Romani Armada by Tracy Cooper-Posey

just as Brenden had. She didn’t have the courage to speak.
    Brenden leaned forward, sitting on the edge of the lounge chair. He already stood a head higher than most men, but with everyone relaxed back in their seats, it made it seem like he was leaning right over the coffee table. The table was a small, square thing, so while he towered over the table, he also loomed over her. “I don’t have to explain the mandatory reporting clauses in your contract, or the penalties that are attached to them, do I?” he asked softly.
    She felt her mouth drop open as she mentally raced through the sub clauses in her contract, trying to remember if any of them covered this situation. To her knowledge, none of them did.
    “You’re bluffing,” she told him. “And you’re trying to twist the intent and spirit of the contract against me. That’s unethical and unprofessional, Brenden, and not something I expected from you.”
    His face darkened. “Then you don’t know me very well, little girl. I will do whatever it takes to protect me and my kin, including bribery, extortion and, yes, murder, if it comes to that. I’ve done it before and it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. If you think any one of us in this room isn’t practiced at getting rid of bodies, think again—”
    “Okay, Brenden, I think Deonne has got the general idea,” Ryan interrupted.
    Brenden took a breath, staring at her, before swiveling his head to look at Ryan. “She may understand me, but does that mean she is going to give us her source?”
    Ryan looked at Deonne. “It would help Brenden plug up a big security breach if you did give us your source. Would you?”
    Deonne swallowed. She could hear her heartbeat thudding in her ears. It made thinking difficult. It made courage even harder to cling to. The knowledge that every person—every vampire —in this room could tear her limb from limb and not think twice about it sat in the forefront of her mind. She didn’t need Brenden’s reminder. The power and very different moral compass of these people had kept her on her toes and her adrenaline pumping for nearly a year now, as she tried to learn more and more about how they thought and would react under any given circumstances.
    Deonne gave a mental sigh of relief as she realized that was the key to her response. She looked Ryan in the eye. “You are asking me to break my professional ethics and the trust this source placed in me. If I do that, they will know. They will find out. Then I will never be trusted as a confidante again, and my use as a freelance communicator will essentially be over.”
    Ryan hesitating, glancing at Nayara in that way he had when the two of them seemed to commune via the wordless and very special telepathy they shared. It wasn’t true TP, but simply a deep understanding from being years in each other’s company.
    “You’re not seriously buying this?” Brenden asked, sounding angry.
    “She has a point,” Nayara said gently. “You can’t expect her to give up professional secrets just because you ask her for them, no matter how much you may desire the information. Deonne’s reputation is built on the knowledge that people can come to her and she won’t speak their secrets to the wrong people.”
    Deonne put her coffee glass down. “It works both ways,” she told Brenden. “There are a great many things I have learned moving amongst your kind that non-vampires would probably like to know, but they will never hear of them from me.”
    Brenden snorted. “Of course they won’t. Not with that prince of a contract we made you sign.”
    “The contract is irrelevant,” Deonne told him, with a small smile. “It puts less limits on me than I consider appropriate in the first place. Besides, if I were to rely only on that contract to cover me, what position would that place me in if my next client pressured me as you just did, Brenden? What if, say, they want to know the five richest women you’ve been sleeping with