Fratelli: The Awakening (The Vampire Cartel #1)

40. The Hard Choice

Chapter 40

The Hard Choice

H enderson, Nevada

April 15, 2018

(7 Days Before Death)

Dolly’s cries for help had grown hoarse, her voice ravaged by her terror. She remained ensnared in a nightmare, and her sanity slipped. Even within the supposed safety of his bedroom, with attendants scrambling to soothe her, she found no relief. The torture crescendo when the other one within her—the one sharing her soul—unveiled the full extent of her lovers’ heinous acts and the true nature of the vampire Lucio. Yes, he was a vampire, a ruthless predator who had feasted on her ancestor and her more than once. Darlene taunted her mercilessly with a sinister laugh, thwarting every attempt at a mental reprieve.

As Dolly navigated the dark corridors of her mind, she collided with one horrifying revelation after another, each more disorienting than the last. Memories morphed into cages, trapping her in a blend of truth and deceit. Overwhelmed and unable to discern reality from illusion, Dolly’s psyche shattered. She collapsed into unconsciousness and vanished into the depths of her own fragmented reality.

Don Lucio arrived within five minutes of vaporization and materialization. He walked across the circular drive in his usual fashion. Several of his soldiers were on patrol, and no one seemed alarmed.

There had been no breach of his secured fortress. Not from the Fratelli or the hundreds of other supernatural enemies that could be on the hunt under a full moon.

Lucio greeted the two men at his estate door. They bowed their heads in respect, and he entered their minds. He told each to gather the staff of humans and get them the fuck out of his house. He walked through his home and into his bedroom. There he found three women and one of his capu s near the bed. Dolly lay upon the bedcovers, still like a corpse, her hands folded primly on her stomach, her once lush hair a mass of tangles. Of course, her screaming had ceased in his head. She showed no evidence of turmoil.

“ Vattene !” he commanded the others with a voice as loud as a lion’s roar. The mortal women were terrified and escaped the room first. His soldier left last.

Lucio approached the bed. There he stood with his hands in his pockets, staring down at the woman he had found only two days before, vibrant and unaware of monsters in the world. It has felt like they have been together for centuries. His father said she was a weapon sent to destroy his kind, yet her fate at his father’s hands would be worse than death. His father said there would be only one foolish enough to let her into their family. He was the one.

Domencio was right. Lucio was the weakest link.

Dere would be one, only one, and he be de worst of you and the death of all your sons...

He paced the side of the bed, dueling with his emotions over his duty and his affections—which should he choose? The answer became clear to him the moment he drank her light. He rather burn to ashes from her wrath than live his cold existence with his Draca. Or condemn her to death for becoming a slave to a beast that should have never existed. Wanda had taught him that lesson. Though he spared her life, he did choose his family over her. And here was fate tempting him again to make the same decision.

Dolly breathed. A long exhale, but nothing more. He glanced at the bed. He waited for her to wake, and prayed for it with his cold dead heart. Even his Draca had softened to her. Instead of lusting for her blood, it paced back and forth inside of him with worry.

“I know. She’s trapped. You must know what this is doing to her sanity,” Lucio said to his dragon.

Once again, he reached into her mind and found his connection severed. He talked to her repeatedly, but she lay still and calm, beyond his reach. With a burdened sigh, he stepped to the bed. Lucio scooped her up from the mattress into his arms. Dolly felt listless in his embrace. Lucio walked out of the room. The doors parted as he entered one room and exited the next. He arrived at the room where French doors blasted open to reveal the moon and desert sky. He stepped through to an extended balcony at the top of his estate.

The night sky wasn’t as dark as before. Dawn lay somewhere deep in the shadows, inching toward extinguishing the darkness completely. He looked down at his Dolly. He kissed her brow and whispered his love for her by reciting an old Sicilian poem by Salvatore Quasimodo. One that was often recited to him as a babe—by his mother’s ghost after her untimely demise. It was the only memory of her he had. He’d see the specter of her glowing in the forest. And on special occasions Manman Julia would lower the barrier allow her in.

Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra

trafitto da un raggio di sole:

ed è subito sera.

It translated to:

Everyone stands alone at the heart of the world

pierced by a ray of sunlight,

and suddenly it is night.

Lucio continued on. When he reached the balcony where she once gazed down at the pools, he levitated. He carried them both off it at least forty feet in the air.

“You’re in there. I know you are, tesoro . I know who you are now.”

Darlene had orchestrated it all. If he was to save Dolly and his father, he would have to deal with Darlene. She was the weapon, not his precious Dolly. She was the one to defeat. Lucio brushed his lips across Dolly’s mouth. She did not move. She lay deathly still.

“Forgive me for what I’m about to do,” he said.

