end of this? Does he think I’ll let him go for this?
The only thing I knew for certain was I couldn’t tell Cassius about this. Not any of it. He wouldn’t allow me near Sinclair, then I wouldn’t be able to get anything. I also knew why Sinclair hadn’t said anything inside. He taunted me about not knowing anything, but he left a silent offer because I wouldn’t have let him leave the house alive if he had given me this offer in person.
My hands were still shaking as I drove away.
I can’t entertain this, right? There’s no way. He’s bluffing and has nothing, but he wants to throw me off because he’s gotten in too deep.
I was nearing the point of hyperventilating, so I pulled over, leaning on the steering wheel as I tried to calm down.
Over one hundred years of searching and now, Sinclair suddenly had information on who killed my family. His face never went on The Board. For the decades I played fucking footsy with the vampire, I never had any reason to believe he knew anything about the group that came into my home that night and slaughtered my family.
He’s old enough. He could know.
My hands were still shaking as I thought back to what got me this deep into the mess around Raphael. An obscure connection between two people and Mygi Pharmaceuticals, who probably had nothing to do with my family…but maybe?
Maybe. I lived my life on maybes. I made decisions to meet people, work with them or against them, hurt them, and kill them on maybes. Just maybe the next time would give me answers. Maybe next time, I could learn something.
Maybe.
I pulled the note out of my pocket and reread it. I knew Sinclair’s handwriting. I had helped Cassius more times than I could count look through the vampire’s files, journals, and other personal property for any sign of wrongdoing.
Cassius was safe. So was Raphael. Carter was in the man’s hands, and I had no idea if I was going to get him back alive.
Covering my face, I leaned over further. I was parked on a quiet, dark subdivision street, hidden for a moment. I was thankful no one was taking any notice of my car because I needed to think.
24
Chapter Twenty-Four
When I made it back to Cassius’s house, I was jumpy. For some odd reason, Raphael was waiting in the garage.
“What are you doing? Checking out the nice cars?” I asked, trying to act casual. The note in my pocket felt like it was on fire. My fangs ached as I saw the rough not-human man leaning on the wall, looking over me and the car I just got out of.
“Where did you go?” he asked, no inflection giving away any emotion.
“I wanted to check out a place I knew Sinclair had been earlier this hell of a week,” I explained. “They abandoned it. There’s nothing for us there.”
“And you went alone?” He started to frown. “What if something happened to you?”
That caught me off guard. I locked the car and walked past Raphael to put away the keys before I could bring myself to answer.
“Would you care?” I dared to ask back. “I thought I was some heartless, soulless killer. Figured you would think the world was better off without someone like me.”
My words hit their mark, causing his eyes to go red and black.
“That’s…” He growled, and I watched as he struggled to string a sentence together. “You know, I might not like any of this, but that doesn’t mean I want one of the few people who have helped me in the last ten years to get themselves fucking killed!”
“You have a funny way of showing it!” I wasn’t even sure why I was lashing out at him. I didn’t really get the point of being angry at him. He didn’t owe me his sympathy or his concern, and I should have been grateful he spared some for me. Not many people did.
Instead, I found myself lashing out, pissed off he would even bother. That after the few days I had known him, I didn’t know what he was thinking, but I was chained to him unless I found someone better or just different.
“What the fuck is your problem?” he demanded.
“I…I don’t know.” I searched for something he had done that annoyed me. “Maybe it’s that you stomped off while I was trying to explain to you that you can’t be human anymore.”