Page 11 of Blood Moon

At that moment, Delilah came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. “Are you okay? You left pretty suddenly.” She stopped talking as my fist went through the drywall.

“Oh, Myshka. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you there. I was getting you some clothes to wear,” my response sounded lame in my head, but I wasn’t sure what to say to her.

“Did the wall make you angry?” Her attempt at humor was not lost on me, but I didn’t respond. It irritated me that she chided me like a small child who had misbehaved. I handed her the clothes, then went into the kitchen to give her some privacy to get dressed. If I had stayed, I wouldn’t have been able to resist taking her again. I already knew that had been a colossal mistake, one I couldn’t let happen again.

It wouldn’t be easy to distance myself from her, but I had to try. I couldn’t let what had happened to Kat happen to anyone else.

I needed to talk to her and explain things, but I didn’t know how. I feared that I was already too attached. While I waited for her to get dressed, I poured myself a cup of blood from the fridge. I would think better if I could get the taste of her off my mind. I crinkled my nose at the smell of it, and grimaced at the taste. My fears were confirmed. Nothing would ever taste as good as she did. I would have to get used to it.

While I drank the bland sustenance my body required, I let my mind wander back to Kat. I’d managed to block out most of my memories since she left. That wasn’t exactly what had happened.

She was the love of my life. We’d met before either of us was turned. Our love story was a whirlwind. We were married within weeks of meeting. Her family had hated me at first, but eventually started to come around.

Her brother and I had become close friends. I considered Eli to be my own brother. Things were going so well for our family.

Then Strain Industries came into the picture. I knew they were led by vampires, but back then, vamps couldn’t be out in society the way we are now. Shawn Strain was the puppet master, and had humans doing his dirty work. He helped Eli to get away from his mother, who was a controlling bitch. Shawn even “adopted” Eli and let him change his name to become the heir to the company.

Then Shawn managed to convince Kat that she should come work for him. To be fair, he’s the reason I am what I am today. What should have been a simple secretarial job changed so quickly. Kat ended up being promoted to human relations, dealing with the interactions between humans and vampires within Strain’s company.

While she was working for him, there was an explosion at one of his buildings. There had been an anonymous tip called in, but the bomb squad couldn’t get there in time. My heart shattered.

There were no bodies recovered that day, but dozens had been killed. The explosive used burned hotter than anything the police had ever seen.

Kat had been declared dead a year after the explosion. I’d spent that year searching for any evidence that she was still alive. I refused to let them complete the paperwork that would admit she wasn’t coming back until I was sure. I died inside when I couldn’t find her. I finally had to admit she was dead. When the paperwork was finished, I sought out someone to help me rid myself of my humanity.

I built my corporation on the idea that someday Shawn Strain would pay. It was his fault that Kat had died. I’d come to blows with Eli when he defended his patriarch. I lost everything that day.

I made my fortune on stocks and trading, then branched out into other areas. Maxwell Incorporated owned banks, restaurants, bars, movie, television, and photography studios, and almost any other type of business a person could imagine. I had more money than I would ever need.

It was never enough, though. I wanted revenge. I wanted Strain to pay. I wanted to take his entire operation down. That’s why I bought Midnight. I knew it was where his blood supply came from, and that doubling the price would piss him off. What I didn’t expect was for Kat—I mean Delilah—to get caught in the middle of it.

Chapter 10

Delilah

I could tell that Viktor needed a minute alone, although I wasn’t sure what he was upset about. Maybe I misread his interest in me. There was no point in worrying about it now; what’s done was done. If it was a mistake, we would deal with it and move on.

Mama always told me that you can’t change the past, and you can’t let the past dictate the future. I wished she had been able to take her own advice, but I understood how hard life was after Daddy left. He had been the love of her life. When he disappeared one day without warning, she lost her mind.

Everything changed that day. She was convinced that someone had taken him. Her days were filled with conspiracy theories that consumed her sanity. From the time I was six until I turned fifteen, she was gone for weeks at a time, searching for him. After a while, she ran out of money and came home. Once she wore Uncle Vinny down again, he would give her money to leave.

Things changed when I was fifteen, though. My uncle didn’t know that I had heard about their arrangement. I was good at hiding back then. I knew that she had asked him for money again. Mom had been home for six weeks, which was a record. Uncle Vinny told her he wasn’t giving her any more money at all. She would have to work and save if she wanted to run off again.

That night I’d been bussing tables at Midnight while Mom tended the bar. She was mad at her brother for not giving her the money to run off after my dad, and yelled at him about having a fifteen-year-old bus tables in a bar.

They fought and he ended up offering her a rather large sum of money to sign her rights as my mother over to him. It didn’t seem strange to me that he’d already had the paperwork drawn up. I always suspected that he had planned it. He was protecting me from her.

I cried silently when she agreed and signed the paper without even reading it. My heart was broken at that moment and nothing would ever fix it. The pain of her betrayal was so much worse than Dad leaving. I shouldn’t have been surprised by her actions though.

After she came home that night and lied to me about not leaving anymore, I woke up to find her gone. My uncle took care of me like he always had, and neither of us mentioned that she didn’t come back this time. He had to know that I’d overheard their deal, but he never said it. He gave me a permanent job, put me through school, and was the best father figure he could be.

I let my thoughts wander as I paced the room, looking at the decorations Viktor had chosen. There were photos on the desk and the dresser of him with a woman. She was beautiful with long blond hair and blue eyes. I fought off a twinge of jealousy. How could I feel jealous of her without knowing who she was? Because she was standing so close to Viktor, of course.

“I will escort you to your apartment now, if you’d like,” he said when he came back into the room.

“Sure,” I replied as I picked up the photo. “I’m sorry for being nosey, but who’s this woman in these photos with you?”

His eyes glazed over for a second, and I thought I’d said something wrong. “That is Katarina, my wife.” He stepped over next to me and took the picture from my hands, carefully placing it back where it had been.