Read Unforgiven (A Cyn and Raphael Novella Book 3) for Free Online Page B

even older than he was. Raphael didn’t want her to locate the vamp herself, though. He said it was because he didn’t think the old vampire would be wired into the system in any way that that would make him easy to find. Although, as far as Cyn was concerned, that made the job more attractive, not less, a challenge instead the same old thing.
    But that didn’t matter since the real reason Raphael didn’t want her doing it was because finding the vamp would have meant Cyn going out into the field, and Raphael wasn’t having any of that. Especially since the most likely place to find the old vampire was down in the wilds of Mexico, somewhere totally off the grid. Raphael didn’t even like her traveling to the territories of friends and allies like Lucas or Rajmund, much less to Mexico. That entire country was still very much controlled by Enrique, who was no friend to Raphael. Or anyone else that Cyn could tell.
    Since she couldn’t go herself, Cyn was left with nothing to do but screen private investigators who would and could take on the assignment for Raphael. His lawyers, Kimiko and Boyd Lorick, would handle the actual transaction part of the deal, although Raphael wasn’t requesting anonymity this time around. He wanted the P.I. to know who was hiring him or her in this case, since Raphael had suggested a woman would be better for the task he had in mind. Cyn had no problem with that. In fact, whenever possible, she preferred to use female P.I.’s. Sort of the female version of the old boy network. This time around, she was recommending a woman she’d worked with in the past, a bounty hunter named Lana Arnold. Not only was she proficient at tracking down criminals but she was also skilled at tracing missing persons.
    Cyn’s only job would be providing Kimiko and Boyd with Lana’s contact info. Pretty boring stuff. She scowled at her computer screen then looked up, transferring her scowl to Raphael who was unfortunately too engrossed in his own work to notice. She sighed and leaned back to stare at the black night beyond the windows. She didn’t want to jinx anything, so she kept the thought to herself, but she wouldn’t mind a little adventure for a change.
    “Sire.”
    Cyn twisted around as Juro strode through the open double doors to the hallway, his entire demeanor conveying urgency and purpose.
    “You’ll want to see this, my lord,” he continued, walking up to Raphael’s desk and holding out an iPad.
    Cyn winced and fought back a pang of guilt. Jinx. She knew it!
    Raphael glanced silently at the iPad Juro held out then hit a few keys on his keyboard, apparently bringing up whatever it was on his own computer.
    “Cyn,” he said, turning to give her a meaningful look.
    Cyn threw off the blanket covering her legs and hurried over to his desk, frowning when she saw that he’d pulled up video feed from one of the estate security cameras. It looked like one of the holding cells below the garage, except . . . Her eyes widened when she realized what she was looking at. This wasn’t any old cell, this was Alexandra’s cell. Alexandra was Raphael’s blood sister. She’d been taken and made vampire on the same night that he was, albeit by a different master. Raphael hadn’t known about her, had thought she was truly dead until more than 300 years later. Once he’d discovered the truth, he’d rescued Alexandra from her abusive master and pampered her like a princess for centuries, only to have her turn on him when he fell in love with Cyn. Apparently, Alexandra wanted to be the only woman in Raphael’s life, which was kind of sick, when you thought about it. She’d conspired to get rid of Cyn by turning her over to Jabril, an enemy vampire lord who’d planned to torture Raphael by raping and eventually killing his lover.
    Any other vampire would have been executed on the spot for betraying Raphael like that, but Alexandra was his baby sister and he loved her. So he hadn’t killed Alexandra.