“But the girl isn’t why I’m here,” she continues. “Benicio’s family and business are.”
“What about them?” I ask, holding back annoyance. We’d killed a good number of them at the warehouse, but like us, the mafia has tentacles woven into everything. “Are they giving us trouble?”
“Trouble?” She scoffs. “Not in the least. I simply wondered if you wanted to come with me to finish the job. Like old times.”
Old times. I was a different man when I turned Vittoria, a different vampire.
“Or you could send your pet,” she suggests with a smirk. “I’m sure she’d love some fresh?—”
“No. Elliot stays here. Letting her out now is dangerous.” I frown as I cross to her. “Who knows what she’d do if let loose.”
Vittoria’s eyes gleam. She knows better than to take a newly minted vampire out on that kind of hunt. But she’s just as bloodthirsty. Just as ruthless. And she wants to push me.
“She stays,” I repeat. “I’ll come.”
“You need to feed first.” She throws the protein bar at me, and I catch it like it’s a pesky insect.
A protein bar won’t give me what I need. The blood that I had at the warehouse wasn’t sufficient, especially after giving Elliot enough to restart her heart. I need to replenish.
It’s time I visit our food banks.
I take one last look at the camera feed. Elliot’s raging in the soundproofed room. I want to open the door. Hold her again. But instead, I turn once more to Vittoria. “Walk with me.”
Together, we take the VMR elevator to the floor designated as our living food bank. The moment the metal doors open, one of the vampires guarding the entrance almost falls over himself to greet us.
“Sir,” he says with a small bow. He’s young, maybe a decade into his undead life.
Vittoria rolls her eyes and shoves him aside. “Move, cretin.”
The youngling grabs the door and opens it for us. Beyond is a small foyer at the intersection of two hallways. To the left is storage with a huge refrigeration system and collected blood of all blood types. All freely given. And to the right is where our live donors reside.
Vittoria likes to call them our pets, and maybe they are, but they’re treated more like employees. Men and women who are cared for, fed, and treated well. From where I stand, I can see the first stall that is occupied by a beautiful woman with long, lustrous dark hair, skimpy outfit, and glazed-over eyes. Her lips are parted in ecstasy as she sits on a chaise longue and a male vamp drinks from her wrist.
“Would you like me to make up a room for you, sir?” the young anxious vampire asks when he catches me staring.
Vittoria eyes me with a toothy smile.
“No, I’ll have some bags from storage,” I say.
He blinks, confused. “Sir?”
“Come on, Lucian,” Vittoria says. “I’m sure he can get you someone tasty. Someone who’ll be willing to do a little extra, too.”
I narrow my gaze on her, then turn back to the young one. “Just the bags.”
He disappears down the left hall and comes back a moment later with three full blood bags. When I take them from him, they’re warm, warmed to the desired body temperature.
“These are the most recently harvested,” he says. “Got them just before you came in.”
None of that matters to me. From the blood loss paired with the mental exhaustion of Elliot’s turn, my hunger is now ravenous. I’m not going to be picky. I just want the fucking blood.
I start for the door when Vittoria grabs my arm.
“Drink them now,” she says. “You need it.”
“Do I really look that bad?” I bite the top off of one and start to gulp the delicious warm liquid down. At first, it only seems to intensify my appetite. I quickly drain it and rip off the top of the next one. As I drink, Vittoria watches me with a wicked gleam in her eyes.
“I’m not going to answer that because I value my life,” she says.
