To his credit, Trevisani had the grace to look embarrassed at his gaffe. Obviously, a vampire hadn’t killed the doorman. That didn’t mean a vampire hadn’t been behind it, however, and the good detective was both smart enough to know that and confident enough not to be cowed by his initial mistake.

“Granted,” he said, nodding. “But you own the top two floors of this building.”

“I do.”

“And my sources tell me there’s some big vampire meeting in the city this week.”

Well, that was interesting, Aden thought. The Vampire Council didn’t exactly maintain secrecy about their affairs. It would have been impossible given the sheer number of participants staying in town, not to mention the gala itself, which had drawn some attention. But the detective’s comment made Aden suspect that it went beyond idle curiosity, that perhaps the Chicago police had spies within vampire society in the city. He’d have to remember that when he became Lord of the Midwest.

“That’s true,” Aden said, agreeing without providing details.

Trevisani grunted. “I’m thinking maybe this attack had something to do with you personally.”

“It was not a vampire who did this,” Aden said confidently. “It clearly happened in full daylight—”

“Could be a hit team hired by a vamp,” Trevisani interrupted to say.

Aden smiled patiently. “As I was saying . . . vampires do not attack each other in daylight. It’s forbidden by custom, and the repercussions for any vampire who dared would be significant.”

“So who hates you enough to pay the price?”

Aden huffed a humorless laugh. “I have many enemies, Detective, but I do not believe this was aimed at me. There was no attempt to breach my security.”

“The elevator was open when we got here, and there’s blood inside.”

Aden didn’t say anything to that. There had been no question posed, and it was always better, when dealing with authorities of any kind, not to volunteer information. Besides, what could he say? That he didn’t need anyone to tell him there was blood, that he could smell it for himself? He doubted the detective would find that reassuring.

Trevisani waited, studying Aden’s face for any indication of guilt. Aden gazed back unflinchingly. He’d faced down far more dangerous opponents than this human detective.

“All right,” Trevisani conceded. “We’re just about done here.” He gestured at two men who were cloaking the body in a black body bag and zipping it up. “This building’s a co-op, isn’t it? You’ll want to hire a special team to clean this up. If you call the district, they can give you a referral.” He tucked away the small memo pad and pen he’d been using for notes. “In the meantime, I’ll need your contact information in case something comes up.”

Aden reached into his jacket pocket and handed over one of his business cards.

The detective read it carefully, then nodded his acceptance, not understanding that his thoughts were no longer his own, that Aden had been slowly, unobtrusively, working his way into the detective’s mind.

“I’ll send you a copy of my report in the morning,” Trevisani said. “I have to say, though, my gut’s telling me this was a hate crime. You’re just lucky they didn’t make it upstairs.”

Aden held back his smile. The detective had proven to be quite strong-willed, but Aden supposed that was to be expected given his line of work. The challenge, as always, had been taking over the man’s mind without him sensing the intrusion. He could have achieved the same result much more quickly, if he hadn’t cared about leaving the mind intact.

Normally, Aden would have relished the challenge of manipulating such a strong-willed human, but tonight it had taken all of his considerable self-control to hold back his impatience. He didn’t want to be here bandying words with a human police detective. He wanted to be out there hunting down whoever had been so brazen as to attack Aden’s lair in broad daylight, and so stupid that he’d left behind a body for the human authorities to find. It wasn’t only Aden who would come down on the instigator for this, the entire Vampire Council would crush him.

“We’ll talk, Detective Trevisani,” Aden said, then dismissed him from his mind as the human gathered up his remaining crew and hustled them out the door. Aden let his power fill the lobby, nudging the humans into doing what their hindbrains were already telling them. To get the hell out as quickly as possible.

“All right,” he said, watching as the last of the humans drove away. “Bastien, lock those doors until we can get a guard to man the lobby. Make it two guards, and be sure they’re suitably armed and armored. And call—”

He stopped as the elevator opened behind him, and the rest of his vampires flowed into the lobby, taking up positions around him until they formed a defensive square. Even knowing that Aden was far more powerful than all of them combined, they stood ready to defend him. The bond between a Sire and his children knew no reason, only instinct.

“Trav, is that clean-up crew on the way?”

“Yes, my lord. They should be here any minute.”

