Delarossa (The Hadley Caro Series Book 1)

by R M Taylor

  “I want to know where Isobel is as soon as possible. If she comes back detain her, she must explain herself. Try and identify the people on the CCTV, if possible, and talk to the coven members, I want anyone who has noticed anything unusual to describe in detail what they have seen. Someone must know something” Lina rattled off instructions to a team leader while Aris waited for her to return to their conversation. Minutes ticked by and he was getting more and more agitated. He had managed to get a car reg plate from the CCTV at the rear of the building, the people entering had covered the one over the door but either missed or did not know about the one on the street light opposite.

  “I am back Aris, meet me downstairs, they should be back with Matt’s body now” Lina said.

  “I have a reg number from the car, I need Dante or Bernice to do their magic and see if we can get information” Aris said.

  Dante and Bernice were the coven’s technically minded members, they were wizards with anything IT based and could hack into almost anything. He needed to move, so he took the stairs instead of the elevator. In seconds he was in the building lobby, waiting impatiently for Lina.

  Chapter 31

  “Wake up” slap. Harder slap. “Wake the fuck up” The voice was close to her face and it was female with an accent, but Lucy couldn’t place it. Her eyes wouldn’t obey her, she couldn’t even lift her head.

  “How much inhibitor did you give her you idiot?” The woman’s voice snapped at someone in the room. There were 4 people in the room, including Lucy.

  “She’s a dragon and I wanted to stay alive, there was no way I was transporting the bitch with any chance of her waking up. She’s breathing steady and her heart rate has stayed even. She will be fine” The man replied. The guy from the forest, one of the ones that rigged her car with that bomb. Lovely, so she was kidnapped. Lucy tried to remember her last moments before the blankness that was being unconscious but couldn’t remember anything.

  “You are not a doctor, and if she is now brain damaged how am I going to get the information I need!? If you had two brain cells between you both then you would have realised this! Fucking useless! All you had to do was administer the dose, the second dose was just in case you were delayed and needed to keep her unconscious longer. You’re lucky I’m dealing with you, Marius would have your heads for the disobedience!” a woman shrieked at the men.

  As Lucy tried hard to open her eyes to see who was pouring this vitriol at the men who tried to kill her, the vicious woman kept slapping her hard to wake her up. Fucking bitch needed to stop doing that it was pissing Lucy off, so were these restraints, which kept cutting into her wrists.

  “Wake up, you useless bitch!” The woman nigh on screamed in her ear, slapping her cheek again. Lucy growled low, her dragon much more responsive to danger than she was, and the woman stopped slapping her. Lucy opened her eyes, but they kept closing repeatedly. Eventually after a minute or so, her eyes stayed open, but it was her dragon that showed, her pupils slitted like a snake. The woman staring back at her did not look how she expected her to look. Lucy had expected a severe hard looking woman. This woman looked nothing like that. She had long blonde hair for one, wavy and glossy and beautiful. Lucy wondered if it was fake. Her eyes were brown, framed with modest makeup. She wore the type of dress suit a female lawyer would wear. Smart and formal but not particularly glamorous or flash. Who the hell was this woman?

  “Who are you?” Lucy asked.

  “I ask the questions, not you. I will kill you eventually but how painfully will be up to you. Just being honest from the outset here. If you will not cooperate I have people ready to take Connor, Althea, Toni, her daughter and Susana and bring them here. We would round up your vampire friends too, but unfortunately they’re too well protected now” Cruel pretty bitch said.

  “What do you want?” Lucy asked, scanning the room for signs of escape, which unfortunately were now covered by 2 men. There was the 1 who had followed her, and one who she didn’t recognise. There were two windows, both barred on the outside, and a table and another chair. None were looking good for weapons or escape routes.

  “I ask the questions Lucrezia” Cruel pretty bitch said.

  “Well come the fuck on then ask me something” Lucy glared at her, the memories of being abducted were coming back. If the fuckers had hurt Aris, she would burn the lot of them. The fury of being abducted was overtaking the fear and she was seriously pissed off.

