Stupid, stupid Sidonie.

A sudden cheer drew her back inside as she saw her parents making their way to the front of the room where the DJ was set up. Her brothers were already there, and her dad was searching the room, looking for her. His face lit up in a smile when he found her, and Sid hurried to join them, knowing they’d hold everything waiting for her.

“A toast,” her older brother, Jamie, called out, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “To our dad on his—”

“Now, now,” her father shouted, stopping Jamie before he could say the number. “No need for that.”

“—birthday,” Jamie finished, laughing. “Happy day, Dad. We love you.”

The crowd cheered, and everybody drank. More toasts were shouted out from friends, and everybody drank some more . . . and so it went, until her parents slipped out of the room, disappearing into a back hallway, where their suitcases were all ready to go, with a town car idling in the driveway.

They didn’t linger after that. Quick kisses all around, admonitions to take care while they were off on a month-long European vacation, and they were gone. But the party was just getting started.

Sid told her brothers she wanted to change clothes and headed upstairs to the same room where she’d slept since grade school. Thankfully, her mother had updated the décor over the years. Sid didn’t want to think about sleeping under the picture of Eminem that had been taped to her ceiling in high school, although she supposed that was better than the Backstreet Boys poster she’d hidden on the back of her closet door.

She opened her laptop, then stood and changed clothes while it found her parents’ Wi-Fi and logged on. She hung her dress in the closet and pulled on the turtleneck sweater and well-worn jeans she’d worn for the drive up. Still barefoot, she settled in front of her laptop and brought up the train schedule back to Chicago. There was one more departure tonight—she checked the time—and she could just make it, if she hurried.

She yanked on socks and boots, then tapped out a quick e-mail to her brothers. She called a cab using her cell phone, then turned it off. Hopefully, her brothers would be too busy to pick up her e-mail before morning, but just in case, she didn’t want them nagging her about her abrupt departure. She’d done her duty; she’d come to the big party and mingled. But now she was going home, which had somehow become Chicago instead of this pretty suburb. She’d always told herself she’d return here when the story was finished, and maybe she’d really planned on doing that back when she first moved away. But not anymore. Her home was in Chicago, and so, unfortunately, was her heart.

There wasn’t anything to pack. Her party clothes could stay. All she really needed was her laptop, her purse, and her jacket.

Grabbing all three, she ran down the back stairs and made her getaway the same way her parents had. Half an hour later, she was racing through the train station. Half an hour after that, she was sitting on a train, heading for Chicago, and contemplating the dismal state of her love life.

She wasn’t happy with the way she’d ended things with Aden. It wasn’t like her to slink away. If he was an asshole, then she needed to tell him that. And if not, they could at least say a civil good-bye, nice having sex with you, have a good life.

“You heading to the city?”

Sid jerked in surprise. She’d been so caught up in planning for what she would do when she saw Aden next that she hadn’t realized someone had sat down across the aisle from her. She’d reserved a seat in business class and had found the car mostly empty when she’d arrived. She looked up and down the aisle and saw that that was still the case. There was one couple at the other end of the car, and then there was her new and unwanted friend.

“I am,” she said pleasantly, then immediately pulled out her book and pretended to read.

“Me, too. Had one of those family things tonight. Grandparents’ anniversary. Their fiftieth, so I had to be there.”

Sid barely glanced over and made a noncommittal noise, hoping he’d take the hint. No such luck.

“Morning after brunch tomorrow, too, but you know how it is. I didn’t want stay over,” Mister Chatty Cathy continued.

She smiled politely and kept reading.

“So . . . you from around here?”

She put her book down, letting him see a little bit of polite irritation. Maybe if she let him talk a minute or two, he’d get it out of his system.

“What do you do in the city?” she asked. Unwilling to give him any tidbit of information about herself, she switched the questions back on him.

“Commodities trader,” he said with a sly smile, clearly expecting her to be impressed.

“Must be interesting,” she said, thinking to herself that she had no interest in the subject at all.

