His face fell. “When did this happen?” He asked it as if she’d just told him someone had died.
“I love Gabriel. This is what I want. I’m very happy.”
“What about school?”
“What about it?”
“You never finished your degree. Are you going to do that first before you tie the knot with this guy?”
“Mmm. No. I think that ship has sailed actually. I’m not really interested anymore. I have more important things to focus on.”
“Like Gabriel.”
“Yes, and other things.” She placed a hand on her abdomen, but he didn’t seem to notice.
With an exasperated sigh, he lowered himself into one of the nickel-and-black faux-leather chairs in front of her mom’s desk, his grip on the beer tightening. Silence uncurled in the room until Raven could hear the clock tick and the distant clanking of workers cooking in the kitchen. She leaned one hip against the desk.
“So, are you shopping for reception halls? The best ones need about a year’s notice,” he said finally.
She shook her head. “I don’t have a year.”
Her dad leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, face not even hinting at mirth. In fact, his expression was one of complete vexation, bordering on rage. “Why?”
“Because I’m pregnant.” Raven left it at that. Her father could never know that the baby she was carrying was actually a dragon. He’d never believe it anyway. But there would be no hiding her pregnancy. She was already showing.
All the blood seemed to rush from her father’s face, and his fingers gripped his beer until his knuckles turned white. “No reason a pregnancy has to mean marriage in this day and age. If it’s about money—”
“Stop.” She held up a hand. “Before you say something you might regret, Gabriel and I had planned to be married before this happened. In fact, we’d considered eloping. He is exactly what I want, and so is this baby.”
He nodded slowly. “So when can I meet this guy?”
Fidgeting with the edge of the desk, Raven decided that honesty was the best policy. “I thought at the wedding would be good.”
“At the… Raven, you can’t be serious. I can’t meet the guy moments before I walk you down the aisle.”
“I don’t remember asking you to walk me down the aisle.”
He stilled as if she’d slapped him across the face. “You don’t want me to walk you down the aisle? I know we’ve had a falling-out, but Ravenna!”
She sighed. “We haven’t had much of a relationship since I was sick. It seems like it would be… forced.”
He lowered his head and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked like an entirely different person. “I’ve waited too long to say this. I should have had this conversation months ago. I wronged you, Raven. I am so sorry that I wasn’t brave enough—hell, wasn’t man enough—to fight alongside you when you were dying and hospitalized. I made every excuse in the book, and I know every word of it hurt you. My absence hurt you. If I could take it back, I would. But I can’t. We can only live forward. And all I can say is I accept responsibility for what I did to you, and I am genuinely, truly sorry.”
Raven had to stop herself from toppling over. David Tanglewood rarely apologized to anyone for anything. He always had to be right. But just now he looked positively beside himself with regret. Raven didn’t know what to do with it.
“Thank you. I’m going to need some time to process that,” she said softly.
He sighed. “I understand.” He rubbed his palms over the tops of his thighs. “I know I’ve been difficult. You’re a big girl now. You can make your own decisions. You love this guy, and he’s clearly well positioned to take good care of you and this baby. I wish you the best.”
He stood and turned to leave. Raven felt an immediate swell of relief but also a sudden twang of guilt. He’d apologized, sincerely. Was she a bad person if she didn’t accept the olive branch?
“Dad… I don’t think we’ve had a relationship that warrants you walking me down the aisle, but I would like to invite you to come to the wedding. Maybe, over time, things can be different.” Her stomach clenched. She might regret this.
“I get it. When is the occasion?”
She winced. “Avery is helping me put something together. I want it to be soon, but we don’t know the exact date yet. Once we nail it down, I’ll let you know.”
“And I’m going to be a grandpa.”
“Yes, you are.” Raven gave him a tight smile. “I should get going. Avery and Mom will want to cut the cake.”
He nodded. “Oh, and Raven, don’t worry too much about this wedding. You know, the event isn’t half as important as the marriage that follows. I speak from experience.”
The force of her father’s words hit her straight in the gut. “The marriage” in his case was the one in which he left her mother, the one which she was raised in, believing as children do that her parents were very much in love. She wasn’t ready to hear how the family she remembered had all been a big mistake to him.
She opened the office door and ushered him out, gesturing toward the exit. “You know the way.”
He hugged her then, and she stiffened in his arms. “Happy birthday, Raven.”
Relief flooded her when he finally headed for the door. She hoped to heaven she hadn’t just made a terrible mistake.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nick showed up at the station the following Monday, feeling like his soul had been torn out, fed through a meat grinder, and then tucked back into his skin. After a day of brooding over beer and nonstop football, he was ready to admit he was completely smitten with Rowan. Too bad he’d basically called her a liar and kicked her out of his apartment. There was probably no coming back from that.
The fact was she had lied to him, damn it! And tinkered with his brain. He’d been right to call her out. So then why did everything feel wrong? Everything. It hurt to breathe. He’d completely lost his appetite. And what little sleep he’d had since she left was riddled with dreams of her.
Thankfully, he made it to his office without much contact with other human beings. He rang Soren, and it wasn’t long before his partner appeared in the seat across from him.
