The Elemental Mysteries: Complete Series (43 page)

“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.”
 

He lifted his hand and felt the singed curls float in front of his face.
 
Pieces she had touched drifted away in the dark water.
 

After a few moments of self-indulgent grief, he gathered his wits and shot to the surface. He climbed out of the pool, wrapping a towel around his waist before he walked inside.
 
Gavin was on the rotary phone in the corner, speaking in a low voice.
 

“He’s just walked in…no, I don’t yet, but I’ll find out.
 
Here, talk to him.
 
Get him calmed down, and don’t ask him that because the bastard had two of his lackeys with him, and at least two more on the grounds that I could smell.
 
There was no way they were leaving without the De Novo girl.”
 

Gavin handed the phone to Giovanni, who immediately took it and put it to his ear.
 
He heard Carwyn’s steady voice on the line.
 

“Hello, Sparky, you calmed down?”

He could only grunt, but the priest seemed to take it as an affirmative.
 

“It’s a few hours before dawn here, but as soon as I’m able, I’ll be on the next boat—”

“Don’t.”
 

“What?” Carwyn paused.
 
“We’re going after her, Gio.”
 

“Of course we are, but we don’t know where he’s taking her yet.
 
I’m sure Gavin can find out, but it will probably be in Europe, and you’ll be closer if you stay where you are now.”
 

“But—”

“I can’t attack him here, Carwyn.
 
There are too many unknowns and he’s been planning this too far in advance.
 
They’re probably out of the city already, or close to it.
 
And he’ll have more people with him than just the four that were at my house.”
 
He saw Gavin nodding vehemently as he paced by the fireplace.
 
“I’m better off…diffusing this right now and picking my own ground.
 
I’ll need to go to Rome and talk to Livia—probably Athens as well—and we’ll need Tenzin.”
 

“But Gio, Beatrice will be—”

“Terrified, I know.” He clenched his jaw. “But he won’t hurt her.
 
Not yet.
 
And I am no longer interested in resolving this peaceably.
 
He ambushed me in my own home, and he took her from me.
 
I was foolish to underestimate him.”
 

There was a long pause on the line before Carwyn continued in a soft voice.
 

“Did you trade those damn books for her like Gav said?”

He cursed in a dozen languages before he answered.
 
“He was experimenting like the sick little bastard that he is.
 
He was going to take her, but I’d tipped my hand before.
 
He was trying to determine if it was Beatrice or the books I was reacting to.
 
It’s better…”
 
He cleared his throat before he continued.
 
“It’s better for her if he thinks I’m not attached to her.”
 

He gripped the doorjamb, cracking the oak paneling and sending plaster dust crumbling to the floor.
 

“You’re right,” Carwyn said in a soothing voice, “he won’t hurt her.
 
He needs her to retrieve her father.
 
We just need to get her back before Stephen De Novo hears about this and returns to Lorenzo.
 
If that happens, all bets are off.”
 

He couldn’t find the words to speak to his old friend, so he took a deep, measured breath.
 
The scent of her fear still permeated the living room, and he clenched his eyes in frustration.
 

“Giovanni,” Carwyn was saying, “you realize, she might not understand.
 
You know—”

“I know,” he muttered.
 
“I knew the minute I let him take her she might never forgive me for it.
 
But it’s better than her being injured or tortured to get back at me.”