Fifteen

“Are ye all right, lass? Ye’ve gone a might pale and don’t appear to be handling this as well as I’d hoped.”

Jess opened her eyes to find Vasco’s concerned face over her. Apparently, he’d feared she’d fainted when she’d dropped back and closed her eyes. Raffaele had too, she guessed when his head appeared as well, his expression also full of concern.

“Of course she’s not all right. Look at her, she’s white as a sheet,” Raffaele growled, and then offered Jess a pained smile and suggested, “Try to take slow and steady breaths, my love. Deep breaths, give your brain a chance to process.”

She was processing. And what she was coming up with was that these people were all really freaking old! Good Lord, Santo was nearly three thousand years old! Raffaele wasn’t much better at more than twenty-one hundred years old, but even Zanipolo, who was the youngest of them, was almost one hundred. Well, a decade or thereabouts short of it, but still . . .

Shaking her head, she breathed, “Dear God, you must all see me as little more than a baby.”

“Oh, lovey, no,” Vasco said at once. “Why no red-blooded man could look at those lovely jugs o’ yers and think ye a baby.”

Jess closed her eyes on a groan at that, but opened them again when Raffaele actually growled. Seriously, he growled under his breath like a dog, and then snapped, “Stop looking at her jugs.”

“I can look all I want,” Vasco snapped back. “This is my ship. So as long as she doesn’t mind, I’ll be looking.”

“Well, she obviously minds,” Raffaele snarled, and then added, “And I certainly mind.”

“I don’t care what you mind or don’t mind,” Vasco assured him grimly.

Jess closed her eyes on their bickering, thinking that for all they were supposed to be so ancient, they still sounded like children fighting over a toy. Three thousand years old, her mind screamed silently. How was that even possible? Ildaria had said—

She sat up abruptly, forcing the men to stop arguing and straighten to avoid banging heads with her, and then glared accusingly at Ildaria. “You said you were immortal not a vampire, and that it was because of science not some paranormal nonsense.”

“Sí.” Ildaria nodded, and moved closer to the foot of the bed.

“But Santo is nearly three thousand years old,” Jess pointed out, and glanced to him to see him nod solemnly, confirming his age. Turning back to Ildaria, she arched her eyebrows. “What the hell kind of science was around three thousand years ago? They didn’t even have toilet paper back then, for God’s sake.”

“They did in Atlantis,” Zanipolo put in, stepping to the foot of the bed too.

“Atlantis?” Jess asked, staring at him blankly.

“Actually, Atlantis did not have toilet paper,” Santo rumbled, moving forward as well.

“Then how did they wipe their arses?” Cristo asked with surprise, joining the others so that Jess found herself alone on the bed but almost surrounded by the group.

“I gather they had a system not dissimilar to the bidet seats that are now being developed and sold,” Santo said with a shrug.

“Bidet seats?” Ildaria asked uncertainly.

“Oh! Yeah, yeah,” Zanipolo said suddenly, and nodded. “I know what you mean. Those seats they’ve brought out with the washing and drying thingies in them.”

“Sì,” Santo rumbled. “I was told that they would have considered toilet paper to be barbaric and—”

“Hello,” Jess growled, not interested in the toiletry habits of Atlanteans. Or anyone else, really. Glaring at Ildaria, she pointed out, “You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Zanipolo did,” Santo said solemnly.

Jess peered at him uncertainly. “All Zanipolo said was that Atlantis had toilet paper.”

“Sì, which is wrong,” he informed her, just adding to her frustration. She really didn’t want another go-round on potty talk.

“What Santo means,” Raffaele said, appearing to recognize her mounting irritation, “is that it was Zanipolo’s way of saying that Atlantis had the advanced technology to create immortals, and did,” he explained quietly, and when she turned to him, he added, “Although it was not wholly on purpose. Originally, they were just trying to develop a noninvasive way to heal injuries and fight disease.”

