Jess had been dreaming that Vasco had caught up to her, pulled her from the ocean, and was carrying her to his cabin to ravish her and turn her into his vampire whore when voices pierced her dreams and dragged her from sleep. The first words that she heard clearly as she reached consciousness were, “Are you kidding me? You finally meet your mate and you did not even ask her name?”
Blinking her eyes open, she’d found herself staring up at three heads bent over her, their faces in shadow. Jess had been sure it was Vasco, Cristo, and Ildaria. And then she’d become aware of liquid dripping on her from one of them and—positive it was Tyler’s blood dripping from Ildaria’s gruesome, blood-covered face—well, it had been pure instinct to shriek in horror and fury and begin to struggle.
“It’s okay. You’re safe now. We’ll protect you.”
The words were a litany Jess suspected had been repeated many times, but she didn’t really hear them and grasp their meaning until the three heads broke apart and the one carrying her rushed to set her down on something and then backed away. It was only then that she was able to see the faces of the three people in the room with her. The light was now overhead rather than behind their faces and Jess recognized that there wasn’t a Vasco, Cristo, or Ildaria among them. In fact, it was three strangers. All male and one of them soaking wet.
It had been water dripping on her face, Jess realized, and she reached up to run her finger over the wet spot. She then pulled it away to peer at what she’d collected on her fingertip just to be sure. Yes, clear liquid, not blood.
Sighing, Jess slumped wearily back on what she now saw was a couch and surveyed the three men eyeing her warily from the other side of the coffee table. They were all attractive, each in a different way. The one on the left had black mid-length hair that looked a little shaggy, as if he were trying to grow it out. He also wore a black T-shirt and black jeans. His body was made up of lean muscle, leaving him tall and lanky.
The one in the middle, on the other hand, was bald as a cue ball and carrying some serious mass. He definitely worked out. He also apparently liked jewelry, Jess decided as she noted that every one of his fingers seemed to sport a thick silver ring.
Her gaze shifted to the last man, the one on the right, and she blinked as she peered at him. He had short, dark hair that was soaking wet and slicked back from his face. But she noted that almost distractedly, because her attention seemed to be taken up with trying to look over every inch of his body. The man was standing there in only a pair of body-hugging black briefs . . . and what a body to hug. He was more muscular than the lean one, but not as Hulk-ish as the big one. In truth, with nice, muscular shoulders, narrowing down to an eight- or ten-pack stomach, he was just perfect, and then there was the package the briefs were hugging . . . which was growing, Jess realized, and knew she should politely avert her eyes, but just couldn’t seem to. Instead, she stared with fascination, her exhausted mind for some reason recalling the story of Pinocchio.
“Right. Shall we talk now, or would you two like to put on some clothes first so I can stop feeling like a perv?”
The lean guy was the one who asked that question, and his tone of pained amusement managed to drag Jess’s attention away from the amazing Penisocchio. The moment her weary gaze landed on him, the lean guy gestured vaguely to her chest while averting his eyes. Jess glanced down and then squawked in dismay and scrambled to cover herself when she saw that her torn T-shirt had come undone and her life jacket had shifted, leaving one breast to play peekaboo. It was presently flashing them its nipple.
“I will fetch you both towels,” the big guy said solemnly as she reached under the life jacket, caught at the damp cloth of the torn T-shirt, and dragged it over the exposed breast. He then slipped through the open double doors behind him into the bedroom off this sitting area. The main bathroom was off the bedroom, which Jess knew because this room was an exact duplicate of the one she shared with—
“Allison!” she cried, sitting up with alarm. Glancing from Lean Guy to Penisocchio almost frantically, she said, “You need to call the authorities. We have to help Allison. And the others,” she added with a frown, wondering if Tyler even could be helped. She wasn’t sure; he might be a vampire now but the others might still be all right. Vasco would have discovered she was missing by now and be searching for her. Surely, he would have the crew concentrate on that rather than feasting on the tourists. Wouldn’t he?
“Who is Vasco?” the lean one asked.
Jess jerked her head up sharply, her gaze narrowing suspiciously at the question. She hadn’t told them about Vasco. How did he know the name?
“You mentioned the name Vasco as well as Cristo and Ildaria while you were unconscious. You must have been having nightmares,” Lean Guy explained as if she’d asked the question aloud.
“Oh,” Jess breathed, and relaxed. She had been dreaming about Vasco and the pirate ship just before she woke up. She just hadn’t known she talked in her sleep, Jess thought, her gaze shifting to the big guy when he returned to the room with two towels.
“Thank you,” she murmured, taking the towel he offered to her before giving the other to Penisocchio. For a moment, Jess just sat staring at the towel, her mind slow to tell her what to do with it, and then movement drew her gaze to Penisocchio as he quickly scrubbed it over his damp hair. When he then started to run it over his arms and chest, Jess peered down at herself and frowned at the bulky life jacket she wore.
