With everything that happened, Isa never expected to fall asleep. But after being awake all last night, drinking multiple shots of whiskey while she waited for Chance to return, and then lying down on her grandmother’s couch, she must have dozed off. A soft touch on her cheek made her eyes flutter open. Chance was kneeling next to her, the room cast in shadows. It was dusk. He’d been gone for hours.
“The Salucci brothers?” she asked quietly.
Chance dropped his hand from her face. “You won’t have to worry about them again.”
There was a hard satisfaction to his voice that said Isa wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t have to worry about them. Neither would anyone else on the planet. She supposed she should be aghast that Chance had murdered them so easily, but she could only muster up the faintest feeling of…caution.
“What about the police? I’m amazed they haven’t come by yet. With holes shot into my restaurant and my staff telling them I’d been there, I thought for sure they’d come to my grandmother’s asking about me.”
“They won’t. I took care of them,” Chance replied.
That did make Isa uneasy. “Um, the permanent way?”
Chance smiled faintly. “No. The mind-altering way. After I was done with the Saluccis, I went back to your restaurant and pulled aside the lead detective there. He now believes he’s spoken to you and that you didn’t see who fired the shots. I can’t imagine Robert would say anything to contradict that, whenever he surfaces again.”
“So Robert wasn’t hit earlier? He’s okay?”
“For now.”
There was that coldness to Chance’s voice again. Isa shivered. The man—no, the vampire—kneeling just a foot away from her had admittedly killed two people today, and from his tone, he wanted to up that number.
“Robert struck you,” Chance said, as if reading her thoughts. “You think I’d let him live after that?”
“Robert’s done much worse to a lot more people,” Isa countered. “If you’re going to kill him, kill him for them, not for me.”
Chance shrugged. “Dead is dead, darling. I suspect those other people will care more about the end result than my motivation.”
“I care about your motivation,” Isa said sharply.
Green began to swirl in Chance’s blue-gray eyes. “Do you?”
It seemed like he caressed those two words, as if they had a taste he enjoyed. Isa shivered again, but for a different reason this time.
“Why didn’t you show up last night?” she asked, mostly because she was worried about Frazier, but also to cut the growing pull she felt toward Chance. “Was it because of what Paul did to you? I mean…did it take a while, to, ah, heal?”
Chance must have seen her refusal in her gaze, because he stood up and walked to the other side of the room.
“No, my head healed very quickly. That’s how it is for vampires. Why I didn’t show up was because Robert confessed he didn’t know where Frazier was. He thought I’d stolen him away, that I was someone the Salucci brothers hired to make him look incompetent. So I paid them a visit last night. An all-too-kind one, as it turned out, since I should have just killed them once I’d gotten what I needed to know out of them. Nevertheless,” Chance waved his hand curtly, “that’s been remedied.”
He hadn’t killed the Salucci brothers last night when he could have. She wasn’t upset by that, though it had ended up almost costing Isa her life. In fact, she was relieved, because it reinforced her grandmother’s claim that vampires weren’t random killers despite their vicious legend. Chance had killed the Saluccis today out of necessity. She didn’t need him to tell her how violent a power struggle between two competing crime lords could be. She still had the evidence smeared around the hole in her shirt, in fact. If they were alive, the Saluccis would have only become more dangerous. They’d know Robert would retaliate, and anyone caught in the crosshairs would end up as collateral damage. Like she nearly had.
“Did they know anything about Frazier?”
“I’m sorry, no. They truly believed Robert still had him. In the gangster world, Robert holding your brother hostage to ensure you’d marry him isn’t the shameful act of cowardice it should be, but just a strong-minded way to get a woman to behave.”
The scorn dripping off Chance’s words echoed Isa’s own anger. All right, now she didn’t feel the slightest bit bad that they were dead. In fact, she hoped it had hurt.
“This does complicate things, however, since the two most likely sets of suspects in Frazier’s disappearance are innocent,” Chance went on. “Is there anything about your brother you haven’t told me? Anything at all that might shed light on where he could be?”
Isa got up as well and began to pace. “I have no idea where he is. When he called me a couple weeks ago, he just told me to play along being Robert’s fiancé and that he’d contact me again, but he hasn’t.”
A low sound came from Chance. “You neglected to tell me that.”
Isa swung around, shooting him an accusing glare. “Oh, don’t even! If you want to talk about withholding information, I’d say you, Mr. Vampire, are far more guilty than I am!”
Chance inclined his head. “Touché. However, I intended to tell you about that. Remember when I said yesterday we had to talk? It wasn’t to discuss a new dish for your menu, darling.”
“Yes, well, I don’t think artery d’jour would go over big with the locals, anyway,” Isa muttered.
“You might be surprised. There are more of us than you realize. No doubt you’ve served several vampires in your establishment already.”
“You’re the only person who’s sat there for two hours without eating,” Isa replied, rattled by the thought of the undead mingling among her patrons without her knowing it.
“We can eat solid food, and we can drink liquids aside from blood. It just doesn’t nourish us, but if we’re out with humans and we’re trying to blend in…” Chance lifted his shoulder. “When in Rome, as they say.”
It still seemed unbelievable to Isa that he wasn’t human, because he looked so normal. Well, aside from being pale, but then most people were this time of year in Philly.
“Does your heart beat?” she found herself asking.
Chance stared at her. “Come and find out.”
She walked over to him, her own heart rate accelerating with every step. It sounded so loud to her, Isa knew Chance had to hear it too. Did it make him hungry? Was that why his eyes began to tinge with green whenever she got close to him?
“Do I need to worry about you eating me?” she joked when there was less than a foot between them.
There was a bright flash of emerald in his eyes. “Not the way you’re thinking of.”
Her hand froze in mid-reach to his chest. Chance caught it, pressing her palm inside his shirt over where his heart was. Cool, hard flesh met hers, but there was no throb of life underneath. Just stillness.
“You see?” Chance almost whispered. “My heart doesn’t beat, I don’t breathe, I will never age in appearance, father children, catch diseases, or die of natural causes. I am a vampire. Nothing will change that.”
Isa’s hand was still on his chest. Chance dropped his hold on her and backed away, letting her fingers slide off until he was out of reach.
“Why are you telling me this?” she asked, equally hushed.
A small, despairing smile curled his mouth. “Because I want you to know everything I am…and accept me regardless. My feelings for you have gone far past mere friendly accord. In fact, these are feelings I haven’t had for anyone in a very long time. I want you in my life, Isabella, so I’m telling you what that life consists of. Whether you choose to be a part of it is up to you.”
Isa glanced down, oddly enough, at her hand. She’d felt no revulsion when it had been pressed to Chance’s skin. Yes, he was cooler than she was, but how important was temperature, really? Was it enough to risk the first true tug on her heart she’d experienced? Okay, Chance was a vampire, and that was undeniably a large relationship hurdle. But did it mean she shouldn’t even try? Was she going to always run from people because of the pain she’d felt when those closest to her, her parents, had been taken away? Wasn’t it time she risked getting hurt again, instead of just accepting the numbness of never letting anyone in? If she kept going on like that, then the real dead person in the room was her, not Chance.
Well, not anymore, Isa thought, and stepped toward him.