“Noninvasive,” Jess murmured, and then her eyes widened. “The nanos!”

“Sì,” Raffaele said with surprise. “How did you—?”

“Ildaria mentioned them earlier. She said nanos decided we were life mates, but didn’t explain what exactly the nanos are.”

“Ah.” Raffaele nodded. “Well, they are tiny bioengineered robots that are injected into the bloodstream. They use blood for . . . well, everything,” he said wryly. “To travel through the body, to propel themselves, to effect repairs, and even to create new nanos if more are necessary to tend to matters.”

“Aye,” Vasco said now. “The scientists of Atlantis were brilliant. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how ye look at it—after developing the nanos and getting them to work with the body, the bastards didn’t bother to program them right.”

“What do you mean?” Jess asked with surprise, but it was Raffaele who answered.

“He means that rather than program nanos for each individual possible wound or sickness that might occur, the scientists made one program with a map of both a healthy male and a healthy female body at their peak condition, and instructed the nanos to keep their host at that peak condition.”

“It was only once they started poking them into people that they realized what they’d inadvertently done,” Vasco said dryly, and when she peered at him in question, he explained. “The human body is at its peak at between twenty-five and thirty years old. After that, it’s all downhill.”

“So, if one of the people they tested it on was older . . .” Jess said slowly.

“The nanos repaired the damage aging had caused and they became young again,” Raffaele finished.

“But that wasn’t the only surprise they encountered,” Zanipolo said now. “The nanos were supposed to deactivate, break down, and be flushed from the body when they finished their work. But between air pollution, pollens in the air, and the traces of viruses on every surface . . .” He shrugged. “They just never deactivate.”

Jess bit her lip, putting together everything she’d learned, and then said, “I suppose they need a lot of blood to do their work?”

“More than a human body can produce,” Raffaele said quietly. “In Atlantis, they dealt with that issue through transfusions. But when Atlantis fell—”

“How did it fall?” Jess interrupted with curiosity. A society as advanced as that shouldn’t have fallen easily. At least, she didn’t think it should.

“Earthquakes or some such thing,” Vasco said with a frown. “Apparently, Atlantis slid into the ocean. Everyone was lost except for those who had been experimented on with the nanos.”

Jess smiled wryly. One point to Mother Nature, then. No technology could beat her.

“The survivors,” Raffaele continued, “found themselves crawling out of the ruins to join a world that wasn’t nearly as advanced as theirs.”

Eyes narrowing, Jess tilted her head and asked, “How is that possible? I mean, how could the Atlanteans have been so advanced when everyone around them was still living in huts and huddling around fires?”

“Apparently, Atlantis was isolated from the rest of the world by mountains and ocean. It discouraged anyone from approaching them and left them to develop at their own speed, which was obviously faster than everyone else.”

“Okaaayyy.” Jess drew the word out with disbelief. “But what about the Atlanteans? If they were messing with nanos, they must have had modern forms of transportation that could have got around those mountains and the ocean. So, again, why were they so isolated? Why didn’t they go looking outside of Atlantis?”

She watched the others peer blankly at each other, and then Raffaele admitted, “I don’t know. My grandparents never explained that and I didn’t think to ask. I guess I shall have to do that when next I see them.”

“Your grandparents?” Jess squeaked.

“Sì,” Raffaele smiled faintly. “They were among the people the nanos were tested on in Atlantis.”

Jess remained silent for a moment, but her mind wasn’t silent. It was squawking up a storm. Dear God, the man was over two thousand years old and still had grandparents who lived! Most people she knew started losing them under twenty, in grade school even. One grandma or grandpa would have a heart attack or something and pass here, and another would follow a few years later, maybe of cancer. And from what she could tell, most people had lost them all by the time they were fifty. Yet, Raffaele still had his. And they’d been alive since before the fall of Atlantis, whenever that had happened. Obviously, before Christ since Raffaele was older than that.

