Tainted Blood (Hell's Belle Book 2) (30 page)

Frankie stared at him blankly. "Sorry, mate. No idea."

"Come on!" The guy chided him. "It's your old pal Bobby, from back in the day."

"Bobby?" Frankie's confused expression broke into a wide grin. "Bobby! What the hell are you doing floating in the Gowanus Canal?"

"Waiting for you to drag my ass back to shore."

"Wow. Bobby. Nina, meet Bobby Caruso. He's an old friend."

"A very old friend." Bobby laughed hoarsely and winked at me. Well, tried to. His eyes were still swollen.

Frankie bent to hug his old friend but caught a whiff of the Gowanus stench and pulled back. "Sorry, mate."

"I see you're still pretty," Bobby mocked him.

"So, are you going to tell me why I fished you out of this polluted river?"

"It's a funny story." Bobby came up to a sitting position.

"I thought you'd say that," Frankie said with a smirk.

"But a long one, and I'm starved."

"You can't go anywhere like that," I interjected. He still looked like hell and was bound to draw suspicion.

"You partnered with your mother now?" Bobby razzed. "I miss it when you and Marco did your runs."

"You knew Marco?" I asked before I could stop myself.

"What's it to you, little girl?" Bobby clearly hung around a lot of old timey gangsters.

"Bobby, Nina is Marco's daughter. Remember?"

"Marco's daughter? Nah. Really?" His engorged eyes widened. "I'm sorry, miss. I meant no disrespect."

"You knew my dad?" I was a slightly dumbfounded. This was the first person I'd met outside of Blood Ops who knew my father.

"Did I know your dad?" Bobby said with a chuckle. "Your dad got me out of a lot of scrapes."

"Like what?" I challenged.

"Okay, that's enough reminiscing," Frankie said, shutting up Bobby quickly. "You need to tell us how you ended up the victim of a mob hit."

Bobby shrugged. "You know how it is, Frankie. I maybe was taking a little bit off the top."

"Off the top of what?" Frankie asked.

"Off the top of what? Jesus, Frankie," Bobby looked annoyed. "Off the bookmaking."

"You were ripping off the mob?" I asked.

"What are they gonna do, kill me?" He snorted.

"True," I agreed, smiling at the audacity of it.

"You've got to get out of town, mate," Frankie said.

"I got some unfinished business to take care of, then I'll split." He lifted his head and smiled.

"No. No, no, no, no. And no," Frankie repeated.

"You think I should just roll over for those degenerates?" Bobby said, raising his voice.

Frankie ran a hand through his shoulder-length dark hair. "Blood Ops is in town. You have no choice, Bobby."

"Come on, Frankie. Between old friends. Just look the other way for once."

Frankie shook his head. "Walk away, Bobby. You ripped them off. Not the other way around."

"If you wanted them dead anyway, why did you let them shoot you and shove you in the canal?" I asked.

"I was faking it when they shot me. Planned on rising from the dead somewhere out in the Jersey marshland. But those assholes chained me to a slab of cement," he complained. "Once they tossed me in the water, that was it. It took weeks to get the damn chain off."

"Weeks?" My jaw hit the pavement. "You were in that water for weeks?"

"And thank God you fished me out when you did. Between being in that water and not having any blood, I couldn't regenerate fast enough," he sighed. "Shit's toxic in there."

"Seriously, Bobby, get yourself cleaned up and get out of town," Frankie urged again.

Bobby looked at Frankie angrily. "You think I wanted this? It's going to take me months to get back to normal. Months!"

I snuck another look at him. While he was healing, it was taking an awfully long time. Vampires usually heal as quick as a New Yorker jay-walking through Times Square traffic. Clearly, there was a lot of damage to fix.

"Frankie, do you have an extra t-shirt or something for Bobby? He can't go walking around in that thing."

"It's New York. Who's going to notice?"

"Did you get a look at him? I thought you wanted subtle."

Frankie's shoulders dropped in defeat, and he turned on his heel. "I'll go get an extra t-shirt."

"Make sure it's a nice one!" Bobby called out after him.

I chuckled. "You should get out of town though. I don't think Frankie wants to stake you. But he will."

"Wouldn't be the first time he tried," Bobby said with a sigh. "Listen, kid. I just want to say I'm sorry about what happened to your parents. Just so you know, we tried to set it right."

"Not much to set right when you die in a fire, I guess." I kicked at a weed growing out of a crack in the pavement. I hated talking about my parents. I was really young when they died. I only knew them through other people's reminiscences. It was hard to have a relationship with people who weren't part of my own memories. 

