I raised an eyebrow and leaned back. His scent was sharp, musky, and slightly tainted with the aroma of dampness—though that seemed to be coming from his clothes rather than his skin, suggesting his lair, at least in this area, was underground. It made me wonder if he or his men had had any altercations with the red cloaks.

“I want a fair exchange of information, or you get nothing.”

Radcliffe snorted. “Oh, so now you want a fair exchange—”

“If you want to stop Rinaldo from destroying any more of your gaming venues,” Jackson said, his voice hard, “it would be in your best interest to help rather than hinder us.”

Radcliffe’s gaze rose to his. “I’m here. Unless you prove you have something worthwhile, you’re getting nothing from me.” He paused. “And if you try, in any way, to burn me or my men, this entire building will come under attack. And from what I know about you, you wouldn’t sleep with the blood of innocents on your hands.”

No, because I already had enough on them. But I kept the thought inside and let flames flicker ever so briefly across my fingers. His expression tightened.

“You can try such an attack,” I said quietly, “but I really wouldn’t recommend it.”

Radcliffe studied me for several seconds, eyes narrowed. Judging me, and weighing his options. Eventually he said, “I can’t tell you much about Rinaldo. The man is a fucking ghost.”

“So you have no idea where his den is?”

“None at all.” Frustration touched Radcliffe’s voice. “If we did, we’d have already wiped him out.”

“Rinaldo has a dark witch working for him, so any direct attack on either him or his den is likely to be repelled by magic,” Jackson said. “The sindicati think he’s also using it to hide his location.”

Radcliffe raised an eyebrow. “And you believe this?”

“The witch certainly exists—we’ve met him.”

“If you’ve met him, why haven’t you used him to get to Rinaldo? Better yet, why is the bastard still alive?”

“Because he used magic to hide his form and shield himself from my flames,” I said. “Which is something you’ve apparently been looking into.”

“Is that any fucking surprise?” He snorted. “But the fact that Rinaldo holds the leash of a witch does, at least, explain why we cannot find him.”

“Which I find really odd,” I said. “Even if his location is being screened by magic, surely a den of vampires could not go unnoticed in a local community.”

“Trust me,” Radcliffe growled. “We would have been notified if there’d been the slightest rumor of a new den. As I said, we have eyes everywhere.”

“Meaning maybe he hasn’t got a den.” I glanced at Jackson. “Maybe he’s using hired vamps and De Luca’s get to do his dirty work.”

“The vamps that attacked us weren’t vamps for hire,” Radcliffe said. “Nor were they from Victoria.”

I glanced at him. “How do you know that?”