The men leaned back as she passed them, their gazes hastily averting as if they feared getting caught in the cross-fire of her temper.
Felix watched her storm in with a look of trepidation. “I’m fine,” he assured her, glancing quickly at Alvin. “Tell her I’m fine.”
Alvin dutifully repeated, “He’s fine.”
Dahlia jammed a finger into Felix’s undamaged shoulder. “Are you fucking kidding me with this?”
“What? I didn’t do anything!”
“Felix, you could’ve died!”
Wincing as Alvin applied a rubbery bandage to his side, he replied, “Alastair wasn’t trying to kill us. He was getting us back for torching his yacht last week.”
Dahlia propped her hands on her hips. The tit-for-tat fighting between the Bowans and the Amauris had been going on for nearly two weeks. She wasn’t even sure how much of it was about getting her back anymore and how much was pure, masculine bullshit.
In a more normal world, she would’ve brushed it off and put her attention somewhere more important. But this wasn’t normal. Sooner rather than later, someone was going to get killed — and then it wouldn’t just be burned yachts and exploded warehouses. It’d be war.
It’d taken a minute, but Dahlia had come to like seeing Felix whole and undamaged. The rest of his family could stay that way, too.
In the two weeks since she’d begun to really settle into syndicate life, she’d accompanied Felix during meetings, negotiations, and deals all within the walls of the mansion. She’d gotten a crash course in navigating Amauri business interests alongside a taste of the internal workings of the family.
She’d always tried her best to not learn too much during her time at The Lush, but she had. And all that knowledge gave her a surprisingly solid foundation as she found her footing beside him.
The elders couldn’t intimidate her. They had nothing on a drunk vampire mercenary“just looking for a sip”at the end of her shift.
The soldiers looked at how she handled Felix and quickly fell in line. They were used to Dora, Marietta explained, and overall seemed relieved to have a strong woman at the helm again.
And when it came to Felix himself… Well, he wasn’t bluffing when he said he wanted a partner. He included her in everything, even if she felt like it was above her pay grade or outright unnecessary. A new desk had been purchased so they could sit beside each other to work. He looped her into text threads and suspiciously squeaky clean accounts. Nearly every decision he made, he ran it by her first. Not because heneededthe help, but because he wanted it.
Just about the only thing they couldn’t seem to collaborate on was the damn foolish pissing contest he was determined to win against Alastair.
“This has to stop,” she announced, trying to sound calm when all she wanted to do was throttleandkiss him. “Soon enough one of ours or one of his is going to actually get hurt, andthen this will stop being a game. I won’t have anyone dying for me, Felix. This is my family, too.”
Like always, it appeared he was about to put her off, but Dahlia wasn’t having it this time. “You aren’t keeping me locked in the house any longer. I am going to go outside. I am going to show Mr. Bowan that he should stop fighting this. Andyouare not going to stop me.”
She knew it’d be a good night. Felix begged to differ.
“This is a terrible fucking idea.”
“No, it’s not,” she breezily replied, pressing her foot down on the gas pedal of her shiny new sports car. It zipped down the strange, narrow streets of United Washington at something slightly less than a breakneck speed.
They were headed for Old Blood, the premier vampire establishment in United Washington. Mere steps from Congress, where the representatives of all the territories and their factions met to vote on laws, it was apparently one of the few buildings to survive the century of war that saw the city burned to the ground. Milo, who turned out to be something of a history buff, had explained to her that it was where the first members of the syndicate had agreed to rebuild the city themselves.
Dahlia and Felix weren’t going to make history. They were going to make a statement.
When they pulled up to Old Blood, Felix didn’t let the valet open her door for her. Standing in his black on black suit, he swept the door of her silver sports car open and held out hishand. Dahlia’s red nails gleamed against the pale skin of his palm as she placed one heel on the street.
Her heels and tights were a matching crimson, creating one streamlined swath of bloody red beneath her short blazer dress. The neckline plunged nearly to her bellybutton, exposing bare skin — and a tapestry of healing bites and hickies.
She figured Felix would’ve been a lot more smug about the sight of them if she hadn’t forced him into this position. But some things had to be done.
Tossing her keys to the valet, he pressed close to her. A warm hand settled on the small of her back. “Half an hour,” he whispered, escorting her around the front of the car and onto the curb.
Two Amauri soldiers slipped into place behind them as they approached the antique glass doors of the social club. Bringing some security had been the only way to get Felix to agree to the outing. While Old Blood was supposed to be neutral ground, the likelihood of violence was low but not impossible.
They had to take their own car, though, because her new baby could only fit the two of them.
Felix’s mouth pressed into a hard line as he opened the door for her. Dahlia swept inside, her eyes quickly adjusting to the dim lighting of the social club. In some ways, it was just like The Lush: a long bar dominated one side of the room, semi-private booths dotted the other half, and one corner was dedicated to music.