  “It’s very simple. We want whatever your grandmother left you, property, money, all assets. So, you’re going to sign everything over to the person who should have inherited it in the first place. You’re nothing, you’re a coward, you’re weak, and soon you will be dead. We should have killed you at the church, but the funeral was unexpected. No point in making a mess and attracting attention. You aren’t worth the effort. That was Vesike is for, handling the tricky situations. Although I did enjoy watching you both waiting while that lawyer was laid dead on the church floor. So funny!” She smiled a smug smile at Lucy.

  “You aren’t worthy of the Delarossa legacy. Your Mother mated a fucking tiger for fuck’s sake! You’re not even pure blood” Cruel pretty bitch almost spat the last words at Lucy.

  “Arrr I always like meeting new friends. You’re such a peach. Let me guess, sign everything over to Marius Chizeck. My uncle born from rape, my grandmother never wanted him. I can sympathise, it must hurt like a bitch to know your mother completely cut you out of her life. But let’s be real here, Jenner Chizeck raped my grandmother, Marius was the result, Jenner thought that she would cave and be his mate willingly since she was tied to him by a child. Shame for him she had other ideas. She would never had aborted her child, she held old traditions and values. She was not a woman to blackmail, Jenner’s plan didn’t work, and in the end, most of the Chizeck family died because of his games. I can understand why Marius is pissed. But if it was me, I would be angry at my dad most. Jenner hurt his mother, was responsible for many deaths, and effectively used him. Marius had a shit load of pain his whole life. Fair enough, I would have sympathy. But he went on to grow a massive crime organisation and is responsible for who knows how many deaths as a crime lord. My sympathy runs out at this point” Lucy couldn’t help the sarcasm, she would not show any empathy to the fucker who was trying to kill her.

  “You have no idea what it was like for him! He is a pure blood dragon, mighty and strong and perfect to head the Delarossa clan. He should lead it, he deserves to, instead of being treated like a shameful secret he should be given his birth right! It was unfair, and completely insulting that your grandmother would give you the entire estate when she never even met you! She had disowned your mother for mating with your father! What sense does that make to give you the inheritance?” The cruel pretty bitch was raging now.

  “Perhaps it’s because she knew that Marius was destined to be the bad little egg he is today? Marius may as well be called The Godfather for fuck’s sake; his organisation makes the Mafia look like wannabe kids playing grownups. Marius seems attracted to anything bad. How can you think that he would put the Delarossa legacy to good use? He would pollute it, we would be remembered in history as a corrupt clan. He has plenty of money anyway. Why does he even need it?” Lucy was exasperated at this woman. A low male voice sounded from the door.

  “Yes, why would I need it Rebecca?” Marius Chizeck asked from the doorway.

  Cruel pretty bitch, aka Rebecca, almost jumped a foot at the sound of his voice. Her eyes were wide, and Lucy could hear her heart racing from where she sat in her chair. Lucy realised it was cruel pretty bitch, his wife Rebecca Chizeck, who was the one who organised this. All the pieces seemed to drop into place in Lucy’s mind. It was Rebecca who wanted the inheritance. Delarossa was an old clan name, and Lucy knew from the book that it was worth a huge amount from reputation alone, even if one ignored the billions of liquid assets as well as the properties and companies all linked to the estate. It was more than enough for both her and Marius t
o share if he wasn’t a lowlife that would ruin her family name. As she was processing all of this, Marius and his wife had begun arguing in Italian. She caught snippets here and there, but the general gist was that Marius now knew what she had done and was pissed at her going over his head, as he was going to deal with things himself, once things died down and the blame wouldn’t immediately fall upon him. Rebecca was pissed too, she and their kids deserved better, she hated her life, hated the scorn and judgement from other dragons and the shifter communities they knew. Money wasn’t enough, he wasn’t enough, she deserved better. As soon as the last statement was out of her mouth, Rebecca realised her mistake as her hand flew to her mouth and she immediately began apologising. Marius took no time in back handing her, propelling her across the room with speed where she hit the wall with a dull thud, then slid down and flopped on the floor, leaving a bright red trail down the wall as she did. Silence hung heavy in the air as Lucy stared from the slumped form of Rebecca back to Marius. He was strong, and angry, and now staring at her. Fuck.