“So, what’s the story? What did you find out about the Sumner case Friday night?” Soren cradled his coffee mug in his hands and blew across the top, breaking apart the curls of steam that rose from the dark brown liquid.
Nick thought for a moment. He needed to phrase this in a way that could be pursued by the department without making him look like a nutcase who thought vampires existed. “There’s a secret room, a VIP area on the lower level of Wicked Divine. It appears they’re part of a fetish club, some BDSM type of thing. You were right about that. The, uh, submissive partners have those tattoos we saw on the victim’s wrist. The dominant partners pretend to be vampires and drink their blood.”
Soren laughed nervously. “Vampires?”
“It’s as disgusting as it sounds. I couldn’t stay long without blowing my cover, but my theory is that the dead girl was the victim of a session that went too far. Worse, I think a lot of the blood donors are there against their will. I saw signs of human trafficking.”
“No one is going to believe that.” The idea seemed to make Soren oddly jittery. He cracked his neck and sipped his coffee.
“I think a search warrant would be a good start. Take a team into Wicked Divine. See what we can find out.”
His partner shook his head. “That’s not going to be easy.”
“No?”
“Come on, Nick.” Soren lowered his voice. “You’ve lived in New York your entire life. You must know that Michael Verinetti has friends in high places. Maybe we should, uh, focus our energies on leads other than Wicked Divine.”
Nick’s chest tightened. What the fuck was he hearing right now? He narrowed his eyes on Soren. “I plan to proceed cautiously. There were some wealthy patrons down there last night; I get that. But a girl is dead and so
meone needs to be held accountable for that. I saw others who may be there against their will. We can’t turn our back on that.”
“But, I mean, maybe we could pursue it without involving Wicked Divine. I’m just saying you don’t want to rock that boat unless you have absolute proof in hand. In fact, you might have trouble getting the warrant.” Soren’s voice deepened, becoming threatening. “Even if you did obtain a warrant, you might find your life becomes far more complicated once you do.”
Nick’s jaw clenched until the muscles hurt. He wanted to shake Soren. Why was he protecting Verinetti? He hadn’t seemed to have much of a connection to Wicked Divine before. Fuck—it had been Soren’s tip that had brought him there in the first place.
“What happened last night, Soren? What did that girl say to you?”
Soren’s tongue ran along his front teeth, and Nick noticed the way he tightened his grip on his coffee, his eyes shifting around the office. “When I spoke with Kendra, she told me the group was consensual. I didn’t know about the biting, okay, but… she mentioned there are some big names in this group. Names we don’t want to be on the bad side of, especially you.”
“Me?”
He leaned in and lowered his voice. “I told you the Stevensons suspect you in the theft of the Raindrop of Heaven. You might even say they are sure and will make sure it was you if they need to. They have you on the security tape going into their room. That was the last time anyone saw the jewels in their residence. Nobody wants to have to report you. You’re a good detective. But if you keep pursuing these crazy theories of yours, he’ll be forced to take action.”
Nick’s hands balled into fists. Stevenson was there Friday night, at one of the tables in the auction house. He’d acquired land on NAVAK’s behalf. Soren worked as security for Stevenson. Soren had hounded him, personally, for weeks about filling in for him at the Stevensons’ Hampton beach house because of plans he had with his wife for their anniversary, despite cheating on her with this Kendra person. Soren had been oddly forthcoming with that little tidbit. Now he was accusing Nick of stealing jewels that Rowan claimed she’d replaced.
Nick swore under his breath. He’d been set up. By Soren. Fuck, he wanted to kill the guy. He wanted to reach across his desk, grab his damned head, and slam it into his desk until he bled.
He lowered his voice, the tone becoming as threatening as Soren’s. “All they have on that video is me walking rounds. And housekeeping and regular security were in that closet after me.”
Soren leaned back, his eyes turning cold as ice. “The housekeepers don’t have the code, and the regular security guys say they never opened the safe. The next person to check it was Camilla, and the jewels were gone.”
“Completely gone? Nothing left in their place?”
“Gone. All the pieces. Necklace and earrings.”
Nick thought he might be sick. Rowan hadn’t been lying about the replicas, which meant the Stevensons had hidden them, thinking they were the real thing, in order to frame him for a crime that, as far as they were concerned, never really happened.
Soren ran a hand along his desk. “You told me about opening the safe to check on the jewels after you saw the rumpled bedspread. That’s a pretty damning piece of evidence, don’t you think? You don’t want to deal with charges like this. Just let this thing at Wicked Divine go.”
Nick’s gaze snapped to Soren’s.
“Everyone knows who you are,” Soren whispered under his breath. “You don’t want to mess with these people. They aren’t like you and me.”
All of Nick’s internal warning flares started firing like the Fourth of July. Verinetti had lied to Rowan. Nothing she could do could save him. Verinetti and his crew knew who he was and had planned to blackmail him all along, and he’d bet his life the vampires knew too.
“You set me up,” Nick said through his teeth. “Begging me to fill in for you at the Stevensons’ summer home. You told me it was for Rhonda, so you could be with her on your anniversary, but you don’t care about Rhonda. You’ve been fooling around on her. No, that was an excuse to get me out there so you could frame me. You’re working for him. You did all this because you need detectives who will look the other way when your boss says so, to protect NAVAK.”
