Blood and Blade (Goddess with a Blade #6) - Lauren Dane Page 0,33

expensive floors with the heels of her shoes and instead of coming down to meet this poor defenseless human and kick her out, you hide under your bed and hope I just walk away. I have a really short attention span, but I also have a really strong sense of vengeance so I’m good with moving in just to make your life an endless series of terrible moments until you come down here or escape out a window up there like a coward. Are you just a load of hot air with too much fucking money to buy ugly ass vases? I should break them all just on principle.” To underline that, she walked to the other vase and tossed it over.

* * *

Rowan sort of hoped he’d wait her out a little longer or try to leave by the window because she wanted to rip this pretentious fucking place to pieces. He probably had a solid gold toilet. If he did she’d find a way to drain all his bank accounts and give the money to art galleries, schools and hospitals all across the world.

But if she was reading the situation right—and she knew her fucking with people until they gave you what you wanted better than most—there was no way Rod was going to run away now that she’d called him out on it. Especially now that she’d announced she was human.

Which was a lie, but for the purpose of this social experiment, it was close enough to the button she needed to push until he gave her what she demanded and showed his face.

In the meantime, she unsheathed her blade as she approached a painting on a nearby wall. There was another across from where she stood that she wouldn’t harm for anything but the one she walked toward was a print. There were more out there.

In fact.

“This painting. Roth had this in his house too,” she said to Clive.

Clive considered a moment and then agreed with a shake of his head. “What a coincidence.”

“Well, look, he and Roth are cut from the same cloth. This Rod, you know who he is, right?”

Clive nodded. She knew he was trying to tell her as much as he could but also keep his vow to protect the Vampire Nation.

“Let me prognosticate while I get back to tearing this place up.” She went into the sitting room to the right of the front entry, and in view of her husband and dopey Chauncy she snatched up the pricey drinkware on the cart and hurled a few at the wall near the fireplace.

Rejoining them in the entry she spoke to Clive again. “Rod comes from some old and fancy pedigreed family within the Nation. I can’t remember any Rods off the top of my head so he’s been flying below the radar. At least to the outside world. His dad or sister or a cousin, whatever, they’re the ones who run the business the family makes its money from. Like Roth,” she said of the traitor at Hunter Corp, “he’s unremarkable. Just rich. He probably has a sub-par dick and never makes his partners come. So he plays his little black market game for kicks, to feel like he’s the shit instead of a son the family fervently does its best to ignore.”

Ah, that was the button to push because Roderick slammed open the door to the room Chauncy had indicated and hurled himself downstairs, incisors out, snarling, nails drawn.

She sidestepped before kicking the side of Roderick’s knee, sending him off balance, and while he was falling, wondering about his poor life choices, Rowan followed up with the back of her heel against his temple. So hard she felt the echo through her leg.

It was worth it to see the look on his face right before he hit the floor.

Rowan sent a quick text to David before bending down to grab Rod by the back of his robe and drag him through to a smaller room on the first floor where she hadn’t broken anything. Yet.

David and Genevieve came in, locking the front door on their way. David dropped Rowan’s bag at her feet and they got to work securing Rod to the chair in such a way that he would be unable to move enough to try an escape.

In one corner there were windows that were uncovered for the evening but would be secured before dawn to protect the Vampire household. Clive handled that while they took Chauncy to another