Chapter 19
LUCA
It takes us another nine hours to hit the outskirts of New York, mainly because we drive the kind of route only a geographically illiterate person would drive.
I don’t need to tell her to be cautious.
She automatically takes strange detours, stops off at random locations, and keeps an ever-watchful eye on the rearview mirror.
Pietro thinks Tomasso would have dispensed scouts to pretty much every town between Chicago and New York, assuming he figured out who I was and where I was headed. That’s a whole lot of assuming, and he’s not convinced his grandfather will know which Cosca I’m from.
“He’ll definitely figure out you’re Cosca,” he says from the backseat. “Because you look like a gangster. But you could be West Coast or Canada. Even Russian.”
“Canada?” echoes Rosa, next to me in the passenger seat now that it’s dark enough for me to drive. “They have organized crime in Canada?”
“Yeah,” her brother throws back at her. “It’s a global hotbed of the maple syrup black market.”
She laughs, and I see how they once might have been, these two, batting jokes around.
I came into their lives at a time of conflict and trauma, but there are glimmers of what they used to share.
I see her relaxing into it again, wanting it, maybe even needing the false comfort of the family who fucked her over.
I drive deliberately fast over a pothole in the road and grin when Pietro is thrown around and yelps. He still has no feeling in his legs and not enough upper body strength to stay upright, so the movement sends him flopping over his seatbelt like a puppet with its strings cut.
“You did that on purpose!” he shrieks, pulling himself back up.
“I know,” I reply. “You think he has people all over the country? How can even he stretch that far?”
“Well, he doesn’t need to be everywhere.
He might hate technology, but he loves his damn maps.
Has a whole room full of them, and he has a thing for you guys.
He’ll have located the Cosca HQs on both sides of the US, and he’ll know where the Romas are in Mexico, the Milanos in … They’re still in Milan, right?”
I frown as I drive. Tomasso knows entirely too much. All this time, he’s been watching us. Learning, storing away information that nobody with a drop of human blood should have.
“He’ll start simple,” Pietro continues. “He’ll focus on routes from Chicago to New York, Chicago to San Francisco, and Chicago to the border.
That’s a lot less to cover, and he’ll throw everything he has in all directions.
It explains why there were only two of them, doesn’t it?
He’s covering his bases, spread thin. Except now … ”
“Now they know where we’re heading. Or at least in which direction,” Rosa finishes for him, her voice tinged with concern. I’m worried about her now. Worried that she feels vulnerable, that she doesn’t trust me enough to keep her safe. Worried that she’s right.
“The Grand Ball Sack,” she announces suddenly.
“What?” I ask, glancing at her.
She’s smiling, her fingers wrapped around her amulet. “That’s his new name. Tomasso’s. Grandfather is too good for him. So from now on and henceforth, in perpetuity forever and ever amen, he will be known as the Grand Ball Sack. He’d hate that, the pompous asshole.”
I laugh out loud and reach across to squeeze her thigh. Yeah, she’s doing better than I thought. The Grand Ball Sack. I like it.
We’ve detoured up as far as Yonkers, and now I’m navigating familiar roads through the Bronx, making my way to the bridge. Matteo is meeting us in Brooklyn, and hopefully he’ll have Moonface with him. Nothing relieves tension like a sloppy kiss from a pit bull.
“You’re sure nobody will find us here?” Rosa asks, not for the first time.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I answer again. If she needs reassurance, that’s what I’ll give her.
“I live at Vincenzo’s court most of the time, but I wanted somewhere that was just mine.
I bought it off the books for cash over a century ago.
Don Vincenzo knows nothing about it, and if the Grand Ball Sack knows we’re headed to New York, he’ll assume we’re going to Hell’s Kitchen. ”
“Hell’s Kitchen?” she repeats, amused. “The vampire Mafia has its headquarters in Hell’s Kitchen?”
“Yeah, well. Don Vincenzo is not a man renowned for his subtlety. It’s an impressive place.”
“Yeah? What’s it like?”
“Big,” I answer, appeasing her need for distraction.
“He owns two whole blocks, though you’d never know from looking.
From the outside, it’s all normal—stores, bars, yoga studios, whatever.
But inside, everything’s connected—it’s like a maze of knocked-through buildings, a big yard in the middle where he grows his fruit trees.
Dungeons down below, a cinema room. Gym on the roof. ”
Neither of them has anything to say to that.
