Giovanni (Blood Brothers Book 6) (20 page)

“Giovanni…?” She called him by his real name this time.

“Sydney.”

She turned her head in his direction. “I remember,” she said in wonder. “I remember everything.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Sydney stayed in the shower for as long as she dared. There were people waiting for her downstairs and she was in no particular hurry to get to them. Sure she wanted answers, but she still needed to wrap her mind around the events of today. Finding out that supernatural beings walked the Earth was only the tip of the iceberg.

As the spray of the shower cascaded over her head, the water masked the tears that fell. It broke her heart to learn that her dear friend had been using her all these years. All the times Ida had told Sydney she was like a daughter had been a lie. All those years when she’d laughed and cried with that woman, all Ida wanted was to play matchmaker between Sydney and her psycho grandson. She shuddered as she thought about the murderer she’d harbored in her house all this time. Now that she thought about it, she wondered if Dylan even had a job. Whenever he’d gone away had probably been an excuse to lay low from his crimes while Ida worked her black magic.

Now that her memory was back, it wasn’t hard to imagine Dylan was capable of burning down a houseful of people. That he’d killed his last lover made Sydney shudder. There was no doubt that she would have been his next victim. She could clearly recall the incident of Dylan and the musician at the bar. She’d always wondered why her friend had never pressed charges. And now she realized Ida must have gotten to him somehow. She must have also figured out a way to manipulate the police.

The worst part of it all was that Dylan had laid hands on her before but Ida had wiped her memory of the incidents. He’d get angry with her for some minor offense, hit her, and promise to never do it again. But not one to take anyone’s abuse, she’d break up with him, he’d go away for a while, Ida would erase her memory and the cycle would go on for years. Sydney was surprised that Ida hadn’t cleared her memory of the incident at the bar. Maybe it was because Dylan hadn’t actually touched her that time around.

She didn’t like the idea that she’d been manipulated and lied to all these years, which made her think of John Chandler, also known as Giovanni Grimaldi. Even if he’d had the best of intentions, in a way he’d manipulated her too. He didn’t trust her to at least tell her what was going on. While the whole vampire thing was still something she needed to come to terms with, she wasn’t sure what she felt for him when a lot of what he’d told her were lies. The car ride to her house had been tense. Her memory had come back in a rush, making her dizzy.

Sydney clutched her head. “I remember everything,” she whispered with a frown. She remembered the hotel, Dylan’s numerous offenses of violence against her and how Ida had basically looked the other way while her grandson was abusing her. But most of all she remembered every single moment she’d shared with Giovanni. As the woman who called herself Nya drove them back to her house, Sydney huddled in the back of the car as far away from Giovanni as she could. When he’d sat in the back with her and tried to hold her hand she’d snatched it away. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel because she wanted to know how much of what he’d told her was true and how much had been a cover for his alias John Chandler.

“Sydney, how are you feeling?” Giovanni touched her shoulder, but she flinched away.

“How do you think I’m supposed to feel? I’ve been lied to all these years by a woman I considered my best friend, who by the way tried to kill me because I stood up to her maniac grandson. Not to mention, this same woman has been erasing my memory for years. Now I don’t know what’s real and what’s not. Oh, and do I even have to bring up the fact that I recently learned that there are vampires, witches and shifters?”

He released a heavy sigh. “I understand it’s a lot to take in, but please know that everything I told you was true. I’ve lived a very long time Sydney and I’ve had many aliases over the years. For what I had to do, it was necessary. I’m sorry I had to lie to you about my name but that’s it.”

“You also lied about your background story. Making money on the stock market indeed.” She snorted.

“Okay, that was also a falsehood but I promise you that’s it.”

“Why? Why me? Why did you come to my house in the first place?”

“He did it as a favor to me,” the woman named Nya spoke up.

“And who are you?” Sydney demanded, more confused than ever.

“I’m Nya. I’ve been watching out for my family for a very long time. You’re my last living descendent so naturally I’d have an interest in you.”

The woman’s statement sent a chill up her spin, reminding her that these beings didn’t live within the laws of nature. “How is that possible?”

“I wasn’t always a vampire. I was human once. I had a child and he was taken from me. I eventually found him again but by then he had a family of his own and ultimately his children had children and so forth. But you’re the last in my line. I asked Giovanni to keep an eye on you because I felt that he was in a better frame of mind.”

“Well, you were mistaken. Did you know what he did to those poor cops? Who’s to say he won’t go berserk again?”

“That will never happen again, Sydney. If you’ll only let me explain it to you.” Giovanni attempted to grab her hand again, but she yanked it away.

“Don’t touch me. I don’t know you.”

“You do know me. I’m the same man who you kissed so sweetly and made love with until you cried out my name.”

“Yeah, your alias.” She returned her attention back to the woman. “Nya, what exactly were you going through that you couldn’t check on me yourself?”

“The truth is, we’ve met before.”

Sydney shook her head. “I think I’d remember that. You have a very distinct voice.”

“I’m also good at disguising it,” Nya said. “Do you remember an enthusiastic college student who sold magazine subscriptions?”

Sydney searched through the reserves of her memory and gasped. “That was you? Why didn’t you say anything then?”

“Would you have believed me?”

“Probably not, but you still didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh? About why I didn’t keep watch over you? It’s because I’d recently lost someone. I wouldn’t have been useful to you. I was so focused on how I was feeling that I selfishly didn’t take Giovanni’s feelings into consideration. You see the person I lost was my bloodmate, but that man was also Giovanni’s brother.”

Sydney licked her suddenly dry lips. “So it’s true about you losing your brother?”

“Yes.”

“And he meant that much to you?”

