“I’m staying,” she said defiantly.
Vincent tilted his head in acknowledgment, and she wanted to believe there was a hint of respect in there, too. He shifted his attention back to Camarillo who was whimpering unashamedly, his eyes wide with terror at whatever he was seeing in the vampire’s face.
“Pay attention, Moreno,” Vincent said without looking at his newest vampire protégé, who was glaring his hatred at the man who’d been his proclaimed master only a few hours earlier.
Vincent raised a negligent hand and the bedcovers were ripped from Camarillo’s clutching fingers, so that he knelt half-naked, wearing nothing but a pair of drawstring pajama bottoms. His eyes were rolling white with fear, and sweat glistened on his skin, stinking up the room so that even Lana could smell it with her ordinary human senses. He clasped his hands in front of him in a posture of prayer and started mumbling almost non-stop in rapid Spanish. Lana caught only a word or two. He was begging for his life, but whether he was praying to Vincent or to God, she didn’t know.
Vincent lifted his hand and curled his outstretched fingers toward his palm in a gesture that was the picture of grace . . . until Camarillo shrieked in torment, his hands clutching his chest, fingers digging into his skin so feverishly that his nails tore into his skin, leaving ragged furrows that trailed blood down onto his belly and thighs.
Lana stared, her lungs squeezed in horror. She’d seen plenty of violence in her life, she’d seen men shot and even been shot herself, but this . . . she’d never seen a man rip at himself like that.
Lana jolted as Camarillo’s mouth opened wide, and a horrific keening noise filled the room. It was inhuman, nothing but raw animal agony. And she thought surely this must be Vincent’s revenge, to leave the man crazed with pain, a drooling idiot with no thought but to suffer . . . Or maybe not. She pressed herself against the wall at her back as Vincent took that final step toward the bed, until he was right on top of Camarillo, the copper glow of his stare reflecting off the white of the drug boss’s eyes, turning them into yellowed marbles of terror. Vincent ran a tender hand along Camarillo’s sweaty jaw, trailed a long finger over the swell of the man’s jugular . . . and then his hand tightened into a claw and he ripped the man’s throat out.
He did it casually, without apparent effort. He simply closed his fingers over Camarillo’s throat, squeezed until his fingers met around the bony column of the drug lord’s esophagus, and then yanked.
Camarillo choked, a ghastly sound, as his brain begged for oxygen, as his face turned red and then blue, until finally the only thing holding him up was Vincent’s grip on his ravaged throat.
Vincent opened his hand. Camarillo collapsed onto the bed in a boneless heap, blood staining the pristine sheets beneath him.
Vincent eyed his bloodied hand in distaste, and Lana waited, half-expecting him to lick the blood away, but he didn’t. Instead he used the discarded bedcover to wipe the blood off, then stepped back from the bed and spoke to Jerry Moreno.
“Did you understand what I did?” he asked.
Moreno nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“And why?”
“Definitely, sir.”
Vincent nodded. “You’ll come with us for now. When we reach Pénjamo, I’ll have Michael, my lieutenant, fly down and take you back to my headquarters in Hermosillo.”
“You will not be returning with us?” Moreno asked.
Vincent shook his head. “Lana and I have business to finish first.”
“And what about the others?”
Vincent frowned. “What others?”
“The others like me, the other vampires Enrique indentured to drug lords.”
Vincent stared and Lana got that feeling again, as if someone was scraping a live wire just above her skin. Vincent’s fury became a living thing, swelling outward in the contained space until it became a tornado whipping around the room, pounding the heavy furniture and knocking a thick silver-framed mirror off the wall. It fell to the bare tile and shattered, sending glittering shards flying everywhere.
Lana gripped the door frame and waited to die, certain that Vincent had finally lost it. But he had better control than that. He sucked in a breath and the storm died. But she could see the effort it took. His muscles were bunched and tight, veins standing out on his bare forearms.
“Where will I find them?” Vincent asked Moreno, his voice tight with repressed anger.
“They are scattered throughout Mexico, but the nearest is Salvio Olivarez. His master lives not far from Pénjamo, just north of the city.”
“Vincent,” Lana dared to interrupt. “We have to get out of here.”
He turned a cold gaze on her, but his eyes warmed almost immediately. “Don’t worry, Lana. I can kill them all if it comes to that.”
Lana wasn’t reassured. “I’d rather it not come to that,” she explained gently, because he was clearly so far gone as to be fucking clueless. “Our escape will be ever so much easier if we leave discreetly.”
“Or if we leave no witnesses,” he countered.
“Vincent,” she warned impatiently.