Page 103 of Taken

So the real question was, did Father believe it?

I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes, mind racing and circling like a hamster in a wheel.

What had made Tomas write that note? A stray rumor? Or something more, something I wouldn’t have heard because I’d been out of touch in Syria?

I took my hands from my face. I’d allowed myself an hour in Tomas’s office. Time to finish and get out.

I flipped the rest of the way through Gabriel’s folder and set it aside. I still had a few minutes of the allotted hour left, so I paged through Rafe’s. There were multiple references to Princess Zoe. Rafe thought no one knew about his short affair with Zoe two summers ago, but apparently, Tomas had known all along.

I set Rafe’s folder down and opened mine. It was thinner than my brothers’ folders, mainly a record of my travels—where I went and why. He’d even noted that I’d never boarded the flight to New York.

I closed the files and returned them to his cabinet. After unlocking his door, I went back to his desk, hit the button that restarted the cam and shot out the door, starting to fade into the shadows as I did so. I pulled the door shut behind me just before I lost contact with the physical world.

The hidden exit was concealed in the wine cellar. There was a cam in the hallway, but I knew my dad didn’t have a cam on the wine. If you were a syndicate vampire with access to headquarters, then you were welcome to help yourself.

I left the shadows, grabbed two bottles and escaped through the hidden door behind a large shelf of bottles. I returned to the shadows until I was out of sight of headquarters, then ducked into an alley and dropped back out.

Reaper was waiting beneath a tree near the Washington Square Arch. She’d glamoured her hair so it was purple, pulled it into two stubby pigtails and changed her features so she looked about sixteen. A sleeveless gray tee showed off her lean, sculpted arms.

“Hey.” She searched my face. “Find anything?”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you, but not here. And I got us some wine.” I showed her the bottles.

“Good. We can use it, that’s for sure. Here, give them to me.” She shrugged out of the backpack and took out her Ravens hoodie. She wrapped it around the bottles and stowed them at the bottom of the pack.

I reached for the pack. “I’ve got it.”

Ridley shook her head and settled the pack on her shoulders. “You think I don’t know you’re still fighting silver poisoning? I’m not a human, remember? Stop treating me like one.”

“And I’m not as weak as you think.”

She sighed and started walking. I fell in beside her.

“I know you’re better,” she said. “But I can carry a couple of bottles, okay?”

She was right. I was treating her like I would a human woman, when she was a supernatural like me.

“Fine, carry the damn bottles then. But the same goes for you. I’m not that guy you had to practically carry into the cemetery—I’m much better.”

“Agreed.” She gave me a sidelong glance from beneath her sunglasses. “So, what did you find out?”

I waited for a trio of twenty-something women in baggy shorts and cropped tops to pass us before answering. “We’re not far from the High Line. We can talk freely there—it’s sunny and open.”

“Sounds good.”

The High Line was an old elevated train line that had been repurposed as an urban park. Jogging up the stairs, we joined the stream of people walking the trail.

The Hudson River flowed by on our left, a broad silver ribbon under the late-afternoon sun. A cool breeze blew off the water, a welcome break from the summer heat. A sailboat darted like a dragonfly among the tugboats and barges, and an ocean liner glided downriver like a queen among her subjects.

We walked until we found a park bench set back from the path under some shade trees where we could sit and talk in relative privacy. From thirty feet below came the muted sounds of the city: the hum of traffic, a barking dog, children at a playground.

Ridley put her backpack on the bench between us. I got out a bottle of blood-wine, unscrewed the cap, and offered it to Ridley.

With a nod of thanks, she took a drink and handed the bottle back to me. I took a drink myself, then capped the bottle and put it on the ground at my feet.

“Okay, here’s what I found out.” I laid it out for her—that it had been Gabriel who staked Andre Redbone, the rumors about a possible coup against my father, Tomas’s note. The only rumor I didn’t share was the one about my father being blood mad. I refused to give SI any more ammunition against him.

“A coup.” Ridley’s mouth made a silent Wow. “That’s one serious motivation for wanting you and your brothers dead. Especially if he thinks you’re feeding intel to SI, too.”