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“W—” Tahji went to say something when a loud thud in the hallway caught our attention. Immediately, the three of us went to see what the noise was. Once we made it to the hallway, we saw a vampire dressed in a Division Force uniform scrambling to get down the hallway. I was on his ass in a flash, literally. Before he could make it to the top of the steps, I had him hemmed up by his shirt. I held him against the wall.

“Please don’t kill me,” he begged, with his bulging red eyes bouncing all over the place.

He was a Blood Rock addict. His red eyes were a dead giveaway. One of the side effects of Blood Rock was that the more you used it, the redder your eyes turned. The Impact Force had a strict no-drug policy. Getting into the Division Force was even harder, so there was no way this vampire was really a part of either branch.

“How the fuck did you get into my house?” I gritted out as my rage-filled eyes locked onto him.

“Ssshe told me if I broke in here and attacked the vampire who lived here, I’d get a lifetime supply of Blood Rock. Bbbut I didn’t know it was your house. I would never try to harm you, Kenji.” The tweaker cried with a face full of tears, stumbling all over his words.

“Who is she?”

“Iii don’t know. I never seen her before,” he muttered. “Don’t kill me. Kenji, I swear if I’d known it was your house, I would have never come here.”

I believed him to a degree. Blood Rock had a way of making a vampire lose their senses. All they cared about was getting their next high. Even still, that didn’t justify him trying to kill another vampire, even if it wasn’t me. This was the reason I didn’t fool with Blood Rocks; they caused more problems than they solved. A lot of violence in the vampire world came from Blood Rock addicts. They’d sell their soulmate if it meant getting another fix. Unfortunately for him, I didn’t care about his addiction. It was his choice to get on that shit. The more I looked at his scab-filled face and fidgety eyes, the more I was doubting his words. Every being in Idyll knew who lived on this compound. He might not have known this was my house per se, but he had to know a leader lived here. His bitch ass probably thought he could sneak in and catch whoever lived here off guard and kill them. When he saw Benji, Tahji, and me, he got scared.

“Give me a good reason to spare your life,” I calmly replied, even though my anger was coursing through me, ready to explode at any given moment.

“Uh, umm, ah, the lady. Someone called her. Umm, he said something about a house in River Side. He was taking a girl. He, umm, Quin, I think is what he called someone. I promise I didn’t know. I just… It’s been weeks since I had anything. I was desperate,” he said, sounding pathetic.

“We can get to River Side in fifteen minutes. Then you should be close enough to detect Quinny,” Tahji said.

“Yeah,” I agreed, stepping back and letting go of the shirt, allowing the tweaker to fall to the ground.

“Eh, um, they also mentioned Sutton, but the lady walked away as she mentioned her name.”

“The fuck?” Benji grumbled. “See, hell nah. I gotta go check on Sutton,” he urgently said.

“We finna go.” Things were starting to look a lot bigger than I’d thought. Whoever was plotting on Quinny and me was also going after Benji and Sutton.

For real, I was lost at what could be going on. I’d known about Quinny for a few months, so how the fuck did anybody else find out about her or Sutton before me? Dante had been around Quinny for at least two years, which meant whoever it was had been plotting for a long-ass time. Now finding out Sutton was involved in the plot meant some deep shit was going on right up under our noses.

“It’s some weird shit going on,” Tahji said with a skeptical expression.

I didn’t know what these mutha fuckas were up to, but I swore if anything happened to Quinny before I got to her, there would be hell to pay. From the first time I laid eyes on Quinny, I knew how much she meant to me, but standing here faced with the reality of her being in danger made me see how deeply I really loved her. It didn’t matter that we’d only been around each other for a few days. Quinny was my everything. I loved her with all my being. Not a little bit. No, I loved her like I’d known her my entire life. I’d be damned if anyone thought they were going to get away with taking her from me. Mutha fuckas were finna pay with their lives.

“Ca-can I go?” The tweaker nervously looked up at me.

“Sure can.” I smirked. Then, in a flash, I reached down, ripping his head from his body with little effort. I tossed his head in his lap, then turned towards my brothers. “Let’s go.”

“Y’all go head to River Side, and I’ll catch up with y’all,” Benji said.

“Nah, we can go with you to check on Sutton, then go to River Side,” I replied.

Quinny would lose her shit if I let anything happen to Sutton. Making sure Sutton was safe was just as much of a priority as getting Quinny back. Besides, there was a way to get to River Side from the direction of Benji’s extra house on the lake. Until we knew who or what we were going against, I didn’t want to chance anything happening to Benji or Tahji. For all we knew, they could have been trying to set a trap for one of us. We were better off sticking together.

Chapter 22

Kenji Touré

The longer I was away from Quinny, the closer I became to losing my shit. The fact that Dante was working with sirens and no telling who fucking else didn’t help. I couldn’t understand what Dante had to gain by trying to fuck with Quinny or Sutton. Benji hadn’t said a word since we headed over to his ranch house that he kept on the edge of our land. I could feel Benji’s nervous energy. He hadn’t completed the Blood Mating Bond with Sutton, and he had no way to check on her to make sure she was okay. Benji was so tense he hadn’t blinked since we left my house. We were going to flash over to where Sutton was, but we’d been flashing a lot tonight, so we decided to save our energy for going to find Quinny. Sutton wasn’t as far as Quinny, maybe ten minutes in a car or less. It made more sense for us to drive to Sutton, then flash to the River Side area to find Quinny. Benji’s silence was saying everything his mouth wouldn’t. His guilt, for whatever reason, was eating him alive. Regret and sorrow lined his eyes. On the short drive over here, I noticed Benji’s fists clenching tightly as if he was trying to control his emotions.

Tahji leaned forward. He was sitting in the middle of the backseat. He looked at Benji. “Don’t you have a house phone or something you can call her on?”

Benji turned his head, looking out the window. He blew out a breath of annoyance. “Nah,” he bitterly replied, pausing as he turned back in our direction. His shoulders dropped in defeat. “I took it.”

“For what?” I asked, slightly confused.

“I fucked up. I didn’t want her talking to Quinny,” he replied in a distant voice.