Fratelli: The Awakening (The Vampire Cartel #1)

56. Unlocking The Truth

Chapter 56

Unlocking The Truth

T he Canyon, Arizona

April 16, 2018

(5 Days Before Death)

The dome. It was Iceland in the desert. Despite the outside temperature soaring to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, the dome remained cool and inviting. Lucio had gone to great lengths to make it wonderful. It smelled faintly of roses, though there were no flowers in sight. Soft jazz played in the background; the melody was barely heard and played on with no visible audio equipment. A small buffet table offered an array of desserts, but there was no server or chef to thank.

“You really outdo yourself every time. A girl could get used to this,” Dolly said with a broad smile. The biggest smile he’d seen for him since she returned.

“A boy could too, um, get used to your smile,” Lucio stumbled over his reply.

Dolly glanced behind her. Lucio watched with an expression that was neither happy nor sad; he looked abandoned to her. But she knew that looks for a vampire were often deceiving. She didn’t know how she knew. It just came to her to be wary. Like a person knows not to touch a stove when it’s hot.

“Why do you put so much hope in me?” Dolly asked.

“Hope. That’s a good word to use,” Lucio replied.

“Is it?” she asked

“Darlene told you about the curse? About Julia Brown?” he asked.

Dolly nodded. “It’s not like we sat down for a chat. Darlene kept me occupied from the moment I woke from the dark place, and we confronted each other in the bathroom. Every minute of every hour, I was given information that I had refused to see when I had the opportunity. Like why my adoptive mother kept me segregated in communities that didn’t look like me. Why she stopped me from going to school and homeschooled me once I reached twelve years old. It was always to contain my knowledge and my access to information. Darlene showed me history. Her version of it.”

“Why do you say her version?” Lucio started toward her.

“Because history is always told in the person's favor who shares it. Right?” Dolly asked.

Lucio smiled. “Right.”

He lifted his hand to touch the side of her face but stopped himself. Instead, he reached around her for a plate of freshly plated cheesecake. In doing so, he moved in close enough for her to inhale the deep spice and smoky essence of myrrh in his cologne. Then he drew away.

“Shall we?” he said, as if he didn’t know he influenced her. She chose her plate and joined him at the table. He poured water from a crystal pitcher into her glass. She sampled the cheesecake with appreciation. It was delicate and savory.

Then she stopped chewing. “You can’t eat that, can you? You eat blood or drink it.”

“True, I was going to do so to make you comfortable. I know the more human I seem, the less you fear me,” he said.

“Who said I was scared?—?”

“Let’s not do that,” Lucio requested.

“Do what?” she replied.

“Pretend you’re not scared. Let’s be honest. Even if it’s difficult,” he said.

“Okay. I am afraid. Does that bother you?”

“A little, but more than that, it worries me,” he said.

“How can my fear worry you?” Dolly scoffed. She ate more of the cheesecake. She couldn’t help herself. It was the best dessert she’d ever had, and she had plenty growing up in the South.

“Because fear makes you weak. And fear is the biggest separation between you, me, and Darlene.”

Dolly stopped chewing.

Lucio continued, “Fear is why you slipped away, and Darlene took control. Do away with your fear,” Lucio said as he stared at his desert and pushed it around his plate with his fork.

“It’s not easy,” Dolly said. “I can’t control how I feel.”

Lucio looked up. She saw the brown in his eyes melt away to an amber color with his pupils ringed in gold. Her breath caught. His eyes were magnets that enchanted her, drew her in.

“How did you do that?” she asked.

“It’s not the how . When you ask yourself how, Dolly, it makes you question your understanding of things and that lets fear in. Instead, ask yourself why I changed my eyes in front of you. When you ask why, you solve the unknown and push away enough fear, you begin to understand the how. Do you see the difference?” he asked.

She set down her fork. “Not really. It makes sense, though. It’s not about how I got into this situation, but why it happened the way it happened. Why my mother put me up for adoption, and why my second mother died just as I needed her the most. Why does Darlene exist?”

“Yes,” he nodded.

Dolly smiled. She felt less afraid of him at that moment. It would be a lie to say she was cured of fear altogether, but she relaxed. And Lucio kept his eyes glowing during the entire chat. Maybe he did that to test her fear. He was so smart. They talked about the Gamer Con, the role Russell played in his plans. He asked her questions about her past, not tied to the curse, just about her friends and lived experiences.

The conversation flowed, and her belly got full over the next two hours on sweets. She asked about a bathroom and discovered they had a porta potty near the tent. She thought the idea of it was gross, but he assured her it was quite clean. When she dashed out of the tent into the blazing heat for a bathroom break, her mind cleared. And he was right. She never knew that porta potties could be as large and clean.

