One I’d brought on myself.
Tommy was out the massive front doors of the main house before I’d opened my car door.
“Good luck, Miss Le Spyre,” Fred said.
Fred.
Although he’d known the truth of what happened that night, I still felt like I owed him an apology too. Yet he’d take that as a mortal offense.
“Thank you so much, Fred,” I whispered, reaching forward to squeeze his shoulder.
Tommy ripped open my door and nearly dragged me out.
“You’re okay,” she gasped.
I shook my head at her in warning before pulling her into my arms. “Of course I am.”
“Everything has been so fucked up,” she blurted. “I’m getting paranoid.”
Good save.
“Tom, please tell me you’re alright?”
I’d done everything I could to prepare for this moment, even reciting lines. But I couldn’t have prepared for seeing her for the first time since she was lifeless on the cold, concrete floor.
The memory choked me. “Y-You nearly died.”
My entire body shook as I clung to her.
I never expected to be able to hold her again—hear her voice or her laughter.
“I’m okay, Basil,” she hushed, squeezing me just as tight. “I swear.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” I said, pulling her toward the house as I scanned her from head to toe. “What was the latest verdict from the doctor?”
Why I was rushing toward what had to happen next, I had no idea. My only reasoning was that if Tommy’s heart had to be broken, it was up to me to do it and I should do it without delay.
“I’m right as rain now. Took ten days or so to feel human again. They said an hour or two more and I wouldn’t be alive.”
I closed my eyes as we entered the office.
“I’m so sorry that I wasn’t here, Tom. Really.” Shutting the door, I switched on the noise-cancelling.
She rushed me. “What the fuck did he do to you?”
“What?” Theodore?
“That fucker. He held you prisoner? Did you do another exchange?”
She meant Kyros.
I exhaled slowly. “Not a—” I gurgled with the effects of the restrictions on my mind. Crap, I hadn’t had to worry about the compulsion while in Kyros’s company.
I focused on the thought of a mouse in a trap.
“Not prisoner,” I managed.
Taking her hand, I led Tommy to the chaise. “Sit, please.”
She sat but bounced straight back up, face stricken. “It’s Theo, isn’t it? Your private investigators found something.”
There weren’t any private investigators. I’d asked Fred to string her along until I got back.
I’d considered my lines carefully before coming and really hoped to get through this without the compulsion cutting me off. Kyros would have already been alerted by my slip before.
This was it.
I had to believe our friendship could survive the coming moments. But unless I owned up to this now, I could kiss Tommy goodbye forever.
Pulling my hair back, I leaned so she could see the jagged red scars on my neck. It was a mess of a thing. Looked like I was cut with a broken bottle. I had no idea how Kyros was able to save me.
Her mouth rounded and her shocked eyes flew to mine. “You were hurt. That’s why you couldn’t come. I knew it. That bastard!”
“It wasn’t Kyros,” I told her.
She inspected the scar. “What do you mean it wasn’t Kyros?”
I captured her chestnut gaze, wondering if I’d be physically sick. Unfortunately, saying names had never been an issue. “Not Kyros. It was Theodore.”
Tommy stared at me, unmoving.
“Theodore,” I repeated.
“I don’t understand,” she said, slowly standing.
A lie.
I could see her put everything together, and fuck, how I wished repeating the details of the triplets’ plan to win the Le Spyre fortune was easy as blurting them out. Because maybe then she’d believe I’d had no choice. The explanation was going to take hours. I wasn’t even sure if I had the creativity to force the direction of my intention for so long. It was fucking hard.
“He was a—” She clapped her hands over her mouth.
Hope stirred in my chest.
Not shifting, I waited for her to process that Theodore was a vampire, watching as her eyes darted and she gasped at intervals.
Eventually, she turned to me.
“He must have had reason to attack you.”
I directed my thoughts to Bluff City Bank. “My money and power.”
Ingenium was involved. I wracked my brain, then thought of Twister. “A game.”