Unbelievable, she thought. As unbelievable as everything else she’d been told, she supposed. And yet Jess believed it all. It was just too nuts to be made up. Besides, she doubted they’d all got together to come up with such a fantastical story.

Sighing, she shook her head and thought that if they lived that long, they definitely deserved the name immortals. The thought made her frown.

“So, you can’t die,” she said now. “These nanos will just repair any injury, and fight off any disease?”

“We can die,” Vasco said even as Raffaele opened his mouth to respond. “We don’t age, we don’t even get sick, and killing us is hard to do, but can be done.”

Jess narrowed her eyes and guessed, “Beheading?” That was how zombies were killed, she thought, and noted the winces from the others around the bed.

“We are not zombies,” Ildaria said stiffly.

“And beheading won’t necessarily kill us if ye stick the head back on the neck quick enough,” Vasco informed her, and then added, “The nanos heal it up. I had it happen once.”

“What?” Jess asked with dismay, and he nodded his head, which didn’t fall off his neck, despite having once been removed.

“Aye. I was executed for piracy around about 1535,” he explained. “I was just a lad of sixteen at the time. Considered a man then, but really, too stupid to be out on me own. I hooked up with a bad lot o’ pirates. We got caught and boarded on my first voyage with them, and were all executed. But me brothers took me body away right fast and put me back together. The nanos did the rest.” Grinning at her horrified expression, he lifted his chin to show her his neck. “Not even a scar.”

Jess shifted to her knees and moved to the edge of the bed to get a closer look at his neck. But there was nothing to see, not even the hint of a scar. His skin was as smooth as a baby’s bottom, she noted with wonder.

“Obviously, you did not learn your lesson,” Raffaele said stiffly, drawing Jess’s gaze his way. “You still sail a pirate ship and act the rogue.”

When Vasco lowered his head to eye Raffaele narrowly, Jess dropped back to sit on the bed with a sigh. Hoping to prevent the two men from arguing again, she asked the first question that came to mind. “So, if beheading doesn’t do it, how can you be killed?”

The men continued to glare at each other over her head and it was Ildaria who said, “Beheading can kill us if the head isn’t returned to the body quickly enough. But the surest way to kill us is fire.”

Jess glanced to her with surprise. “The nanos don’t protect you against that?”

“The nanos will heal us if we survive a fire,” Zanipolo assured her. “But their one flaw is that they’re highly flammable. And they make us highly flammable too. Fire is death to us.”

“Oh.” Jess considered that and then said, “So, the nanos weren’t programmed to give you fangs and . . . stuff,” she finished, waving one hand vaguely.

“No,” Raffaele assured her, withdrawing from his war of glares with Vasco to smile at her faintly. “That evolved after the fall. The world the survivors found themselves in after Atlantis . . . Well, they obviously didn’t have blood banks and intravenous gear. There was no way to get the blood they needed except from the people the Atlanteans found themselves living among.”

“Surely a couple of your scientists survived and could cobble together something?” she protested.

Santo shook his head. “None of the individuals given the nanos were scientists, or even doctors.”

“Of course they weren’t,” Jess said dryly, thinking that the people who had got the nanos had been little better than lab rats to these scientists who wouldn’t have risked trying them out themselves until they had them perfect. Their loss, she supposed. Only those lab rats had survived.

“So?” she said now, and prompted, “The Atlanteans were suddenly in a new, much less advanced world, and . . . ?”

“Well . . .” Raffaele frowned, seeming to need a moment to regather his thoughts, and then said, “The nanos had been programmed to keep their hosts at their peak condition. They needed blood to do that. So, they took it upon themselves to ensure their hosts could get the blood they needed. To do that, they forced a sort of evolution on their hosts.”

“Like the fangs to get the blood they needed,” Jess suggested.

“Aye,” Vasco said. “And increased strength, and speed to be better hunters.”

“Better hearing and sight,” Ildaria put in.

