My stomach turns, but I keep my face neutral. Impressed.
“You’ve been siphoning his operation,” I guess.
“Carefully,” he corrects. “Slowly enough that he wouldn’t notice a pattern. No sudden losses. No obvious betrayal. Just…erosion.”
Justtheft, piece by piece.
He watches my reaction closely, clearly pleased. “Some people need a bit moreconvincingthan others.” He nods to me.“But by the time Lucian realizes what’s happening, there won’t be enough left on his side to fight back.”
My eyes widen with forced admiration. “That’s…brilliant.”
But whether he meant to or not, Santiago’s just given away his plan.
I don’t know if it’s Lucian being my master that makes me feel such loyalty to him, even after everything, or if it’s because my heart is still struggling to let him go, but the answer I’m feeling is getting harder to keep hidden.
Santiago is still talking, still outlining his quiet war, but I barely hear him now.
Because I understand?—
I just traded one monster for another.
“I don’t want Benicio de Santis’s holdings,” he is saying when I finally tune back in. “I wantallof Tenebris. And I’ll have you with me every step of the way.”
Before I can respond, his hand snaps up, fingers closing around my chin. He forces my face up until I’m looking straight at him, his grip firm, owning.
“Maybe I’ll even indulge your sexual curiosities,” he whispers. “Bind you with ropes and hang you from the ceiling. Show you off like the magnificent piece of art you are.”
His thumb presses just beneath my lip, a mockery of tenderness.
“I can sate your appetite,” he murmurs, “better than Lucian ever could. He pretends restraint is virtue, but I know hunger and untapped potential when I see it.”
His words hit me wrong from every angle. He thinks he’s already claimed something that isn’t his.
Then he releases me abruptly, already turning away.
“Get some rest,” he adds over his shoulder. “You’re going to need it.”
Santiago leaves me alone after that.
I linger where he left me for a while, until I decide it’s time to learn more about Sanguine and the vampire who wants to own me. I move cautiously through the floor, weaving between sparsely placed desks and a few workers. My eyes drift to them, wondering how many once served under Lucian, how many had betrayed him by willingly handing themselves over to his enemy.
Like me, I guess.
Well, maybe not like me.
When a man rises from his desk, water bottle in hand, likely heading for a refill, I slip to his station on light feet. The monitor is asleep but unlocked.
I move the mouse to wake the screen and begin to skim through the windows already up on the screen. Digging a little deeper, I find interesting things. Financial ledgers disguised as shell accounts. Media subsidiaries that don’t exist. Payments funneled through charities that never file reports.
Then I find an even more interesting folder.
My fingers go cold as I open it.
Human trafficking routed through “exclusive donor events.” Blackmail archives on everyone from politicians to judges. Blood banks siphoned illegally, records altered to hide the dead.
Sanguine isn’t a legitimate media corporation like VMR. It’s a cover.
And I just found its rot. All of it damning.
