Page 100 of Bought for Blood

“Say it.”

“A man went into that building ahead of the teams. He had an invitation, and he was supposed to be out by midnight.” Viktor stops. “He didn’t come out. We got inside at dawn and didn’t find anything. No sign of him, no sign of anyone else. We’ve had people in there all day.”

“Bastien,” I say.

“Yes. I’m afraid we didn’t get to him in time.”

“He isn’t dead.”

“We don’t know what he is.” Viktor holds my eyes. “I won’t tell you he’s alive, and I won’t tell you he isn’t. We have no body. We have no vehicle. The transmitter he was carrying stopped sending at ten past one.”

Ten past one.

The clock two floors down, striking. The feeling arriving a few minutes later, out of nowhere, from outside me.

I know exactly when they took him. I was awake for it.

“There’s more,” I say. “You’re all standing there like there’s more.”

The woman with the braid comes down the table and sits on the edge of it near me.

“Vanya Arrowvane. I’ve been hunting for you since the day your sister came off that mountain. I want you to know that people were coming for you.”

“Thank you. Say the rest.”

“He came to us through the Nocturne Court in the fall,” Vanya says. “He was given a job. Get inside the blood trade, find out who runs it, and hand the Court a name so they could shut the whole thing down. He was working with us. That compound was only on our map because he drove to it every week and drew it.”

I sit there.

“He bought me,” I say.

“Yes.” She glances over to where Crowe is standing with his back to the wall. “Yes, we know that now.”

“He paid a fortune for me. He locked me in a house.”

“He did.” Vanya looks back at me. “And a week ago he sat in this room and gave us the location of that compound. He was the only person who could walk through those front doors. He knew how thin his cover was getting. He was advised not to go, and he went.”

Grace’s hand is still in mine.

He reserved me so nobody else could touch me. Then he bought me outright. I called it ownership, and I was right, but I had no idea what it was for.

You were shutting it down. The whole time. And you let me think you were a rich addict who liked how I tasted.

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

Nobody answers.

“Why?” I repeat.

“Because if you’d known, and they’d ever taken you back,” Vanya says, “they’d have had it out of you inside a day.”

Viktor is standing. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what he was to you. I’ve been told enough to guess.”

Everyone in this room is wearing the same face.

I know that face. I watched it on the ward every time a cell went quiet. It’s the face people wear when they’ve already decided, and they’re waiting to see how you take it.

They think he’s dead.