Dark Obsession (Vampire Royals of New York #3) - Sarah Piper Page 0,86
before her and tried to feel… something. She’d dreamed about Rudy’s demise for so long that when the time finally came, she thought she’d be elated. Instead, there was only a quiet relief.
For years, Rudy had existed as her boss, her benefactor, her controller. When she tried to imagine him outside that role—even as the uncle she’d known in childhood—she saw only a faceless form.
She felt neither remorse nor joy at his fate; for Charley, Rudy was simply gone.
Nonexistent.
She didn’t know whether that made her cold-hearted and cruel, crazy, or perhaps just shocked and numb. At the moment, she didn’t care.
Rudolpho D’Amico’s story had come to its end.
“I’m not a killer,” she said. “I’d never take a human life.”
Rudy let out a rush of breath, his greasy lips stretching into a smile. “I know you’re not, kiddo. You’re a good girl. You—”
“Fortunately,” she said brightly, “you’re not human.”
Then, without another word for the bastard who’d sold out his family, who’d hurt Charley again and again, who’d relished in her pain, she shoved the blade into his throat.
His eyes flickered like lightning, then turned black once more.
Seconds later, his body turned into charred ash.
Charley let out a deep sigh, and a new feeling rushed into her heart.
Freedom.
Chapter Thirty-One
The shadows on the stairwell were their only warning.
“Move! Now!” Dorian pulled the emergency exit door shut and jammed the fire axe through the handles—a temporary blockade that wouldn’t hold the assailants on the other side for more than a minute.
The group rushed back down the hallway toward the apartment they’d just abandoned, hoping to go out the windows, but the instant they reached the threshold, the windows in the apartment shattered, and a dozen Duchanes vampires crashed into view.
There was only one way out now.
Down through the club.
Charley grabbed Sasha, and she and the others blurred to the back stairwell, the newly-arriving vamps closing in fast behind them.
They hit the ground floor and barged through the door that led into the club.
That led into utter chaos.
The smell of brimstone and hellfire filled the air, and already the floor was slick with blood and ash. In her peripheral vision, Charley caught sight of one of the wolves charging at a gray, another taking down a demon. In his wolf form, Cole was glued to Isabelle’s side, protecting her from would-be attackers as she struggled to manage both demons and witches.
Charley’s heart sank. They were outnumbered ten to one.
“Hide!” Dorian shouted, touching her face once more, and then he was gone, blurring into the battle with his brothers.
Charley grabbed Sasha and blurred her beneath the bar, just as the front doors exploded inward, ushering in a late arrival that nevertheless brought a smile to her face.
“Good afternoon, comrades.”
For a brief instant, the club fell silent as Rogozin strolled in, three dozen demons pouring in from behind him.
“So many pieces of shit before my eyes,” he said. “Who is good guy, who is bad guy?” Rogozin laughed. “Well, how about we burn them all first, ask questions later, yes?”
There was no more talking after that. No more grand declarations, no more jokes.
Only bloodshed. Only fire. Only violence.
The demons were impossible to tell apart—outside of Rogozin and the men she’d met at the hotel in Long Island City, Charley had no idea who was who, which side was which.
She tried in vain to keep track of her vampire, but even that was an impossible task.
It seemed as if they’d fought for days—a great clashing of fangs and fists, hellfire and wolf bites, the blur of the vampires, the blood. So much blood she thought it might wash them all away.
There was nothing she could do in a fight like this—she didn’t have the strength and coordination to take on so many adversaries at once. She would only get in the way.
On the drive down from Annendale-on-Hudson, Isabelle had given Charley the tattoos that would allow her to tolerate the sunlight—for a little while, at least. At the time, Charley wasn’t sure why she’d needed them so urgently, but now she was grateful the witch had insisted.
It was going to be a long night, and there was nothing Charley could do but wait it out.
So there beneath the bar, she held Sasha close, singing a soft lullaby her father used to sing, rocking her as the glass and blood and ash rained down all around them, and deep in her heart, Charley prayed she and her loved ones would last long enough to see the sun again.