have since the beginning,” Ethan said, his words holding a keen edge, a reminder that he’d saved my life when my father had inadvertently set my death in motion.

“Then I suppose we’re done for tonight.” With that curt phrase, my father walked to the door, disappeared into the hallway.

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.