Chapter 15: Mirror Mirror

"Fuck Roman Abramovich," Eric cursed under his breath.

The glass of blood in his hand had congealed due to his distractedness. Chelsea FC was in the quarterfinals against Arsenal and the score was a pathetic 0-0.

"I don't understand why you care so much," Godric sighed, rubbing his eyes.

He had been staring at his laptop screen in the dining room all night, working as he always did, while Eric was splayed on the couch in the sunken living room. Pam was upstairs doing her hair, and Willa was somewhere in the library doing Gods know what.

They didn't usually stay at Eric's place but ever since that New York Times article came out, the entire nest stayed here for security reasons. Eric knew Godric hated a change in routine, and that he liked the confines of his small New Orleans house but he lived way too close to the Bellefleur girls for comfort. Now that the media was looking at all of them with a magnifying glass, it was better to stay away.

Eric bought a mid-century home in the suburbs near the marina just outside of town a few years prior. He loved the architecture and privacy of this place the second he toured it. It had an attached four-car garage and a pool in the backyard, complete with a fully landscaped lot, with mature trees and a Japanese-inspired garden.

The house had four bedrooms and four bathrooms upstairs, split between the west and east wings. One was above the garage and mechanical room, and the other was on top of the kitchen, office and library. They had separate staircases, connecting to the main level of the home, a single large room with 16-foot ceilings. This was the main grand room, which was designed for comfort and maximum entertainment: a ten-person dining table, grand piano, integrated sound system, several lounging areas, a sunken conversation pit with an 85-inch TV and a large stone fireplace. This house was unlike most New Orleans homes. It was made by someone from a different place, who didn't fit it in. Who hid in plain sight but refused to change. Someone much like himself. He modernized slightly for aesthetics and comfort but kept the original character of the home. It wasn't lost on him that he replaced every single window, many of which were large floor-to-ceiling panes of glass, with UV-proof Bellefleur glass. In fact, every property they all owned had it. He never gave much thought to where it came from or who made it until very recently.

Now, it was all he could goddamn think about.

Needless to say, there were a lot of coke and orgy parties done in this house in its heyday. But now, other than food and his own blood kin, Eric didn't care much for visitors. Years of hosting at Fangtasia had dulled his willingness to have people over. Which was what made tonight extra tense: everyone was here.

Then, Arsenal scored. "FUCK!"

In a split of darkness, there was a loud crashing sound. The solid stone coffee table was flipped and tossed to the corner of the room, breaking a lamp, vase, and all the expensive decorative knick-knacks that lay on top of it. The crystal glass had been flung towards the TV, staining the screen and the stone fireplace with blood clots.

"Will you stop with the fucking noise?" Pam whined from the mezzanine balcony, storming out of her room.

Eric was numb from head to toe, staring at the blood dripping down the television screen, colouring the Arsenal fans in red as they cheered even louder. If Chelsea FC lost this game they were done for the season, and Eric cared greatly because he was part owner of it. He won it at a poker game from Roman Abramovich, a man whom he despised with passion. But what had numbed him was the fact that he lost control in front of his entire family.

"Oh, Eric, come ooon!" Willa cried the second she entered the room, seeing her favourite hangout area destroyed. Willa was his most frequent guest and hung out here to watch TV since Godric didn't have one at his nest. "We can't have shit around here."

Eric stayed still, sitting on the sunken couch, back arched forward, elbows resting on his knees, head facing forward and away from the glaring of his Maker. His eyes focused on the floor, where the blood was dripping, leaving little dotted circles on the carpet. He was waiting for the sermon. Or worse. The "you are not really okay, Eric" speech. The "I worry about you. They broke you Eric, and you won't heal until you admit it" speech. Usually followed by the "it wasn't your fault. Nora's death wasn't your fault."

The meaning of any of these words, and to even debate their trueness, was more than Eric could bear. All he could do was sit there with self-hatred, the thing that fueled as much as blood.

He felt all their eyes laser-pointing at the back of his head. "I care because everything I own… Everything we own is on the fucking line!" Eric yelled.

The house fell silent after that.

