~Markus~
I tucked a strand of her maroon hair behind her ear, then draw a curly line following her facial features, and took her chin with my cold fingers, which warmed up from her in a tiny second. I put my thumb on her plump pink lips and stroked them while looking into the depth of her blue eyes. Aurora was looking at me in silence, probably gathering thoughts deep in her head and trying to catch what happened to her. I was trying to do the same, but my mind was blank at this point, as if someone wiped up all the thoughts unintentionally.
"Go take some rest, baby girl," I touched her lips with mine for a moment, feeling how she's melting under my touch. I pressed her tightly to myself, slightly believing the reason was only her being hungry, and I definitely can't let her fall down. I turned my head in the direction of the girls who were sitting with their hands and legs tied on the floor, then at the girl in a red mini dress standing near them. Then, I cleared my throat, "Mallory, go help Aurora catch up some fresh air. And don't forget guards."
"Sure thing, Markus," she appeared near us in a second, took Aurora by her waist, and they went out of the room. I put my hands in my pockets and turned around to the girls seating on the floor.
"I have an agreement for you. If you help us to catch all the police rats, we let you all live," I moved my eyes from them to Kristof, who finally took his back out of the wall and got closer. He looked at me with bewilderment. He was about to open his lips and say something, when I interrupted him, "I know what I'm doing. Shall I take all responsibility for myself?"
He made an unnecessary gulp and shook his head negatively, then turned around and clicked his middle and index fingers to each other, when the doors opened and a few bodyguards of him came inside. I turned again to the girls.
"If you agree, we shall change the room and surroundings," I remained standing as if I was a stone, with my eyes fixed on them. The girl with the black hair nodded after all of them exchanged looks, and Kristof asked his bodyguards to untie the girls.
"Now what?" he asked me without the slightest emotion on his face, yet I knew he was slightly disappointed in the things going on around. However, I couldn't share his mood, as killing those girls would never bring us closer to the key to the mystery.
"Let us all share some comfortable room. Moreover, I think our little helpers are a bit hungry," I said before going outside to catch up with Aurora when someone made me stop by calling my name. I just turned my head to the side to see the same girl with black hair standing not far away from me with a look like she was pleasing me to do something, I couldn't guess what.
"Mr. Malone, can you please… If we help you, can you please find some… job for us?" she pleased me, looking at me from the down, as she was even smaller than Aurora. I turned back looking at all the other girls, then looked at her from up till down, but my voice and face remained cold. I knew I need to help them.
"We'll see," I left the room and went out slowly, hearing my steps echoing in the empty corridor. It was half dark, the only light was upstairs, in the main hall. When I got to the hall that was leading to the basement, and to the bloody bank itself, I headed straight to the sofa where I saw Aurora and my sister.
"Markus!" Aurora exclaimed and her face slightly blushed.
{She is always blushing when she looks at me, and her eyes express the deepest love she has for me, even when she doesn't notice.}
"Are you okay, baby girl?" I squatted down near her and took her hands in mine, warming them up. She was strangely cold, and I immediately took my jacket off and wrapped her in it, then squatted down near her again.
"I don't know what's going on," she said with her sad voice, wrapping herself in my jacket tighter. I suddenly remember the words my mother said about Aurora when we were talking with her in the library and looked at Mallory.
"Can you help Aurora to go see some doctor to check her?" I asked Mallory, but she didn't even have a chance to answer when Aurora protested.
"Markus, I'm not sick! I don't remember when I was sick last time! My…" I made her stop talking by kissing her lips lightly, then took her head in my hands.
"I know you're not. I want you to check your health. A lot of things changed in your life in that month, and maybe it's just a reaction of your organism, but I still want to be sure my baby girl is okay. Just a small checkup, fine?" I was looking straight into the depth of her blue eyes and holding her face in my hands, knowing that she can't resist me. Yes, I was manipulating her, but can you blame me?
"Okay," she murmured on my lips, then looked at those girls who were coming out of the basement. Her eyes suddenly turned sad, but she quickly looked at me. Seeing that I was looking at her all this time, made her blush.
"Don't worry," I chuckled, then rubbed her lips with my thumb, "You're the one who conquered my heart, and you don't have rivals."
She blushed harder, then pressed her face closer to my arm.
"I know. They are just looking so… miserable that I feel sorry for them."
"Oh, Aurora, what a kind person you are," Mallory suddenly said, intruding herself into our kingdom, "They were used to tricking you, but you feel sorry for them!"
"A girl of a kind heart," I kissed her lips then stood up and hide my hands in my pockets, "I promise to think about something to help both parties."
Aurora stood on her two slowly, then got closer and whispered on my lips, leaving a kiss.
"I love you."
"Love you too."
She disappeared with Mallory on the outside. I called a few of my guards and pointed at the vanishing black Mercedes behind the gates.
"Don't let even a squirrel pass near them."
I entered a large and comfortable room with four sofas making a large square in the center of the room. There was a coffee table in the center of the square and there were a lot of glasses with blood. My eyes caught six girls wrapped in some kind of bathrobe, drinking blood hungrily from those glasses that were on the table. There were two maids serving their glasses a second after they were empty. Kristof was standing near the window with his hands crossed on his back and looking at the gloomy weather outside. I sat on the sofa and looked at the girls, who immediately looked at me. For a few seconds, my cold onyx eyes were observing those girls in an attempt to think what kind of job to give them as a treat after they will help us with the other rats. I didn't have any doubts they will help us, because if they would betray us, they'll turn into the ash.
"Do you trust us?" the girl with the blond hair asked, looking at me from head to toes. I looked at them and then at the maid who came to clear the table.
"Tell one of my guards to come here," I said to her, then my eyes moved to the girl who was talking to me.
"I do, and you better not make me regret it."
Kristof sat near us after the rain started heavily bombing the windows. He doesn't like either rain or sun. He prefers gloomy, silent weather.
"So, before we can think where to put you, I mean as, for a job, you need to tell us about all the rats that were put from the police at our ranks." Kristof was always in a hurry to get the information, while I was more patient. The girls looked at him with cold faces, then turned their heads to me as if asking what can I do for them.
"I will talk with Aurora about what to do with all of you," I said on the contrary, then continued after a small pause, "As an ex-police officer and Mafia Underboss, she can think about something useful for you."
"Is it true that she's a dhampir?" asked one of the girls, who was silent before. I looked over at her with a calm and cold facial expression. The girl had long, slightly tangled red hair, and dark bloody eyes, and was wrapping herself in the bathrobe as if she was cold. She wasn't, but that was kind of a protective pose that helped me to catch she knows something, maybe even more than the others.
"She is," I said calmly, then looked at her trembling hands, "What are you afraid of?"
~Aurora~
It was cold inside a car, so I wrapped myself in his jacket tighter and pressed my head to the car window, closing my eyes. It was so hard to forget his pleasing onyx eyes when he was asking me to go check in the doctor if I'm okay, and I know why he asked. Every girl probably would understand me, after hearing what happened between me and Markus on that month, and not only because of that.
I tried to collect everything that happened to me recently in an attempt to catch the reason without the doctor, or to at least know what to tell him when he'll ask.
"Markus asked you to drive to the doctor we know. He's a qualified doctor, and a vampire on the contrary. So you can trust him even more than any other human doctor," Mallory suddenly said, driving a car, but I felt she wanted to say something else. It was easily to catch in the air she wanted something either to ask me, or to tell me, so I looked at her.
"Continue," I said to her, and she glanced at me with the back of her eyes to understand what I meant. Mallory cleared her throat and continued, while driving a car so some, probably private, clinic.
"Have you ever thought that you can be pregnant?"