Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Luca
T he last thing I expected while sitting in my office Friday afternoon eating spuckies with Gio and Vinnie was a text message from Siobhán. She wanted to talk. At her place. My insides twisted into a complicated sequence of knots I couldn’t untangle. There was curiosity for sure, suspicion definitely, but also relief. One of us had ended the stalemate. No surprise she was the one to do it; she was the strong one.
I exited Route 1 into Charlestown and headed west toward Somerville, my unease growing with each city block. Which said a lot given how the past month and a half had gone since ending things with Siobhán.
Restless nights bled into routine days. The few-days’ reprieve from my nightmares vanished without her in my arms. All I could do to force myself to sleep at night was spend more time at Vito’s gym. I drove myself hard for hours on end until exhaustion won the battle against anxiety.
I threw myself into work. The Dollhouse hadn’t turned out that much profit in years, and the Source funnel to Terme di Boston was finally picking up steam. I worked every job Vinnie gave me—another big lift, thankfully free of cops, and the occasional shakedown.
I also threw myself into my endgame, determined to find evidence that Ciarán Shaughnessy was in bed with the feds. I had Leo tailing him almost every day. Unless I needed a distraction to fill my time. Then, I tailed him myself. Anything to keep my mind off Siobhán.
The most troubling change? I stopped feeding for pleasure. In fact, I went almost three weeks without feeding at all. Outside of my time in Vinnie’s warehouse, that was the longest dry spell of my life.
My fangs started aching after ten days, leaking venom and throbbing with need. By the end of the second week, my strength waned, and dizzy spells plagued my workouts. But I pushed through, driving myself even harder and relishing the pain and vertigo dulling my focus. With each passing day, the hollow pit in my stomach expanded until my survival instincts kicked in and I almost lost control of my inner predator. I turned one night after work in the parking lot at Starmarket, poised to attack an innocent woman walking out with a bag of groceries. It scared the hell out of me. I got in my car and drove straight home.
Mia came into my office the next night and offered her neck. She was worried about me and promised to keep things professional. I hesitated, some sick part of me wanting to prolong my punishment, like I somehow deserved to be blood-starved for letting Siobhán go, but my fangs’ persistent ache and the constant stomach pains were too much to bear. If I didn’t take Mia up on her offer, I wouldn’t last much longer before losing control.
Feeding from Mia did the job, and I’d be okay for one more week before I needed to visit her again, but there was only one person whose blood I craved.
I parked in the cul-de-sac, turned off the car, and sat for a moment, as nervous as a teenager at his date’s front door before prom. Which was ridiculous. I was a capo in the Italian Mafia. I had more money than I could spend in a lifetime. I’d fucked more supermodels than I had fingers. Yet there I sat, anxious as hell and wondering what I’d say when I finally saw her again.
What future did we have together anyway? She was a Shaughnessy. I was a Moretti. I couldn’t let my father’s murder go unavenged. My vendetta would always stand in our way no matter how much we tried to convince ourselves otherwise. I shook my head and got out of the car.
And then there was the matter of my not being human. Not everyone accepted the existence of blood demons as easily as Anna had with Marco. My mother hadn’t.
Where did that leave me and Siobhán? Nowhere. But I was too selfish not to take any opportunity to see her again. I took a deep breath, let out a long exhale, and knocked on her door.
She opened it, and nostalgia punched me in the chest. The Siobhán I’d known for years—the one transported right off the set of an early Hollywood movie—stood before me. Her white cap-sleeved blouse showed off her long delicate arms and neck. Her maroon pencil skirt was cinched tight around her tiny waist with a wide black belt. It accentuated her subtle curves and long legs and reminded me of the lithe body hidden underneath. She’d kept the length in her hair but tamed it into its familiar style, each curl perfectly set, each wave artfully placed to frame her beautiful face.
“Siobhán.” Her name passed my lips like a prayer.
Her ruby red smile, inviting as ever, was tentative, almost hopeful. “Thanks for coming,” she said and ushered me in. “Sorry for the cryptic message, but I wanted to talk in person.”
Her home looked different now than when I’d broken in and waited for her in the dark. Style and personality came through in every detail, from the vintage stained glass floor lamps to the art deco pieces hanging on the walls. A stack of magazines sat on a coffee table in front of the couch, and her body’s indent was still visible on the cushion.
“How are you, Siobhán?” I asked, a stilted attempt to fill the awkward silence.
She walked past me into the living room, wringing her hands. She wouldn’t meet my eyes, and the creases across her forehead deepened.
I frowned and moved closer. “What’s wrong?”
The delicate muscles of her neck bobbed through a swallow, and her lips parted as if struggling to voice what was stuck in her throat.
“I’m pregnant.”
The words slammed into my chest like two bullets at point-blank range. I blinked and shook my head. I hadn’t heard her properly. I couldn’t have heard her properly.
“Wha—” I cleared my throat, trying to force air back into my lungs after the impact. I shifted my weight and tilted my head. “What?”