Pamela had flown in from California, and Godric and Willa arrived shortly after. Eric didn't summon them. No one talked about it. Everyone was here as if everything was normal, and they just fucking ignored the giant elephant in the room. Ignored the cracks beneath their feet, the crumbles falling on top of their own heads. They looked away from the fraying thin thread that bound their lives together. If Eric was broken, it was only because he was incapable of ignoring the obvious: people were looking. Since the New York Times article had come out people were paying attention, asking questions, snooping. People were talking, speculating, measuring, analyzing. Studying. They may be outside those walls and aren't digging through him with scalpels, saws or syringes like last time, but they were digging through him and his family all the same.

They had drawn attention to themselves, which was extremely counterintuitive to what they wanted. They could literally lose everything, and none of them seemed to care enough to even acknowledge it.

"It's just an article in a pretentious paper, Eric. Most humans don't fuckin' bother reading past the headline," Pam said.

Eric finally turned around to face them. Pamela stood against the railing upstairs with rollers in her hair, Willa had her arms crossed at the edge of the hallway and Godric remained seated in the dining room, his eyes finally off the laptop screen.

"Honestly, I think it made the Bellefleurs look equally as bad. Selling off assets is rarely a good sign, and no one really takes Rebecca seriously anyway-"

"None of you are dumb enough to believe this article is a coincidence. This is Rebecca Bellefleur fighting back, doing exactly what her sister told us she would do with that butterfly story bullshit. If the FTC or DOJ decides it doesn't want vampires buying off corporations from humans, we can kiss goodbye not only to Bonne Nuit, but to New Blood, Chelsea FC, and all our public assets. I hope your stay at this house is comfortable because it might be the only house we might end up having."

If humans decide to use anti-trust laws against the vampire kind, it would not only leave them with nothing but all other vampires of notoriety. The Vampire Council would have their heads on a spike and the rest of the undead world be back to doing business under fake names, and fake corps, and be forced to return to the shadows with their tails between their legs.

Willa scoffed. "Eric, you are giving her far too much credit. Plus it's her dad wanting to sell it off, right? I have been around long enough to see what happens to people who go against Richard Bellefleur - that man does not get fucked."

"It doesn't matter what that old fuck wants! There are a lot more eyes on the fucking board today than a week ago. This operation was supposed to be quick and quiet: we buy them, we get the patent to Calantica and Godric continues to save our race from going extinct. That was the plan!"

Pam rolled her eyes. "Yeah, that might happen. But until the FTC opens the case or the DOJ says something the plan hasn't changed."

With a soft sound that felt like a hammer, Godric closed his laptop shut. "This isn't about some article on the paper, is it?"

If there was one thing his Maker excelled at, was disarming people.

"Am I speaking in charades here?"

"This isn't about your name on the paper. You've been on TV, you've done press releases and interviews. People talked about you then. People will talk about you when buy Bonne Nuit too. So what is it?"

His question felt heavy. What is it-

"Because they might come for you next," he sighed. "Because they might hurt you to get to me, just like-"

Faster than his vampire eyes could follow, his Maker suddenly appeared in front of him. His cold, soft hands held his face gently. Godric said nothing, but his icy blue eyes looked deeply into his. One thousand years together, and he never tired of looking into Maker's eyes.

But this time, perhaps not consciously, Godric let him in. His power drew him inside, showing the beauty of his darkness just like the night they met, reminding him of why they are bonded together. It was deeper than blood. Inside his mind, Godric ached too. Eric took care of this family, so Godric could take care of the entire world.

And there was something else inside him. A spark of thirst that twinkled brightly in the depths of him. Something that gave him unfamiliar hope.

It was like looking in a mirror.

The air was extra chilly in the cabin that day. She watched Rebecca scroll mindlessly on her phone while sitting sideways on the lounger chair of their family's private jet, legs hanging over the armrest. Her laptop was open on the table but forgotten, and Kate could hear EDM blasting in her AirPods all the way from the back seat of the cabin.

This was her least favourite weekend of the year. For her sister, this was her Superbowl. It was their annual Trust Fund meeting, where the family went over their investment portfolio with their advisors and reviewed the Bellefleur's performance and strategy. Their father was coming from London, and their brother from Boston and together they would meet in New York City. Every year Rebecca and Junior would put on their battle armour in hopes that the succession plan would be finally revealed. It had yet to happen. Their family held this day more sacred than Christmas morning. Kate never particularly cared for it, in fact, she usually gave her sister power to proxy vote on her behalf and didn't even come. Except now she cared greatly. Did they own a lab in Houma? Were they involved in the horrific vampire camp experiments? Or the Truman Burrell scandals? What exactly had her family done to get this amount of money and power?

