by D
“Among other things. But I just can’t figure out why he’s so set on killing her. Why not simply steal the files and be done with it?”
“Files can be copied. And she’s a smart woman—she’d still know everything that was in them. What the hell is in them, anyway?”
“He claims it’s critical data that could end up hurting vampires worldwide. Worldwide. I’m insulted at his low opinion of my intellect. No question he’s just covering his own ass. I just wish I knew why. Although there is one thing I know for sure—we have to be ready. Because Lord fucking Erskine isn’t going to be happy with me after tonight.”
JULIA HADN’T NEEDED to hear what Lachlan had said to Munro to know there was trouble, and that it involved her. Munro was a genius, just as Lachlan had said, but he’d make a terrible spy. He’d been on her like white on rice ever since that call, going so far as to linger by the door when she used the bathroom. She didn’t bother asking him what was going on. Even if he knew, Lachlan probably would have ordered him not to tell, wanting to talk to her himself. More likely, though, Munro didn’t know, either. Lachlan couldn’t have grown up with his cousin and not known what a lousy liar he was.
She considered going back to the bedroom for some privacy, if nothing else, but didn’t want to make Munro sit in the hallway to keep watch. Besides, the one piece of news Munro had imparted was that the guys would be home in minutes, so she could wait until Lachlan explained what the fuck was going on. And he would. She understood he wanted to protect her like the delicate “princess” he called her, but not this time. Not when it involved her personally. She could take care of herself in most situations, but not if she was kept ignorant of the threat.
So she sat in front of her open laptop and pretended to work, while listening for the sound of Lachlan’s arrival. The moment she heard his voice, she stood with a wave of relief so strong, she had to fight the need to sit down again. What kept her standing was the determination not to look like a delicate fucking princess.
When he walked into the room, his gaze went right to her and stayed there, as he strode over, grabbed her hand, and pulled her away from the table and down the hall to their bedroom. Julia didn’t bother protesting this caveman-like behavior. It wouldn’t do any good, and if she was going to say something, she’d do it in private, not in front of a roomful of vampires with bat-like hearing.
Once in the bedroom with the door closed, he simply put his arms around her and held on tightly. She was happy to do the same, but it worried her. What the hell had happened with that bastard Erskine? “Lachlan?”
Pulling back enough just enough to tug her head back, he kissed her in that slow, delicious way of his, making love to her with his mouth as thoroughly as he did everything else. When he finally let her catch her breath, she gave him a worried look. “What happened?”
When she read defiance in his unusual eyes, she scowled and said, “Lachlan, tell me what the fuck happened.”
He grinned. “I love it when you talk dirty.”
“And I hate it when you treat me like an idiot. Talk.”
He sighed long and deeply, the poor put-upon vampire. Then without letting go of her, said, “He offered me Tucker’s job.”
“He wants you to be his lieutenant?” she asked, making no attempt to mask her disbelief.
“Yeah. There’s just one catch. He wants me to kill you first.”
Her breath left her in a rush, and she gripped his arm.
“I told him I wouldn’t do it,” he hurried to add, as if she’d thought he would.
“I know that,” she whispered. “But I still don’t get it. Did he say why?”
“No. I pushed for an answer, but he wouldn’t tell me anything we don’t already know. He insists it’s about Masoud’s files and your government position, but he’s lying. There’s something else, something he doesn’t want me to know.”
She sighed. “It can’t be anything to do with me, but the only other question is whatever Tucker was doing with Masoud, and he’s already dead. Munro’s still—”
Lachlan was shaking his head. “It’s too late for that. Erskine’s reasons don’t matter anymore. He’s not getting you. Come on.”
Still holding her hand, they walked back to the dining room where Munro was frowning at his laptop, fingers flying over the keys. It was Fergus who looked up and said, “Are we staying put?”
“I was thinking Killilan,” Lachlan replied.
“Best if we leave tonight, then, while Erskine’s got a houseful of vamps just waiting to kiss his ass, and a healthy supply of blood donors on hand.”
Lachlan snorted. “You’re right. By now, half those vamps are so glutted with blood and sex that they’d be useless in a fight. Brief Davie. Tell him—”
“Lachlan,” Munro called distractedly, his attention still fixed on his computer screen. “Take a look at this.”
The three of them moved around the table to read over his shoulder. “I’ve been digging into Julia’s family history, specifically—”
“Mine?” Julia demanded. “Why would you do that?”
Munro finally looked up. “Erskine wants you dead. Don’t you want to know why?” he asked, appearing genuinely puzzled.
Her lips flattened with irritation. Sure she wanted to know why, but it would have been nice if he’d asked before snooping into her family. “What did you find?”
He shook his head a little, as if she was the one being unreasonable. “Your dad’s the only human stockholder in Raphael Enterprises. Did you know that?”
“No, but I don’t know specifics about any of his finances.” She glanced from one vampire to the other, all with expressions that told her she was missing something. “Does that matter? What’s Raphael—?” It struck her then. “Oh. Raphael Enterprises, as in Vampire Lord Raphael. What’s that, his holding company or something?”