Soren chuckled under his breath. “You were always so perceptive. Congratulations, you solved the case, Detective. Now, accept the reality that you don’t want to be sniffing too close to this flame, you know what I mean? You’ll get your nose burned.”
Nick tapped his pen on his desk. “I know exactly what you mean. You’ve made the situation more than clear.”
“Good.” Soren stood, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Oh, and Nick, keep this conversation between us. I’d hate for others to assume you’re hiding something about this jewel theft.”
Nick swallowed down the bile rising in his throat and forced himself to remain calm. He’d get this bastard, but he’d do it the smart way. Letting his emotions get the most of him now was not the way to win this game.
“Understood. Uh, I better get to work. Got a ton of email.”
Soren nodded smugly and left his office.
Nick rubbed his chest. Rowan had been right, and he understood now why she’d done what she’d done. Manhattan was a city of secrets. When he’d caught her in Stevenson’s closet, she had no reason to trust him. Hell, he could have been someone like Soren. She’d taken a risk telling him who and what she was. In the beginning, she hadn’t known him enough to trust him. Of course she’d lied. He might have done the same thing in her shoes. Hell, he’d just allowed Soren to believe he’d been bought. That was a lie. Nick had no intention of letting Soren or Stevenson get away with blackmailing him.
But first he needed to warn Rowan that Verinetti was using her. He picked up his phone and texted her.
Need to see you. Tonight?
The important thing was keeping Nick safe. Rowan repeated that to herself as she dressed in the backless red minidress she’d purchased specifically for its ability to be distracting. Michael was taking her to dinner with Malvern, the master of the NAVAK vampires. She needed to keep him from asking questions about the video at Wicked Divine and to redirect his coven’s energies away from the man she loved.
Nick. She couldn’t stop thinking about him. But he hadn’t called her and it was clear from what he’d said the other night, the night they’d made love, the night he’d remembered her stealing the jewel, that he didn’t trust her, might never trust her again. She had lied to him. All the reasons and excuses she’d given him meant nothing. No reason in the world would excuse her behavior. But she suspected there was more to the story. He might not admit it to himself, but the damage he carried from his past was still with him. Nick had been abused as a child. He’d become a police officer and then a detective to compensate for what he had to do in his youth to survive. Perhaps he didn’t want to bond with her, not just because she’d lied but because on some level he didn’t think he was worth that sort of commitment.
She wondered if she would ever be the same again or if the unrequited connection she felt to Nick would drive her as crazy as it had Alexander. At least she had this dinner, and the correlating hope that what she was doing was good for Nick, to distract her from her predicament.
A white owl landed on her terrace railing, and Rowan went outside to meet Michael. She’d spelled the boundaries of her home so he could no longer get in without an invitation, and no way would she ruin all her hard work by inviting him in now. She watched him slowly transform to his commonly used and preferred human form, which unfortunately was completely naked.
“Hello, Michael,” Rowan said, unable to keep the disgust from her voice.
“Rowan. Aren’t you a sight? That dress should be a registered weapon.”
“I thought that was the point. Distract Malvern. Keep him from asking too many questions about the attack on Wicked Divine. What about you? Do you plan to show up to this vampire dinner naked?” She crossed her arms over
her chest.
“No. I have a car waiting for us downstairs. Far easier to come up this way than to deal with the doorman.” He gave her a lecherous grin.
“You just wanted to show me your dick, didn’t you?” She made certain that every word was loaded with assurance that she was unimpressed.
“Just thought you might like to see what you’ve been missing.”
She shook her head. “I haven’t missed anything about you.”
“Careful, Rowan. You’re in real danger of losing me as an ally. If that happens, there will be no one standing between NAVAK and your beloved Nick.”
She consciously repressed any reaction to that, although her insides squirmed. Michael was a manipulative pig, but she needed to stick this out to protect Nick. “Let’s get this over with.” She pointed over the terrace railing. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“We could fly down together.” He held out his hand to her.
“Can’t. I need to lock up.” She turned back toward the door.
He didn’t move. “I can feel the magic. You’ve spelled the house against me.”
She turned back. “Against all supernaturals. I don’t feel safe now that you’ve invited vampires into Manhattan.”
He grunted. “We need to be on our way if we plan to make it to Malvern’s on time, but this conversation isn’t finished. I don’t like being locked out of your life. Makes me feel like you’re ungrateful.”
“I’m as grateful as I should be. I’ll meet you at the car.” She rushed inside, her composure giving way as soon as she had flattened her back against the wall out of his sight. She held back the tears, refusing to give him that power over her. He wasn’t worth spoiling her mascara. She was a dragon, for the Mountain’s sake. She grabbed a tissue from the box on the counter and dabbed at her eyes. One night. For Nick.
Fortifying herself with a deep breath, she locked the doors and grabbed her charging phone from the tray on the table near the door. She’d been so busy today she hadn’t checked it. She gasped when she saw a message from Nick. He’d sent it hours ago.
Manhattan Dragon Page 17