Chapter 6
ROSA
Jenny Brunelli’s friends know she likes to run, swim, and play tennis. What they don’t know is that she also likes to kick the shit out of a punching bag and poke pointy wooden sticks into cardboard figures decorated with hand-drawn Magic Marker fangs. A girl’s got to have her mysteries, right?
Jenny Brunelli—a.k.a. Rosa Capelli—is now home. Back in the apartment I’ve owned for so long, a place I consider safe. At least for now.
Dumping Luca da Firenze turned out to be easier than I expected.
Yet another man who underestimated me. I still blush with embarrassment when I remember the way I reacted to him when we first met, at how the needs of my body overrode all thought, but in the end that helped.
He didn’t see me as anything approaching an equal; he saw me as some kind of sex-starved princess who needed saving.
Well, okay, maybe he’s right on the sex-starved front. But that can be fixed. His is not the only cock in the world. And I sure as hell don’t need saving. I might need a little help, but I don’t need a savior. Especially not one of the vampire variety.
After slamming a vicious flying back kick into the punching bag, I collapse onto the reinforced floor, dripping with sweat.
I’ve been knocking the shit out of that punching bag for over an hour now, and it feels good.
It makes me feel strong. Capable. A welcome change from the way I felt when I left Liverpool.
I sip some water from my bottle and tap my toes along to the screaming Foo Fighters song blasting from the sound system. The apartment is soundproofed as well—Jenny Brunelli does like her privacy.
Somehow though, even with the doorman downstairs, the elevator with its security code, and the three deadbolts on the door, I don’t feel entirely safe.
Entirely hidden. I can still feel his fingers on my skin.
Feel his eyes on my body. Remember how pussy-clenchingly good it was to have his thigh between my legs.
I hoped an hour of mindless violence might chase him away, but I was wrong. Although I escaped him physically, it’s like he left a piece of himself with me, and I don’t like it. Or maybe I like it a bit too much.
After giving him the slip, I went straight back to my hotel, feeling pleased with myself but annoyed that it had cost me one of my favorite jackets and a travel bottle of one of my biggest indulgences.
My perfume—a custom blend of lemon and basil, with hints of pepper and underlying oud—comes from an artisan perfumery in Italy and costs a fortune, but I don’t have many vices in life, so what the hell.
By the time the sun rose as much as it was going to, I knew I was probably safe, so I grabbed my gear, jumped into my rental, and drove to the airport.
Airports aren’t the best places to be if you’re vampire-dodging.
Whole sections of them are free from natural light, and the glare of electricity is the only sun.
Plus, everyone is so stressed and self-obsessed that they wouldn’t notice if someone were being drained of their life’s blood in the check-in line.
They’re a bit like Vegas in those respects, and Vegas is crawling with vamps.
I was tense until I was on the plane and three mini bottles of vodka in.
I got home last night, and today … Well, today I need to find answers. Not only about Luca, but about the things he told me. Because he’s right—I have been Called more and more recently.
If all were logical in the world, I would cover the Americas, Donatella would be on call for Asia and Australia, and Paola Bianchi in Africa.
But for decades now, we have been without a Lombardi, who would have been based in Europe.
We’ve also been without my sister Serena.
We were the first-ever twin Seers, and her powers were shaping up to be far stronger than mine.
So the three of us deal with all the territories, and some are more troublesome than others. The Russian vamps are a handful, and there was a nasty outbreak of feral killers in New Zealand a few years ago.
I’ve been zigzagging the US, had a barrel of laughs clearing a nasty nest in Vancouver, and although my trip to Liverpool was the first in the UK, I’ve been in France and the Czech Republic as well. It’s more than usual—a lot more. I’m wiped out and can’t carry on like this.
I like to keep myself to myself. I work alone, and I am not especially close to the other Vecchissime women. Donatella is super sociable and regularly organizes events, but I don’t go unless I have to.
Then there’s my immediate family … and that’s a whole other story.
I fight off a wave of sadness as I think about them.