Lachlan nodded grimly. “Or something. Show me,” he told Munro, who started pulling up images and financial reports, layering them one over the other.
Julia leaned over his shoulder. Although she couldn’t follow Masoud’s labyrinthine transaction trail, she could read a financial report. But Munro was bringing up so many images and reports, and they were coming so fast, that she gave up trying to read the numbers and focused on the photos. “Stop!”
Munro froze with his fingers suspended over the keys as he slowly turned his head to look up at her.
“Who’s that?” she asked, pointing at an image two layers down.
“Um.” He moved things around until the picture she wanted was fully displayed. “Oh. I just threw that in there, so I’d have it later. It’s Erskine accepting some bullshit—”
“Erskine?” she whispered, one hand reaching back to grip Lachlan’s thigh, as if to reassure herself that he was there, that this wasn’t some awful nightmare. “He’s supposed to be dead,” she added, her voice sounding eerie even to her own ears.
Lachlan’s arms came around her from behind, his voice in her ear. “What’s going on? Who’s supposed to be dead?”
“That man. He can’t be Erskine Ross, because that man’s dead.”
LACHLAN TURNED her in his arms, waiting until she looked up at him to say, “I thought you’d never seen Erskine before.”
“I haven’t. But that’s not Erskine. That’s the man who killed my family.” She stared at the three vampires, scanning their expressions one at a time, ending up with Munro. “What’s going on? Why would you have a picture of him?” Her body was coiled tight in Lachlan’s arms, her voice taking on a note of suspicion.
“Julia,” he said, waiting until she met his gaze. “That is Erskine Ross. Tell me why you think he’s the one who was in that accident with your family.”
Her eyes narrowed in the first sign of anger. “Because he is. You think I could forget his face?”
“N
o, but you were young, maybe—”
“I didn’t see a picture of him until years after the accident,” she said absently, while patting her pockets looking for something. Not finding whatever it was, she searched the cluttered table until finally uncovering her cell phone. “I need to call my father,” she said, all traces of anger buried beneath her cool surface.
“Wait.” Lachlan covered her hand with his own, stopping her before she took a step, in the heat of the moment, that would make the situation so complicated that it couldn’t be unraveled. To anyone else, Julia might have seemed remarkably calm, given the confusion of the moment. But he wasn’t just anyone. He’d had her blood, and she’d had his, albeit a small amount. More importantly, he was a powerful telepath, and so he knew there was more going on behind the cool façade which seemed to be her go-to when she was stressed. The more stress, the cooler she got. Which was why he knew she was not only troubled by this new development, she was in pain. The death of her family had been a turning point, one that had altered the fabric of who she was and changed the entire trajectory of her life.
The truth was, Lachlan absolutely believed Erskine might have been the driver that fateful night in Florida. The vampire lord wouldn’t have spared a thought for any deaths he’d caused, and he wouldn’t have worried about the human authorities, either. Not then and not now. He’d obviously succeeded in disappearing without a trace after the accident. But that wasn’t as extraordinary as some might think. Every vampire had a basic level of telepathy. It wouldn’t have taken much more than that basic skill for Erskine to manipulate the investigators’ memories just enough to forget his face.
“Munro?” He glanced at his cousin, wanting more details.
“I’m already looking,” his cousin responded.
“Come on, princess,” Lachlan said, kissing her forehead and hugging her against his chest. “You’re cold.” And she was. Her skin was as cool as her shatterproof expression. “Let Graeme fix you a cup of tea and something to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Just tea, then. With some sugar.”
She got that stubborn look that said she wanted answers, but by now, she knew him well enough to understand she wouldn’t get any until he decided the time was right. She rubbed her hands over her arms. “Okay. Hot tea would be nice. Thank you.”
Lachlan nodded to Graeme who’d come to stand in the doorway. As the chef turned back into the kitchen, Lachlan guided Julia to the chair on Munro’s right, where she’d been working while he’d been at Erskine’s. It seemed like ages ago, but he’d been home less than an hour. He hadn’t even sat down yet.
“I should call my father,” she insisted again, fingers gripping his arm with urgent strength.
Lachlan sat next to her, laying a heavy arm over her shoulders. “Wait,” he urged. “Let Munro dig out the details first, figure out how this happened. There are bound to be questions only your father can answer, but let’s see if we dig out some answers of our own first.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t dig into any of—”
“I think you have to, but I will even if you don’t,” he said gently. “Your life is at risk, Julia. I can’t accept that.”
She met his gaze, her emotions written in her pretty eyes, but also clear to his telepathic sense of her. Those emotions warred between outrage that he thought he could tell her what to do, and warm pleasure at this proof that he cared about her. That last troubled him, because she shouldn’t need proof of what he’d already told her.
Her attention shifted at that moment to Graeme, who placed a tea setting in front of her, along with a plate piled with freshly baked shortbread. She gave him a warm smile. “Thank you.”
“If you need anything else, you let me know,” Graeme said.
“This is plenty.”
“Well. I’ll be in the kitchen, just in case,” he said and disappeared back into his realm.
Julia sipped the hot tea while giving Lachlan what she probably thought were surreptitious sideways glances. “All right,” she finally informed him. “Tell me what’s going on. I know you have a theory.”