Bobby strained as he shifted to get a better look at me. His bloated body was still hard to maneuver. "Fire? The fire didn't kill him. The stake did."

"Stake? No, it was a fire in a barn. An accident."

"Wow, kid, this is awkward." Bobby blew out his puffy lips a bit. "But I ain't going to lie to you, especially since I am like Godfather Vampire to you, okay. You sure they didn't tell you about me? That O'Malley guy? Your good-looking aunt, what's her name?"

I shook my head.

His face went sour. "Doesn't matter. Look. It was a hit, on your dad. Your mom was collateral damage."

My eyes went wide. "Mafia?"

"No, not a Mafia hit, but a hit's a hit, no matter who does it. But just know, we tried to square it, okay. We just couldn't find the guy."

"If my parents were murdered, why didn't someone tell me?"

"I can't answer that, kid. Wish I could."

"So who did it?" I pushed, mostly because I didn't believe him.

"That, I can't say. But dude went ghost and never resurfaced. But he was a bad element so maybe someone else got him."

As I tried to process what Bobby was saying, Frankie scared the crap out of me by returning without warning. He tossed a black tank top at Bobby.

"What are you two talking about?" Frankie said, eyeing Bobby with suspicion.

"I was trying to be polite and not ask," Bobby said, "but I just have to know. Are you vampire, Nina?"

"Good God! You really just asked her that?" Frankie looked horrified.

Bobby was sheepish, but only a little. "None of our kind ever had a kid before. Well, not in the regular, non-biting way. So are you?"

"It's okay, Frankie," I said with a smile. "I'm half. I'll be full when I'm dead. Well, when the human part dies."

"Half, yeah? Well, it's the good half." He ripped the old tank top the rest of the way off. His arms were still engorged, so he motioned for Frankie to help get the new shirt on.  Muttering, Frankie yanked the shirt over Bobby's head as if he was a toddler.

"So what have you decided, Bobby?" Frankie asked. "You heading out of town?"

"Yeah, yeah. New Orleans has been calling to me the past few years. I think maybe that's the next stop." Bobby gingerly stood up, his legs finally steady enough to carry some weight.

"You keep out of trouble with those New Orleans witches. They are no joke," Frankie warned.

"I had a New Orleans witch once, and she was hellfire. Why do you think I want to go back?" He winked.

Frankie waved him off. "I really don't want to know any more," he said making a face. "Seriously, Bobby, get in your car, drive south. I don't want to stake you, but Nina wouldn't think twice."

"I know, old friend. I know." He shook Frankie's hand and chuckled. He tried to pull Frankie in for a hug, but Frankie jumped back quickly.

"Sorry, mate, you still reek," he said.

"Nina," Bobby said, opening his arms wide. "Good to see you all grown up."

I begged off the hug with a nod and a small smile. "Nice to meet you."

"Look, kid, if you ever need me, just give a holler. Look up Lady Elaine at Bottom of the Teacup in NOLA."

"Lady Elaine?" I asked.

"Marco wasn't the only one to fall in love outside the family."

And with that, Bobby tipped an imaginary hat to me and shuffled towards the noisy bar around the corner.

"Lady Elaine, huh?" Frankie shrugged. "Shall we head west then?"

"What happened to samba?" I asked.

"I suddenly find that I miss the desert. If we get on the plane now, we can get to Vegas before dawn. We'll hit the Golden Nugget on Fremont."

We strode in the opposite direction of Bobby. I stared at my Converse sneakers scraping against the ground. For a hot second, I thought about asking Frankie if Bobby was telling me the truth. Had my dad really been murdered? I glanced over at Frankie, who made a point not to look in my direction.

"What about the New York-New York Casino?" I asked instead.

"I think I've had enough glamour," Frankie said. "I'll take the rough and tumble for a while. It has more character."

About the Author

Karen Greco has spent close to twenty years in New York City, working in publicity and marketing for the entertainment industry. Originally from Rhode Island (she loves hot wieners from New York System, but can't stand coffee milk), she studied playwriting in college (and won an award or two). After not writing plays for a long time, a life-long obsession with exorcists and Dracula drew her to urban fantasy, where she can decapitate characters with impunity. Her first novel,
Hell's Belle
, was released in 2013.
Tainted Blood
is the second book in the best-selling
Hell's Belle
urban fantasy series.

Visit her at
http://www.karengrecoauthor.com
.  Connect on Facebook (
http://www.facebook.com/hellsbellebykarengreco
) or Twitter (
https://twitter.com/karenThegreco
).