She shook her head, backing away. “That’s not possible. I met him at my last job. Before you started at Live Right.” Her chest rose and fell. “You’re wrong.”
My chest tightened as she crumbled. “I wouldn’t ever make this up.”
Tommy whirled, anger twisting her face. “You’re wrong! Where is he? What the fuck did that psychotic fucker do to him?”
She rushed me, and I didn’t glance away though my insides shrivelled to dust.
The word was bitter on my tongue. Because Theodore shouldn’t carry this much power in death. Not when he was a twisted, cruel piece of shit. He didn’t just drug my friend and use her body to get information on me; he made her fall in love.
He didn’t intend her to leave the underground chamber. He broke her for fun.
To get to me.
Later, to get back at me.
I forced the lump in my throat down, thinking of my grandmother in her coffin.
“Dead,” I said in a low voice.
She reeled back as if slapped. Pain suffused her anguished expression and her usually warm gaze that filled most of my best memories.
Taking a shuddering inhale, thoughts on the toast I managed to make myself this morning, I broke what was left of my best friend. “I did it.”
The sound coming from her chest was awful. Air wouldn’t fill her lungs. Or it couldn’t get out.
She backed away again, stumbling over the leg of the chaise.
Lost.
Betrayed.
Fixing my mind on the day I kicked Harriet Gregorian and my other rich friends out of my life for good, I said, “To save you.”
Standing, I moved closer.
She stilled, anger coating her grief. “To save me? Are you fucking serious? You mean to save yourself! Or that animal you keep running to over and over again. Theod—” She blanched, clutching at her chest. “Theodore loved me. I loved him. We had a future together.”
Tommy crossed the gap, and I made no effort to move. My head rocketed to the right as her palm met my cheek.
“What did you do to him?” she screamed in my face. “Where is he?”
I clutched my ears, tears of pain pricking the corners of my eyes.
“He’s not gone,” she said, gasping for air. “You’re hiding him. You and that asshole. This is a game. Part of the game. He found out. And t-tried to get you free and…”
He never took photographs with her because I would have recognised him. I was willing to bet the estate that he manipulated Tommy to feel she shouldn’t introduce us.
I stepped toward her. “Tom—”
“Stay the fuck away from me,” she choked out. “You’re just like them. How did I never see it? You’re a fucking monster too. Everyone you touch ends up dead.”
Pain struck me and my legs nearly buckled.
Her words were far more effective than her slap.
“That’s right,” she said. “I see you, Basilia Le Spyre. What a fucking wake-up call. I’m leaving. Don’t send your fucking freak squad after me. My father and I are cutting ties with your family. Come after me, and I won’t be responsible for what I do to you.”
I watched her leave in the numb grip of disbelief.
My worst nightmare just came true.<
br />
“Laurel,” I said when I could trust my voice.
The second I allowed myself to feel was the second I crumbled. There was another apology to get done first.
The Vissimo appeared less than ten seconds later. Her expression was cool, something I’d never seen on her face—not even when we first met.
Weariness piled thick on my shoulders. “I owe you an explanation,” I told her. “But first, please send ten Indebted with Tommy.”
Tommy’s words rang in my ears, but the triplets were able to get close to her because I tried to uphold her sense of freedom. Our friendship was destroyed, but her life was still my responsibility. “Tell them to stay as close as needed to protect her, please.”
Laurel nodded, raising her voice. “Patrick, Sheena, take your teams and protect Miss Tetley. No restrictions on range.”
My ears picked up their distant replies of Roger that.
I stood aside. “Please come in.”
She shut the door, and I reset the noise-cancelling.
The Indebted woman tilted her chin, watching me with cold blue eyes.
“Laurel, I—”
“If you ever put the lives of my Indebted at risk like that again, not only is our deal void but I will go to Kyros with every single thing I know.”
Already numb, I absorbed her threat on autopilot. “Fair enough. But you should know that if Tommy is in danger, I’m capable of doing nearly anything to bring her back. That does not include putting the lives of any Vissimo here at risk.”
