“I understand why you had to.”
I drew away. You do?
“Talking about death aloud can be difficult.” Fred continued, deflating my hope all over again. “Makes things more real somehow.”
“Right,” I replied softly, nodding to mask my crushing disappointment.
He held me at arm’s length. “Are you coming back to the estate after the burial?”
I’d run from the estate a month ago, and ironically there was no place I’d rather be right now. “I can’t come yet, Fred,” I answered. “It’s too painful.”
Not a total lie.
I wasn’t sure I could bear to see her suite—the place she died. I’d have to walk through the halls, the kitchen, and the lavender tiers where we’d shared so many beautiful memories that seemed so impersonal and cold now she wasn’t here to share more with me.
Really, my return to the estate depended on how Kyros intended to use my fortune when my guards reported back after the funeral. Maybe they were on the phone to him right now. While most of my regular crew hung around the perimeter of the botanical gardens on constant lookout for the Tonyi triplets, Laurel hadn’t budged when I’d requested she also linger out of earshot.
Fred’s eyes misted. “Of course, Miss Le Spyre. I hope to see you at the estate very soon.”
“In the meantime, could you please make sure everything is cared for?”
Fred swallowed hard, his voice hoarse when he said, “You don’t even need to ask.”
Throat constricting, I turned back to my grandmother’s coffin, feeling his grip on me fall away.
Her coffin was white with silver handles and covered in lavender. None of the trimmings changed that my last family member was now contained in a wooden box.
How can that be right?
I’d forced myself to look upon her embalmed body before the casket was sealed. She’d been a virtual stranger to me with her eyes closed. Whoever saw people with their eyes closed like that? It wasn’t a thought I’d had before that moment, but something that unsettled me greatly until I peeked under the silk blanket covering her legs and spotted her wrinkled hands.
Her hands, I knew.
My grandmother was in the casket.
She was dead.
I squeezed my eyes shut, the powerful scent of lavender invading my senses.
The remaining guests squeezed my shoulders, whispering their hollow goodbyes to a person they’d loved. Some joked, some cried, and some said nothing at all.
Yet there was no artifice during my grandmother’s farewell, and that felt like the first right thing to happen in a long time.
Agatha Le Spyre had deserved no less.
“Basil, the hearse is waiting.” Tommy’s soft voice drifted to me.
My forevermore love, Grandmother.
“I’m ready,” I said around the lump in my throat.
A leaden weight dragged me down as six of us slid her coffin into the funeral car, and as the few guests ambled away to find their chauffeurs, my heart began to pound. It took my palms slickening to identify the cause.
I’d learned to compartmentalise the natural fear Vissimo induced in humans after a month in Kyros Sky. My body reacted, but unless the vampire was unmuted, I could generally think and act through the fear.
“I can follow behind the hearse if you’d like to ride with your grandmother,” Laurel said from behind me.
I faced the Indebted, dread filling me despite knowing this route was inevitable.
She knew who I was—who I really was. Not Basilia Tetley, born and raised in Orange. Basilia Le Spyre, the new head of a hundred-and-fourteen-billion-dollar estate—at the last count.
“I know you can’t keep things from him.” I squared my shoulders. After swapping blood with Kyros three times, I wasn’t sure I could either. But Laurel was in debt, a slave, to pay off her father’s crimes, and Kyros was her master.
Laurel’s blue eyes burned brighter than usual, a rare lapse in control.
“I can keep this between us,” she stated, muting her gaze again.
My mouth dried. “That can’t be without consequences.”
Her lips pressed together.
Yep, called it.
“I appreciate your loyalty, Laurel,” I said, my eyes trailing toward the hearse. “I won’t risk adding to your burden. This is my shitshow, not yours.”
I stepped in the direction of the funeral car.
“Are you aware of what Kyros will do if he discovers who you really are, Miss Le Spyre? Are you aware of what it would mean for Ingenium?”
Hearing my real name on a Vissimo’s lips was… foreign. My heart hammered at the thought of standing before Kyros when he learned the truth. And yet part of me just didn’t care. My grandmother was dead.
I halted, my gaze darting where Tommy lingered just out of listening distance. She watched us with keen eyes.
“A fair idea,” I answered quietly. He’ll drain me until I’m dry—whether for my money, assets, or connections.
Maybe he’d literally drain me dry.
Hell, if I had a family and their lives were under threat, I’d use Kyros to help save them in a heartbeat. I understood why he’d fuck me over even if I hated him for it.
But perhaps I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss Laurel’s help. I was so far out of my depth, I didn’t know up from down.
She spoke again. “I’ll follow you to the cemetery so you can ride with your grandmother, Miss Tetley. And you can count on my discretion.”
2
My ears popped as the elevator shot down from Level 61 where I slept to Level 44 where I worked.
Live Right Realty was the human face of Kyros’s operations. He controlled the realty, rental, and leasing industry for Clan Sundulus in the game.
Once a human knew the secrets of this vampire tower, there was no going back. But I was still Miss Tetley, thanks to Laurel. That meant I wasn’t being taken advantage of because of who I was.
Yet.
It did present an entirely different set of problems that my grief-numbed mind didn’t want to work through.
For instance, when I’d agreed to the second blood exchange, it wasn’t in the knowledge that Kyros would then feel my location for the rest of my life. Anywhere in the world. Anger thrummed deep in my stomach as Kyros’s dishonesty hit me for the umpteenth time in the last week.
I couldn’t run. He’d always find me.
That meant that without good reason, I couldn’t return to the estate as Miss Tetley either.
Kyros lied and placed me in a cage I’d never be free of. With my grandmother’s death, I hadn’t processed just how much that had fucked my life. At all.
Ding!
I glared at the elevator as the doors slid open, smoothing my loose white tee, tucked into high-waisted, straight-leg trousers—also white. I really needed to get my own fucking clothes. Stat.
Head down, I beelined for my office.
“Miss Tetley?”
Nearly made it to the corner today. Dammit.
Angelica, Kyros’s matchmaking aunt, was about to request I take the day off. Again. She’d done it every day since my grandmother died. Each day I’d replied that I wanted to work.
The truth.
Stewing in grief alone in my hotel room here? No, thanks.