“What about the video?”

“One human did the shooting, the rest came in after. All of them were masked.”

“Damn. All right. Bastien, we need—” Aden’s attention was drawn to the front door where a wide-eyed vampire was tugging on the big brass handle and frowning when it wouldn’t open. He lifted his gaze to find Aden staring at him, and his eyes grew even wider.

“Do you recognize him?” Aden asked no one in particular.

Bastien stared at their visitor. “Goodwin something. One of Silas’s.”

“Goodwin Pierce,” Travis provided, blatantly placing himself between Aden and the front door. “Fairly low on Silas’s org chart and apparently, tonight, her messenger boy.”

“Or her sacrifice,” Kage growled. “Give the word, my lord, and we’ll send her a message of our own. It had to be Silas who took Sid. She already tried and failed once before.”

Aden tended to agree, but it wouldn’t help to kill the messenger. “Let him in.”

Freddy and Kage moved to flank the front door. Freddy glanced back briefly, then unlocked the door and pulled it open, immediately grabbing Goodwin and slamming him to his knees.

Aden studied the young vampire. And he was definitely young, no more than ten years turned, if that. Either Silas truly didn’t care whether he returned from this mission alive, or she’d chosen him precisely because he was so inoffensive that no one would bother killing him.

One thing was certain, the vamp hadn’t known what he was walking into. His nostrils were flaring at the smell of blood, his pupils so blown with fear that his eyes were almost completely black. He didn’t even seem aware that his fangs had emerged, an aggressive display that was almost a guaranteed death sentence in front of a powerful vampire like Aden.

Aden stepped out from behind Travis and Bastien. The night he needed to be protected from Goodwin was the night he’d stake himself.

“Who sent you?” he demanded.

Goodwin jerked, losing what little color he had as he stared up at Aden. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then seemed to realize his fangs were in the way. He retracted his fangs with a grimace of concentration and tried again. “The Lady Silas sent me, my lord,” he said earnestly. “She wanted me to give you this.”

He reached into his jacket and was immediately grabbed by Freddy, who immobilized him before he could produce whatever he’d been reaching for. Freddy, who was twice as big as Goodwin, kept him locked in a choke hold, while Kage carefully lifted the messenger’s jacket and extracted a rolled parchment.

“It’s a message, my lord,” Goodwin gasped out. “Nothing else.”

“Bring it here. And don’t kill him, Freddy,” he added, amused by the resignation on his vampire’s face, despite their grim situation. “Let’s see what Silas has to say for herself.”

Aden took the scroll from Kage and had to fight the urge to drop it in disgust. His lip curled, and he felt unclean the instant he touched it. He glanced up and found Kage watching him.

“What is that, my lord? I’ve never felt anything like it.”

“Human skin,” Aden growled, turning to glower at the unfortunate Goodwin who only squeaked his denial. Forcing himself to unroll the thing, Aden saw it was a formal challenge. Handwritten in the old way, using human blood and skin for the message.

“What the fuck is that bitch thinking?” he snarled. “She’s not old enough to have been around when we did this kind of crap.”

Goodwin remained silent in the face of Aden’s slur against his mistress’s character, proving he was smarter than his current predicament indicated.

“Silas is challenging me to a duel,” he explained to his vampires. “No surprise there,” he added, but then frowned. The challenge was straightforward enough, despite the archaic delivery. There was no mention of Sidonie, but then, the obvious play would be to spring Sidonie as a surprise weapon at an opportune time, inducing Aden to concede the challenge to save his lover’s life.

But that strategy would only succeed in leaving an unhappy Aden alive to challenge Silas another time. Something only a fool would do. And for all her failings, Silas was not that big a fool.

“Sire?” Bastien said quietly, clearly following the troubled direction of Aden’s thoughts.

“Something’s not adding up,” Aden said. “The Vampire Council will not forgive this display. Silas would know that. So, what does she gain by it?”

“You don’t think it was Silas,” Bastien intuited.

“I don’t know. Taking Sidonie is the kind of thing she would do, but this public mess… I don’t know.”

“But they’re clearly connected.”

“It would seem so,” Aden agreed.

“Could Silas be hoping you’ll forfeit the duel by going after Sidonie instead of meeting her tonight?”