“Plus, amazing night vision too,” Zanipolo added. “And the ability to read the minds of, and even control, their quarry so that they could get what they needed to survive.”

“That was before blood banks, though,” Raffaele said, taking up the thread again. “When we didn’t have a choice. Now that society has progressed to having blood banks and such, most of us are socially evolved enough not to want to bite mortals to get the blood we need. We prefer to get it through bagged blood from our blood banks, supplied by voluntary donors. In fact, North America and South America have both outlawed feeding any other way except via bagged blood,” he announced, and then added, “Except in an emergency or cases of consent between an immortal and a mortal lover.”

Jess frowned at Raffaele’s words, knowing how they would affect Vasco and Ildaria. It seemed obvious Raffaele had no idea why Vasco did what he did and that he did it in international waters, so wasn’t actually rogue. It was equally obvious that he didn’t think much of the man because of that, and was poking him. Deciding it was high time he knew, Jess said, “Raffaele, Vasco isn’t—”

She paused and glanced sharply at Vasco when he touched her arm to get her attention. The contact had sent a shaft of awareness and excitement shooting through her arm. They were both silent for a moment, staring at each other, and then Vasco cleared his throat, and smiled at her gently.

“Ye needn’t defend me, lass. I don’t give a rat’s arse what he thinks o’ me.” Turning his gaze to Raffaele then, his voice grew chilly as he added, “And ye’re not wholly correct, Notte. Biting under any situation is considered rogue behavior here now. The emergency and lover provisos were redacted by our Council.”

Raffaele stiffened and frowned. “Really?”

“Sí. So, I hope ye’ve not bitten our beautiful lass, here. If so, and an Enforcer or someone from the Council reads it from her mind, you might find yourself on a pyre o’ burning wood.”

It didn’t sound as if Vasco thought that would be too much of a tragedy, Jess noticed, but was more concerned with Raffaele’s answer to the question. It had, after all, been one of her first concerns after seeing Zanipolo’s fangs and the two men feeding on the bagged blood. Had Raffaele bitten her? Was that why she’d fainted after sex each time?

“Of course I haven’t bitten her,” Raffaele snapped, scowling at the pirate. “She had no idea what we were, so couldn’t give consent, and—unlike you—I am not a—”

“The fainting was because you are possible life mates,” Ildaria announced, apparently having read the questions in Jess’s mind, and no doubt more than happy to use answering it for her as a way to prevent a fight between her captain and Raffaele. When the two men fell silent, and Jess glanced to her in question, the woman nodded. “It is common between life mates to faint after—”

Ildaria stopped abruptly, and Jess followed her gaze to Vasco just in time to glimpse the pain on his face. But then his expression closed, hiding it.

Sighing, Jess lowered her head. The things Ildaria had told her about him suggested Vasco was a good man. There was much more to him than the bluff, laughing pirate he presented to the world. In fact, she’d noted more than once that when he got distracted, his speech lost much of its colorful-sounding piratiness. Which she knew wasn’t a word, but felt should be. There was no other way to describe the man when he was in full-on pirate mode.

“So,” Vasco said abruptly, drawing her attention again. “Knowing what we are now, can ye see yer way clear to being a life mate and spending the rest o’ yer days enjoying the bliss of shared pleasure with your life mate, and—”

“Whoa, back it up,” Jess interrupted sharply. Arching an eyebrow, she asked, “Shared pleasure?”

Vasco peered at her nonplussed for a moment and then glanced from her to Raffaele and back. “I assumed from the things ye’ve said, that the two o’ ye had . . .” He glanced back to Raffaele. “Did ye not show her the benefits o’ shared pleasure?”

Raffaele glared at him resentfully for a moment, but then sighed and admitted, “No. I couldn’t explain what she was experiencing, so didn’t let her touch me. Or tried not to at least.”

