“Well,” Rudy said sharply. “I guess the outing wasn’t a total loss after all.”
A slow smile crept across his face, bringing with it a cold dread that lodged itself right in her belly.
“How do you figure?” she asked. “The place was a dead end. I searched the whole thing.”
“Sometimes, what looks like a dead end is actually a well-hidden doorway to something much more prosperous.”
He reached over and patted her thigh, holding her gaze another beat before leaning back against the headrest and closing his eyes.
The conversation was over.
Charley didn’t need to ask what he’d meant.
The doorway to prosperity was Dorian Redthorne.
And the powerful, sexy, panty-melting gazillionaire who’d given her the most intense orgasms of her life, bought her a jumbo hot dog, and set her whole world on fire had no idea what kind of trouble he’d just invited in for tea.
Chapter Thirteen
In Dorian’s mind, there ought to have been a sacredness to the tables around which families gathered to share their meals. He’d never understood how people could so readily dine in the same spaces where they’d played out all their domestic tragedies—news of deaths and divorces, neighborhood gossip, a call from the doctor about an abnormal test result. Arguments about money and religion and sex—too much, not enough. Punishments meted out to errant children—extra chores, a grounding, a beating. Threats.
For Dorian, the blackest, most brutal night of his life had unfolded in the dining room at the manor in West Sussex over an otherwise perfectly pleasant meal of roasted quail. Though the battered remains of the Redthorne family had later emigrated to New York for a fresh start, his father had painstakingly recreated their original family home here in Annandale-on-Hudson, right down to the embossed ceilings and cherry wood wainscoting. And while his brothers had scattered across the country and his father traveled the world in service to his own crown, hardly ever stepping foot in the manor he’d erected, Dorian had made Ravenswood his home, ensuring it was updated as modern advances allowed—plumbing, electricity, everything he needed to live in total comfort.
There were only two areas he avoided—his father’s private quarters, and the dining room.
The few times he’d caught sight of it through the ornately carved pocket doors, all he saw was the blood splatter. All he heard were the screams.
So tonight, while his three brothers shared a late meal at the massive oak dining table, the king himself remained sequestered in his study before a roaring fire, nursing a glass of scotch in one hand, a scrap of black lace in the other, wondering if there was enough alcohol or pussy in the world to dull the sharp blade of the past.
He sipped his scotch, then pressed the lace to his mouth and closed his eyes, chasing much more pleasant memories.
Ah, Charlotte. I never should’ve let you go…
A knock on the study door tore him from his thoughts, and he tucked the panties back into his pocket, calling for the intruder to enter.
Intruders, he realized. All three of them glided into the room, the sight of his brothers standing side by side for the first time in five decades twisting the blade a little deeper.
The twins were missing, of course—dead at sixteen years old.
Murdered at sixteen years old.
They hadn’t survived the change.
Emotion welled in the back of his throat. He tipped back his glass, drowning it.
Then, leveling his brothers with a gaze as neutral as he could manage, he said evenly, “Welcome to Ravenswood, brothers. You’re all looking… well.”
It was true, Dorian realized, cataloging each in turn.
Malcolm, golden-eyed and tanned from his time in New Orleans. Turned at thirty-two, he was three years younger than Dorian, but had always acted as if he were the only adult in the room. Now, he carried himself like a man far beyond his years.
Colin, next in line at thirty, with dark, shoulder-length hair and a dimpled smile that had solved more family conflicts than Dorian could count, effortlessly melting their mother’s heart and sparing him the brunt of Father’s ill temper. He’d inherited the man’s interest in medicine, and last Dorian knew, he’d been working as a doctor in a small town in the Rocky Mountains.
Lastly, Gabriel. Turned at twenty-eight, the youngest remaining Redthorne had always been their ticking time bomb. He was a rebellious child and an angry adolescent, his untamable wildness only intensifying with the change. He’d built his empire in Sin City, earning a terrifying reputation Dorian preferred not to think about.
Now, his baby brother looked upon him with eyes as cold and calculating as their father’s. It chilled Dorian to the marrow.
“Witches aren’t hard to come by in New Orleans,” Malcolm said, breaking the tense silence. He placed another log on the fire, the flames popping. “I’d assumed that was the case here as well, but it seems you’ve let yourself go a bit, brother.”
He’d meant it as a joke, but only Colin laughed.
Dorian’s very veins itched. “I’ve managed.”
“And Father?” Gabriel asked, his voice like a steel sword. “He managed as well?”
Ignoring the dig, Dorian raised his glass and grinned. “Until the very end.”
Without further encouragement, his brothers made themselves at home in the study, occupying the leather chairs around the fireplace, pouring another round of bourbon from the bottle Colin brought.
“To Father,” Colin said, raising his glass.
“May his eternal rest be as terrible as the torments he inflicted upon us,” Malcolm said.
Now that was something Dorian could drink to. He nodded and took another swig.
Gabriel remained silent, seething in the farthest chair, but he lifted his glass to his lips anyway.
None of them asked how Father had died, which was just as well. Dorian had started the rumor of a foreign demon attack—an old enemy come to repay an old slight—but that was simply to assuage the supernatural grapevine. He wasn’t prepared to discuss the true cause—not until he figured out how to prevent it from happening to the rest of them.
Not until he figured out how it’d even happened in the first place.
The warmth of the fire lulled them into silence, each lost in his own thoughts. It was a long while before anyone spoke again.
“Dorian,” Malcolm finally said, his tone careful, “we’ve all discussed this, and we’re in agreement. Perhaps I could’ve handled our earlier conversation with a bit more diplomacy, but I stand by my position. Given the circumstances, an alliance is our best option.” He sipped his bourbon, then shrugged. “House Duchanes is prepared to make an offer. I think we should take them up on it.”
“Yes,” Dorian said, keeping his anger on simmer. “I ran into your friend Renault at the auction tonight.”
“So he approached you, then.”
“Oh, he more than approached me. He made quite a show of assuring me you’d already agreed.” Dorian glared at him, waiting for him to deny it. Hoping, against the odds, that he would.
But Malcolm’s silence spoke volumes.
“Renault Duchanes?” Dorian slammed his glass on the end table. “You can’t possibly be serious, Mac.”