“I’m pregnant,” she said, and the words ricocheted off the walls, echoing in my ears.
“Are—are you sure?”
She tore her eyes away from mine and focused them on her dining room table. I followed her gaze to five white and pink and purple sticks. I stepped up to the table, limbs heavy like I was dragging them through quicksand.
Pregnancy tests. All lined up in a neat row. Plastic arbiters of justice sealing my fate.
“They’re all positive,” she whispered.
Sealing Siobhán’s fate.
My mouth went dry. “How…” I couldn’t form thoughts much less words. I stared at the tests in disbelief.
“I missed my doctor’s appointment in March when everything—when everything happened at Vesuvio. I forgot.”
“You forgot,” I repeated, and dread pooled in my gut.
“Anna was in the hospital. I was living my worst nightmare. You were gone…” Her voice trembled. “God, Luca, I thought they were going to kill you. That doctor’s appointment was the last thing on my mind. Until today. I—I’ve been sick for a week.”
My head snapped up. Sick? Already?
A rising pool of blood stained the edges of my vision. Dread clawed its way up from my gut and wound gnarled fingers around my chest. I slammed my eyes shut. “You forgot.” The words came out sharp and edged with panic.
“Luca,” she pleaded. “Please, look at me.”
I opened my eyes, and Siobhán’s face was etched with worry. She twisted her fingers in front of her.
The pool of blood that haunted my dreams closed in around her, and dread transformed into fear. It tightened around my chest, and the panic that ensued snapped my brain out of idle and into overdrive. It raced through time and space, landing on our first night together.
“I asked if we were safe. I asked if we should use protection.”
She blinked and shook her head. “I—I thought you were talking about STDs. I’ve been on the shot for so long, I didn’t?—”
I cried out, the pained noise squeezed from my lungs by the cruel twist of fate.
She reached for me.
I backed away before the firmness of her fingers convinced me this was reality and not another one of my fucked-up dreams. “This isn’t happening,” I shouted, and my hands flew to my hair.
Siobhán’s eyes glistened bright blue, and tears spilled onto her pale cheeks. Her image faded into a familiar, horrifying scene straight out of my nightmares.
Pale and starved, my mother lay on a bed, screaming through my bloody birth. My father stood over her with his sleeves rolled up, holding her hand as the doctor tried to save her. The ever-present pool of blood surrounded her. It crept toward her face, and the doctor and my father dissolved into red.
I blinked rapidly, desperate to clear the images from my mind. “This isn’t happening,” I said again and tore my eyes away from the hurt in her face and her quivering lip. But the images that replaced her made me stagger.
It wasn’t my mother lying on that bed anymore. It was Siobhán, her belly swollen with our baby, her scars stretched and jagged across her stomach. Her too-thin arms and legs had grown skeletal, her body trying to give our baby what it needed to survive. And failing.
She looked at me from her deathbed with the same haunted expression my mother wore the day I came into this world and she left it—scared but resigned. I took her hand. She smiled, the adoring smile she saved for me. Then the light left her eyes, and the smile faded. Her body went still. Pale, cold, lifeless. History repeating itself, and it was all my fault.
My hands fell from my hair and landed on my heart, the stabbing pain there so powerful it threw me off balance. I stumbled back and grabbed hold of the dining room chair. It skidded across the floor as I tried to steady myself.
A black hole expanded in my chest at the thought of losing Siobhán. It trapped all the air. I couldn’t breathe.
I killed her. I killed them both.
“Mio Dio,” I whispered. “Cosa ho fatto?”
“Luca,” Siobhán said through pained sobs. “Luca, I’m so sorry.”
Tears poured down her face. But she was already dead, and I killed her.
“Siobhán—” My voice cracked around her name. I gasped for air. I couldn’t breathe. I had to get out.
She reached for me. I waved her away and stumbled toward the door.
“Luca, please. Talk to me,” she sobbed, hysterical.
“I can’t.” I braced myself on the doorjamb. “I…”
She grabbed my arm, trying to pull me back from the brink, but I had to escape the nightmare.
“Please,” she cried.
“I can’t.” I flung the door open, yanked my arm out of her grasping fingers, and hurried down the stairs.
“Luca!” Siobhán’s pained sobs followed in my wake. “ Luca! ”
Blood rushed in my ears. My chest burned from lack of oxygen, and stars danced across my vision. I doubled over, propping myself upright with my hands on my knees until air finally made its way back into my lungs and I could breathe again.
I climbed into my car and gripped the steering wheel, clinging to it like a tether to reality. I rested my forehead between my white knuckles and tried to regain control, but my eyes turned, fear driving my primal instincts to survive.
Siobhán’s lifeless body remained fixed in my vision. I stood over her, begging her not to leave me. Like Marco left me. Like my father. Like my mother. But with each desperate plea, her body faded, consumed by the red void until I stood alone in the darkness. Utterly alone.