Jess eyed him silently, recalling the few times she’d managed to touch him. She remembered feeling a wave of excitement and pleasure roll through her. It had seemed to come out of nowhere, and couldn’t be explained by what Raffaele had been doing at the time. Was that the shared pleasure they were talking about?

“Oh, lass,” Vasco breathed, turning on her with wonder. “Ye’ve so much yet to experience. The Notte’s barely scratched the surface. Ye’ve no idea o’ what ye can do. How pleasuring yer partner can bring ye pleasure too, intensifying it for ye.” Shaking his head, he muttered, “And ye thought what ye experienced was mind-blowing. Wait until ye experience that.”

Jess glanced at Raffaele uncertainly. “You mean it gets even better than what we . . . ?” The thought was almost frightening. Jess was quite sure that any more pleasure than he’d already shown her would kill her. Her heart wouldn’t be able to take it.

“Not better,” Raffaele said, glaring at Vasco, and then shifting his full attention to her, he explained, “Just different. The pleasure is shared between life mates. You experience your own pleasure, plus your partner’s. So that when you are . . . performing acts on them,” he said delicately, “you experience their pleasure as well.”

“He’s talking about gamahuche,” Vasco said with disgust, and when Jess stared at him blankly, he frowned and admitted, “Well, that’s an old term. Ye maybe never heard it. How about pearl diving? No?” He frowned when her expression remained blank, and then said, “Clam-lapping? Fish-licking? Eating the peach? No?” he said again, and frowned. “Damn me, this is—What about fanny-noshing? No? Dinner beneath the bridge? Mumbling in the moss? Tipping the velvet.”

“Oral sex,” Ildaria said with exasperation before the man could continue.

“Oh,” Jess said with understanding, but the way Ildaria’s mouth twitched as her eyes narrowed on her told Jess the woman knew she’d just been pretending not to understand to see how many outrageous ways the man had to describe going down on a woman. He had a lot of them, she noted, and wondered if that meant he was as good at it as Raffaele.

“Right,” Vasco said with apparent relief. “That oral business.”

“I see,” Jess said primly, and then bit her lip to keep from laughing at his kerfuffled expression. Honestly, it was nice to not feel like the bewildered one for a change. Half of what he said went right over her head.

“Anyway,” he said now on a sigh, “as ye know, yer choice is either to accept the Notte as a life mate. Or me,” he added, glaring at Raffaele as if daring him to protest his including himself. “Or to refuse and reject us both and go on with yer life.”

Jess nodded, but then noticed Zanipolo’s troubled expression and the way everyone else was suddenly avoiding her eyes, and asked suspiciously, “Why do I have the feeling that means more than just my saying, ‘No thank you,’ and flying home?”

“Because ye’re no son of a biscuit, lass,” Vasco said quietly.

Hoping that meant she wasn’t stupid, Jess raised her eyebrows. “So, what else does saying no mean?”

“It means that your memory would be wiped of everything having to do with me,” Raffaele said quietly, and then corrected it to, “Us, really,” as he gestured at the people around her.

Jess stilled. “Wiped? What is that?”

“What it sounds like,” Raffaele said solemnly. “You would leave Punta Cana with some vague memory that you had a lovely time, but with no recall of myself, Zani, Santo, or any of the other immortals you’ve met here.”

“Or immortals at all,” Ildaria added quietly. “You wouldn’t remember that we exist in the world. You could go back to feeling safe in your ignorance.”

The way she said it told Jess that Ildaria had been poking in her mind again, because that was exactly what she’d been wishing for earlier. And Jess had meant it at the time. Or had thought she did. But, oddly enough, now that she knew that was possible, it wasn’t looking so attractive. Not remembering having met Raffaele? Never remembering how good and kind and caring he’d been? Or how incredible sex with him had been? The very idea felt like someone was trying to wrench her heart out of her chest.

“Well, lass?” Vasco asked solemnly. “What’ll it be?”

Panic claiming her, Jess stalled with questions. “Ildaria said that life mates can’t read or control each other. Is that true?”