Don Lucio's fangs descended, and he opened his mouth. He shifted her in his arms to bring her up and closer, her head turned towards him, and in doing so, her jugular was revealed. He dropped his fangs into her throat. Lucio took a deep drink. Dolly’s hand twitched, then moved. Slowly her hand rubbed up his arm as if she were just merely receiving a lover’s kiss to her neck. Lucio drew back in time to avoid complete domination, and Darlene turned her head to smile up at him. She reached and touched his face.

“Hi vampire,” she said.

“What have you done to her?” Lucio asked.

“Did you miss me?” Darlene asked.

“Answer me. What have you done to Dolly?”

“Was it me who broke our deal? Was it me who told her in the shower to open her mind and face the truth? Was that my crime? Or was it yours, vampire?” Darlene challenged.

Lucio glared down at her. The humid night air blew all around them. Darlene smiled and tried to lift her head to kiss him, despite her blood smeared over his lips. He instead gripped her by the throat. Darlene's eyes stretched, bulged in shock, then with surprised delight. Once again, she thought it was all a game. She soon realized the compromised position she was in. Lucio let her go and she dropped but was held from falling by his hand.

Darlene kicked her legs and struck him. She flailed hopelessly in his grip.

“Does your power give you the gift of flight?” Lucio asked.

“What are you doing? I can’t fly! Put me down! You’re hurting my neck!” Darlene fought him the best she could but kept looking down at the concrete flooring surrounding the pool in fear.

“I know who you are,” Lucio said.

“Of course you do! I’m Darlene!” she said in an almost childlike voice.

“Don’t play with me. I know why you’re here. How you’re using her to tame me. What your true purpose is.”

Darlene choked out a scream as his grip on her wounded neck tightened and her blood seeped through his clenched fingers. She clawed at him with her hands and now kicked her feet and legs wildly. Although, in doing so, he could loosen his grip and send her crashing downward to her death.

“Release her Darlene! Do you hear me? Give her back to me!” Lucio shouted into her face.

“She’s gone!” Darlene wept. “I told you not to tell her the truth. I warned you. I told you it’s me you want. But you keep ruining it. You’re hurting me, vampire.”

“I’m not vampire! I am Lucio Di Salvo, and you will not play these games any longer! Release her! Now!” he snarled.

“I can’t. She’s gone. You broke her!” Darlene wept.

Lucio let Darlene go. She dropped to her death—screaming.

Darlene fell faster than she could have conceived. The concrete rushed up to greet her. Lucio, as a funnel of smoke, stopped her only a mere few seconds from death. He swept her into his arms and put her down on her feet. She looked at him in shock. The shirt of his that she wore barely shielded her nudity.

“Why would you hurt me?” Darlene said and healed her neck with her hand. She took a timid step back. In all of their past encounters, she had been the strong one. She had never conceived that she had a weakness, too. “I saved your life, vampire, and you would hurt me?”

“You are playing games with me, sweetheart. No more. I know you did something, showed her something that chased her from me. Give her back to me or I swear on my Draca I will feed you to the dragon!”

“I can’t. She had to make the choice, and she ran. Don’t you get it, you stupid vampire! She ran from you! I’m here. I love you. You love me. Me!” Darlene said.

Lucio frowned. He stared at her in disbelief. Darlene rushed him. She threw her arms around his waist. “You’re my vampire. Mine!”

If he continued down the path of madness with these two women trapped in one body, he would certainly bring about the destruction of his sanity. One choice after another and consequences to follow. He looked down at the weeping Darlene, who was now pressed up against his chest, holding onto him tightly. He remembered Dolly and the pure way she chose to be with him, despite her having to know nothing about their union, made sense. It frustrated him, and he pushed too damn hard. What choice would a woman in her shoes make? Accept the fact that monsters exist inside her and all around her. Accept the fact that she was a weapon designed to be destroyed, devoured, or destructive. Or she could pretend none of it mattered like Darlene and created her own narrative to take her to some happy place. A place he had existed in for only three short years of his tender life in the swamp with his innocent brothers, ghost for a mother, and Manman Julia .

“I love you, Lucio,” Darlene said.

He no longer heard a weepy voice. Instead, he heard her mocking strength. She looked up at him. She healed herself. “You could not kill me, vampire. If you did, she is gone. I am gone. Maybe you think you love her. Maybe I think I love you and I don’t. What do we know? I’ll tell you, I’m not her. She will never be me. There is no union between us. We are different. And have to choose what we want and take it. So, choose! Choose me.”

She smiled at him and for a moment he didn’t see her; he saw Dolly. Then she walked off toward the house and left him alone by the pool. The Don lowered his gaze to where he spilled her blood. He made his choice and started back toward the house. When he entered through the open doors, Darlene jumped out at him.

“Boo!” She laughed. She laughed and laughed.

Lucio shook his head but smiled. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to him. Their kiss was like always, unbridled passion released. The Don loved the taste of her darkness; he loved the taste of her completely; he loved her; he told himself as he carried her back to bed.