I switch gears. There’s an unopened email with the subject line “Diamond Hills,” and I recognize the suburb name of the de Santis compound. Shaking, I click it and look for info on the kid I wanted to eat, a feeling that now makes me roil greasily, but all I see is that the women and children have been moved to a new undisclosed location.
At least they’re alive and safe.
I move on.
I run my hand along the desk’s wood and pull open drawers. Blank notepads, pens, all the stuff you’d expect. It isn’t until my fingers brush against a rough notch on the underside of the deepest drawer that I pause.
I flick it and a secret tray pushes out.
My heartbeat jumps with excitement.
There’s a small square piece of paper inside, creased down the middle and worn at the corners. Fragile. It’s lying on top of black velvet, as if Lucian had been meticulous in wanting to preserve it exactly the way it is.
Carefully, I pick it up.
Four numbers are written in ink:1954
I turn it and come face to face with the image of a beautiful young woman.
It’s a photograph. The colors are muted, but her smile is bright, her hair curly, and she’s wearing a spotted bathing suit on a beach with the ocean behind her. She looks like one of thosepinup models from old magazines or calendars. Something classic.
Why would Lucian have this?
Then I see the curved handwriting at the bottom corner.
Always Yours, Penelope
My chest clenches.
I can see the similarities now. The slope of her nose, the shape of her mouth…
I had met her decades older.
“Holy shit,” I whisper to myself. “This… This is Nell.”
Chapter
Six
Lucian
“Tell me again, Vittoria, why I shouldn’t skin you alive.”
“I’m prettier with my skin on and you know it.” Her smile doesn’t fade as it flirts with the air, and her aura of smugness doesn’t dim in the slightest. “You also need me, Lucian.”
“I don’t need you stepping out of line.”
She saunters up to me, leaving her current human pet in place on the bed, eyes glazed. The wounds on the other woman’s throat aren’t healed, nor are the ones on the thighs or breasts. Tits facing skyward, nipples hard, she breathes in shallow breaths, her skin way too pale.
I’m not surprised Vittoria wrung every last bit from her. She’s never understood limits.
I turn and walk out, forcing her to follow me, and shut the door. I punch in a code, my code that overrides even hers. “She must have food soon. You need to leave her be.”
Vittoria shrugs. “Can I keephimat least?”
She opens the next door to reveal a man, supine and in the same state, covered with bites. His cock is half hard as he strokes it, tiny grazes from Vittoria’s vampire teeth all along it, and as he touches himself he shivers.
“Take more,” he slurs pitifully. “Give me more of you…Please…”