“Aye,” Vasco answered.

“Yes,” Raffaele assured her at the same time, and then smiled wryly, and added, “That’s what makes life mates so special. Each one can be their own person. We can relax with each other, let our guard down, without fearing that someone will be poking in our thoughts. And, of course, not being able to control each other is a benefit as well.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because if the ability is there, so is the temptation to use it,” he explained, and then seeming to realize that she didn’t really understand, he continued. “Think of it. What if you were arguing with someone, and you were sure you were right, but they were stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that? Now imagine that same argument, but while you have the ability to just change their mind and make them see things your way? Could you resist doing it?”

Jess wanted to say yes, of course, but there were some pretty stupid people in the world, and she wasn’t at all sure she would be able to just not take control and make them see things her way, which—right or wrong—she obviously believed was the right one.

“Having a mate you could control means winning every argument, because you can make them agree with you,” Raffaele said quietly. “But it’s as good as living alone, or with a blow-up doll. They would do what you want, when you want, because you make it so.” He shook his head. “It’s just better and healthier to have a real partner, one with thoughts and ideas of their own, and whom you can’t control. It makes them special.”

“Of course, life mate passion is a hell of a benefit too,” Vasco reminded her, obviously feeling left out.

Jess smiled at him faintly, but asked, “Is it awful having to drink blood?”

“We don’t exactly drink it,” Raffaele said at once. “At least, not normally. Usually we feed from bagged blood, which is popped onto our fangs. They do all the work, without our ever having to taste it if we don’t want to.”

“Really?” she asked with relief, and thought the not-tasting-it part sounded good. Jess definitely didn’t think she could ingest the blood if she had to drink it like tomato juice. Realizing the path her thoughts were taking, Jess shook her head and sat up straight. Was she really considering agreeing to be Raffaele’s life mate and allowing him to turn her? Jess was pretty sure she was. At least, she couldn’t seem to accept the idea of refusing him and having him wiped from her memory as if he’d never been in her life. And now that they had explained their origins, and convinced her that they weren’t some evil, cursed demon race of beings who would steal her soul . . . But—

Raising her head, she asked Raffaele, “What if they’re wrong?”

“Who?” he asked with confusion.

“The nanos,” she explained. “What if I agree to be your life mate and it turns out we don’t get along, or—”

“That won’t happen,” Raffaele assured her firmly, settling himself on the bed next to her and meeting her gaze solemnly. “I’ve lived a long time, and seen many, many life mate pairings, and not one of those pairings has been a mistake. I don’t know how they do it, or if it’s even really the nanos that do it, but once an immortal finds their life mate, it’s never wrong. My own parents have been together for longer than I’ve been alive and are still very happy together, and my grandparents have been together since Atlantis.”

“And you’re sure that’s what I am? That I’m a life mate for you?”

“Sì,” he said solemnly.

“But how can you be sure?”

“Because I can’t read or control you. Because we enjoy the shared pleasure. And because my appetite for food and sex has returned. All of those things together tell me that you are my life mate.”

Jess wondered about the bit about his appetite for sex and food returning, but left it for now, and asked, “But then how can I be a possible life mate to Vasco too?”

Raffaele shifted his gaze to Vasco and then sighed. “It does not happen often, but sometimes a situation occurs where one person could be a life mate to two different immortals. It is always a difficult situation, and painful for the one not chosen. But a choice must be made.”

“Or we could share her,” Vasco said suddenly.

Jess glanced around with amazement at the suggestion. She hadn’t even considered that. But didn’t think she wanted to either. She’d come to like Vasco a bit now that she’d seen more of him than his delight with her tuzzy-muzzy and jugs. She even respected him for how he was trying to help the poorer immortals who couldn’t afford the blood they needed, but not enough to spend a lifetime hearing him spout things like “Let me grope for trout in your river, and gnaw on your jugs.” She just couldn’t do it.