She’d have to take the vest off to dry herself, Jess supposed wearily, and forced herself to stand. Her legs were shaky, but they held her up and she turned her back to the men to concentrate on removing the life jacket. Her arms felt incredibly heavy when she lifted them, and her fingers were trembling and clumsy, making the task more difficult, but Jess managed to unbuckle and remove the bulky life jacket. She immediately let it drop to the floor with a little sigh. It was a great relief to get it off. She’d fastened it tightly to ensure she didn’t slip out of it while battling the waves, but after hours of it rubbing her skin raw, Jess almost would rather have slid out of the darned thing.
Shifting her attention to her ruined T-shirt, Jess pulled the ends together, and retied the knot between her breasts. She then made a hasty effort at drying her arms and legs before giving it up as too much work and simply wrapping the towel around herself sarong-style. Feeling a little more put together, Jess then turned to face the men again.
Penisocchio, she noted, had been busy while her back was turned. He’d finished drying himself, doing a much more thorough job than her, she was sure, and now had the towel wrapped around his waist. He’d also donned a tight white T-shirt, although Lean Guy still held a pair of jeans dangling from one hand. Jess supposed these were the clothes he’d been wearing before jumping in the water to save her and that he didn’t want to pull the jeans on over damp briefs. Whatever the case, there would be no more watching the bulge in his briefs grow, Jess realized, and felt a keen disappointment that made her frown.
Good Lord, she was all about the sex tonight, wasn’t she? Jess asked herself with disgust. First it was a fight to not become a vampirate’s bloodsucking whore, and now she was entirely too interested in Penisocchio’s package. What on earth was the matter with her?
“We should introduce ourselves,” Lean Guy said, his tone abrupt. When Jess turned her gaze to him, he pointed to Penisocchio and said, “That’s Raffaele.”
“Raffaele,” Jess murmured, managing a smile of greeting. It was a much nicer name than Penisocchio. Shorter too.
“This big guy is Santo.”
Jess shifted her attention to the bald man now as he offered her a nod of greeting, his face solemn. Following his example, she didn’t smile but offered a polite nod in return.
“I’m Zanipolo,” Lean Guy finished, and before she could react at all to the unusual name, he raised his eyebrows and asked, “And you are?”
“Jess,” she said quietly, and then bent to pick up the life vest she’d discarded. Clasping the bulky vest to her chest, she hesitated, and then asked, “May I use your bathroom?”
“Of course,” Raffaele said at once.
“Thanks.” Jess managed a smile and made her way on shaky feet to the small hallway between the sitting area and the suite’s entrance. As expected, there was a door on the right that led to into a full, but compact, bathroom. It was the same in the suite she and Allison shared.
Worry assailed her at the thought of her cousin. She really needed to get help for Allison and the others. As annoying as her cousin was, she couldn’t just leave her to the vampires. After she finished in the bathroom, she’d thank Raffaele and the other two men for their assistance, and then leave and head to reception to make them call in the local police.
Raffaele watched Jess disappear into the bathroom and then turned and strode quickly into the bedroom and straight to his suitcase.
“Are you sure you cannot read her thoughts?” Santo asked, following him with Zanipolo on his heels.
“Yes. I tried again when we got back here,” Raffaele admitted, digging out a pair of clean dry briefs, and then he jerked his head up and eyed his cousins with concern. “Can you two read her?”
When both men nodded, he sagged with relief and then headed for the much larger, ensuite bathroom off the bedroom. The fact that he couldn’t read her while the other two could meant she was definitely his life mate and that she wasn’t just crazy. Those were the only two reasons an immortal couldn’t read a mortal.
Raffaele whipped off the towel he’d fastened around his waist as he entered the bathroom. He paused in the middle of the room, tossed the towel across the end of the tub, and turned back to see his cousins had followed. Raising his eyebrows, he asked, “So what happened to her? What was the boat she was on? Who were Vasco, Cristo, and Ildaria? How big a nest are we dealing with?”
When Santo glanced to Zanipolo, leaving him to explain, the younger man grimaced. “She was in the ocean a long time and spent most of it battling high waves that were tossing her around a bit,” he began carefully. “As a result, she is exhausted to the point that her thoughts are sluggish and a bit scattered.”
“How long was she out there?” Raffaele asked with a frown as he switched his wet briefs for the dry ones.
“Hours,” Zanipolo said, handing him the jeans he’d collected off the beach and brought back for him. “Since shortly after sunset, I think.”
Raffaele frowned at this news as he dragged on his pants. The sun had set before seven and it was ten thirty now. Jess had been in the water for nearly four hours. That was a long time to be struggling with waves and trying to swim to shore. It was no wonder she had lost consciousness by the time he got her out of the water. In fact, he was surprised she was already up and about. She was recovering quickly. It suggested a strong constitution, he thought as he did up his jeans.