About my grandfather Tomasso, who has been disappointed with me from the day I was born.
Pietro, my younger brother, who is no longer the happy and playful child he used to be.
About my parents, my sisters—all long gone.
Mainly, I think about Serena, who was torn from me when we were only teenagers.
Twins, as close in life as we were in the womb.
She was my best friend, my confidant, my other half—the best of me.
And she died in my place, in the fire that destroyed my family.
The fire that should have taken me, not her.
I’ve been half dead ever since. It’s as though when she breathed her last tortured breath, she took me with her.
For over a century now, I’ve forced myself to carry on. To do my duty. I’ve killed and killed and killed some more. Lived my fake lives. I’ve had men, experimented with women, tried every shade of sex and drugs and rock and roll. But none of it has worked. None of it has brought me back to life.
None of it gave me a hint of the spark I felt the second Luca da Firenze crashed into my world. The surge of need that ran through my body when he touched me or the fascination at seeing his spectacular tattoo. The very real temptation to give in—to let him protect me. Let him keep me safe.
I felt it all, and it left me thrumming with life—and with questions. Why him? Why now? Why the sudden influx of Calls? Who is Kurt? Why is an Old World Cosca vamp gate-crashing my life? I need answers to at least some of those questions.
After a quick shower, I settle down on my balcony to make a few phone calls.
My apartment faces the Chicago River, and I’ve sat out here as numerous different people over the decades.
No matter where else I’ve lived or for how long, I always come back here, with a different name, different hairstyle, different vibe.
There’s a naturally transient population in places like this—city dwellers tend to be young professionals who grow up and move somewhere more sensible—and that’s helped me obscure the truth.
There’s one old biddy three floors down, Patricia Flanagan, who has been here for a zillion years and looks at me sideways in the elevator. She suspects something, but women her age know enough to be wary of sounding crazy.
I’m glad, because I love it here. I love the dizzying height, the grand buildings all around me.
The feeling that I’m floating above the madness of the city.
And the balcony—well, here I am, bathed in sunshine on a baking hot day without a cloud in the sky.
No vampire on earth, no matter how old or strong, could deal with this.
I’ve never thought too deeply about that before, but now, with Luca in the picture, I’m glad.
It’s ten in the morning here, which means it’s ten at night in Bangkok, where Donatella currently lives.
She’ll be surprised at me being the one to reach out, but she will have all the gossip.
She’ll also be looking for more, so I need to keep quiet about Luca.
Donatella can give the impression that she’s nothing more than a bubbly airhead, but to believe her act would be a big mistake.
I’m about to hit her number when my screen flashes to life with an incoming call, and I do a double take when I see the name come up: Donatella Agostini. WTF? Are we somehow psychically connected, or is this a freakish coincidence?
“Rosa?” she says hesitantly when I answer, obviously caught off guard. I typically let all my calls go to voicemail and sort them out later.
“You won’t believe this, but I was literally just about to call you.”
“Have you heard about Paola?” she asks. It’s unlike her to not engage in any small talk.
“No,” I reply, dread building in my stomach.
“She’s in the hospital. In a coma. They’re not sure she’s going to make it, Rosa!” The panic in her voice—the two of them are close—causes bile to surge into my throat as I ask her what happened.
“She was Called to Cairo and ambushed. She checked in with me on her way there from Cape Town, said she’d been having really vivid visions for weeks. Far more detailed than usual. She was worried but put them down to how exhausted she was.”
Paola never had especially loud visions, that was more my bag, so I can imagine how much it would upset her. “Why was she so exhausted?” I ask quietly, already knowing the answer.
“She’s been getting Called pretty much every night for a while now … as have I. It’s strange, even by our standards, no?”
“It is, and it’s been the same with me. I just got back from London.” I ponder telling her about Luca, but something stops me—some old instinct, a basic lack of trust. The same vibe that’s kept me alone and isolated for so long.
“What’s wrong with Paola?” I ask instead.