When she returned, she finally pushed aside the fear she had been carrying since the moment she woke up. And it was then she decided she would tell him her truth. Lucio, however, cut her off and went back to asking about her social circle and friends.

“Charmaine and Sonya are my ride-or-die chicks. I told you,” she said.

“But why? What makes them that for you?” he asked.

“Why are you so curious about them?” Dolly gave a nervous chuckle.

“I want to understand you and the people you trust?” Lucio said.

She looked into his eyes when the magic in them faded. They had softened to the darkest brown, human, and compelling. She softened as well. She shrugged. “Okay. Okay. I want to talk about some things anyway, so I guess it fits. Let’s just say they have been through everything with me.”

“Even your troubles with your ex-boyfriend Tyrone?” he asked.

Dolly looked away from Lucio’s eyes.

“What did Darlene tell you about me and Tyrone?” Dolly asked in a soft voice.

“She told me it is your story to tell,” he replied.

“And you want to hear it?” Dolly asked.

“Only if you want to share it,” he said.

“Are you reading my thoughts?” Dolly asked.

“No. Why?” Lucio replied.

“Because when I went to the bathroom, I was thinking about the reasons I’m always so afraid. I told myself I was ready to tell you why and then you mention my friends and Tyrone,” she answered.

“I wasn’t reading your mind. I understand that we have history. Mine is the reason I’m the way I am. So, yours has to be the same. Right?” he asked.

“Right,” she said, after a long pause. She sighed and started again. “Well, I’ll tell you I have a habit of picking the worst guys to fall in love with.”

Lucio chuckled. So did she. Dolly shifted her position in her chair. “And I guess my bad luck starts with him. Tyrone picked me. I met him when I was underage, working at the strip club with Charmaine and Sonya. Dancing wasn’t my thing. I was too young. I cleaned the rooms and washed dishes. He was a friend of Sonya’s best client, and she did parties for them on the side. He’d come in with Tank, that’s the guy's name, and sling money around that wasn’t his. Just ride off the coattails of the kind of men that put in work. Do you know what that means?”

Lucio smirked. “Putting in work? Yes, I think I’m familiar.”

“That’s right. You and your Mafia ties.” She gave a hollow chuckle. Picking up her glass, she took a sip of the cucumber and orange slice-infused water. She set the glass down.

“Tank got taken out. Then it was just him that came to the club. And he spent more time talking to me than paying for the dancers. One night, we all hung out, smoking weed, drinking, and things got weird,” she mumbled. “I was the only one left with him. I won’t mention my age, but I will say he was my first. I was a virgin. He discovered it and was shocked at first, or pretended to not know my age… whatever, I can’t remember. Then it became a kink for him. Constantly mentioning it when we… you know. Telling me that my body was for him. I was his. Only his. I was never to look at another man. I was never to leave him. I was not my own person with him, but the person he said I could be. Sound familiar?”

Lucio rubbed two fingers over his brow and then put his hand to his mouth as if to stop himself from answering. He sighed and sat forward with elbows on the table. “Yes, it sounds familiar, and I’m sorry for how I played that card. I was wrong to talk to you like that.”

“No. Not if you meant it. I needed to know where you stood. See you for who you are and not who I tell myself you are. With Tyrone, I interpreted what he meant. If he said his stomach hurt, then I had to spend all night finding the right solution to make him less uncomfortable. And… and if he said he wanted to rob the locker room at the Mill I worked at, well, then I had to give him my employee badge during my shift and turn off the video feed in the security room so he could sneak in and steal from my co-workers who thought I was a sweet kid and their friend.”

She drank the last of the water.

“When I got caught after the fourth robbery and lost my job, it was my fault. Tyrone was so angry he threatened me. I left him. I wasn’t a kid anymore and I could get my place and start working on my plan to get Russell back. But he stalked me. He broke into my apartment and then he tried to… he tried to rape me. I got away. I got as far as my friend Sonya’s house. She wasn’t there, but I knew her mother and she let me in. Sonya came home and found me really shaken, and she was pissed about what he’d done to me. She called her brother and his crew to handle Tyrone. You know. Street justice,” Dolly sighed. She sat back and closed her eyes.

“Where was Russell? I thought he lived with you?” Lucio asked.

“He did. Jeff and Ava took him in when Tyrone started being abusive to him. I wanted him far from me during that time,” she said and hung her head in shame.

“I understand,” Lucio said in a soft voice.

“What I’m about to tell you, I just learned. I’m still processing it. It’s why I freaked out on you and was so mean. I had pushed it out of my mind. Darlene showed it to me. It was one of the last things I learned about myself before you pulled me out.”

