“Unless you have Giuliana’s sonnets.”
Her head shot up.
She stared at him in horror. “What?”
He was looking at Lorenzo. She shook her head in disbelief.
“No,” she said again, even louder.
Lorenzo reached over, drawing a thin book, bound in red leather, from the side table. It was small, no bigger than the size of a composition book, and the binding was intricately tooled; she could see the finely preserved gold script on the cover.
“As a matter of fact,” Lorenzo said gleefully. “I do.”
Giovanni cocked an eyebrow and held his pale hand out. “Let me see them.”
She kept expecting him to offer her a look or a wink or…anything to tell her he was in control. That he was bluffing. That he wouldn’t trade her for his old books. Anything to stop the cold feeling of dread and betrayal that began to climb her throat, choking her where she sat. She looked around the room in panic as Giovanni paged through the small book.
No, no, no, no, no, her mind chanted when she saw the interest in his eyes.
“They’re all there. Angelo Poliziano had the originals bound after Giuliana sent them, heartbroken after her lover deserted her. Andros took them after he murdered Poliziano. These are her copies-written by her lover’s hand. Now, would you like to trade? Or are these little poems destined for the fire?”
Giovanni looked at the small volume in his hands and a look of tenderness softened his features. Then, he wiped his expression clean and looked at Lorenzo.
“Fine. The girl is yours.”
“No,” she screamed. “No!” Beatrice looked around the room, but no one would meet her eyes. “I won’t go with him!” She looked at the vampire she had trusted. “Gio? Don’t let him take me! Giovanni?”
He wouldn’t even look at her.
She crawled over the back of the couch, trying to flee toward the patio doors, but the dark-haired vampire grabbed her before her feet hit the ground.
“No,” she screamed again, trying to twist away, but it was useless. She was bound in the iron grasp of cold, immortal arms. “You can’t do this to me! No!”
But the sick feeling that crawled through her said that they could.
She observed the rest of the Lorenzo and Giovanni’s “business transaction” as she twisted and bit the guard’s arms, desperately trying to get away from him. “Let me go, you bastards! Let me go!”
They stood, and Giovanni shook Lorenzo’s hand, then Gavin’s.
She broke down sobbing when he refused to look at her. “Please, Gio!” she cried. “Please, don’t let him take me. Please!”
“So,” she heard Lorenzo say, “all that posturing at the library was about your books? I think I’m disappointed.”
“I don’t give a damn about your disappointment,” Giovanni bit out. “And you’re going to give me the rest eventually. Andros’s books are mine and I will find them. Now get the hell out of my house and out of Houston. I don’t want to see you for another hundred years, do you understand?”
Giovanni turned his back to her, and the tears fell swift down her face. Her screams had turned to painful whispers, and her head hurt from crying. She shook her head, trying to block out the betrayal that played out before her, and wishing for physical pain to block the deep cut of abandonment.
“I’m off!” Lorenzo chirped. “Lovely doing business with you.”
There was no need for the guard to hold her tightly anymore. She sagged in his arms, and if she’d anything left in her stomach, it would have been emptied on Giovanni’s luxurious Persian rug.
The whole time, she’d been a pawn. Only a pawn for the man in front of her to get what he wanted. His words months ago drifted to her memory.
“Don’t be naive. For the right price, everything is for sale.”
He’d told her.
She just didn’t want to believe him.
Beatrice was propelled toward the kitchen door, but she refused to walk. Finally, her captor picked her up and carried her like a piece of luggage. As she left the room, she heard Giovanni speak.
“Gavin, care to stay for a drink? I’ve got a wonderful whiskey a friend sent for Christmas. I’ve been waiting to open it.”
By the time they reached the car, she wished that someone would strike her or use their amnis so she could pass out and escape what must have been a nightmare.
Lorenzo got in the car next to her and shut the door. He smiled.
“Don’t worry, my dear. I’m sure you and your father will be seeing each other very soon.”
She glared at him, a bitter rage churning inside her.
“Go to hell.”
A flicker of madness crept into his eyes.
“Already there.”
Then cold hands touched her neck, and everything went black.
Chapter Twenty
Houston, Texas
June 2004
Giovanni stood frozen, his fists clenched as he listened to Lorenzo’s car wind down the driveway. When he finally heard it turn the corner toward Buffalo Bayou, he let out a roar and threw the glass of eighteen year old scotch into the fireplace.
“Dammit, man! The next time I give you a not-very-subtle message to get in touch with me, do it!” Gavin shouted.
“Not now,” Giovanni snarled as he stalked past the table of books and crashed through the patio doors.
In the privacy of his garden’s high walls, he let the rage envelope him. He’d kept himself reined since he scented the spilled blood coming up the driveway. He’d tamped down his anger when he caught the sharp tang of adrenaline in the courtyard, but he’d almost lost control when his son had placed his hands on her.
Blue flames erupted over his skin, burning off his clothes and turning them to charred rags as they drifted to the ground. He silently paced the length of the garden.
“Gio? Don’t let them take me!”
The full weight of his anger unfurled, and the flames grew.
“You can’t do this to me!”
He channeled the blaze toward a copse of cedars near the pool house, letting the intense fire burn them to ash in seconds as he heard Beatrice begging him to save her.
Please, Gio! Please, don’t let him take me…”
He paced the yard, burning hands tugging his dark hair as the memory of her tears flooded his mind. His shoes turned to ash along with his clothes, and he seared the lush grass wherever his bare feet touched.
“How valuable do you think she is?”
Giovanni halted at the memory of his child’s scoffing voice. He pushed the energy away from his body into the humid night air, loosing the fire within.
Priceless.
A thousand memories battered his mind. Her smile. The soft curve of her neck. The light in her dark eyes. The feel of her hands tangled in his hair. The soft, sweet smell of her skin.
In the shadow of her loss, he could finally admit the truth.
“How valuable do you think she is?”
She was priceless.
Remembering the sound of her defeated sobs when she realized his betrayal, he fell to his knees. His rage forgotten as the wave of loss washed over him. Giovanni stumbled to the edge of the pool, falling in and letting himself sink to the deepest part of the pool. He felt the water bubble along his skin as it cooled.
His rage ebbed as he floated in the cool water. The soft currents brushed through his hair, reminding him of her small fingers when she teased him the night before.
“Your hair is so soft. I wish mine was soft like that.”
“I like your hair.”
“You do? It’s so straight. I always wished I had curls like yours.”
“No. Your hair is beautiful as it is.”