“Not a theory so much, as a partial explanation. But answer a question for me first. Why did you think Erskine—or the man who killed your family—was dead?”
“I can answer that,” Munro said, fingers still flying. “The human police said he was, didn’t they, Jules?”
“Yes,” she said in surprise. “How’d you know?”
“Uh, maybe you don’t know this about me, but I’m really good at digging into places where I don’t belong.”
“Explain,” Lachlan snapped at Munro.
“The cops never arrested him, for one thing,” his cousin said.
“It was a hit and run,” Julia supplied.
“Right. But the car he was driving was a rental, and the rental company had a copy of the license he used. It was a fake, obviously, but the picture wasn’t. That’s probably what you saw. The rental car turned up a couple of towns over, with, according to police records, a very dead driver who was conveniently burned beyond recognition. The coroner’s report claimed a fingerprint match, and that was that. One dead driver. Case solved. But it was all a lie. A little digging shows unexpected and very substantial deposits into the bank accounts of certain police officials, as well as the coroner. Deposits that are remarkably close to the crash timeline. And money talks, as we all know. Erskine bought off the right people to make himself dead. We vampires have a lot of experience with that sort of thing. But one detail stands out. How the hell did your father get a copy of the license photo?” he asked Julia. “I would have expected the cops to purge it from the records.”
“They probably did, eventually,” she agreed. “Just not soon enough. As you say, money talks, and my dad has money, too.”
“Your father showed you the photo?” Lachlan was stunned. “You were a child.”
“No, of course not,” she said immediately, “not then anyway. But when I got older, and he still wouldn’t answer my questions about the accident, I snuck into his office and found my own answers. I was fifteen.”
“I got it,” Munro said suddenly. They all turned to look at him. “Her maternal great-grandfather, Matthew Harris.”
“What about him?” Confusion abruptly swinging to temper, she demanded, “How the hell do you know about my great-grandfather? I barely know anything about him. Look,” she said, rounding on Lachlan. “I want answers. The three of you seem to understand a hell of a lot more than I do about this, and he . . .” she pointed an accusing finger at Munro, “. . . is telling me about my own family. So start talking. What the fuck is going on?”
“You’re right,” Lachlan said calmly. “Why don’t we all—”
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you try to manage me, Lachlan McRae.”
He almost choked trying to swallow a grin. His princess was always beautiful, but fuck . . . with a temper on her, she took beautiful to new heights.
As if reading his thoughts, her eyes turned to slits of warning, blue fire.
It worked. Schooling his expression to perfect seriousness, he nodded and said, “Here’s what we know. Erskine Ross wants you dead. Badly. He’s tried twice, and when that didn’t work, he tried to bribe first Tucker, then me, into doing it for him. But the one thing we couldn’t figure out was why.
“And now,” he said, running the back of his fingers down her cheek, as her gaze went from pissed off to thoughtful, “you’re telling us that the man who killed your family in that accident and got away with it, is Erskine Ross. That can’t be a coincidence.”
“You’d be right about that,” his cousin said, taking up the narrative. “You see, I had a thought earlier. Tucker kept going on about Lachlan visiting Raphael, which would have made sense if Erskine was worried about him getting Raphael’s help in taking over the terri
tory. But what really chafed his arse was that Julia was with you. Now, we all figured it was because of her job. Vampires are a secretive lot, especially when it comes to governments and their long memories. But then tonight, Erskine took it a step further when he came right out and told Lachlan that he wanted Julia dead. Why her? Why not Lachlan?”
“You think that’s the real reason Tucker was here?” she asked.
Munro nodded. “Maybe you were his target all along. Kill Lachlan, deliver you—dead or alive—and he wins big points with Erskine.”
Lachlan grimaced. “I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like much of a reward.”
“Unless Erskine promised to help him win another territory. Like England. We all know Lord Norwood’s too weak to hold against a strong challenge.” He gave Julia an apologetic look. “Norwood’s the current Vampire Lord of England,” he explained. “He’s held the territory for centuries.”
“That could be,” Lachlan agreed. “Erskine was nattering on when we met this evening, about seizing all of the UK for himself, and letting me have England. Maybe he made the same offer to Tucker.”
“Great,” Julia said. “But why kill me? I’m no threat to him.”
“Aye,” Munro said dramatically, “but what if you are?”
Julia gave his cousin such an impatient look that Lachlan was glad she wasn’t armed.
“Sorry, lass,” Munro hurried to say. “Right, so this is what I’ve discovered. Your maternal great-grandfather—Matthew Harris, as I said—purchased some land with Raphael way back in 1869. I don’t know the circumstances that brought them together, but the property records are clear. It was a truly significant chunk of inland property that they caught at just the right time, and later sold to one of California’s founding families for a sum that took them both from ordinary wealth to super rich.”
“I never knew that,” she whispered, turning to Lachlan. “I wonder if my father does?”
It was Munro who answered. “I think he must, because Raphael later returned the favor, giving your great-grandfather founding shares in what would become Raphael Enterprises. And that particular corporation, my lovely lassie, is worth billions by now.”