Page 26 of Depths of Desire
Luna bites her lip, and once again her body tenses. I know immediately her father is involved in the shit that’s been going down lately. That’s not good. Renzo is not going to let him get away with blowing deals or skimming off the top. For someone to try to get away with that would make Renzo look weak. He sure as hell wasn’t going to put up with that kind of disrespect.
Luna hesitates, “I—I know he’s been doing some stuff, meeting with men from Eastern Europe.”
She’s lying. She knows way more than that, but for some reason, she’s not saying. Is it loyalty to her father? Seems an odd time to be loyal if she wants to get away from the man. I sigh to myself. Family is always complicated.
“Eastern Europe. That could be the Albanians or the Croatians. Hell, it could be all kinds of people,” Renzo scoffs. “Can you be more specific? I need names and?—”
An alarm went off on my phone, blocking out whatever Renzo was about to say. I grab the phone and open the app.
“What’s going on?” I hear Renzo say.
“Someone is breaking into my apartment in Genoa.” I click a few more buttons on the phone. “They’re entering through the skylight. How the hell did they get up there without me knowing?” I’ve never experienced this kind of attack, and my blood begins a slow boil.
“Do you see them on the camera?” Renzo asked.
“I’m staring at the roof now and it’s empty.”
“Could it be a false alarm?” Luna suggests.
“Highly unlikely.” I stare at the screen but still nothing. I turn and head toward my office. I need larger screens. I enter my office and hit the button to light up the wall of screens. It takes me only a moment to pull up the camera feeds from my apartment.
“The skylight is busted.” I pull up different camera angles. Several of them are down. Someone knows what they’re doing, but I have a few tricks of my own. I pull up another feed, and then loop Renzo in.
“What am I looking at? This isn’t the normal camera angle, is it?” he growls.
“No. My cameras appear to be down. This is from the bookshelf in my living room. A ‘nanny cam’.”
There are two of them. Blood Orcs. Created centuries ago through forbidden blood magic by a rogue vampire king, Blood Orcs are a hybrid of vampire thralls and creatures pulled from the lower magickal realms. Originally designed as disposable soldiers in ancient supernatural wars, they were later adopted bycriminal syndicates, especially those dealing in blood, drugs, or magickal trafficking.
Now? They're mercenaries, enforcers, and body disposal teams for those with the money or blood to hire them. The taller of the two is built like a weightlifter. He inhales loudly and shakes his head. The shorter one, who looks is still big and is built like a fireplug, nods and pulls out his phone. “They’re not here.”
The taller one says, “She’s never been here. There’s no scent.”
The fireplug repeats the statement into the phone and waits a beat. Then he nods. “Got it,” and hangs up. “Boss says to trash the place.”
The two start pulling the room apart. It takes them no time at all to disappear from the video, but the crashing and banging continue. My entire apartment is being destroyed. Fire runs through my veins. It is taking everything I have not to tear out of the room, fly across the sky, and rip those two apart. My fangs grow longer, and I have to will myself to calm down.
“You wouldn’t get there in time,” Renzo says.
I open my mouth to argue with him, but notice Luna watching me. “Right. It’s just a wee upsetting watching my place be destroyed.”
She frowns. “They look weird. Like they’re sick.” Blood Orcs are typically grayish with super dark eyes. “Is that normal? Maybe they’re just junkies or something who broke in?”
“No. They broke in on purpose,” I respond. I don’t bother explaining that they look like Blood Orcs always look… grey skin and cold dead black eyes.
“Wait. What did he mean when he said she’s never been here? Was he talking about me? How could he smell my scent?”
Those were all very good questions, but I wasn’t sure how to answer any of them. Not without telling her the truth. Notwithout revealing that vampires and magickal creatures exist, which is something I have no intention of doing.
“Wait,” Luna says. “Does this have anything to do with the ship exploding?”
I roll my shoulders and sigh, trying to get my body to relax. “Good fucking question. Seems like too much of a coincidence for this to be happening, and it’s not connected to the ship.”
Renzo disappears from the screen for a moment and then reappears in the frame. “I agree. We should operate on the assumption that we were the target of that ship sinking. Someone wanted to damage us, and they were successful. We lost two full shipments, which means we’re going to have a lot of unhappy customers.”
He immediately switches to telepathic mode.That shipment of blood was the first ‘goodwill’ shipment to show the other vampire families in Europe that we’re in business and we’re able to take care of their needs. All that fucking time and energy just went up in fucking smoke. Losing the shipment of drugs doesn’t tickle either. We’re going to take a large loss on it. Not the end of the world, but it’s not good news.
I rack my brain for a reason for all this.Who the hell is behind this? Who wants to take us down?