“Definitely,” he enthused, and proceeded to tell her in mind-numbing detail about every pork belly and soybean he’d ever sold. She knew in principle what was involved in commodities, but this was far more than she’d ever cared to learn.

As he regaled her with the wonders of his job, she studied him. He wasn’t bad looking. Medium build, dark brown hair, medium height—although it was difficult to tell the latter with him sitting down. On another day in another year, she might have been interested. Maybe. But not tonight.

“I’m Vasco, by the way,” he said, offering his hand. “Richard Vasco.”

“Sidonie,” she said, not giving up her last name.

“Would you like a coffee, Sidonie? Or maybe something cold?” He stood as he offered, and she saw she’d been right about his height. He was a couple of inches over her own five foot seven and a half.

“No, thank you,” she said pleasantly.

He shot her a quick, “Be right back,” and moved down the aisle.

Once he was gone, Sid checked the time on her cell phone and realized she’d never turned it back on after leaving her parents’ house. Figuring she was well away from her brothers, who by now were either sound asleep or so drunk that they’d forgotten her, she turned the phone back on. Then she draped her jacket over herself like a blanket and pretended to fall asleep. It was cowardly, and she was deeply ashamed . . . okay, so she wasn’t ashamed at all. She simply wanted a quiet ride back to the city. Was that too much to ask?

She heard Vasco return, felt him standing in the aisle studying her, maybe trying to figure out if she was faking it or not. But Sid was made of sterner stuff. She kept her eyes closed and her breathing steady and eventually dozed off for real.

ADEN OPENED YET another file on his computer, this one a long windy financials report, when a simple one-page accounting would have done the job just as well. It made him long for another bloody fight to the death. He’d been at his desk for hours, but business didn’t stop just because the challenge was underway. Lucas was still his master for now. He knew Aden was in Chicago and why, but that didn’t mean they could ignore what was happening in Kansas City. Reports still came in and so did a thousand requests. Some vampires couldn’t make the simplest decision without seeking advice or permission. Aden knew these vampires were as necessary to the race as he was, but sometimes their timidity drove him to distraction. They were vampires, damn it. Why couldn’t they act like it?

He sighed, knowing the answer to his own question. If every vampire was as aggressive and driven as he was, they’d have wiped themselves out long ago.

He looked up when Bastien entered the office, hoping for a distraction. But one look at his lieutenant’s face, and he knew it wasn’t good news.

Aden did a quick mental check of his vampire children, and finding them all well and alive, he asked the question he wasn’t sure he wanted answered. “What is it?”

“Earl Hamilton called. They’ve lost Sidonie Reid.”

Aden grew very still. “Lost her? What does that mean?”

“She left the city this morning in the company of”—Bastien checked some scribbled notes—“William Englehart. We don’t know much about him yet, other than he’s a lawyer from her hometown. Hamilton’s guy said—”

“She left the city,” Aden repeated flatly.

Bastien studied Aden carefully. “Yes, my lord. Englehart picked her up this morning in his personal vehicle.”

Aden slapped his laptop closed, fighting against the urge to do something violent. Had Sidonie dared to continue seeing a human lover after being with Aden? Was she really that stupid?

“What else?”

“Hamilton’s man said they seemed friendly.” Bastien looked down, reading from his notes. “She had no luggage other than her computer and a garment bag, and they—” He broke off with an uneasy glance at Aden who was sitting perfectly still, his hands flat on the desk.

“Continue,” he said.

“They kissed when she got in the car.”

Aden’s jaw was so tight, he thought the bones would break. He was surprised at the intensity of his own reaction, but she was his. Maybe not forever. He didn’t do forever. But for as long as he wanted her, and he fucking did not share.

“What else?” he demanded.

“They drove to her parents’ home together, although it’s not clear whether Englehart stayed at the house with her, or went elsewhere. Reid didn’t leave the house the rest of the day. There was a party, starting late this afternoon and going into the evening. It looked like the party was winding down when Reid suddenly jumped in a cab and hit the train station. By the time our guy parked and got inside, she was gone.”

“So we don’t know where she is,” Aden observed coldly. “What about Englehart? Where’s he?”