“I told you what he’d do to us if you died,” she snarled, crouching forward. “Evie would have been first to face execution, do you realise that? Barring the handful of seconds that decided you’d live instead of die, she’d be dead in the ground along with the rest of us.”
I had. Sweet Evie.
Heaviness swept through me, and I nodded. “I should have listened. In my defence, I didn’t know what happened to male Vissimo when their mates are killed. Laurel, I asked you to tell me everything you knew about the laws and intricacies of the mate bond. Why didn’t you tell me that part?”
Her face smoothed.
It was confirmation she’d left it out on purpose. “I see. Whatever your reasons for omitting that were, I can’t say if that would have changed my actions that night. What I can promise is that I will never leave you out of a plan again.”
Not because of her threat.
Because we were partners and she had an equal risk in this venture.
Her blue gaze narrowed.
“I nearly died, Laurel. Tommy nearly died regardless of me trying to control the situation. I’ve learned my lesson, and I can only apologise sincerely for the risk my behaviour put you and the other Vissimo in from Kyros.”
Her eyes trailed over my scarred neck and lingered on my face. She straightened and smoothed her expression. “I believe you have.”
“You accept my apology?”
She quirked a brow. “I hear you.”
Damn, throwing my own words in my face. Forgiven but not forgotten. I grimaced. “I deserve that.”
The two-hundred-and-eighty-year-old vampire dipped her head. “Yes. But you’ve survived one beating. Don’t be so eager to beat yourself up again. Worse mistakes have been made, and your goodwill toward the Indebted cannot be erased by one night.”
That meant so much to me. I hadn’t expected their forgiveness. I’d expected Tommy’s.
“Okay,” I said hoarsely. “I’ll apologise to everyone soon, I swear.”
“They’d appreciate that,” she answered, then her gaze snapped to mine. “What’s the state of the game after what happened with Fyrlia?”
“Shit hit the fan. That’s what.”
Her eyes searched mine. “Sundulus is going to lose.”
“I need to restore balance in the game without delay,” I said. “It’s the only way.” I had to catch up on a landslide of reports, not to mention filling Tommy’s now-vacant position.
Laurel stood to attention. “What do you need me to do?”
There was a list a mile long.
But I’d considered filling Laurel in on my betrayal of Clan Sundulus before deciding nothing good would come from it. The iota of respect King Julius held for me would vanish the second he learned or guessed the truth. It was possible he’d interrogate the Indebted at that point. The less Laurel knew, the better.
My life would be forfeit, or at least my freedom. The bond with Kyros? He’d snuff it out quicker than I could recite his siblings’ names. I’d have destroyed my grandmother’s legacy of decades in mere weeks after swearing that I’d win—for her, for me, and for everyone Vissimo had ever used and abused.
Now, the battle wasn’t winning. It was ensuring Fyrlia didn’t win. And to do that, I needed help.
It was high time I paid my grandmother’s closest friends a visit.
5
Sir Olythieu, owner of Bluff City Bank, and human liaison of Clan Sundulus spoke from across the round table. “We’ve anxiously awaited your call, Basilia.”
I bet they had.
Weeks had passed since Grandmother’s funeral. Then a few more while I got my head around Kyros’s betrayal. Then a couple more while I recovered from death’s door.
It settled something within me to be sitting in Sir Olythieu’s massive office with my grandmother’s nearest and dearest. I’d craved normalcy and familiarity for so long.
“Circumstances delayed me,” I said. “Firstly, you should know that my mind is caged.”
Sounds of dismay echoed around the room. I hadn’t told them the reason for this meeting, but I was sure they’d guessed it had to do with Grandmother’s work.
“All of us are controlled to varying degrees,” Mr Hothen said. His eyes filled with an empathy that I hadn’t thought him capable of. Being the owner of Bluff City’s largest mall complexes and shopping streets required a certain pragmatic calculation he was renowned for.
“How long?” Mrs Syrre asked softly.
