I swayed my hips, putting on a flirty smile. “My car broke down on the main road, and my cell is dead. Can I use your phone?” The lie fell out easily.
He sized me up, and I could feel Sam’s hard gaze piercing my back as I inched toward the average-height vampire. I’d dealt with bloodsuckers most of my life, so he wasn’t anything new. Except I didn’t have any cobalt daggers on me. This time I had a better weapon—my brand-spanking-new witchcraft.
Baldy’s forehead wrinkled. “Nice try, witch. I know who you are.” He had the gun out of its holster before I could blink.
Smiling, I pictured blood coming out of his eyes as he shot himself in the head.
In seconds that image took shape, and butterflies took flight inside me. I had never thought that I would ever get used to magic, but I was loving the hell out of it. As soon as Baldy pulled the trigger on himself, Sam and Tripp came running. In a blur, both disappeared into the house.
Our enemy wasn’t dead, but it would buy us time to do what we needed to do.
A baby’s cry had me flying up the porch and in through the open front door.
Tripp wasn’t in sight, and Sam was stalking around the staircase to my right.
The crying baby was magnetically pulling me in that direction until I was side by side with Sam in the living room. It took me a second to gain my bearings, but when I did, fury blinded me, and my heart fell out of my chest at the sight of Roman holding a gun to Orion’s head.
Standing between the island and the stove, he threatened, “I will shoot him.”
The floors began to shake, and a picture on the wall next to me fell to the living room floor. I didn’t know if I was the one making the house rock on its foundation or Sam was.
It had to be my husband. He had his hands fisted at his sides, his head was bowed, and the formidable vampire was breathing heavily. “I told you, fuckwad, that I would chop off your limbs if I got free. But I’ll do more than that if you so much as put a scratch on my son.”
I swallowed down the bile creeping into my throat. “Roman, put him in that car seat next to his sister. Then we can talk. You can take me.” I said all of that surprisingly calmly. Inside, I was anything but.
Sam whipped his steely gaze at me. “The fuck?”
Ignoring my husband, I fixated on Roman. “I promise that I’ll leave with you. Just give my children to Sam.”
Roman did a double take. “How the fuck did you get yellow eyes?”
“That’s not the question you should be asking.” I inched along the back of the couch toward Roman.
Tripp came into view and set his two daggers on the island next to Luna. Then he raised his hands. “Put the gun down. We can make a deal.”
Orion was bawling as if he knew he was in danger. I wouldn’t doubt he could detect tension.
Sam slid up next to me, his hands in the air as well. “You can have all my DNA. Sell it on the open market. You know it’s worth millions. Think about it. Now that humans know vampires are real, scientists will be drooling to test vampire DNA. Hell, the human government would pay you a hefty amount for mine alone. Didn’t you tell me in the basement that you wanted kids? Surely, if you want to be a father, Roman, you wouldn’t do this.”
Roman wants children? Huh?He would make a terrible father. But I was digging where Sam was going with his ploy. Psychological warfare, especially with a guy with an ego whose actions were driven by money.
Every cry out of Orion was sending shards of pain through my chest. My little boy needed his mom and dad. It broke me in two that he and Luna had been with these horrible people, and there was no telling what they had done to them.
As Roman considered Sam’s offer, I was thinking of a way to hurt Roman without affecting Orion. If I made Roman’s eyes bleed, Orion’s might as well.
Roman considered Tripp, Sam, and me. He was stalling for something or someone.
“You have no men here, Roman,” Sam said. “I heard everything you said when I was in the basement. Maeve is on her deathbed. Warrick is probably trying to revive her. Patricia is dead. Your man, Ernie, is down for the count outside. That leaves just you. What’s it going to be, Roman?”
I could feel the rage dripping off Sam.Make him bleed, and I’ll snag Orion, and Tripp will take Luna,Sam said telepathically.
“I’ll make a deal,” Roman finally said, not lowering the gun. “I’ll call off my men in the Catskills, and in return, I walk out with your boy.”
Sam choked on a growl. “The fuck you will.”
Tripp hadn’t moved as he glared at Roman. He was the closest one to our son and daughter.
Roman’s bravado was irritating and maddening and driving the rage within me to new heights.
