Dark Obsession (Vampire Royals of New York #3) - Sarah Piper Page 0,61
Had I known you’d be pitching him a deal, I might’ve suggested a different strategy in Woodside. Alas…”
“Bloody hell, Gabriel. This isn’t a game. This—”
“This is a suicide mission! You can’t possibly think you can walk in there and make a deal with the very demons we tortured! The very demons with the power to kill you in a bloody heartbeat!”
“What other options do we have? Chernikov is gaining power as we speak. We can’t very well—”
“Gabriel’s right, Dorian,” Charlotte said.
“Finally,” Gabriel said with a shallow laugh. “The human is talking sense again.”
“He’s being a total douche about it,” she added, glaring at Gabriel with a look that would’ve set a mortal man on fire. Then, turning back to Dorian, “But he’s right. You can’t pitch a deal to Rogozin… But I can.”
Dorian blinked. He couldn’t have possibly heard that right.
“Charlotte,” Aiden said, “while I agree you’ve brought us some ideas worth considering here, I’m afraid I can’t—”
“No,” Dorian said, his mind finally catching up with her ridiculous suggestion. “Absolutely not. Out of the question.”
“Come now, brother,” Gabriel mocked. “Charlotte asked us to give her a fair shot. If she wants to get herself killed, that’s—”
“Gabriel, I’m telling you right now, if you—”
“Rogozin will bite,” Charlotte cut in. “I have proof one of his most trusted advisors is conspiring with my uncle—a longtime Rogozin associate—to double-cross him. And I’d be going in as an emissary to the vampire king, offering him the deal of a lifetime on the blade and a seat on the supernatural council. There’s no way he’ll refuse to see me.”
“I’m not worried about him refusing the invitation,” Dorian said. “I’m worried about him picking up where he left off when you were a child.”
“That wasn’t Rogozin. Those men were humans, or I’d already be dead. Besides, apparently I’m some kind of hell-bride for his precious raven king, remember? Isabelle said Rogozin’s demons won’t touch me.”
“She’s right, Dorian,” Isabelle said. “I understand your concern, but I’m with Charlotte on this one.”
“Charlotte…” he breathed, his heart already seizing with untold worries, but he feared he’d already lost the argument. He felt the shift in the energy—a sense of new hope rising among them, where moments earlier there had only been despair.
Even Gabriel seemed to be thawing out again, quietly nursing his drink in the corner of the room.
Dorian closed his eyes and sighed.
It was a terrible idea. The worst.
But also a damned good one.
Dorian felt Charlotte’s presence before him, and he opened his eyes just as she reached up to touch his face, a soft smile curving her lips.
“I can do this, Dorian,” she said. “I’m asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to back me up. And I’m asking you to believe in me.”
By the light of her beautiful, determined eyes, the last of his resolve melted away.
“I always believe in you, love.”
“Then you’d better put on that kettle after all, vampire king. And we should probably get some Chinese takeout.” Charlotte’s soft smile stretched into a bright grin. “We’ve got a plan to hatch.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Charley had saved a single pair of Christian Louboutin stilettos from her paired-down wardrobe, and now those heels clacked against the cold marble floor as she strode purposefully across the hotel lobby, her chin held high, shoulders squared. Along with the shoes, she was dressed in a black pinstripe suit and cream-colored silk blouse, her hair in a loose twist. To everyone in the lobby, she probably looked like an ordinary businesswoman ready to make a deal over brunch, to pioneer a new venture, to take over a company.
No one there knew she was about to risk her life brokering a deal with the second-most powerful demon in the tri-state area.
The same demon who, eighteen years earlier, had sent his men to terrorize her in a pizzeria parking lot while her father and Rudy made some kind of shitty deal upstairs.
The silver scar above her hip burned at the memories.
But she wasn’t that scared little girl anymore.
She wasn’t her uncle’s pawn, or her father’s, or anyone else’s.
She was Charlotte fucking D’Amico. Reformed con woman. Survivor. Jersey girl for life.
And today, she held the fate of far too many people in her hands to fuck this up.
Hiking the laptop bag up her shoulder, Charley followed the curve of the lobby toward the elevators, then took one up to the thirty-fifth floor. As the doors opened into the exclusive French restaurant in one of Long Island City’s newest buildings, Charley steadied herself with