My knees nearly buckled with relief. “She’s still out there?” I’d assumed she was dead, with Robert being back.
“Aye,” Joseph confirmed. “Unfortunately, she got away.”
“Did she hurt you?” I asked, letting out a breath of relief when Robert shook his head.
Joseph said, “But she was planning on hurting the VGO.”
“And this relates to your kidnapping how? Start at the beginning. I want to know everything.”
“I owe my life to this vampire,” Robert declared, clapping a hand down on Joseph’s shoulder like he’d just scored himself a new best friend.
I immediately felt guilty, remembering the awkward kisses Joseph and I had shared. Joseph seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he quickly looked away as our eyes met.
I was still on the fence about whether I was going to tell Robert about what had happened. What good would it do, disclosing the two silly little kisses Joseph and I shared on what wasn’t even a real date? It would likely do more harm than good, since it would only make Robert jealous and create unnecessary tension between him and Joseph—a powerful VGO vampire whose enemies didn’t seem to live long.
It wasn’t like I’d kissed Joseph out of spite or in a deluded attempt to make Robert want me back. At the time, he and I technically weren’t even a couple, and I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. With Joseph and I being as turned off as we were during our attempted make-out session—if I recalled, he’d said he’d had more passionate kisses with goats—the likelihood of us ever hooking up again romantically was zilch. Furthermore, I was pregnant with Robert’s child. How would that make him feel, knowing that I’d kissed another man while his baby was growing inside me?
Really, the only reason I’d tell Robert about the kisses wouldbe to make myself feel better and to alleviate my own guilt. Which didn’t seem fair.
No, I decided, I wasn’t going to say a thing. I hoped Joseph wouldn’t, either.
Joseph seemed embarrassed by Robert’s praise. Awkwardly, he said, “It’s Olivia you should credit for saving your life.”
I pointed at my chest. “Me? What did I do?”
“You alerted us to Serena’s diabolical plan,” Joseph said darkly, his eyes burning with fury.
Yikes. I’d sure hate to be in Serena’s place when the VGO hunted her down. And I had no doubt they would. They had members everywhere.
Robert explained, “Serena learned Nick had my fangs, but she couldn’t figure out exactly where he’d been keeping them. She wanted to get rid of you also, Olivia.”
“Get rid of me? Like, kill me?” The answer was obvious, yet it still blew my mind that someone who’d only met me once wanted me dead. What did I ever do to that bitch?
Robert nodded. “When she learned that you were meeting Nick alone to get my fangs?—”
“She saw it as an ideal time to strike,” I concluded.
“Aye,” Joseph chimed in. “Her plan was to commandeer the fangs from Nick and then murder the both of you.”
I shivered. “Isn’t that just lovely. Why kill me, though?”
“Less loose ends,” Joseph said.
Robert took my hand and gave it a squeeze. “But you saved yourself, my darling, by showing up late.”
So, my suspicion had been right. Had I shown up on time, I’d be as dead as Nick. It was not a thought I wanted to dwell on too much.
“I promise you, my love, that I’ll never give you grief again for running late,” Robert told me.
“So, what happened at the fountain?”
Joseph said, “Serena waited by the fountain for you to show up, but then Nick spotted her. She was more concerned with her identity being revealed than killing you, so she decapitated Nick, took the fangs, and then ran.”
“How do you know all this?” Sebastian asked. “You speak as if you were there.”
Joseph said, “The whole attack was caught on the mall’s video surveillance. My associates obtained the footage.”
“Which has since gone missing from human authorities,” I deduced. That would be the last thing the VGO would want, a vampire attack caught on film. They must have paid someone off handsomely for the footage. Or killed for it. Either were as equally probable.