Lucio blinked at the news. “That had to be rough?”

“You have no idea,” she breathed. She closed her eyes and breathed through her anxiety, and then she continued. “Her brother was murdered because they wanted to protect me. Sonya and her mother were so distraught, I left her house and stayed with Charmaine while the police hunted for Tyrone. But he found me first. And that is where my memory stopped until Darlene showed me the truth.”

“Do you want to take a break?” Lucio asked.

“No. No. He attacked me. It was bad. It took three months for my face to heal, but I walked around pretending I didn’t see the bruises, or maybe I really didn’t see the bruises. My eyesight was so poor I didn’t see anything in the world. Only Darlene could. Darlene saved my life. Tyrone was going to kill me. She broke through. She attacked him with so much rage that he was crying like a baby in the end. And she did worse before she finally let it end. She?” Dolly frowned.

“What is it?” Lucio asked.

“Oh my God,” Dolly mumbled.

“Tell me?” he pressed her.

“I remember something that she didn’t tell me. Darlene. I remember the fire. I was there. I didn’t black out. I watched. She set him on fire.” Dolly said, her eyes stretched. “Not with a match. She did it. She set him on fire with her own hands or something. I remember her using her own body to cause heat. She set him on fire.”

“She has the power of fire?” Lucio asked.

“I think so.” Dolly shook her head in disbelief. “Yes. I know so. She does. I was there. I was with her. I was with her and wanted her to do it.”

Lucio sat back. “So, you two worked together? You were one?”

“No. Not like you think. We just had a common goal, and we did it together. I don’t know.” She waved off his comment. “Forget I said that. Anyway, Charmaine came home to a smoky, blood-covered house and a body that had been burned beyond recognition. Charmaine and Sonya had to deal with my trauma and their own, as they came up with a plan to protect me. I remember how we put his body in bags and dumped him in the swamp for the gators. Went to her cousin Mary, who was a nurse, and let her work on me instead of a hospital. We vowed to never say his name again, and after I got well enough for me and my brother to return to our place, I completely forgot it all. Showed up at a cookout asking people if they’d seen Tyrone because the police were still looking for him. Sonya heard me and got pissed. She grabbed me and Charmaine and confronted me. She didn’t understand why I was playing dumb. I wasn’t. I really didn’t remember. I thought he ran away. I was convinced. When they tried to tell me that I killed him, I went nuts. Attacked Sonya and screamed that they were trying to set me up. Blamed them for my problems and introducing me to Tyrone. Ended our friendship. And then a week later, I forgot I did that. Came around them like our fight never happened. Sonya said I was weird. Charmaine said I had PTSD. They decided to pretend with me that it didn’t happen. None of it. Only I was the one who didn’t know they were pretending. And so, it went.”

Lucio said nothing at first. He put both hands on the table and stared at Dolly. Had she revealed too much? She sat there silently and waited for his judgement of her.

“So, my accepting Darlene, making love to her, and then making love to you made you feel used?” Lucio asked.

“Violated,” she mumbled, her eyes welling with tears.

Lucio’s heart twisted in his chest.

They sat with the silence.

“I am so sorry,” he said.

“I know you never meant to hurt me. You did not know how screwed up I was when it happened,” said Dolly.

“I’m no saint,” said Lucio, his voice strained. “I’ve met many versions of you and I’m sure each had a history that I didn’t bother to learn. I only wanted what I wanted from... I wish I was a different man, better than Tyrone. I wish we could start over.”

Dolly wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “Me too.”

“I don’t want to make any excuses, Dolly. The language I used, the way I insisted you stay with me—it wasn’t about control in the same way Tyrone controlled you,” Lucio tried to explain.

“Isn’t it?” she asked, more tears spilling.

“No. It’s not. My brothers know about you. Your ancestral link to Julia Brown makes you a target. I have let people escape my Draca,” he mumbled. “I know I’m capable of even letting you go if it meant you could really be happy and safe.”

“But I can’t?” she asked.

“Maybe happy, but never safe,” he said.

She nodded.

“The descendants my brothers have captured, who I have captured, were all taken and fed on until they were empty. Each of them was seduced into believing in an illusion, mostly creative ones made by me. If they find you and I can’t protect you, I can’t predict what they will do to you.”

She wept. Lucio pushed back from the table and left his seat. He approached her, hesitant to touch her without her consent but unable to bear her sorrow. He reached for her and gently pulled her out of her chair. Dolly collapsed into his arms. Her body shuddered through her anguish over the trouble she was now in. He held her tightly, doing his best to offer comfort.

“I’m so sorry, Dolly. I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his own eyes filling with tears, and he shared her pain.