“Or I could kill you,” Raffaele said silkily.

Vasco raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean that sharing is out?”

When Raffaele glowered at him, he rolled his eyes and muttered, “No sense o’ humor at all.” Turning to Jess, he asked, “So, are ye agreeing to be this landlubber’s life mate, or no?”

Jess bit her lip and tried to imagine it, and then her eyes closed as the possibilities slid over her. She could have all those things she’d told Ildaria and Vasco that she wanted with Raffaele. She could go to Italy with him, swim in his pool, see the buildings he’d designed, meet his family, both there and in Canada. And she could show him her home in Montana. They could watch action movies, and Supernatural and do crosswords, have crazy hot sex on tabletops, and against the wall . . . and dammit, she wanted that life, Jess admitted to herself, and opened her eyes to stare at Raffaele.

For a moment, that was all she did. She stared at him. Imagining seeing his face every morning when she opened her eyes, and every night before she closed them. And imagining the beautiful children he could give her, and then she smiled at him. That was all, just a smile. But it was enough.

“I’m guessing that’s a yes,” Vasco growled when Raffaele smiled back. But when she leaned toward Raffaele, Vasco barked, “Do not even think o’ it, lass. In fact, get off me bed. Off, off, off.”

“I was just going to give him a kiss,” Jess said defensively as Raffaele stood and offered her his hand to help her up.

“Aye, and we all know where that would have led. I’d rather savor me memories o’ you and me in that bed, without clouding them with this big ugly mug beside ye, thank ye very much,” Vasco said dryly.

Jess felt the blush that heated her face, but she also felt Raffaele stiffen next to her, so she wasn’t surprised when she turned to find him eyeing the pirate like he was something that he wanted to squish under his shoe. Or at least punch. Fortunately, they were all distracted when the phone chose that moment to ring.

The sound was so unexpected that Jess actually gave a start of surprise. Glancing around then, she saw Zanipolo pull a cell phone from his pocket and frown as he looked at the number showing.

“It’s a local number,” he said with bewilderment.

“Probably the Enforcers who were supposed to meet us,” Raffaele said with disgust.

“You called the local Enforcers?” Jess asked with worry as she saw the glances exchanged between Vasco, Cristo, and Ildaria.

“Sì.” Raffaele smiled wryly, his arm sliding around her shoulders as Zanipolo answered the phone. “Not that we needed them in the end. A good thing since they didn’t bother coming out. They are probably calling to say they can’t come.”

Everyone stood silent and still as Zanipolo told whoever was on the other end of the line that everything was fine and their assistance was no longer needed. Noting his frown as he listened to the caller’s response to that, Jess wasn’t surprised when he ended the call and said with concern, “They were calling to see where we were. They’re here in the harbor. I told them it was fine, and everything was resolved, but they’re coming out to the boat anyway. They said there are things they need to take care of.”

“Who said that?” Vasco asked, his voice hard.

“The Enforcers Lucian got the South American Council to send out,” Zanipolo said, looking uncomfortable. “Miguel something.”

“Villaverde,” Ildaria breathed, paling.

“That’s it, yeah. And a something-or-other Cardoso.”

“Dieguito,” Cristo muttered.

“That’s it.” Zanipolo nodded. “Dieguito. I’ve never heard the name before.”

Cristo wasn’t listening; he’d turned to Vasco. “Capitan—”

“I know,” Vasco growled, and then sighed and ran a hand around the back of his neck before turning to Jess, Raffaele, and his cousins to bark, “Stay here. It will be safer for you not to get involved.”

On that cryptic note, Vasco headed for the door. But when Ildaria and Cristo started to follow, he paused and blocked the woman’s path. “Ye’re not going, Ildaria. Stay here and out of sight,” he ordered firmly. “I’ll not see ye beheaded and burned today.”

He waited just long enough for Ildaria to give a reluctant nod, and then led Cristo out of the cabin.