Hunting My Vampire (Immortal Vampire #3)

Chapter Six

Jack

Kaya was not taking my calls.

I had lost count of the number of calls I had made, the text messages I had left for her. I was becoming annoyed that she wasn’t returning my calls. It was rude and I liked good manners. I called at her place of work and was informed that she had taken a few days off work. The man at the shop didn’t appear to know why or where she was. He seemed like a dim-witted fellow.

I dropped by her house a few times and scouted the neighborhood for her truck but she wasn’t around. I sensed that she had left town.

But three days of this was enough for me.

I established that the child was with her grandmother nearby and decided to pay them a visit as soon as the sun set.

I knocked on the door and the little girl opened it. She was a pretty little thing, with sharp blue eyes that didn’t miss a beat. I picked up a heightened awareness around her.

“May I help you?” she enquired politely.

“I am a friend of Kaya’s and I’m looking for her,” I said with a smile, trying to look friendly but not too friendly. “She doesn’t seem to be at work or at home?”

“If you are a friend, how come I don’t know you? I know all Kaya’s friends,” she said, frowning.

“I’m kind of a new friend,” I said.

We were still standing at the front door but she had not invited me in. She appraised me carefully through narrowed eyes.

“Are you a vampire?” she then asked.

I chuckled. “I am, yes.”

“Kaya hates vampires,” the girl said, crossing her arms.

“She does?”

“They killed her entire family; she says they are all killers.”

This was news to me but it did explain her behaviour in a way.

“I am not a killer, Princess, I promise you that,” I said in my most sincere voice.

She looked at me for a while.

“Did you send all those roses to the house the other day?”

I nodded.

“She didn’t like that,” Princess said.

I was beginning to see that.

“Who’s at the door, honey?” I heard an older woman call out from inside the house. There was the sound of scraping chairs and heavy footfalls and then the door was opened wide. Princess stood aside while a huge woman, stooped over on account of some illness, filled the doorway.

“What do you want?” she glared at me, very hostile. “Kaya isn’t friends with the likes of you! Go away!”

She slammed the door in my face.

I turned around to walk away when I heard Princess calling from behind me.

“Wait!”

She came running towards me. “She went away for a bit but she will be back tonight.”

I thanked her and gave her a bag of candy that I had bought earlier for this purpose.

“Did you know I had these?” I asked with a wink.

She grinned, “Well, a girl can hope, right?”

I decided to wait for Kaya outside her house.

In the early evening, her truck stopped outside her house and I saw her getting out with the little girl. They went into her house and I watched them in the kitchen making dinner, then heard as Kaya sent Princess off to have a bath and get ready for bed.

I waited for the house to quiet down and then I went up to the front door and knocked quietly. I had to knock a few times before Kaya would come to the door.

She looked so cute, dressed in cut-offs and a vest, her hair falling over her shoulder.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

“I just want to talk. You’re avoiding me,” I said.

“The other night was a mistake,” she said, looking away, embarrassed. “I would like to pretend it never happened.”

“I can’t do that,” I said quietly. “There is absolutely no way that I can do that.”

The atmosphere between us was charged, conversation was difficult. I wanted to take her into my arms and kiss that luscious mouth of hers but I could see this would not go down well.

“I think you don’t really want that either.”

“How do you know what I want?” she snapped and was about to slam the door shut in my face when I called for her to wait.

“Can we talk, please? Just talk?”

She didn’t want that but, reluctantly, she held the door open.

“You have a problem with our kind, I understand that. But I’m not like them, I have been trying to live with humans, running a legitimate business. I have not tasted human blood in many decades.”

“You’re lying!” she accused me, her eyes burning.

“I swear I’m not!”

She gave a grimace. “I know for a fact that you had Juan Marco Albarellos killed.”

“Who?” The name sounded vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place him.

She gave a snarky laugh. “Please! Now you can’t even remember him? You’re too much!”