“Yes. It’s one of the reasons the illness I suffered through was so intense. The guilt was killing me. I refused to accept that he was gone and I simply couldn’t let go. It’s still hard to reconcile that he’s dead and I was the one who killed him.”

This was certainly a surprise turn of events. “Why? If you loved him so much why did you kill him?”

Giovanni sighed. “Adonis wasn’t himself for a very long time. He did some very bad things. He killed innocents and would have continued doing so if I hadn’t stopped him. Keep in mind, I’m almost eight hundred years old and though he was older than me chronologically, I was older than him in vampire years. I was the one who made him. There’s always a bond when blood ties are involved, but the fact that I was his maker made it even stronger. When I killed him, a part of me died too and despite all the evil he’d perpetrated, I still loved him for the brother I once knew. Even when he committed one horrific crime after another, I never gave up hope that he could be good again. He used to be caring and very giving, but then he changed.”

“Why did he change?” Sydney wanted to know.

“Our mother wasn’t a good person. She used and manipulated his mind. She brainwashed him and persuaded him to perform unnatural acts with her.”

“Unnatural acts? Do you mean him and her….?”

“My mother was a very sick woman.”

“She was a vampire as well?”

“No, she was very much human.”

Sydney scrunched her nose in confusion. “But you said she died recently. How is that possible if she wasn’t…was she a witch or a shifter?”

“No, she practiced the dark arts. She learned a spell that would keep her youthful appearance for as long as she wanted it. But in order for this to happen, she took human sacrifices.”

“That’s awful.”

“Yes. But the problem with the dark arts is there is always a price to pay. When a human practices this dangerous medium they attract demons who feed off that evil. In the end, she was done in by the monster who was lurking within her for centuries. It’s not likely that your friend Ida was practicing as long as my mother, otherwise the demon that had attached itself to her would have been much bigger.”

Sydney flared her nostrils in anger. “Don’t call that bitch my friend.”

“My apologies. I only wanted to give you a little background.”

She still had so many questions. “Why do you know so much about black magic?”

“Because I used to practice it myself.”

“And did you attract a demon?”

“No. I’m immortal. That only happens to humans who dabble in it. But there are still side effects. It can change one’s personality, make them paranoid, crazed and dangerous. Adonis practiced it, and I took up the art to keep one step ahead of him. Shortly before I came to your house, I’d had a purge performed to cleanse me of the darkness. That’s why I slept three days straight. I literally hadn’t slept in years. That’s what black magic can do to a person, which is why it shouldn’t be messed with.”

“Okay, I sort of understand your reasoning for everything else but why couldn’t you have just watched me from afar?” What she didn’t add was that by entering her life he’d turned it upside down. She didn’t know him well but that pull she felt toward him couldn’t be denied. Even still, with all that had happened recently, she seriously doubted they had a future together.

“We do have a future together, Sydney. You’re my bloodmate. I tried to fight it from the moment I laid eyes on you because I didn’t feel like I deserved a happily ever after but having nearly lost you, I don’t intend to ever let you go again.”

“Get out of my head. You don’t have permission to read my mind. You speak as if I don’t have a say in the matter. I’ve gone through a life-altering experience and I need time to work through some things.”

“We’ll work through them together.”

“You keep saying ‘we’ like there’s an ‘us.’”

This time when Giovanni caught her hand, he refused to let go. “You are the woman I’ve waited for nearly a millennium. You are my bloodmate, Sydney, and deny it all you want, but we belong together and we will be.

Sydney felt somewhat better by the time she stepped out of her shower. The Grimaldi clan had all insisted they come by her house to make sure everything was all right. It wasn’t as if she could tell them “no” after all they’d done for her. She didn’t particularly feel like playing hostess right now but she could no longer keep them waiting.

When she stepped into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around her naked body she halted when she made it to the center of the room. She wasn’t alone. But Sydney instantly knew who it was. She could smell his unique scent, and his presence was larger than life, he didn’t need to say a word for her to know he was there.

Sydney clutched the towel around her body in a death grip. “Get out,” she ordered.

“Not until we’ve talked.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Giovanni. We’ve already discussed all that’s needed to be said in the car.”

“Maybe you have, but I have plenty to say, Sydney. I know—”

“I’m sure you have a lot of flowery words in your arsenal because after all you have lived a very long time. I bet you think this poor blind girl doesn’t stand a chance, but I’m not going to allow anyone else to dictate my life again. So you can keep this bloodmate bullshit to yourself. Now leave my room please. I have guests waiting for me.”

Giovanni was silent but she didn’t hear him move an inch.

“Didn’t you hear me?”

“I head every word you said.” His voice sounded strained as if he was trying to hold himself in check.

“Then go.”

“You don’t have any guests to go downstairs to. I sent them back to the hotel. They’ll be in town for a few more days so there will be plenty of time for you to speak with them.”

Once again, she felt manipulated and her patience was already short. Sydney moved closer to the sound of his voice and when she felt his heat, she stopped in front of him and poked her finger into his chest. “You had no right.”

“I had every right, Sydney. You’re mine and we needed to be alone. They all understood.”

“I’m yours? Now you sound like Dylan.”

He grasped her shoulders. “Don’t you dare compare me to that motherfucker. I would never lay a hand on you.”

“How do I know that? We barely know each other.”

“But our hearts are very well acquainted. Should I remind you of how good it was between us…how good it can be?”

“Don’t you dare, I swear I’ll scream,” she threatened.

“That’s what I’m aiming for Sydney. I want you to scream at the top of your lungs because I’m about to claim you heart, body and soul. I’ve spent the majority of my life fighting for other people, denying myself the simplest of pleasures, but not anymore. This time I’m going to fight for myself. For us. So the only words that will stop me from devouring every inch of this delectable body is that you don’t want this.”