  Chapter 32

  “I should hate you Lucrezia. I feel like you have been handed everything I have worked towards my whole life. No matter now, even if I kill you right now I can still get most of what I want. But I don’t want to kill you. What I want is a legitimate claim to the Delarossa line. Another reason why I was biding my time and keeping my plans close to my chest. I needed Rebecca out of the way first. With her out of the picture, I would be free to mate and marry you. Makes perfect sense, even if someone was to argue my right to be head of the clan, there would be our marriage and future children to consider. The shame would die eventually. It always does, people forget. No-one would argue if we were a mated pair, and since I was never registered as a Delarossa, hell, even my birth mother’s name on my birth certificate is fake, my real mother was that proud of me! So legally it would not be a problem.” Marius said, as he moved towards her.

  He removed his gun from his suit jacket. Lucy stared at it, expecting him to train it on her, but instead he aimed it at Rebecca and shot her straight through the forehead. He turned to the men in the room and said something in Italian that had them moving quickly to get rid of Rebecca’s body. When they were alone in the room, Marius pulled up a chair and straddled it, facing her. Lucy just stared back, her voice lost due to the shock of his words. Outrage was slow forming as she was just so stunned. He smiled at her alarm, his dark eyes almost black as he appraised her. He was a formidable man, one could assume that he was a lawyer or a business man from a distance, but up close you could pick up the tell-tale signs of something deeper. He wasn’t altogether unattractive, but there was no warmth or humanity in his eyes. His voice was distinguished, professional, his gait confident. But his aura, the atmosphere around him, was black as pitch and dangerous. Her dragon was intimidated, in her mind's eye she was crouched down, reptilian eyes wide and worried. Dragon had never fought another dragon before, and Lucrezia was regretting the many new year's resolutions of past to practise all the martial arts or self-defence stuff she had learned. No quicker than she thought that, the realisation that it would have made little to no difference settled in her mind.

  Even if her human had some expert training, how could she have trained her dragon to fight? In this day in age why would she need to fight? The stupidity of her thoughts was evidence she was totally out of her league. What difference did it make now? So, she couldn’t fight him. She could try reasoning? Not really her forte when she was angry.

  “You really are a sick puppy, aren’t you? You’re my Uncle, I would rather die than mate you. In fact, better than that, I would try at every opportunity for the rest of my life to kill you. You would never be safe, I would never stop fighting. Any offspring you forced me to have would potentially die anyway you sick fuck, genetic disorders are why reproducing with relatives is a bad idea” Lucy glared at him.

  Her anger twisted in her gut. He smiled an eerie smile and let his gaze roam over her, from head to toe, slowing at her breasts. She felt it like it was an actual touch, a physical violation. This man was abhorrent.

  “Genetically it should be fine, mutation should still be low, I’ve had geneticists look at the numbers, we should have diverse enough genes. Our children would be strong. It is high time our clan had a strong leader, my mother wasted too many opportunities. I killed her you know. Your dear grand mama, my lovely mamma. It was easy to make it look like natural causes. I have connections as you know. No love was lost between Sofia and I, I resented her, and she was repulsed by me when she finally found out about my existence. Honestly the feeling was mutual, there was no brother sister relationship at all, I met her 3 times, and she ignored me every time, the judgemental cunt.

  I spiked her drink that night in the club. She was a complete slut your mother, obviously unhappy with your father so she was escaping her miserable life by socialising with low level shifters and vampires. It was sad really, but went exactly as planned, her nights out were like clockwork. I put concentrated Anandaine in her drink. Undetectable to shifters and humans but not to vampires. No vampire could resist her blood once she drank that down, especially not a young one like your Aris. I watched as he drained her dry, it was fascinating. Vampires are so brutal, I admire their ferocity” Marius smiled cruelly at her again.