Then she told me how she had been tasked with assassinating me after I’d been found guilty of killing this man Albarellos in the Caribbean. Apparently he was the head of a consortium opposing a takeover by Topaz. Witnesses had seen me talking to the henchmen and the State Court had investigated and found me guilty. I was to be eliminated. All of this was news to me. She was not able to fulfill the assignment because of a car accident but as far as she knew, the hit was still out on me.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” I said to her. “We did have a takeover with Las Capitas in the Caribbean and I signed the deal but I wasn’t part of the negotiations. I didn’t meet with this man, Albarellos.”

She stared at me, unconvinced.

“I’ll get to the bottom of this,” I promised her. “Someone is trying to set me up. But I won’t let it come between us. Give me some time, I will find out what is going on.”

She bit her lip, and I felt a glimmer of hope. This was the way to this girls’ heart, I saw.

There was a slight nod and then she was gone.

I went back to the castle, trying to remember the Las Capitas deal, which was over a year ago. As far as I could recall, there had been a group of us; Simon as well as my father. We had flown over to the Bahamas for a week of partying and indulgence, while sorting out the finer details of the deal. I didn’t recall any hitches, however.

There was no point talking to Simon. I decided to visit the chairman of the Topaz Group board. I knew he was at his wine farm in California, which meant taking the private jet.

I arrived just before sunrise, which didn’t give me a lot of time to get to his estate. I had my PA warn him of my arrival and the gates opened as my car entered the gated enclave. We drove up to the Italian-inspired villa on the slopes overlooking Napa Valley. The grounds were immaculate and I could see the vines were drooping with fruit.

Things were looking well for Marcello Montenegro.

The car proceeded along the driveway and then went round the back to the underground parking area. From here there were lifts to the inside of the fortress, which echoed medieval castles from Europe, where Marcello was from, originally, of course.

“Jack!” he greeted me warmly, once the elevator door opened into the foyer.

“What a lovely surprise!” He was dressed in a cravat and embroidered slippers, looking like a member of the old aristocracy rather than a modern businessman.

“Would you care for a refreshment?” He nodded at a servant in the distance. “Let’s go into my study.”

I had never liked the man and didn’t trust him.

The study was a beautiful, oak-paneled room with heavy bookshelves and expensive carpets. There was a fire for effect, as we of course, didn’t feel the heat.

A beautiful woman came to hand us a drink in crystal glasses, and I took a sip, immediately feeling a rush to the head.

“What is this?” I asked, holding the glass at a distance. “Is this human?”

Marcello laughed. “That would be illegal, dear chap, no, of course not! Just a very fine blend of synthetic substitute with a drop of dopamine, a truly rare and expensive product.”

I nodded, not believing him for an instant.

I put the glass down and leaned forward.

“I need to talk to you about the Las Capitas deal. Do you remember Juan Marco Albarellos? He was killed right before we inked the deal. He was opposed to the takeover and threatened to stop us.”

I had read up on the deal on the plane. After the only opposition to our deal had conveniently disappeared, the takeover had proceeded smoothly.

“I recall it vaguely,” Marcello said, looking at me with calculating eyes.

“Did you know that I was accused and tried of the murder by the State? There were even witnesses? There was an order I be eliminated!”

Marcello licked his thin lips. “I believe that order was rescinded. Your father intervened.”

“My father?”

I could see Marcello was trying to buy time.

“Let me make myself clear,” I said in a low, and bitingly cold voice.

“Unless you tell me the truth right now, I will be informing the other board members that you lied to me, the chief executive officer on a matter of vital business pertaining to the Topaz Group. I will call for an emergency vote and you will be removed as chairperson.”

The fire in the room went out, just like that.

The air was cold and dangerous.

I stood up and assumed a position of strength.

“Tell me the truth now or suffer the consequences.”

There was a moment of tension before Marcello bowed his head and motioned for me to sit down.

“Please, calma,” he tried to assure me.

“The whole business was so unfortunate. We, your father and I, had hoped you would never find out. But, alas, you have and of course, I will tell you.”

I sat down and the whole sordid story came out.