“Could have been,” Grayson conceded. “But two days later, Matteus’s black limo was spotted near the location where the latest victim disappeared, close to Bellamy’s patisserie. That eye-witness report falls within a ten-minute window of the disappearance.”
“Don’t tell me, the car disappeared too.”
“Yup. Exactly.”
Oliver clenched his fists. Vampires could move fast, they could shape-shift, but they couldn’t just disappear into thin air. And the cars they drove certainly couldn’t. There was some kind of freaky magick at play here.
“Too coincidental to ignore, right?” Oliver felt Grayson’s measured gaze on him. “We need your understanding of vampires, Oliver. Your contacts, your history of solving dark crimes. No one will ever forget how you rid Motham of the grimaalds.”
“Yeah, well, thanks. But that’s ancient history.”
“It may have been before my time, but your role in banishing those demons is legendary.”
Oliver couldn’t help an internal flush of pride. Gods, there were few things he was proud of in his past, but eradicating grimaalds was one of them. Filthy poisonous demons, with scaly bodies and double sets of sharp fangs, grimaalds had plagued Motham in the early days of the city, lurking between the human and monster realms. Claiming blood—and lives. In his own dark years, Oliver had guzzled blood next to those lowlife creatures in the shadows of night, outwitting them with his charm to get to victims first.
In the process, he’d learned how to avoid their fangs and sharp claws. How to outsmart their bitter, twisted minds.
Which, when it came to ridding Motham of those vermin, had proven very useful.
When you were out to catch villains, it paid to have once been a villain.
But while the grimaalds were gone, there were still the Kominskys. And while they had no demon in their lineage, they might as well have.
As if reading his thoughts, Grayson said, “Imagine if you could finally put Matteus away. You’d potentially bring down the whole Kominsky drug trade.”
Oliver clenched and unclenched his fists on the arms of the chair. The Kominskys had operations smuggling drugs into Motham, which kept the feral species well supplied, and highly problematic to law-abiding citizens. They also dealt weaponry to bands of guerrilla ogres in the mountains. What he’d give to shut down the Kominsky operations and stop Matteus Kominsky once and for all.
“Ah, fuck,” he gritted out finally. “Tell Saul I’ll take leave from Selig. For three months. If I can’t solve it in that time, it’s over to you bastards.”
“Good decision.”
Oliver shook his head. “Why do I think I’ll live to regret this?”
“You’ve got eternity to indulge that feeling.” Grayson chuckled.
“Fuck you,” Oliver growled with a grin, and as the gargoyle rose to leave, he got up too. At the door, he took the big gray hand extended to him and shook it hard.
Their eyes locked in silent understanding.
After they’d said their farewells, Oliver walked back into his office and stared broodily at the phone on his desk. The phone that barely rang, because he wasn’t needed here. The neat little piles of case files, all solved and signed off on.
Adrenalin pumped through his veins at the thought of locking horns with his adversaries, the Kominsky clan. Not only was there the unsolved case of Matteus’s disappearance, there were also three centuries of bad blood between the Hale and Kominsky families. Truth was, for Oliver, there was so much more to this than solving a crime. There was his own personal vendetta to resolve.
No one in this generation of monsters would ever know about the dark period of Oliver’s existence. Except Waldo, the warlock, and he would keep his own counsel.
Oliver would take those memories to his grave if he could—but alas, dying was not an option.
And then there was anotherminorfucking problem.
Returning to Motham would bring him closer to Clare Doyle. Closer to temptation. Gods help him, he could almost scent her sweet blood carried on the wind. Tween was too close to Motham City.
But Grayson was right, he was shriveling up from boredom, and the thought of returning to Motham PD brought the fire back into his veins.
If he could get that bastard Kominsky, it had to be worth fighting his own demons.
Squaring his shoulders, Oliver strode out of the room.
To tell his boss he’d be taking a three-month transfer.
