Dark Deception (Vampire Royals of New York, #1)

by Sarah Piper

Nikolai Chernikov, the most powerful, most ruthless demon in the city. One whose organization had been growing like a cancer, kept in check only by a mysterious, centuries-old agreement with a vampire who—as of this morning—was no more than a pile of dust and memory.

He didn’t feed on fresh humans for the same reason he didn’t fall in love—dalliances with both had made him weak and stupid. Mistakes he wouldn’t make again. Foul as it was, fresh demon blood offered the same nourishment as its human counterpart without the nasty side effects: arousal, euphoria, complete and utter obsession…

her late father had built the entire D’Amico empire, good ol’ Uncle Rudy never let her forget who was really in charge.

He wasn’t prepared to discuss the true cause—not until he figured out how to prevent it from happening to the rest of them. Not until he figured out how it’d even happened in the first place.

“And his daughter?” This, from Gabriel, who’d never trusted witches and always resented that vampires were so dependent upon them.

But five years ago—about a week after her father’s death—a young girl showed up unannounced at Charley’s building, shivering and hungry, eyes wild with the kind of desperate, bone-deep fear no fourteen-year-old should ever know.

Pissed that no one seemed to know what had truly happened to her father. Pissed that no one had bothered to find out.

It was her father’s inside guy, Rudy had always believed. A man none of them had ever met. Her dad had vouched for him, bringing him in at the last minute on a big job in the West Village. The mark was an extensive art collector, the cache valued at $70 million on the street.

A week after the heist, her dad finally turned up—murdered and left in an abandoned tire warehouse in Trenton. The art he’d boosted—along with the inside guy—had vanished.

Your brothers… you must find… genetic…

But it wasn’t his cruel gaze that pinned her in place. The sudden, unexpected flash of the blade in his hands paralyzed her, unlocking a flood of memories Charley had dammed up years ago. Where you off to, little girl? Not so tough when Daddy’s not around, are ya? Don’t struggle, D’Amico bitch…

“I’ve bloody well fallen in love with you, Charlotte D’Amico. Now come back to me so I can prove it to you.”