Oliver shook his head. “Ryder said two guards, and we already let you escape once today.”
Jayden, who had followed me from the kitchen, put one hand on his hip and gave his boyfriend the staredown. “Are you saying I’m not capable of protecting Charlie?”
Uh oh, that was a question Oliver was going to want to think long and hard about before answering. The enforcer clearly knew that; he was looking quite trapped, like he didn’t know what to say. Finally Kyle, attempting to save his friend, spoke gently: “Jayden, you’re not a trained—”
Jayden cut him off with a raised palm. Oliver groaned at the same time. He knew his man well enough now to know this was turning into a code red.
“Excuse me?” Jayden was all narrowed eyes, one hand in the air and the other on his hip. “Did you watch the culling? I’m a killing machine, bitch. I can take care of my best friend for an hour.”
I grinned. Oliver was trying to hide a smile as Kyle narrowed his eyes but I could see he respected Jayden. I decided it was time for me to step in again, reassert my own authority.
“Look, guys, I love ya, but I need time alone with my BAFF. I have a gun, Jayden has a nail file. We’ll be fine.”
Jayden gave a nod when I said nail file. “That’s right,” he said. “We get attacked, I will file a bitch.”
I grinned. With a shake of his head, Oliver took off his walkie-talkie and tucked it into Jayden’s belt. Bit of overkill considering I had my own. Sure, I on occasion left it places that weren’t on my person, but still … overkill.
“One hour,” Oliver commanded in a stern tone.
Jayden put his hand up in an army salute and Oliver rolled his eyes. Jayden and I left the apartment and made our way to the ground floor so we could go outside. It was the only place I didn’t feel like a member of the Hive. Plus, I knew for sure Jayden did not want to be overheard by any spying vamp asshats.
When we got to the creek, we both sat on a log. His expression was hard to read, but he was definitely having deep thoughts.
“Sooo … are you pregnant?” I said in a dead-serious voice.
Jayden lifted his perfectly-shaped eyebrows and gave me a devilish smile. “Girl, I wish.”
I laughed. “Seriously, what’s up?”
His face darkened. “If bad shit is happening but there’s nothing you can do about it, are you one of those people that wants to go about life not knowing and thinking everything is sunshine and rainbows or—”
I interrupted him—no thought required on that question at all. “Or. I’m the or. Tell me.”
He swallowed hard. “The feeding center has become a hub of gossip. I hear it all. Most of it probably isn’t even true.”
Okay, he was definitely priming this for a bad news drop.
“But…?”
“But…” He picked at his nails again, one of his few nervous tics. “So there are always these rumors flying around this place that the vampires give out high interest loans to humans in exchange for stuff. Until today I’d never known for sure, but there were these two vampires talking in the feeding room—”
I raised an eyebrow, which was admittedly much less groomed than my BAFF’s, and interrupted him: “So, I gather that mostly what you do for your job is spying.”
He pursed his lips. “No! Maybe. Whatever. Anyway, I overheard the vampires saying they finally got something on Senator McGreelie. Pictures his wife wouldn’t want to see.”
“Who is Senator McGreelie?”
Jayden rolled his eyes. “That’s not what’s important. Charlie, it’s all true. The vampires have blackmail files on all of the major politicians. Despite the fact that their numbers are greater, the human world is secretly ruled by the vampires.”
Holy shit. Unbridled rage swept through me. Enough was enough. This was not okay. I pulled out my all-access keycard. Jayden had more than piqued my interest, and now I had to know for sure. Because if this was true, it had cemented something inside of me which had been brewing since I found out I was the cure.
“Want to have some fun?” I asked.
He gave me his grin, the one which told me he was down for anything.
Chapter 6
Ten minutes later we were in a room full of filing cabinets. Jayden had told me plenty of times about this secret little room. Since he had to constantly log in blood donations and keep records of blood types and schedules of feeders, he knew the administrative side of the Hive. My fancy badge got us into the room and hopefully no one would pay attention to the security log, because while Jayden had a legitimate reason to come in here on occasion, I had none.
We were alone. The ten-foot-high rows of filing cabinets were menacing, casting shadows on the cement floors, making me paranoid. The room was small, maybe fifteen feet long and ten feet wide.