“Maybe that’s true. I know you never got along.”
“Never got along?” I reply, incredulous. Does he really think it was that simple? He’s younger, sure, and he naturally turned to Tomasso when our parents died, but was he really so blind to everything that went on between me and our grandfather? “It was more than that, Pietro. He has made it clear that the wrong sister died that night. He always let me know that Serena should have survived, not me. The abuse I suffered at his hands…” I’m sick of dressing it up, of pretending to myself that it was some kind of old-fashioned discipline that went too far. My grandfather abused me. “He used a cane on me. I wasn’t much older than you were when we lost our parents the first time be beat me. So no, we didn’t ‘get along,’ as you put it. The man is a sick fuck, and you believed every word that came out of his damn mouth!” My voice is raised, and my anger and sadness make me ball my hands into tight fists.
“Okay, I believe you. But he wasn’t that monster with me, Rosa. He was the only person who made me feel safe after the fire. He raised me. I trusted him… Until now. Now I see him for what he is. I can’t believe he made me do it…”
“You keep saying that,” I snap, “as though you weren’t there. As though you weren’t part of it. When I was lying paralyzed on that bed, Pietro—brother—you looked plenty ready to do it. You were up for it!”
“He pumped me full of blue pills!” he protests, looking horrified. “You can’t believe that I’d actually respond to you that way?”
“Well, there’s something about having your brother’s erect dick in your face that clouds the judgment. And do you really think that makes it all okay? You didn’t desire me, but you were still willing to rape me?”
What color is left in his face drains completely, and he looks as though he might pass out. I fight off a wave of concern—he needs to hear this. He needs to feel this.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, shaking his head. “It’s really all I can say. And I’m relieved it didn’t happen. I’m glad… Who the fuck was that anyway? Tomasso says vamp from the way the guards were killed. I watched the camera footage, but he stayed in the shadows, and what I could see of him… Well, it was mainly blood.”
“Vamp, yes,” I say, staring at him. “My vamp. The only one who gave a shit about me.”
His expression flickers with distaste, and his eyes float to my neck. It’s obvious what he’s looking for.
“Really?” I say, laughing bitterly. “That’s what you’re bothered about right now? You’re wondering if your sister, the precious Capelli Seer, is getting bitten? Well, she is. She’s getting bitten and she’s getting fucked and she’s loving it—because he cared enough to stop what you, my own family, were about to do. So, who’s the bad guy here, Pietro?”
“But… It’s dangerous. They’re dangerous, you know that.”
“Do I? Do I really? We’ve all met vamps who aren’t dangerous, Pietro. They’re not all brutal killing machines. But in this case, you’re right—because this one is. He can be a monster, but at least he knows it. You’re just as much of a monster, but you seem to have persuaded yourself that none of it is your fault!”
He jumps as I sweep the coffee mug off the table, and it shatters on the floor, the last dregs of liquid draining out onto the stone.
“I know, okay! You’re right, about all of it. But I’m here, and I’m sorry, and I wanted to tell you what I suspect. I want to try and help you!”
I suck in a ragged breath and attempt to calm myself. If I get so angry I murder my brother, I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my sorry life, and I don’t deserve that fate—I already carry the guilt of killing one sibling.
“Right. Well. Talk then—what do you suspect?”
He studies me as though he’s trying to assess what level of threat I am right now. Pietro is a Maker, like Tomasso, and they are often both creative and practical. Our parents were Healers, and I yearn for some of that right now—someone to soothe, to reassure, to make it all okay again. They’re gone, though, and I am not a child anymore.
“None of this I know for fact,” he says eventually, “but I have my suspicions that he actually wants you to be the only Seer. He’s old now, and not as careful as he once was, and he let something slip a while ago. Something about Anna Lombardi.”
That name again, I think. The long-dead Seer who I never even knew. Why does she keep cropping up? I gesture for him to continue, and he nods.
“It wasn’t much, but he said something like ‘it was a pity, but it had to happen.’ It was weird, and he shut up straight away, like he realized he’d spoken out of turn. And Paola… When we heard the news about Paola, he wasn’t surprised, Rosa. He made some shocked noises when her father called to tell us, but I spotted it because I know him. He… he already knew.”
I turn the information over in my mind. The way he questioned me the day I went over there to discuss things, making me admit that I never felt like my own life was under threat regardless of the near-constant Calls. How the two of them reacted when I mentioned the name Kurt. “Who is Kurt?” My question obviously catches Pietro unawares.
He visibly weighs his options before responding. “I’m not sure. But his name has come up. I heard Tomasso talking to him on the phone one night when he didn’t know I was in the house. They were discussing money transfers and a schedule, and that’s all I know. I didn’t think anything of it until you asked about him. Even then, you didn’t give me enough information to go on—I assumed he was just someone who worked for Tomasso.”
“And you didn’t wonder why he denied all knowledge of him that day?”
“Yeah, I did wonder—and I checked the books. There was no record of a Kurt of any kind being on the payroll, and when I went over Tomasso’s phone records, the number he called was dead. And then… Well, then things went haywire.”
By haywire, he means that Tomasso revealed his master plan to boost the Capelli gene pool. Jesus.
What does all of this mean, apart from the obvious—that I am descended from a family of sociopaths? Who is Kurt, and why does Luca think he is a danger to me? And what does my grandfather have to do with the death of Anna Lombardi and the attack on Paola Bianchi? None of it makes any sense, and the only person I want to talk to about all of this is Luca. He’s older than me and will have seen countless battles and family disputes and Cosca intrigues. He will have a different perspective.
A powerful sense of yearning pulls at me. I snuck away from him, and he will be awake now and will not be pleased to discover me gone. I didn’t give him the chance to come here. I didn’t try and explain why I wanted to come back. I just did my usual thing—struck out on my own, no matter the risks.
I glance at the sun slowly sinking in the sky, near to setting now, and wonder how long it will be before he risks coming after me. He’s awake. I felt him trying to make contact earlier, the faint touch of his voice in my mind before I shut him down. I need to keep my head clear for a little while longer—plus, he sounded pissed, and I am not in the mood to listen to an alpha male vamp lecture me on my poor choices.
“Sis?” Pietro says, his voice somehow distant. “Are you still there?”