One thing she was certain of: something was off today. For starters, Rebecca was wearing a tracksuit - the elastic band type. And no makeup. Her hair was oiled and up in a sleek bun and her legs were restless, shaking incessantly. She was even picking at her cuticles with her teeth. The frown between her brows even broke through the botox. She stared at the screen of her phone, scrolling as if the bottom held all the answers to life, while simultaneously displaying her worst nightmares. Rebecca showed every sign and symptom of anxiety, self-doubt, and self-loathing.

Her sister, who very seldomly ever shut up, had been quiet since take off in New Orleans. Rebecca was hiding something. A secret.

It was like looking in a mirror.

There was a knot suffocating her throat. Eric Northman and Bonne Nuit were trending on Twitter and it was impossible to peel her eyes away from it. So much for being invisible.

The New York Times piece on Northman's acquisition offer was thorough. They did a deep dive on his profile - which oddly enough, wasn't a whole lot. He had lived in Louisiana since the 80s. He owned a video rental store in Shreveport and then turned it into a dive bar in 2007. In 2011, shortly after the Tru Blood factory bombings, he launched New Blood with his business associate Pamela Swynford De Beaufort, a beautiful bombshell blonde who smiled big for the camera, but very seldom ever said anything. The product had been endorsed by Sarah Newlin, a disgraced anti-vampire pastor's wife, who had stepped away from the public eye ever since. Northman seemed to have no fixed address since 2015. Not much is known about him, or the blonde Pamela, other than their curated and highly sanitized corporate appearances.

His misteriousness played in her favour. It made him look shady. Where was he from? How old was he? Did he have a family? And most importantly - where did all his money come from? It was quite a jump from bar owner to becoming a CPG manufacturer and international distributor tycoon in such a short span of time.

However, the journalist Rebecca had secretly met in LA did a bit too good a job of making his stance unbiased on his piece. She knew the journalist would speak about her family, it was part of their deal, but he dragged Bonne Nuit and her family into it too. Not her sister, thank goodness, but herself and her father.

Richard Senior had a very strict hard rule about the media: don't.

And she had broken it. She gave up control of the narrative. If her dad or brother found out the leak was her, she could kiss any role in the family business goodbye. Twitter was running wild with the story, with gossip and speculation adding gasoline to this fire. Other than New Blood, there were no companies owned by vampires - not publicly anyway. If this acquisition went through, Bonne Nuit would be the second vampire-owned business in America, and the first public vampire acquisition ever. Rebecca was calculated with this PR move. She hoped that the government was just anti-vampire enough that the FTC would find an excuse to stop the acquisition from going through. The odds were 50/50 at this point.

The silence in the cabin was more suffocating than reading the Nepobaby threads on Twitter (which she actually preferred over the accusations of sleeping her way to the top). In a last effort to take her mind off the enormous PR emergency conference she knew was going to take place at the Trust Fund meeting, Rebecca threw her phone over to the armchair across the aisle.

Her sister was starting. Kate had been quiet and broody for days now. She was sitting at the very back of the cabin, arms crossed, lips pressed into a thin line.

"What's crawled up your ass lately?"

"Nothing," Kate snapped back. "What did you do?"

Blood rushed to her cheeks. Could she know? "Nothing."

"Fine."

"Fine."

Kate rolled her eyes and looked out the jet window. Her sister's behaviour had been odd ever since they met the vampires at the Glass Tower. From her sudden attempts at dating to her mood swings to throwing academic research into the kitchen trash. Her sister always succeeded at everything she ever tried, with seemingly no effort. Failure and rejection were unknown to her. Kate's jaw was locked, and her blue eyes were far, far away. Her arms were crossed tight against her chest, knuckles white pressed against her cheek. She was pissed off, angry and resentful as if nothing she ever did was good enough.

It was like looking in a mirror.

AN: I'm ALIVE! Just stuck in academic jail. I managed to finish this chapter while procrastinating. I know it's short, but the next one will come in a few weeks, before or during the Christmas break :)

MUAH!