People were filled with lies. Each and every one of them inclined to change a detail here and there in some effort to save their own skin from a perceived threat they could hardly see and yet understood lingered still. To question his own staff, even worse, to question those patrons- would be largely an exercise in futility. Those patrons would barely remember the night, most of them too drunk or high or to fucking unintelligent to answers his questions let alone pull off that near perfect crime. Those other vampires, those underlings beneath himself, were as prone to lying as they were to seeking blood. They panicked when he was near them. The faintest drop of blood in their systems could prompt that heart to beat and that faint, thudding beat was all he needed to give them away. Frantic, desperate, weak- guilty or not they feared him to much for him to deduce the truth in those thudded beats. They were near useless to him in turn. But phones didn't lie. Pictures didn't lie. Videos didn't lie. For a little cash those beings were willing to sell their veritable souls. Money was a weakness to so many. How well Darcy knew it. His Father had been a fucking slave to it. A weak-willed , spineless fool of a money who had squandered what he'd earned. Clancy had never had that same head for numbers as his son. Had lacked that ability to understand them, to see their patterns, to manipulate them. Hmm. Perhaps Darcy should have thanked that son of bitch for squandering every penny they'd earned and run them into poverty time and time again. It had given him the drive to be better then his Father ever had. To excel where Clancy had failed. To prove his Father wrong over and over and over again. How satisfying the thought.

Darcy's features shifted ever so slightly. The faintest simper managing to find his lips as he found his place within his desk chair once more, Harley directed to the bed with that box of phones in her arms. He would find whoever had done this. Whoever had violated their club and stolen his Beloved's precious felines while making a mockery of them all. How well Risque would reward him when he found that culprit. The mere promise of her attentions....her affections....was enough to drive that man onward like a dog clinging to the mere scraps of a bone. There was....nothing he would not do for even a mere whisper of Risques praise. To unravel this mystery would bring him countless rewards and even more of her favour. That alone was a prize to be fought for. He needed only to outsmart that perpetrator. One of these phones, surely, held that very evidence. Darcy's fingers tapped easily at that screen, that vampiric speed readily utilised until his fingers were veritable blur. That passcode for the phone was as equally a game of numbers as those gambling games he played. The phone unlocked in mere minutes as Darcy eyed that screen with satisfaction- only for Harley to interrupt. He'd almost forgotten her sad little existence. The sound of her voice prompted the vampire to turn sharply towards her. That very action decidedly predatory as his mismatched gaze met her own in a singular, potent moment. How her little heart fluttered and danced, pumping blood frantically around her body, that scent near intoxicating. That high level of adrenaline within his own system perhaps coaxing those more predatory instincts even further within himself until the scent of her alone became near....distracting. Harley seemed to near freeze beneath his gaze the way a rabbit froze before a wolf. As if hoping that stillness might somehow fail to trigger that predatory desire to chase. Perhaps it did. She was less....tempting when she failed to move and yet the thought turned within the confines of his mind all the same. Darcy, at that moment, failed to recognise his own stillness. The both of them so momentarily ensnared upon that precarious knife's edge of predator and prey. A single uttered word from that woman's lips so at last seeming to shatter the surface of that proverbial pond. Please. Since when had she ever begged him.

A ready growl rose within his throat, that sound near akin to the hiss of a cat as it caught upon his tongue and teeth, his gaze darkening with ready suspinon. That near trance from before so entirely broken now. Even if that emotion have been replaced with something near equally as unfavourable. The vampire eyeying the woman with a clear suspicion then. Harley had fought him every step of the way so far. He had expected her too. They always did. Before they broke. Before they accepted their fates. Even then they became....compliant and yet hardly willing. At least not in most cases. That sudden change in Harley was far to sudden. A colt didn't break after one ride. Harley would be no different. She was trying to play him for a fool. Those words were near snapped towards her, his teeth flashed in that same moment in clear warning as she frowned towards him. The dark haired little dolt choosing her words poorly as she queried whether or not she could simply sleep instead if he had no use for her. How dangerously thin his patience was tonight. Darcy so momentarily contemplating how mad Risque would be if he threw her precious pet agianst the wall and shattered her bones in the process. Surely she was not so attached to this one as she was fucking Tetradore. That silent, internal debate continued to turn within his mind. The vampire seemed to come to a sudden, abrupt decision, that phone thrust toward Harley then. Those orders near barked in that sentence.

To have her do nothing would be to waste another set of hands. Surely she would hardly be stupid enough not to do as she was asked. Her motives for desiring to help would surely reveal themselves in time. Darcy, for now, content to work on one mystery at a time. Harley, for once, seemed content to take that order as Darcy reached for another phone. The vampires thoughts returned to the task at hand as he began to flick through those images. The majority of them were useless. His mind was content to turnover that evidence as his thumb flickered away image after image. The attack had been targetted of that he was entirely certain. Risque alone had been the true goal. The disruption to the club itself and the other vampires, even himself, were merely casualties of war. Someone with a knowledge of his mate had instigated this assault. They had fed into her paranoia, they had expertly tugged at those very things that irritated her, they had acted as if they had known what she would do before she had done it- and they had taken from her one of those precious fw things that vampiric Queen truly held any sense of....care for. If it could truly be called as such. Her felines. Cade knew Risque- but did he know her this well? Those very words were all but muttered from his lips. The vampire musing those considerations out loud- only for Harley to add her own sentiments. As if he;d fucking asked. Another warning growl rose readily within his throat. His mismatched gaze cut sharply sideways. Harley, wisely, seemed to focus back on that task at hand for several moments longer before she broke that silence again to ask whether or not Risque kept a list of scorned lovers. Her efforts to backtrack coming far too late.

