Keeping Secret: Secret McQueen, Book 4 by Sierra Dean Page A

allowed to carry a weapon, so no one would question the SIG. It was registered and everything.
    In the end, it would be a pain in the ass of paperwork and press, but none of us were going to get in trouble. I’d have liked to bypass the whole thing and call my wardens in to adjust everyone’s memory and make the whole situation disappear, but the shop manager had hidden in the office and called the cops the second the first shot was fired.
    Smart woman, but her quick action meant the police showed up well before I could set a cover-up into motion.
    Tyler patted Cedes on the shoulder, and she smiled at him. They’d recently partnered up at the precinct, which was an obvious step for their careers given how often they ended up working on bizarre cases together. At least if they were united, they didn’t have to pretend the paranormal shit wasn’t real. Both of them were under my protection, belonging to me by vampire law. I didn’t like being responsible for the safety of so many people, but I hadn’t been willing to wipe their memories after a winter bloodbath a thousand times worse than this one.
    People had died, people they knew and cared about, and I couldn’t bring myself to brainwash their experience into nonexistence. Which meant, according to council law, they were my problem now.
    The driver’s door opened and Tyler got in, handing me a blue-and-white Greek-stylized paper cup full of lukewarm coffee. It even smelled bitter. I accepted it, cupping it in my cold hands, and stared at the scene on the street with detachment.
    “You sure know how to find trouble,” he said, arching a thick black eyebrow at me.
    “You’re not the first person to tell me so, Detective.”
    “Is this mess…” he pointed to the officers milling around on the sidewalk and the dozens of curious looky-loos, “…vampire related?” The way he said vampire almost made me chuckle. He’d known the truth for about two months and was still having trouble saying the word like it related to something real.
    “No.”
    “You’re sure? Mercedes said the guy was an assassin gunning for you.”
    I nodded. “He was. That’s not the vampire M.O.”
    “No?”
    “No. If the vampires wanted me dead, I would just vanish. You’d never know. If they were really cool about it, you might not remember ever knowing me.”
    Tyler looked away from the unfolding drama. “They can do that?”
    “We can do a lot of things.” I smiled sadly into my lukewarm coffee and took a sip of the dark, bitter liquid. “You don’t really want to know about this, Tyler.”
    “I do.”
    “Not now.”
    He frowned, wringing his hands on the steering wheel. “You’ve done your damnedest to give us the bare minimum, Secret, and I can only let it slide for so long. I see a guy get dismembered by something impervious to bullets, and then you make me say nothing when you let vampires set fire to the station.”
    “I know.” I met his eyes, and our gazes held for a long moment. I’d lied to Tyler in the past—I was finished with that now. “I need you to be patient.”
    “I have been patient.”
    “More patient. Saintly patient.”
    Tyler sighed and snatched the coffee out of my hand, taking a deep swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing. There was something refreshingly masculine about Tyler, like an old noir cop. I liked being around him now that he didn’t spend his time growling at me and thinking I was up to no good.
    Now he knew I was up to no good, and he could like me again.
    He handed the coffee back, and I accepted it, sipping from what was left.
    “Everything I tell you gets me in trouble,” I told him. “Humans aren’t supposed to know. That’s the first and most important rule.”
    “The first rule of Vamp Club is you don’t talk about Vamp Club?”
    I howled with laughter, almost spewing coffee back into the cup. It was the first time I’d laughed in a while, and it felt good. Freeing.
    “Something like that.”
    “But you’ll give me