Page 34 of Sold to the Dark Vampire Prince

“I can handle my father.”

Henri held his eyes. “Can she?”

Dante slapped the puck into the goal and skated in a wide circle towards them. “You get anything out of Cavalieri last night?”

Alex sighed, catching the puck on his stick when Dante’s bodyguard passed it his way. “Things didn’t exactly go according to plan.”

They skated in circles for several minutes, fighting for control of the ice. Henri checked him. Dante stole the puck, firing off another shot, only to have it blocked.

“They’re determined to force this marriage alliance through,” Alex continued in a low voice. He knew Henri could be trusted. Dante’s bodyguards, he felt less certain about. “Cavalieri wants his daughter to be the future queen and he’ll stop at nothing to make it happen.”

“The oligarchs already control the economy.”

“And now he wants to control the crown as well. They’ve got us up against a wall. Father can’t afford to have another alliance fall through, not after Sera chose to renounce her crown rather than marry the fae king.” Alex leaned on his stick. “Cavalieri refused to negotiate on worker’s rights. When I pressed him, he deflected, saying there would be time for all of that in the new year.”

“So, he cuts production in his pharmaceutical factories, wrecks the economy at Christmas when most families are already barely hanging on, and can’t afford food or heating oil, all to make sure his vapid daughter gets to wear a crown and a pretty dress?” Dante snorted. “And to think, I didn’t believe it was possible to dislike Lara Cavalieri more than I already did.”

“That’s pretty much it.”

“We’re running short on half the drugs we use on a daily basis in the hospital. It’s been like this for months.” Dante raked a hand through his dark, messy hair. “Now they’re cutting production further? This is going to cause rioting in the streets.”

His brother worked as a nurse in a hospital that treated both vampires and human patients. Every person that came through their doors was desperately, hopelessly sick. Dante had confided to Alex once that the drug shortages, combined with insurance refusing to cover all but the cheapest tests, meant that their hands were tied. They didn’t have the funding and didn’t have the medicines. Losing patients that could have been saved with resources that existed thirty years ago before the pandemics had fueled his brother’s anger and determination to stop their father—at any cost.

Alex glanced over to where Henri was keeping Dante’s bodyguard occupied. “How hard is it to obtain insulin?”

Dante raised an eyebrow in surprise. “It’s cheap to produce. It’s been around for hundreds of years. But Cavalieri Industries controls all the pharmaceutical factories in five sectors. They create artificial shortages in order to keep prices high. And before you ask, no, I don’t have any access to extra supplies. Is this for one of your clients at the legal center?”

“She’s got a ten-year-old sister who’s diabetic. The parents are both out of the picture. They’ve been trying to trade for insulin where they can, but it’s meant rationing her supply to make it stretch and going without when they can’t find any.”

“That’s bad.” Dante sounded exhausted. “Especially for a little kid.”

“Sera’s been treating her.”

“After Mom got sick, I wanted to do something that could make a difference. Now, it feels like every shift goes by, and the patients that come through our doors are no better off than if they were still standing outside in the street. We have the knowledge and resources to treat so many of these diseases, conditions that were eradicated or able to be effectively managed before the pandemics struck. With the drug shortages and inability to get health insurance to cover basic screenings, decades of advancement and innovation in medical science have been lost.”

“Your Highness?” Henri gestured to his phone. “You should check the media feeds.”

“What now?” Alex muttered, pulling out his phone.

Beside him, Dante swore.

“Someone at the auction house must have talked,” Henri continued. “They have a confidential source saying you fought off every other vampire in the room, trying to protect that girl.”

Dante raised an eyebrow. “You bid on one of the sanguines?”

“It wasn’t like that.” But as he scrolled through the tabloid photos someone had captured of him standing before Daniela, her head bowed as she clutched at the tatters of her torn dress, his eyes wild, he could see how bad it absolutely did look.

Even worse were the pictures someone had taken of the crates of food and gifts he’d ordered being unloaded outside her apartment building.

“Is there any way to contain this?” he began, just as Henri’s phone buzzed.

His bodyguard shook his head apologetically. “Your father requests your presence at once.”

“Great.” Because this day just kept getting better and better.

By the time he and Dante changed out of their gear and made their way up to their father’s office, the headache pulsing behind Alex’s eyes was threatening to make his vision blur.

“Shut the door,” Judas ordered as soon as they stepped inside.