Giovanni (Blood Brothers Book 6) (16 page)

“Not normally but this is a condition only vampires are susceptible to. Which brings us to why you’re here. When the men were at your house, we saw that news report and contacted Dante. Giovanni is in the crazed throes of what we call
la morte dolci
. It’s really hard to explain, but the abbreviated version of it is a vampire suffers from this illness when they are denied what they require most. We believe that something is you.”

Sydney placed her hand against her heart with a gasp. “Why me?”

“Because we believe you’re his bloodmate.”

Chapter Seventeen

Nya tossed and turned in bed. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since she came to her hideaway. For the last couple centuries she’d lived with a madman, yet she had still cared about him even though she had never admitted it until recently. Adonis had not only been her maker, taking her away from a bleak existence, he was also her bloodmate.

It was hard to give her love to someone who killed innocents but she’d loved him all the same, much to her secret shame. But even as she loved him, she’d hated him too, hated what he was, and his actions. She hated that he’d turned her into the monster that she was now. She’d never asked for immortality and he’d stolen that choice from her. For that she didn’t think she’d ever forgive him. It was a curse seeing people she cared about grow old and die around her while she stopped aging at thirty-five.

Her only connection to humanity had been finding the child that had been ripped from her arms when she was just sixteen. She’d followed that child, a boy as he grew into a young man, watched out for him as he started a family of his own, three children, a boy and two girls. She watched as those children had children and so forth.

Nya’s interest in her descendants, however, seemed to anger an already crazed Adonis, who was jealous and possessive on a good day. But on a bad day there was no reasoning with him. In a fit of rage, he’d wiped out nearly every single one of her progeny, claiming they took Nya’s time and attention away from him. Devastated, she decided to keep her distance from the remaining survivors, which happened to be a family with two children. The parents eventually grew old and died, while one of their offspring, a girl, tragically died as a child due to a severe allergic reaction. The boy had eventually grown up, married and had two daughters. Their names were Sydney and Tara, the last two in her line.

Whenever she was stateside, she always made an effort to visit though she never approached, just observed, wondering what her life could have been if she’d been allowed to just be. Of course when she was human times had been different, but at least she wouldn’t have been bound to a maniac. Ten years ago, she’d made one of her trips to the family’s little town to find out that they had been in a tragic accident that had taken the lives of the husband, wife and one daughter. Sydney, who had been left blind, was her last connection to humanity. It almost became an obsession with her to keep Sydney safe. On one of her last trips Nya dared to do something she never had the nerve to do. She’d introduced herself to Sydney in the guise of someone who was selling magazine subscriptions.

Just to be in Sydney’s presence had filled Nya with sadness. She had no right to intrude into this woman’s life. And as much as it pained her, she knew then that she had to stay away, because she didn’t want Adonis to harm Sydney, but mainly because it was just too painful to be reminded of all that she’d been robbed of. It was then she had enlisted Giovanni’s aid because he was one of the few people she could trust.

It was important for her to keep that connection even if she couldn’t do it herself. Besides, when she’d actually met Sydney, Nya couldn’t help feeling that there was something very wrong even though the young lady herself seemed fine. She just couldn’t shake this premonition of impending doom. It was the same feeling she had at this very moment.

Frustrated, she rolled out of bed and grabbed her phone. As was her habit, she scrolled through her newsfeed to find out what was going on in the world. One story had her immediately clicking on the thumbnail.
Terror on the
S
treets
was the title of the video that was attached with the story. She watched in horror as the grainy video showed a man brutalizing several police officers. Though the film didn’t show the perpetrators face clearly, she could make out just enough of him to know exactly who it was. Her stomach fell to her feet.

This was not the Giovanni she knew. From the looks of it he’d gone rogue but she was sure there was a pretty good reason why and for that she had to help him. Even though it was her intention to stay in this little villa off the coast of Mexico for a few more months, she realized it was time to come out of hiding. It didn’t matter that she was being tracked by a pair of warlocks on a mission, or that she wanted to shut herself off from other people. Her friend was in trouble and she would be there for him as he had been there for her. She only hoped Sydney hadn’t been hurt in the melee.

<><><><><>

Dante breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped out of the hospital. He believed he’d gotten all of them. After seeing that video plastered all over the media he and his brothers had gone into damage control mode. One of the many tasks performed by his Underground was clean-up when an immortal showed their powers around humans. Memories had to be wiped out, and plausible explanations given to put people’s minds at rest. He’d done it several times when rogues got out of control. He never thought he’d had to do it for one of his brothers.

As soon as they’d seen that insane video of Giovanni going berserk, they’d hurried to that area as quickly as possible. Each one of them had been assigned with a task. Dante had put Niccolo in charge of searching for Giovanni, while it was up to GianMarco to sway the news outlets into believing the video had been a hoax. Romeo’s job was to find any and all witnesses to the actual incident and wipe their memories of it. And Dante‘s assignment was to make sure none of the police officers remembered what happened, which meant he had to take care of several hospital staffers and paramedics as well. Dante also administered a little of his blood to each of the officers who had been severely injured. With his blood they would heal quickly with no ill effects.

There was only one casualty in the whole matter. A Lamar Smith, also known as Smooth Money as Dante had learned. He’d bled out by the time the paramedics had reached him. He’d been convicted of trafficking, kidnapping, assault, and racketeering. From what Dante had determined from getting into the police database, Lamar had only been out on the street because his lawyer had gotten him out on a technicality. He was known for taking underage girls and forcing them into prostitution. While it would have been best had no lives been lost, there was no doubt the man was a scumbag. Dante was at least thankful no one else had died from Giovanni’s tirade.

