Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

T he next time Tatyana woke, her head was clearer and someone was screaming.

She froze when she realized that she’d been moved again. She was lying on the ground, and the dripping sound was back.

The screaming was Zara.

“Give! Me!” She paused and took a breath. “My money!”

There was a heavy thud, and something large clattered to the floor.

Tatyana looked over and saw that her old boss was standing over her new boss, who was tied to a steel chair that was lying on its side.

Elene’s face was battered, and blood streamed down her head and oozed from her mouth, but despite that, she was trying to calm Zara down.

“Zara, please. I want to get you your money.”

“Bitch, you’re the one who took it!” The irate vampire snapped at the men standing behind Elene. “Get her up.”

The two men lifted Elene’s chair back up, and the older woman slumped to the side. “I can’t access that money right now, but I can tell you where your gold is. Do you want to know where your gold is?”

“It’s in his fucking house!” Zara, who was dressed in an incongruous designer dress, bent over and shouted in Elene’s face. “You think I don’t know where it is?”

“Then you know he just did this to provoke you.” Elene’s voice was calm and reasonable despite her face looking like someone had beat it with a mallet.

Tatyana’s hands were zip-tied behind her body, she couldn’t move, and when she started crying, hot tears stung the cuts on her face.

She was beyond pain now, but she still tried to stop Zara from beating Elene to a pulp. “I can get the money.”

“You.” Zara turned to Tatyana, and for the first time, Tatyana saw her true fangs. The woman Tatyana had once thought was so beautiful and intriguing walked over, her platform heels making heavy clunks on the hollow steel floor. “Can you?” She crouched down. “Huh? Can you get me my money? Can you get my gold ?”

“Uh…” She frowned. “I don’t know about your gold, but I know the passwords.”

“Of course you fucking do.” Zara slapped her across the face, and Tatyana’s ears rang. “You betraying cunt. You helped me set everything up and then you go to my bastard of a father and rat me out?” She slapped Tatyana again, and her lip burst open.

Tatyana tasted blood.

“You think because he’s fucking you that he cares?” Zara snorted. “He fucks anything that moves. He’d have fucked me if I wasn’t his blood.”

“Zara,” Elene called out. “Listen to me. Leave Tatyana alone. She was just trying to help her family. She doesn’t know about our world.”

“Bullshit.” Zara stood and turned to Elene. “How do I get my money, Elene?”

“I can help you.”

“No, you won’t. You never ever did!”

She was a child. Tatyana watched Zara stomp around, kicking her foot and lashing out at everyone and everything around her. The realization was almost comical.

Except it was so, so horrible.

Zara was like a lethal toddler having a temper tantrum, only she wasn’t just stomping her foot and screaming, she was beating Elene to death.

“I want my money!”

Slap. Punch. Zara kicked Elene’s shin, and yet the woman didn’t cry out. Her silence only seemed to enrage Zara more.

“God, what kind of cock does he have that you all just worship him, huh?” She sneered at Elene. “He used to fuck you before you got old, right?”

“All I want” —Elene spat out blood and tried to speak calmly, but her face was so swollen that her words were starting to slur— “is for Tatyana to be able to go home and for you to get your inheritance.”

“Yes. It is my inheritance.” She pointed at Elene, grabbed her chin, and yanked down, making Elene cry out in pain. “Isn’t it my right? Luana wanted me . He couldn’t stand that, could he? She didn’t want him anymore. She wanted me. And she wanted me to have her jewelry and her gold and her house, didn’t she? She wanted that for me.”

“It’s only fair,” Elene said. “Luana loved you very much. I know that, Zara.”

“And he took it all because he was her mate .” Zara spat out the word and slapped Elene again. “What the fuck did he give her? Nothing but grief! Nothing but bitching at both of us for causing problems. And then…” Zara’s angry rant caught in her throat. “And then…”

Elene made her voice soft. “I know. It was wrong, Zara. It was wrong and everyone knows it.”

“Not Athens!” Zara screamed. “Not the self-righteous fucking council .”

“It was wrong.” Elene repeated it over and over. “It was wrong, Zara. It was so wrong.”

“I know it was fucking wrong!” Her sorrow turned to madness again, and she lifted her fist to Elene and punched her across the jaw. “But you were his right hand, weren’t you? You filed the paperwork to take everything from me. Don’t think I don’t recognize your signature, dearest Elene. My father’s” —slap— “dearest” —punch— “bitch.”

“Stop!” Tatyana was desperate. Zara was losing it, and she was losing it on Elene. “Stop—I’ll get it all back for you! I promise I’ll get it all back! I promise, I promise, I promise. Zara, stop!”

“Please.” Elene cast her gaze toward Tatyana and shook her head slowly as her brilliant blue eyes started swelling shut. “If you kill me, Zara, you know he will hunt you to the ends of the earth. He will take your freedom, he will lock you up, and no one will stop him. If you kill her , it will be even worse. He will end you.”

“No, he won’t. I’m his own blood, so fuck you.” Zara drew her hand back punched Elene again.

Tatyana heard Elene’s head snap to the side, and the chair cracked as it fell on the floor.

Elene, still tied to the chair, didn’t move.

“No!” Tatyana screamed.

“Dammit.” Someone in the shadows shouted at Zara in a language Tatyana didn’t recognize. The man sounded pissed off.

Tatyana stared at Elene’s collapsed chair, willing her body to move.

Please. Please, Elene. Please.

Tatyana felt the guttural moan crawl up from her chest and out her throat.

No, no, no, no.

Zara glanced at Tatyana, then at the man shouting from the shadows.

She wiped her hand along her mouth, tasting Elene’s blood as she stretched her jaw and bared her fangs. “Well, she should have been a vampire.”

Tatyana’s entire body hurt from sobbing. Her eyes ached. Her head ached. Her stomach ached. She tried to throw up, but nothing came out. Her throat was parched and dry as she wept over Elene’s still figure in the low light of the cargo hold.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Zara knelt down in front of Tatyana and lifted her head. “Your turn. You’re going to get my money back for me, or I’m going to beat you to death like I did your friend. It will be painful, and I will take my time. So start talking.”

Tatyana’s eyes watered, and her mouth split again when Zara slapped her. She was lying on her side and tried to hunch over to protect her belly when Zara kicked her. She felt something tear her skin as the heavy platform heel landed.

Something broke inside her, and there was a gush of warmth in her belly.

No. This couldn’t be all. This couldn’t be the end of her life.

It wasn’t fair.

Her vision became blotted and spotty as lights flashed in the periphery.

She didn’t want to die yet.

Tatyana heard Zara muttering under her breath.

“Shit.”

A sickening numbness pulled at her mind and Tatyana’s eyes flickered shut.