“What? Was it the fruit trees? Or the gym? Vampires work out, you know. Even the new ones who can’t change their bodies do it for fun.”
She runs her eyes over my muscles, and I enjoy the warm sensation that follows.
“A, uh, cinema room?” Pietro says from the back.
“Yeah. Some of us like movies.”
“Some of you were around when Charlie Chaplin was big,” he quips. He’s getting some of his spirit back, and I’m not impressed.
“Including you, kid, so let’s not get into that. Did you think it’d be all torture and blood and dark suffering, people being skinned alive over roasting fires? Because not gonna lie, there’s some of that too. But we have down time. We have hobbies.”
“What’s yours?” Pietro says. “Macramé? Sudoku?”
“My hobby is ripping the balls off dickhead Capelli men and ramming them down their throats when they talk too much.”
“Fuck you!”
“No, thanks,” I retort.
“Jeez,” Rosa says, laughing. “You two should get your own YouTube channel or something. Are we there yet?”
It’s been at least fifteen minutes since she last asked, so at least the stupid conversation distracted her for a bit.
“Yeah, we’re nearly there, bella,” I reply. “I told Matteo what’s been going on, and he’ll be waiting.”
“And Matteo is …” she says.
“Loyal,” I answer firmly. “I brought him into the family. He’s my second-in-command, and I trust him. I was going to say ‘like a brother,’ but that doesn’t feel like much of a recommendation right now, does it? Anyway, he’ll get the place ready, and I asked him to stock up with human shit.”
“Wow, that sounds appetizing,” chimes Pietro.
“Shut the fuck up!” Rosa and I say at the same time. We grin at each other, and a jagged sliver of emotion pierces my heart, sharper than any stake.
Fuck. All she has to do is smile at me and I’m lost. I love her. One hundred percent. My life before her was empty; my life without her would be meaningless. I am in love with the fucking Capelli Seer.
The thought sobers me and terrifies me. If I love her, I am weak. And if I’m weak, I can’t protect her. And if I can’t protect her, what is the fucking point of me at all? What I felt for Isabella was a fraction of this, and it broke me when she was killed. If I lose Rosa, I’m over.
My hands grip the steering wheel so tight that the leather starts to crack, and I force myself to relax.
I must focus on what’s next and not worry about the future.
They think they know vamps, these two. They think they know me.
They’d be surprised as fuck to learn that over the years I’ve experimented with meditation, mindfulness, even with crystal therapy.
When you live as long as we do, you cycle through a lot of phases.
Most of it did nothing for me, it was simply a way to pass time, but the meditation, that still helps. Even if my breathing isn’t like human breathing, learning to slow it down and control it is useful. I wonder how they’d react if I started to chant Om.
We finally climb out of the car a few blocks away from the house.
I told her Vincenzo has no clue about it, and I’m sure I’m right, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.
Plus it gives me the excuse to heft Pietro over my shoulder like a sack of shit and jiggle him around as we walk.
I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of making him uncomfortable.
Before we set off, I pull the plates from the Chevy. No point making it easy for anyone who might be looking for us.
We walk through the dark streets of the quiet neighborhood, and I lead us to a big brownstone on the corner. Rosa lets out an appreciative whistle. “Nice. I can see this whole vampire crime lord gig has its perks. Now, didn’t you promise me a dog?”
“I did. And I warn you, it’s a big dog. She’s especially fond of eating dickhead brains though, so Pietro better watch out.”
“Ha fucking ha,” he says, punching my ass with surprising strength.
I bite a small flap of skin from my thumb and smear it across the panel on the doorknob. The security system is programmed not only for fingerprints, but for blood scans as well. A quiet click tells me all is good.
I kick open the door, and they follow me inside.
The whole ground floor is a smokescreen.
There’s normal stuff like couches and a TV, but it’s basically a kill box with doors that lock remotely, UV floodlights, motion detectors, steel gates, and weapons stashed everywhere.
Anyone who comes in who shouldn’t be here won’t last long.
Rosa pulls open a drawer and runs her fingers over the semiautomatic tucked inside, then she wanders over to one of the doorways and smiles up at the spiked metal barely visible at the top of the frame. One touch of a button in the control room and anyone standing there becomes a shish kebab.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” she says. “You’ve got a shot at a spread in Vampire House Beautiful.”
Her breathing grows calmer, her heartbeat steadying. She’s starting to relax, and that alone was worth all the money this setup cost me.