Lana expected José to offer at least a token protest, but she’d clearly underestimated Vincent’s control. The guard gave her a knowing wink—and what the hell was that about?—and then marched off across the yard, heading toward the garage, following much the same path that Lana had taken to get to Vincent’s prison.
Jerry Moreno followed along readily, not shooting so much as a questioning glance Vincent’s way, as if this had been the plan all along. Gone was the idea of making a quick and quiet exit. Suddenly, it was all about vengeance and everyone seemed to understand that. Even Lana. She’d never admit as much to Vincent, but he was right. Camarillo had thought he could capture and enslave Vincent the way he had Jerry. But this time, he’d thought to do it on his own, to cut Enrique out of the equation. It was a power play not only against Vincent, but against Enrique, and Enrique was the face of vampires in Mexico.
Lana might not live power politics the way the vamps did, but she understood the concept well enough. If Vincent left without punishing Camarillo, the human would only try it again with another vampire. Maybe he’d learn from his mistake and take someone weaker next time, someone who couldn’t fight back. And that was unacceptable to a man like Vincent. She didn’t know him well, but she knew that much. He had that alpha male need to protect those who were weaker than he was. She’d heard the anguish in his voice when he’d recounted the story of his younger brother’s death—and Vincent’s inability to save him. She even saw it in the way he treated the women in his life. Women might not be inherently weaker, but to a man like Vincent, they would always invoke the urge to protect.
So Lana followed after José and the two vampires, feeling like the tail end of a parade. She had no idea what Vincent planned for Camarillo, and that thought made her hurry until she was walking next to him.
“There might be guards,” she said quietly and started to hand him her Sig. “You can take—”
“Keep it,” he said, touching her arm. “I won’t need a gun.”
“But—”
“Watch and learn, querida.”
Lana frowned, but figured he knew what he was doing. José took them all the way around the garage, past the spot where Lana had come over the wall, through the iron gate she’d noticed and into the gardens in the back of the house. The rich scent of good soil and fragrant flowers greeted her, the cool evening air moist with water from the irrigation system she could still hear running. They followed a path of stone pavers for about fifteen feet, then veered off onto a short, straight path made of something like compressed sand. It led to an ordinary wooden door that looked like it would open to a gardener’s storage closet, if not for the sophisticated lock and heavy-duty hinges. There were no windows in the door or the wall to either side of it.
José stopped a couple of feet away and pointed at the door. “This is it, jefe,” he said helpfully. “Shall I knock for—?”
“No need,” Vincent assured him, and Lana wondered how the hell he thought he was going to get through what looked to her like a high security deadbolt. But then he raised one hand palm out and shoved it forward, as if to push open the door . . . and blew it completely off its heavily-reinforced hinges.
Lana stared. She’d heard about vampire powers, but had thought they were limited to things like telepathy and persuasion. This was something else entirely. As if hearing her thoughts, Vincent looked over his shoulder and gave her a wink, then disappeared into the dark room beyond.
Moreno hesitated on the threshold, but for only a second before following Vincent inside. Not to be left behind, Lana hurried forward, careful to avoid silhouetting herself against the door. Ducking inside, she immediately put her back to the wall and waited for her eyes to adjust as a dim light clicked on.
The first thing she saw was Camarillo sitting up in bed, his hand dropping away from the bedside lamp. His mouth was stretched wide in an angry snarl, but as she watched, his eyes glazed over with terror as he belatedly recognized who the intruder was.
“Do you know who I am?” Vincent asked, his voice a drawling purr of danger.
Camarillo nodded wordlessly, his mouth hanging open. Lana didn’t know if he was too frightened to speak or if Vincent had done something to silence him.
“And yet you thought to enslave me,” Vincent remarked, as if trying to figure out why Camarillo would even consider such a thing. “Just as you enslaved Moreno here,” he added, his glittering gaze going hard and unyielding. He took a step closer to the bed and stopped, hands on his hips, head tilted, studying the terrified man. “What shall I do with you, Señor Camarillo?”
Camarillo swallowed hard, then licked his lips and found his voice enough to gasp, “Mercy.”
Vincent’s smile chilled Lana to her soul.
“Vincent,” she whispered.
His expression blanked as he turned to look at her over his shoulder. “You should wait outside,” he told her.
“He has children,” she said, her voice catching slightly.
“So did all of the men and women that he’s killed.”
“So this is revenge for them?”
His mouth lifted in a half smile. “No. This is revenge for me. It’s protection for my children, the vampires I’m responsible for, men and women like Moreno here who deserve better than to be made into killers on behalf of a fucking drug dealer.”
“But it was a vampire who did this. Enrique is the one who enslaved Jerry.”
“I’ll deal with Enrique in due time. But tonight, here and now, I’m making a point. You do not enslave my people, and you sure as fucking hell do not think to enslave me—” There was such rage in that one word that he had to pause before finishing his thought. “—without suffering the consequences. There is a price and I’m going to collect. If you can’t handle that, then you should wait outside.”
Lana stared. He stood there so tall and strong, his power filling the room, rattling papers on the small desk, making the gauze drapes on the big four-posted bed flutter as if in a breeze. Gone was the teasing Vincent, the vampire who flirted and seduced every woman he met. This was the vampire who ruled second only to Enrique, who had the ability to take over a man’s mind in an instant, to knock a heavy door off its hinges.
And, for the first time, she wondered what he was capable of. Was he cruel? A killer? If she stayed in this room, she was going to find out. Maybe not all of it, not everything, but she knew Camarillo was going to die, and it wasn’t going to be because Vincent put a pillow over his face either.
“Damn it,” she muttered to herself, but Vincent heard. One eyebrow went up in a mocking question mark. She nodded sharply, then worked the slide on her 9mm and took up a position near the door.