Nita raised her eyebrows. “Like the liquor?”

He smiled, but it seemed fake. “Exactly.”

He was lying. That definitely wasn’t his real name.

She brushed it aside. It wasn’t important.

“Why are you hunting Monica?” she asked.

“What’s she to you?” he asked, considering. “You have the same ability, so my guess is you’re her daughter. Though I never saw Monica as the motherly type. More as the eat-her-own-young type.”

If Nita had needed proof that the two of them knew each other, that would have sealed the deal. That was one of the most accurate descriptions of her mother she’d ever heard.

“How long have you known my mother?” Nita asked.

“Oh, a long, long time.” Andrej made a face. “She ages better than I do.”

“You don’t age.”

“My point exactly.”

Nita crossed her arms, something unhappy squiggling in her chest at the implications. “So why do you want her dead?”

Andrej stilled, so completely, perfectly, inhumanly still, it made the hairs crawl on Nita’s skin. Then he quietly hissed, “She murdered someone very important to me.”

That didn’t surprise Nita. At all. “Who?”

“My . . .” He considered. “We were never married, but it feels like a disservice to call her my girlfriend. We were together almost forty years.”

Nita raised her eyebrow. “Also a vampire?”

Given how many vampires had ended up on Nita’s dissection table over the years, it really was a miracle none of their friends had come for vengeance before now.

“No. Human.”

Nita blinked. “Why would my mother bother killing a human?”

Andrej hesitated, and then said carefully, “She was a very important human.”

Nita raised her eyebrows, waiting. She could feel something here, something that tugged on her memory. She’d wondered if Andrej had been the monster in the story Nita’s mother told, but she hadn’t been sure. But in that story, the monster was the killer. Her grief had seemed genuine, but who could tell with Nita’s mother?

Andrej seemed just as angry and grief-stricken. Which could also be an act. But they couldn’t both have killed the same person. Though she supposed they could both blame each other for her death?

“How did she die?” Nita asked.

Andrej looked away. “Trickery and lies.”

Nita rolled her eyes. “That is the vaguest answer I’ve ever heard.”

Andrej glared at her.

Nita shrugged. “I mean, if you don’t answer, I’ll just kill you. Cooperation buys you time.”

His jaw tightened like he was imagining ripping her throat out, and she suppressed a shiver. She was in control here. She was the one with the power. She wouldn’t be afraid.

Andrej tilted his head up so the light bounced off his clear eyes, and he said, “It’s a long story.”

“I have time.”