Of course the mission presented to them had been huge which is why Dante had contacted some of his agents who could get to the area easily. Thankfully Sasha had contacted her brothers who were also on their way. With their magic, they would be able to take care of any property damage, like the whole thing had never happened.

With a sigh he slipped into his rental car, exhausted from the tasks he’d spent the better part of the day accomplishing. He wondered how the women faired with Sydney. Grabbing his phone he punched in Isis’s name.

She answered on the first ring. “Dante! I miss you,” she greeted.

A warmth spread throughout him at the sound of her voice. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t been away from each other a full day, whenever she wasn’t near it felt like a piece of him was missing. “I miss you too,
bellissima
. How are things going with you?”

“I should be asking you that question, but things are going well on my end. Sydney is awake. The girls and I have just spent the better part of three hours explaining the supernatural world to her. I think she’s still a little confused but at least she finally believes us, although it took some convincing. I shifted and let her pet me while I was in wolf form and then Sasha levitated her. I think that really freaked Sydney out. She may still have questions about Giovanni, like why he was using an alias, but we explained to her that it was something he’d have to tell her himself. She said she’s willing to listen when they get a chance to talk.”

“That’s good to hear. I had a good feeling about her when we met. She seems very nice. I don’t think she’ll have a problem fitting in with our clan at all. Giovanni’s a lucky man.”

“Speaking of Giovanni, what’s the situation down there? I noticed the video is no longer available online. In fact it looks like it’s been scrubbed from the entire Internet.”

“Yes, GianMarco convinced the news outlet that the video was a hoax. I employed a team of hackers to have it removed from any and all sites. Even if people believed Giovanni was just a regular man on drugs, there would be others with questions who might come looking for our kind. It could have put us in a precarious situation.”

“Was the originator of the video found?”

“Yes, Romeo located him and confiscated the man’s phone and computers. Those videos can sometimes be found in someone’s cloud storage and we didn’t want to take that chance.”

“Good idea. What about Giovanni? How close are you guys to locating him?”

“That I’m not sure of.” Just as he finished that statement, his phone beeped indicating that another call was coming through. Dante frowned as he looked at the screen to see who it was before putting the phone back to ear. “I just might have my answer in a minute. Niccolo is calling in. I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

“I understand. I love you.”

“I love you too,
bellissima
. Take care.” He clicked over to take his brother’s call. “Niccolo, tell me you’ve found him.”

“I believe I have. He’s about an hour away from where everything happened. Giovanni is holed up in an industrial section with a lot of abandoned buildings. He’s hiding in one of them and we can hear his screams of pain. He keeps calling out Adonis’s name. We have agents posted around the area to discourage anyone from coming close so we’re keeping a lookout to make sure he doesn’t wander off again.”

“Okay. Did you contact the others?”

“Not yet. You were my first call but I’m on it now. I’ll contact the twins as well.”

“Good thinking, Nico. There’s strength in numbers. Give me your exact address and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Niccolo rattled off the address. “I’m hanging up now. I’ll call you back if anything changes.”

“Sounds good.”

Dante clicked off the phone, hoping they would reach Giovanni before he could cause anymore destruction.

<><><><><>

“I still can’t believe this is happening. I feel like I’m going to wake up and this will all be a really strange dream,” Sydney mused aloud. She could barely finish the food on her plate because there were still so many questions she needed answered. Though she’d wanted to deny the existence of immortal beings and the supernatural, there was no doubt what she herself had experienced.

How else could Maggie and Christine pull things from her mind that no one else would know? And then there was Isis. Though Sydney couldn’t visually see the transformation, she could hear the snapping of bones and moving of internal organs as Isis had morphed into a large furry animal. In wolf form Isis’s head was level with Sydney’s chest. She’d felt the wolf’s muzzle, and stroked her back, and ran her fingers along its tail. And when Sasha made her float through the air as if she was just a feather, there was no denying anything these women had told her.

She’d had question upon question, to which each of the women had answered patiently. After what seemed like hours, Christine suggested they get something to eat, which is how they’d ended up in the hotel’s restaurant.

“Believe, it Sydney.” Christine who sat to her right, patted her on the hand.

“This is all going to take some getting used to. I still don’t understand how I could possibly help Giovanni. I mean, if he’s in this
la morte dolci
as you’ve explained, how can I bring him out of this illness? I heard the video and know what he’s capable of. What if he…”

“He would never hurt you. At least not intentionally,” Isis answered.

Sydney snorted. “The way you worded that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”

“I think what Isis is trying to say is that the last thing Giovanni would want is to hurt you. You’re special to him. Sometimes when a vampire is in the throes of this madness they can hurt others around them, including the ones they care about, but it’s never a conscious thing,” Sasha explained. “That is why he’ll have his family around him to make sure no harm comes to you.”

Sydney moistened her now dry lips with the tip of her tongue. “But what do I need to do exactly?”

Christine squeezed Sydney’s hand. “Just be there for him. When you two are together you’ll know what to do. Trust us.”

“You make it sound so simple when I barely know this man. I’ve only had a couple conversations with him and now you guys are saying I’m his bloodmate, the one meant to be with him for eternity.” That was the part Sydney had the most trouble with. How could she be this man’s heart’s desire when they barely knew each other? Although Sydney felt that there was something she ought to remember, her head ached whenever she tried.

“But ask yourself this: those couple of times you were around him, you felt this unexplainable pull toward him, didn’t you?” Maggie asked.

“I…yes,” she whispered. “I did. I felt safe with him. And we shared a kiss that was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It was so powerful, so full of…I don’t exactly know how to explain it. I instantly felt connected to him. It’s seems like I’ve known him all my life and that there’s so much more to this but my mind has been cloudy lately.”

“Sydney,” Sasha began, “there’s something else I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, but since you’ve brought it up I think its best that we discuss it now.”