For Love or Vengeance by Caridad Piñeiro Read Free Book Online Page B

with the law. Not the kind of place she had expected their über-responsible and seemingly by-the-book ADIC to frequent. The place was so much out of his league it made her wonder if he was working on another case there.
    She wasn’t tired and could use something to drive her thoughts away from the encounter with her partner, so she headed off in the direction of the club. According to the map, the Blood Bank was only several blocks away.
    She hurried, eager to wash off the stench of human emotions covering her. She shouldn’t have allowed Sanchez to goad her, or to make her feel her attraction for him. Or worse, to reveal things she had kept controlled for so long. Now they had oozed out and tainted her.
    A quick pleasure-filled fuck would be just the thing to cleanse herself of the troubling emotions, and of the unexpected need she felt for her too-compassionate and too-honorable partner.
    When she reached the Blood Bank, there was no line at the door and the bouncer barely lifted his head as she entered. Inside the club, darkness prevailed. Nearly every surface was painted black. The patrons were also dressed in black, and sported a variety of piercings and tattoos.
    She searched for what she knew would be the one spot of color in the room—her ADIC.
    She wasn’t disappointed. She easily spotted the khaki of his suit at the back of the club where he sat with a Goth-looking woman.
    Interesting .
    She headed in his direction, eager to learn his secrets.

Chapter Six
    The woman with the Assistant Director was at least a decade younger than Hernandez, which put her in her mid-twenties. She was dressed in a black cotton T-shirt under a black leather jacket. Her black hair fell in choppy layers against a roundish face with intense eyes the color of the Caribbean Sea.
    Pretty, but with a hardness about her that Helene recognized. It mirrored her own.
    The woman had known suffering, and a lot of it, despite her young age.
    As Helene approached, the young woman met Helene’s gaze dead-on, unafraid. And with good reason. Helene sensed the thrum of undead power pouring off the other woman’s body.
    A vampire .
    Or maybe not. The pulse of power was irregular. Either she wasn’t a full-blood vampire, or she had only been recently turned. Too much humanity remained for her to be one-hundred percent vamp.
    Seeing the distraction in his date, the ADIC slowly turned to look behind him, but not before cautiously slipping his hand beneath his jacket to rest on the grip of his weapon.
    When he realized who it was, a bright splotch of color erupted along his high, sculpted cheekbones and he withdrew his other hand from where it had been holding the young woman’s.
    “Special Agent Alexander,” he greeted. So he wasn’t undercover. “Is there an emergency?” He lifted a brow, striving for that annoyed-boss look. It failed miserably.
    Helene made a point of taking in his finger-rumpled hair and the partially unbuttoned shirt that spoke of a recent quick tryst. When he noticed her perusal, the stain of color deepened on his cheeks and he coughed. “Alexander? Is there something I can do for you?”
    She shouldn’t have been enjoying his embarrassment, but she found it refreshing that her dour and demanding boss seemed to be involved with one of the undead. She stuck out her hand to the young woman, and said, “Special Agent Helene Alexander.”
    Her ADIC’s date shot a puzzled look at him before finally grasping her hand. “Michaela Ramirez.”
    As she shook Michaela’s hand, there was no denying the existence of immortal power. But it was tainted by mortal weakness. Michaela must have sensed the difference in Helene, too. She pulled her hand back and rubbed it briskly, as if to ward off any lingering transfer of power, and narrowed her eyes.
    “So you’re with the FBI—” Michaela began.
    Hernandez cut her off. “And she’s leaving right now, unless there’s something work-related that can’t wait until the