He glared around the room, catching the eye of all five of the kneeling vamps, including the two still groaning in the wreckage of the bar. “You assholes got that?”
“Yes, my lord,” they muttered more or less in unison.
Vincent’s cell phone chimed from his pocket. He ignored it long enough to offer the vampires one last quelling look, then pulled it out and looked at the screen. It was a text from Louisa, telling him that Raphael’s bounty hunter had arrived. Great. Just fucking great.
He searched the club until he found the manager in the crowd. “Take care of this. I want to open on schedule Thursday night. If you need muscle, these assholes will do.”
At least the fuckers had decided to break up his club on a Sunday. They still wouldn’t be able to repair all of the damage before Thursday, but they could at least rig something functional and replace the broken glassware and spilled liquor.
The manager was smart enough not to bring up any of those details, however, seeming to understand that Vincent wasn’t in the mood for practical discussion. His only response was a snapped, “Yes, my lord,” and a nod of the head.
Vincent nodded in turn, then, motioning for Michael to follow, he strode back into the night. He even managed to conceal his grin until the two of them were well away from the scene.
LANA SLID HER Yukon into the parking lot of a neat, Southwestern-styled office building. It was fairly new, no more than five years old by her guess, with the usual Pueblo-style accents added strictly for effect. She didn’t have a lot of experience with vampires, only what she’d gained through her business association with Cynthia Leighton, but she’d noticed that they were deadly serious about a couple of things. One was their personal security. They had top of the line security systems, and while their houses or office buildings might be designed to blend in with their surroundings, they were usually far sturdier than the norm. The other thing she’d been made aware of was their preference to remain apart from humans. They did business with them, they drank their blood, for sure, but they always lived apart, even if it was only a house with a bigger-than-average yard down the block. They didn’t live in apartment buildings and they didn’t have human friends. Some of them had husbands and wives—mates, they called them—but the human mate went to live with the vamp, not vice versa. And that suited Lana just fine. More power to them and may they live long and prosper. But she was happy to remain apart.
She opened the door of her Yukon and climbed out, her attention immediately drawn off to the right where she could see the lights and crowd surrounding a busy nightclub. Except that on this particular night, the crowd seemed to have gotten out of control. People were pushing their way out rather than in, and she could hear the muted sounds of an altercation coming from inside the club.
Whatever was going on in there wasn’t her business, though, so she shrugged, leaned into her SUV, and grabbed the backpack she used in lieu of a purse. Slipping it over one shoulder, she closed her door and locked it before walking around to climb the three stairs to an unassuming office door. There were no gold-engraved signs, no fancy embellishments, just an ordinary wrought-iron railing and three concrete stairs leading to a slightly deeper top level, where a small, plastic, engraved sign invited visitors to announce themselves. She looked around and found a basic speaker set-up. She pushed the button and heard a faint buzzer from inside.
“Yes?” a woman’s pleasant voice inquired.
“Arnold Recoveries for Vincent Kuxim.” She tried to pronounce the last name correctly. She’d been intrigued by the unusual name and looked it up, discovering that it was Mayan in origin, with the x pronounced as “sh,” like Kushim. She remembered from a college history class that the Mayan civilization had pretty well collapsed over a thousand years ago, so she thought it must be a family name passed down through the generations. Although, she supposed, anything was possible with a vampire.
A new buzzer sounded, louder and harsher this time, and the door opened a couple of inches. Lana took that as an invitation to go in, so she pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped into the office.
The evenings were cool this time of year, but it was even colder inside the office. She was glad she’d worn her long-sleeved T-shirt and short, black combat jacket.
An attractive middle-aged woman whose appearance matched the pleasant voice over the intercom was sitting at a desk. Her eyes went wide when Lana walked in and she tipped her head a little, as if trying to see if anyone was behind her.
“Is it just you then?” the woman asked.
Lana gave a puzzled frown, pretending not to understand. When she’d called to make this appointment, she hadn’t corrected the secretary’s assumption that the Arnold who’d be showing up would be her father. The people she encountered in her line of business weren’t always the most law-abiding types, and she preferred not to advertise the fact that a woman was about to show up all alone.
“Just me,” she confirmed. “I have a ten o’clock appointment?”
“Yes, you do,” the woman agreed, a smile playing over her lips. “What was your name again, dear?”
“Lana Arnold, Arnold Recoveries.”
The woman’s smile grew. “Well, Ms. Arnold, Lord Vincent was called away for a moment, but he’ll be right back. I’ve already texted him to let him know you’re here. Can I get you anything while you wait? Something cold to drink? Or maybe a coffee?”
“No, thank you.” The last thing Lana wanted after driving a caffeine-fueled 250 miles, nearly nonstop, to get here on time was more coffee. For that matter, she didn’t feel like sitting down either. But it would be rude to pace in front of the woman’s desk, so she wandered over to the farthest chair, sat down, and pulled out her phone. She and all the guys in her dad’s office worked often enough in Mexico that they each had a separate cell phone for when they were in-country. The farther one got from the U.S., the more necessary it became. Lana’s habit was to switch over as soon as she crossed the border, which was why she was able to sit in Kuxim’s waiting room and get some business done.
She was scrolling through her e-mail, deleting most of it, when the outer door opened and something like an electrical current ran through the room, making the small hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She looked up to see a dangerous-looking male standing there. Dangerous not only because of his size—which was considerable, a couple of inches over six feet and most of that muscle—but because of the blood staining his fingers and still dripping from a split lip down his chin and into a neatly trimmed beard. He appeared to be in his late twenties and had a mustache to go with the beard, wavy black hair, and brown eyes with pretty flecks of color that she supposed would be called hazel, but they seemed more copper to her. And right now, those pretty eyes were giving the receptionist an irritated look which he almost immediately transferred to Lana.
“¿Dónde está tu jefe, cariño?” he asked her in Spanish, which translated to Where’s your boss, sweetheart?
Lana pocketed her phone, then stood and gave him a dry look. “I don’t have a boss, darling,” she said in deliberate English. “What I do have is an appointment with Vincent Kuxim. Is that you?”
He stared at her with no expression for a long moment, then his eyes lit up and his lips curled into a sexy-as-hell smile. “Call me Vincent. But I gotta say, you don’t look like a bounty hunter.”
“You have a lot of experience with bounty hunters?” she asked, knowing she should be more polite, because she needed this guy’s help. But she couldn’t stop herself.
His smile widened into a grin. “More than I’d like. Come on into the office.” He moved out of the doorway, and she saw there was another man behind him, also a vampire, she assumed. He was just as big as Vincent, but the polar opposite in looks—blond with green eyes, his hair cut brutally short, his face clean-shaven, very all-American handsome. He gave her a brief once-over, then gestured for her to go ahead of him after Vincent. She would have preferred having both of them ahead of her, but she wasn’t about to admit that, so she nodded and followed Vincent into the office.
“My lieutenant, Michael,” Vincent said, indicating the other vampire. “Have a seat.” He gestured at two heavy chairs sitting in front of a huge wooden desk that was obviously an antique. Its design was in keeping with the Southwestern theme of the building, but it wasn’t a new piece. It was heavy and old, the wood stained with age, and it was beautiful.
“Forgive my appearance,” Vincent said, swiping at his chin with the hem of his black T-shirt and baring a smooth expanse of golden skin and gorgeous muscle in the process.