I regarded the genteel woman—by far the kindest elite in Bluff City. If my grandmother hadn’t tucked the woman under her wing after the death of her husband, the Syrre fortune would be long gone. Their ship freighting company had been around for nearly as long as my family name. “Three months.”
So little time for so much chaos and destruction.
Mr Dithis set a board on the table, and the oldies spread out all manner of cards over the square table.
Dame Burke jabbed her finger at two of the cards. “Which cunt did it?”
I couldn’t point. Not without the right intention anyway. I could say a specific word out of context, usually, but that would be useless here because the context was fixed—and exactly what the compulsion worked against—me spilling Sundulus and Vissimo secrets.
Fury warped Lady Treena’s face. “They got her good. Only Olythieu has trouble pointing. Must’ve been a strong beast.”
“Think of something unrelated, Basilia,” the regal man who always reminded me of Colonel Sanders said. “Hold that in your mind as you talk and move.”
I nodded. “Yes, I know.” I’d practiced more before coming here to keep my mind off Tommy.
Sir Olythieu’s grey brows slammed together. “You know?”
I glanced around the table, which had stilled.
Mr Dithis rubbed his jaw. “Took us nine years to figure that out.”
They shouldn’t congratulate me. I’d been told by King Asshole himself.
“Even with that knowledge, I’m afraid we must often rely on the others guessing to get information across,” Olythieu said quietly.
A reflection of my pain and frustration lurked in his dark-grey eyes. I’d previously thought that my intention had to be closely aligned with whatever I was trying to say. But if I focused hard enough, any random thought was effective. Thinking of lavender bushes, I placed my hand atop the table on the Sundulus side.
“Bastards,” Dithis seethed. “Which one?”
“Kyros
,” I answered, feeling a twinge of guilt as his name passed my lips.
Hothen sighed. “He’s one of the worst. The eldest son, as I’m sure you know by now. I am so sorry, Basi dear. The trapping was a permanent one?”
The trapping. Singular.
I held up four fingers.
“Four,” Lady Treena said, frowning.
Syrre held a hand to her pale cheek. “Four times, Treena. Is that what you mean, Basilia? He did it four times?”
Hurrying around the table with a speed belying her age, Dame Burke placed yes and no cards before me. These cards were a really good idea. It would make the coming explanation so much easier.
Maybe if I’d had them with Tommy, she’d still be here.
I tapped a finger on yes. I could point to normal words.
A heavy tension filled the room at that revelation.
When it came to the people around this table, I’d had nothing from my grandmother to go on. Fred merely said that she met her friends every week. But if they were in the power of the clans, each of them had to report in some way—probably to the royals or their seconds. I needed to know who they were compelled by and how tightly. My grandmother may have been the ringleader because she wasn’t controlled in any way, but I’d continue her work regardless of my compelled state. That meant I had to feel out how much I could tell the others.
“I need information on each of you,” I told them.
“You’re taking the third seat?” Sir Olythieu’s gaze sharpened.
“Give me the information and I’ll answer that question,” I replied, settling back.
He smiled. “Very good. Burke, do we have the file from when we first started?”
Dame Burke pursed her lips. Her restraints had to be the loosest. She seemed to be the nominated spokesperson. “I’ll dig it up and update it.”
She cut me a look. “And none of us have orders to freely report. We answer during interrogation, and only to their direct questions, which are always business based. In fact, most of us have minimal contact with the beasts now they’ve caged our underlings. Nothing more than a phone call every few months. Olythieu and Lady Treena have it the worst. They’re pulled in for questioning once or twice every year.”
That wasn’t surprising. Neither of them was richer than me, but their assets were entirely located in Bluff City, whereas Grandmother had moved the vast majority of ours international. Their estates were far more valuable in Ingenium than mine. And when it came to power and influence, Lady Treena was mayor for over seventeen years before retiring. Her father was mayor in his time. And her grandfather. Five generations ago, the head of their family had married a woman of vast mining fortune.
Death Game: Supernatural Battle (Vampire Towers Book 3) Page 4