  Lucy felt sick, her stomach churned so much she had to swallow several times to resist vomiting. Her eyes dropped to the floor, he was telling her the truth. Every word was 100% true. She could tell, after all, and it was then she realised how much danger she was in. This man would kill her, either way he would, even if she went along with his depraved plans.

  “When your mother disappeared, no-one knew she was dead, for a while people thought she had run off with another man. But your grandmother would have none of that. She dug and dug for information, she was relentless. I offered my services, hoping to get in her good graces, I figured that if she thought I was helping she would change her mind about me. It was a ridiculous notion, and it soon became clear that it wouldn’t work. She didn’t find out what happened until the day I killed her. She was searching for years, still believing your mother was alive. I took immense pleasure in relieving her of that belief” He smiled again, gleeful, his eyes animated and enthusiastic like he was retelling a favourite childhood story.

  Lucy couldn’t stand to hear anymore, but she had to know what happened and why. Aris was set up, he had been living with this awful guilt for decades believing it was all his fault and it was down to his lack of control. If no vampire could have resisted it then the chemical was strong, Aris had effectively been out of his mind.

  “I went to her house to kill her, we pretended to be all pleasant to each other and civilised. We even drank herbal tea as we sat talking. As middle aged as she was, I could not guarantee I could overpower her, she was still a formidable woman. I had her butler slip the drug into her drink under the guise of added honey or some such thing. He’s been in my employ ever since, you met him earlier. It’s amazing what clever chemists can cook up using simple plants you can grow in your garden. In this case, this poisonous concoction stopped her heart within minutes. I was so impressed those chemists got a handsome reward, I let them live. I had a vampire friend ready to glamour her lawyer into changing her will so everything went to me.

  So, I laid out all the lovely details to her, saw the horror on her face as she processed my words, I waited patiently for her to die in front of me. It was a triumphant moment, when the light left her eyes I was the last person she saw. Unfortunately, it went a bit awry after that. Turns out her lawyer was resistant to glamour, a very strong fae had already built wards in his mind that could not be broken or overcome by my vampire friend. It turns out many lawyers do that these days, which is something I was unprepared for. I am too used to using force to get my way, I freely admit that. But this man had secured his life thoroughly, many people would be told if he suddenly died, even by natural causes, he had ensured that. There would be a huge amou
nt of scrutiny from the shifter and human authorities.

  So, unfortunately, I was left with little choice, there was too much attention after that, I had to resort to threatening and blackmail which is far less satisfying, results take longer. The lawyer dropped off the scene as I knew he would. So, I was biding my time, planning carefully so that I would have a legal claim to the estate and the Delarossa name. Unfortunately, my lovely Rebecca was not so patient. It seems she made arrangements without me, the stupid bitch didn’t realise killing you would not fix things. Neither would having you sign everything over. No, to ensure everything was above board and water tight you had to live, and you must become my mate. Not to worry, no one important knows I was out of the loop at the beginning, and this was the end game anyway. We will stay the course and proceed as planned, just with Rebecca’s absence. Her death was inevitable, she just didn’t realise it. If you reject my idea of a mating between us, there are ways and means to force your pretty self into it, there are many tools at my disposal if you force me to use them”

  Marius had the gall to look sad, and Lucy by this point was furious. She had to get out of these heavy restraints, but she didn’t like her chances of escape. She was still a bit doped, even if she could call forward her dragon, there was no room to change without bringing the building down, and he was an older more experienced dragon, and a murderer who would happily kill anyone in his way, despite his words he would kill her if necessary. She had no idea where the hell she was, so her options at this point were limited. As she was frantically weighing through her options, Marius’ mobile phone rang. He answered in a jovial cheerful voice.

  “Isobel!! Beautiful lady, how are you? Thank you so much for your help earlier. We couldn’t have done it without you. Are you on your way?” Marius looked at Lucy with that creepy grin, and as she realised he meant Aris’s Isobel.