“He was driven by the attraction—strengthened by it—and he used that to push past me. It’s been—what—nearly two decades?”
“I’d put Regan at twenty-three or twenty-four, so, yeah, about two decades. You’d have been so young.”
Seth chuckled. “When one is immortal, age is negotiable. But what does Annalissa Purdey have to do with the girl you’re seeking?”
I thought of the inscription on the photograph. “We think Annalissa Purdey is her mother.”
He went stone silent, as did everyone else in the room. I could feel the weight of their stares, the tension as they waited for someone to voice the obvious implication.
“Regan is . . . Annalissa’s daughter?” Seth asked. “But that means she’s . . . Jesus,” he said again, and I heard the shuffling of fabric. He was sitting down, I imagined, and deservedly so. I probably should have advised him to do that in the first place.
“Your daughter?” I asked. “Or Dominic’s?”
“I don’t—” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know. Yes? I mean, we shared the body, but he was the one who had the affair. Is she his daughter? Is she my niece? I don’t know. Does it even matter?”
“It matters if it helps us find her. And we need to find her, Seth.”
“I’m sorry—I don’t know how to help you do that.” Frustration was clear in his voice. “Can you find her mother? Trace her that way?”
“We’re looking,” I said. “We’ll let you know if we find anything.”
“I have—he had—a daughter.” This time, he sounded awed. “If you find her . . . ,” he said.
“We’ll let you know,” I promised him. “Thank you for calling, Seth. It means a lot to us. To me.”
“You may have given me a family,” he said. “That means a lot, too.”
We ended the call, and I rubbed my hands over my face. “I swear to God, the sups in this city could have their own reality show.”
“Sex happens,” Luc said. “With demons, too.”
“I guess.” I glanced at Jeff, who was squinting at his tablet, tongue peeking from the right side of his mouth.
“Annalissa Purdey is deceased,” he said, sending a photograph of an obituary to the screen. The story used the photograph, MOTHER still engraved at the bottom. They must have borrowed Regan’s picture.
Luc grabbed his phone. “I’ll ask the librarian to look into her background. Maybe something will help us locate Regan.”
I nodded, glanced at Jeff. “Tammy Morelli?”
“Tammy Morelli,” he said, swiping the screen, “is a con artist.” Another photograph replaced Annalissa’s, and the woman could hardly have been more different.
Tammy Morelli had a hard-bitten look. Her hair was permed, a curly halo around a face I didn’t immediately recognize. Her nose was a little bit thicker, her chin a little bit smaller. But her eyes were the same.
“That’s Diane Kowalcyzk,” I said. “Who was she?”
“A grifter,” Jeff said, tapping the tablet again and pulling up a series of newspaper articles. “Scam” figured prominently in most of the titles.
“It appears she had a fondness for art and insurance fraud,” Jeff said.
Luc whistled, stretched back in his chair, and kicked his feet on the table. “Now, that, my friends, is something I can work with.”
• • •
We had a wish list, and now we had information to bargain with. It was time to use it.
With Ethan out of pocket and Malik in charge of the House, Luc was designated as the official House negotiator. He coordinated with Andrew and left for the Daley Center with the hope of reaching a deal with the mayor.
However unethical that deal would be.
We didn’t bother going back to the Ops Room. Jeff brought his screen upstairs, and vampires filled the rest of the parlors on the first floor to wait for news. Malik sat beside me on a couch, reading through a contract, one leg crossed over the other.
Lindsey paced the hallway, afraid Luc would get wrapped up in the city’s political nonsense and he’d suffer Ethan’s fate.
One hour and thirteen minutes later, I received a message from Luc.
WE’RE ON OUR WAY HOME.
I closed my eyes and breathed.
• • •
Everyone was excited. But most were smart enough to stay indoors and out of the cold, which sat heavy across the city.
I sat on the front stoop, my hands tucked between my knees to keep them a hairsbreadth from frostbite.
A car door slammed, and my head popped up like an animal sensing her mate. Slowly, I rose from the step.
He strode through the gate as if in slow motion, golden hair streaked with blood, a fading purple bruise across his cheekbone. His jacket was off and fisted in his hand, and his eyes burned like fiery emeralds.
Sentinel, he silently said. You are a sight for sore eyes.
I ran like the hounds of hell were behind me, jumping into his arms and wrapping my arms and legs around him. Thank God, I said. Thank God. I said it to the universe, to him, for him.
He embraced me with bone-crushing strength, buried his head in my neck.
I fisted my hands in his hair, tears flowing over. Tears of relief, of love, of grief. Tears of gratitude that I’d been granted yet another chance with him.
He’d told me once he wasn’t certain how many of his lives he’d already given up, or how many he had yet to give. I didn’t know, either, and didn’t much care, as long as he still had one for me.
When clapping emerged from the front door, I dropped my legs and slid down his body, averting my eyes with embarrassment.
Ethan smiled, tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. “I believe they were applauding you, Sentinel.”
“You’re a liar,” I said, dropping my hot cheek to his shirt. “But I’m okay with that.”
Vampires came forward, embracing him, shaking his hand, and grinning with delight.
“It’s good to be home,” he told them. “And I don’t believe I’ll request those particular accommodations again.”
There were good-natured chuckles from the vampires.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to sit. It’s been a long night.”
While Malik and Luc helped him inside, and the rest of the vampires followed, I pulled out my phone.
Ethan was home and safe, even though he’d stepped into danger to protect others from violence he believed was his responsibility to bear. He’d trusted his instincts and the skill of the people he’d gathered around him. It was time to set him free, to let him fly and hope that he returned again.
I texted Lakshmi. HE’S FREE AND HOME. HE SHOULD CONTROL OUR DESTINIES.
To the casual observer, the message would have read like I was asking her to do me a favor. But really, it was a receipt. An acknowledgment that Lakshmi had been correct, that Ethan was the right man for the job.
The rest of it was up to fate.
• • •
He made his rounds through the House, greeting his vampires, checking with Malik. By the time he found his way upstairs, I was in pajamas, in front of the fire, and his bruises were nearly healed. He closed the apartment door, placed his suit jacket across the back of a desk chair.
“And here we are again, Sentinel.” He walked forward, nearly stumbling with exhaustion, and grabbed the chair to steady himself.
I jumped to my feet. “Let me help.”
“I don’t need help,” he quietly said, but he accepted the arm I put around his waist and let me guide him to the bed. He winced as he sat down, as if every part of his body was beaten and sore.