Midnight Marked (Chicagoland Vampires, #12)(18)

She smiled at the camera, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. She had the same slightly vacant expression she’d worn the night I met her. I still wasn’t sure if she wasn’t interested in what was going on around her, or just didn’t understand it.

MOGUL BREAKS CEREMONIAL GROUND ON MONUMENTAL DEVELOPMENT, read this headline.

My father and I weren’t close, but I still felt a stab of anger at Reed’s self-righteous smile. He hadn’t worked for Towerline; he’d stolen it with violence and manipulation, just like the gangster he was.

I looked at Sorcha again and wondered what she and her gangster talked about at the end of the day. Did she meet him at the door of their mansion with a Manhattan in hand and ask about work? And was she oblivious of the crime that had paid for the luxury in which she lived, or did she just not care?

Frustration giving me a headache, I put the paper back on the tray. A small white card fluttered to the floor.

For a moment, I thought Margot had left a note with the tray to say good evening or make a snarky comment about the headline. I should have known better.

I crouched, picked it up, and went deathly still, the thick cardstock in my hand.

The note wasn’t from Margot or anyone else in the House. There was no name on the paper, but we’d seen the thick cardstock before, the familiar handwriting. It was from Adrien Reed.

I return to Chicago to find you in the news again, Caroline. An interesting tactic in our continuing game, but rest assured—I will have the victory.

I am curious—will he weep when he loses everything?

Will he weep when he loses you? I look forward to finding out.

Frustration boiled into anger, so fierce that my hand shook with it. That would have been Reed’s plan. He loved these notes, these intrusions, these reminders that he could get to us anywhere.

How had he gotten the card into the House?

I glanced at the tray. The paper. It was the only thing that wouldn’t have come directly from the House’s kitchen, and it probably would have been easy to convince the delivery person to slip the note inside. He couldn’t have been sure I’d see it before Ethan, but that hardly mattered. Directing the card to me, implicitly threatening me, was exactly the kind of thing that would get Ethan’s goat.

The shower shut off.

It was easy to see exactly what Adrien Reed had wanted to do—manipulate, irritate, inflame.

“Sentinel?”

Instinct had me crumpling the card into the palm of my hand.

Ethan stood in the doorway, one towel wrapped low around his lean hips, his muscles gleaming with water. “Are you all right? I felt”—he looked around the room, searching for a threat—“magic.”

Thinking fast, I picked up the rest of the paper while tossing the note into the trash can beneath the desk, slick as a Vegas illusionist.

My heart pounding at the deception, I showed him the headline and photographs. Ethan walked forward, took the paper from me, flipped it open. His eyes tracked our story, then the one on the Reeds.

“Reed’s put in a ‘community safety center’ in a building across the street from Towerline.”

“What?”

Ethan glanced at me. “Too irate to read the article?”

“Towerline belongs to my father.”

“You’ll get no argument from me, Sentinel.” His eyes scanned the story. “Reed has also rehabbed a building across the street from Towerline that will serve as the headquarters for the renovation activities. He’s also announced it’s home to an enterprise dedicated to bringing law enforcement and business interests together to reduce crime in Chicago.”

“Reduce crime, my ass,” I muttered. “That will give Reed access to every law enforcement plan in the city. It won’t help reduce crime; he’ll just be able to plan around it.”

“Perhaps,” Ethan said, refolding the paper. “But then again, he is meticulous in keeping those aspects of his life separate.”

Instead of putting the paper back on the tray, Ethan tossed it into the trash beside the note that had accompanied it. Which was fine by me.

“As to the article about Wrigley, supernaturals are fodder for the press. There’s little reporters love more than seeding dissent: Are supernaturals really your friends? Are you sure? Did you see what they did this time? They love to paint us with the same broad strokes.”

“We are nothing like the vampire who murdered Caleb Franklin,” I said with a huff. “He had no honor.”

“No, he didn’t,” Ethan said. “Because if he’d had an excuse for the murder, some reason for it beyond self-interest or greed, he needn’t have run from us.”

“Yeah. Although that doesn’t really make me feel better.”

“I know something that would make you feel much better,” he said, his tone all wickedness.

I poked him on the arm, which did make me feel a little better.

He grabbed his arm, doubled over in mock pain. “It seems your arm is in working order.”

“Good enough to punch a vampire with a bad attitude.”

He slapped my butt. “Get dressed, Sentinel. Let us show the Tribune, and our doubters, what vampires have to offer the world.”

? ? ?

Thinking the night might call for action, I skipped the Cadogan uniform and pulled on my leathers. The black motorcycle-style jacket and pants were segmented just enough that I could fight if necessary. I wore a pale blue tank beneath the jacket, and black high-heeled boots beneath the pants. I added my Cadogan necklace, an inscribed silver teardrop, then pulled my long, dark hair into a high pony, straightening the bangs that fell across my forehead.