Chapter Eighty-two

“Just push the green button and say hello. I’ll be right there. Tell him not to hang up on you!” Bram could hear his mother screaming from the back ground.

“Hello?” His father sounded annoyed and confused.

“Vlad. I need to speak to Scarlet. I’ll wait.” Bram hissed into the phone.

“Fine. It’s that jackass of yours. You use these stupid electronic things too, huh?” Vlad asked in a dull voice.

“Of course I do. The dark ages are over, welcome to the twenty-second century.” Bram returned the tone. It felt surreal to be having a filler conversation with his father over the phone. When did his life go all topsy-turvy on him?

“Finally decided that you do need your mother’s help?” He asked, curiosity colored his voice, and Bram almost smiled. He was walking in the morning light, having only expected to get some coffee, milk, and food for everyone at the safe house and then returning. His mother, however, had left him a voicemail asking him to call her. She insisted that she had important information for him and to call her right away.

“Mother is insisting she has information for me. I was curious. Considering Izabella had to sleep on a damn dirty floor last night, I’m about willing to do anything I can to wrap this shit up as fast as fucking possible.” Bram sighed. “What is she doing that’s taking so long?”

“Trying to fix the transport you ruined. She’s quite perplex about what you did to it. She’s in the middle of a spell and won’t walk away.”

“Ah. I shut it down. She’ll have to scrub it and start over. Look, tell her to call me back then, I—”

“I turned Marius last night. And why the hell would scrub her transport? What if you do need her to come help you?” He was growling into the phone now. Heh, well, more words had passed between them here than in the last number of centuries, so it was bound to happen.

“Excuse me? You what?” Bram felt his anger boiling up.

“Woman! Come here now! Your mother will explain.” Bram flinched, pulling the phone from his ear as his father slam the other end down. “That jackass said you’ll have to scrub the transport. See, you should have let those assassins have their way with him. Fucking idiot. Even got himself mixed up with that stupid Corvino’s daughter. He deserves—” His father was still grumbling, and he could hear his mother shuffling in the background. He walked into the closest bakery he could find, stepping into the line.

“You’re going to regret that, Bram.” She actually sounded frustrated and tired.

“Why would you turn him?” He growled into the phone.

“Sweetheart, I need you to settle down and listen to me for a moment. Mihaela is pulling the wool over all our eyes.” She sighed, sounding even more tired. “I started questioning it when you showed up. I caught her being all chummy with him, and yes, I took him after she tried to claim him as her mate. But that boy was out and about and seemed to be sneaking around. I didn’t like it. Especially since all this started happening after I figured out you found your mate.” Bram listened as he stepped up to the counter, handing the woman behind it a piece of paper with his order on it. “Before that, I’d seen her with the guy a few times, but it had never been like I thought they were mates. Then she disappeared yesterday too. She was the one who told me that your friends were in a bad way. When you asked how I could know before you, it made me realize, that Mihaela shouldn’t have known before either of us. And let’s be honest, sweetheart, you were all over Izabella. I could see your adoration for her every time you looked at her. Mihaela didn’t have any of that with this guy.”

“Then what was the purpose?” Bram growled into the phone. The clerk behind the counter looked at him in surprise while filling a box full of donuts and croissants. She was a small little plump woman with large brown eyes and a mess of long curly hair pulled up into a net at the back of her neck.

“That’s why your father turned him last night. We wanted to know the same thing. I was going to torture him,” Bram groaned, “but your father worried that if they really were mates, she would feel his pain and distress, which I think is a bunch of bologna. But you know you can’t argue with him.”

“I used to agree with you. But we can. I felt it last night.”

“Really?” Scarlet sounded shocked. “I thought that was just a bunch of garbage your father used to spout to make sure no one tried to touch me.”

“Me too. But I felt it with Iz last night. I started feeling it after we had sex.” The little woman bustled around, taking orders and getting things together. A line had formed, and she was the only one here.

“I thought she was a virgin? When the heck did you have time? In that little apartment with all those kids? Was it while you were here?” There she went, getting excited again.

Bram chuckled, leaning against the glass cabinet. “The apartment has three stories, mother, and of course we didn’t do it with the kids in the room. What kind of pervert do you think I am?”

“I mean, your dad and I used to do it when you were little and slept in our room.” She giggled into the phone, and he heard his father roaring in the background. *Don’t say shit like that to him!*

“For fuck sake mother, I don’t need to hear that kind of shit.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Anyway, back to Marius. What did you learn?” A woman with her daughter at the counter gave him an evil look, pressing her hands over the little girl’s ears. “Oh, sorry.” He realized he was having this conversation in front of the whole bakery and everyone was staring at him.

“Well, that he’s not really her mate. Vlad said that she would have known instantly and would have come in hot. But she didn’t. He also dangled a fresh meal in front of the boy, who was willing to spill all the sugar for a his first tasty morsal. Apparently, after Mihaela learned you found your mate, she decided to try to use it against you. She wants you back. She’s plotting to help you so that she can frame someone else for killing Tyler and Izabella. She’s hoping that if she can do that, while proving us to be assholes that still want nothing more than the two of you to be together, you’ll come after us too. She was planning on losing her mate at the same time you lost yours, and wants to be able to console you, while you console her. She wants to swindle her way back into your good graces. She figures, once she’s able to do that, if you really want to keep the kids, you can. Then she’ll make a plan to turn the world upside down, remove the elders from their seats, and make sure that vampires become known throughout the world so that the two of you can rule it together.”

Bram stood frozen, staring across the room without seeing anything. That. Fucking. Bitch. Tyler wasn’t taken hostage. She was going to make sure that he died. Just like she was trying to ensure Gavin died. “Sorry for the wait, Sir. Your order is ready.” The little woman behind the counter blushed at him as he looked over at her, she took a step back, looking nervous.

“Sorry, for everything.” He opened his wallet, expecting to give her a decent tip, but found no cash there. He stared at it a moment before putting it back in his pocket and grabbing the drinks and food. “Shit. Shit! I have to get back to Iz. I’ll call you back.”