A hiss spat from Darcy's lips and into the air, the vampires arm jerked backwards with near lightning speed to strike towards Harley with every intention of sending the Were flying from that bed and onto the floor unless she so managed to dodge that sharp backhand. His patience, it seemed, had been pressed too far with that singular, foolish comment. The man was entirely content to punish her for it.

"Yar say dat again and imma give yar a pair of matchin' black eyes. Dun tink I wont."

He had tolerated her long enough tonight- of that he was certain. He would simply not allow anyone to discuss his mates ex lovers. Much less some luderciours idea that she kept a list of them. Especially not after he had seen to the deaths of a great number of them. His gaze returned to his own screen once more. Darcy filtering rapidly through another series of photos before his vision fixed suddenly upon a singular image- and what existed in the background of it. It hardly took long to bring that picture into larger, clearer focus. Darcy prestened, for the first time, with that clear knowledge that one of those beings who had violated Risques territory- was a woman. Her face was still obscured, along with that of her companion and yet those heights alone assured him readily that her companion was certainly a man. A man and a woman. That near devilish grin found his features at even this small breakthrough, the vampire gesturing toward that screen then for Harley to examine it in turn, the camera zoomed in upon those clearly femanine appendages that gave away her very gender. Harley content to meet that find with sarcasm once more. Someone was getting far too big for her teeny little boots. Darcy's tongue moved to brush along the tips of his fangs in a silent contemplation of sorts. The vampire scrawled down several notes upon the paper beside him. The silence continued for several long moments before he inquired after just what she had managed to find on that phone. Her punishment for her sarcasm still to come as he sought to poke at that open wound of her feline status. Kitty surely had something to say. Perhaps he'd listen- just to see if she had been useful. Dick pics? She'd found him dick pics?

"Dats about da cleanest ting dat goes on in dat bathroom. Enough wit yar chatter, Kitty."

Her efforts to distract him, it seemed, would hardly get her far, his gaze met her own one more with clear expectation as she began to send those images she had found to his own phone. Darcy's fingers flicked across the screen a harley spoke, the blurry image merely prompting his lip to lift upward in a curl of disdain.

"Dat ain't no vampire speed, dats just idjit 'umans dat cant push a fuckin' button."

That picture was deleted with ease. Darcy focused instead on the next one. His mismatched gaze narrowed once more. The vampire eying those pixels that seemed to appear along blonde around that woman and yet was her hair blonde or was it merely a reflection light? He reached for his pen once more. Darcy scribbling further notes onto that paper. The vampire seeing little need to praise any efforts of his Were companion just yet. After all, she had so far failed to find anything useful. That third picture came onto his screen then, the vampire eyeing it as Harley queried how well he knew that club DJ.

"'I know Chase as well as I need ta. We 'ad 'im fa years. Keeps up wit da music scene. Dats all we need from 'im. He ain't got da balls ta cross Risque."

Chase was harmless enough. He liked a good time. An easy time. He kept up with the music, made friends with the college students, played the role of the party boy and lived well on the money they paid him. An easy gig. One a lazy ass like Chase liked. One he wouldn't dream of ruining by crossing Risque like this. He was a fool but a loyal one- of that Darcy was certain. Chase sitting somewhere in the middle of that vampiric hierarchy. Darcy's own thoughts shifted once more as Harley continued. The woman querying whether or not Risque had ever had 'a thing' with Cade- and if not Cade, someone else who commanded people. The mere thought alone so prompted Darcy's teeth to grate over one another.

"Cade wishes he 'ad a ting wit 'er. Damn prick. What you talkin 'bout? You know someone else? Out wit it, Kitty."

Harley's gaze widened suddenly as if an idea had seemingly struck her before she wuickly made an effort to dismiss it. That ver act alone only furthering that near suspicious look to Darcy's own gaze. What did she know? What was she pretending not to know? The woman seemed quick to further dismiss those ideas before suggesting they retrace their steps and attempting to brush aside whatever idea it was that had lingered within her mind once more.

"Arley...."

Darcy lent easily back within his chair then, the man rotating to face his little pet as one long leg folded over the other, his arms coming to rest on the arms of that chair with the same ease. His gaze suddenly and sharply found her own. Darcy, for the first time, allowing those tendrils of his own power to suddenly reach towards her. The beginnings of thata paralysis seeking to snake through her system like a slithering chill. Her toes, her feet, her legs, each slowly rendered immobile, numb, useless and unfeeling. Darcy letting that feeling settle around her waist.

"Do yar know what 'appens if yar lungs become paralysed, eh? Yar can't take a breath. Yar suffocate, surrounded by air yar just ant breath in. It aint quick neither. It takes a few minutes. Dun waste my time no more kitty, or I'll waste yours by watchin' yar choke for air. Now tell me, what do yar know?"

That singular question held little room for argument, Darcy content to hold onto that paralysis for several moments longer before abruptly closing his eyes, cutting off that power, releasing Harley near instantly before his gaze, lacking that affinity now, found her own again. The vaguest hint of a simper still daring to dance there in amusement at his own little game. A part of the vampire so entirely as.....sadistic as the woman he adored and whom he owed his very existence to in turn. Darcy nothing if not the very being his Mistress had created him to be. The man so enjoyed torturing his little pet.....simply because he could.

We are rough men and used to rough ways.