Straightening then, Raffaele raised his eyebrows. “So? What else did you learn? Who are this Vasco, Cristo, and Ildaria you mentioned? I presume you read those names from her memory?” he added. Despite what Zani had said, Jess hadn’t mentioned the name. Before Zani could respond, he asked, “What was the ship she escaped? Some kind of dinner tour?” Even as the words left his lips, Raffaele suspected that couldn’t be the case. She was wearing swimsuit bottoms, and a torn T-shirt, not exactly dinner attire, even if that dinner was on a boat.
“It was a pirate ship.”
Raffaele stiffened, his eyes widening with disbelief. “What?”
Zanipolo shrugged helplessly. “That’s what I got from her memory. She was on a pirate ship with vampires, and Vasco, Cristo, and Ildaria were some of the crew.”
“Vampirates,” Santo growled.
“Vampirates?” Raffaele echoed with amazement.
“Her name for them in her head when she thinks of them,” Zanipolo explained. “But appropriate from the few memories I saw,” he assured him, and then added dryly, “She appears to have a penchant for nicknames. For instance, until I told her your proper name, she was thinking of you as Penisocchio.”
“What?” Raffaele gasped with shock.
Zanipolo nodded. “That’s why I told her your name was Raffaele when I did. I was finding it difficult not to burst out laughing every time she thought the name,” he explained, and then taunted, “But again, the nickname was appropriate.”
Raffaele closed his eyes briefly. He didn’t need to ask why Zanipolo thought the nickname appropriate. The minute he’d set Jess down on the couch and stepped back to look her over in her skimpy outfit he’d started to develop an erection. Her gaze sliding over his body hadn’t helped the situation much either. Just recalling it made him start to harden again. Mouth tightening, he opened his eyes, and raised his eyebrows.
Zanipolo grimaced. “Like I said, her thoughts are a bit scattered, but from what I could sort out, it looked like they went to the Seaquarium—”
“Some of the people on the beach had gone there. What is it?” Raffaele asked.
“You didn’t even look at the pamphlets I gave you, did you?” Zanipolo asked with disgust.
“I looked at some, but there were a lot of pamphlets,” Raffaele said defensively.
“Well, you can look up what it is later, because that’s not the important part. It’s when the boat that took them to the Seaquarium got back that matters. That’s when the pirates, or vampirates as she thinks of them, approached the returning guests. They lured a bunch of them to their sloop with some story of feeding the sharks, including her cousin Allison. Allison in turn dragged Jess along.”
“But they weren’t feeding finned sharks,” Raffaele guessed grimly.
Zanipolo shook his head. “Jess apparently happened on one of the rogues starting early on a guest.” He grimaced with distaste at the memory. “It was pretty bad.”
“Gruesome,” Santo added.
“Yeah.” Zanipolo shook his head as if trying to shake the memory away, and then continued. “The rogue she interrupted was Ildaria. She took control of Jess and sent her to kiss someone named Vasco, who I think was the ship’s captain, so maybe the head rogue.”
“Kiss him?” Raffaele asked with a start, his mouth turning down at this news.
“That’s what I got,” Zanipolo said apologetically. “But like I said, it all gets a bit scattered once she walked in on the rogue chewing on some guy named Tyler. She was kind of traumatized at seeing that. Hell, I was traumatized seeing it secondhand.”
“Yes.” Santo nodded. “Very traumatizing.”
Raffaele’s mouth tightened, but he nodded. “Okay, so the rogue sent her to kiss the captain and then what?”
Zanipolo shifted, looking reluctant to continue, but then sighed and said, “It got a bit heated, and then the cousin attacked them, I think.”
“Yes,” Santo agreed.
“And then the captain took both women down to his cabin.”
Raffaele stiffened, alarm coursing down his back. “Did he bite her?”
“No,” Zanipolo said at once. “No, I don’t think he did that.”
Raffaele’s eyes narrowed. “Did he rape her?”
“No,” Santo assured him.
“She escaped before things went that far,” Zanipolo added.
“That far?” Raffaele echoed. “How far did things go?”
Zanipolo hesitated, and then glanced to Santo. The bigger man was opening his mouth to answer that question when the sound of a door closing had all of them glancing toward the sitting room.
“Jess must be out of the bathroom,” Raffaele muttered, and led the other two men back out to the sitting room, only to find it empty.
“She’s gone,” Zanipolo said with surprise, staring at the open bathroom door.
It was Santo who spotted the note on the coffee table and picked it up. Moving to his side, Raffaele looked down at it. It was on the resort notepad that had been sitting on one of the end tables earlier with a pen with the resort’s logo lying next to it. He had noticed it when they first arrived. Apparently, not finding them in the sitting room when she’d finished in the bathroom, Jess had decided to leave rather than wait to find out where they’d gone. She’d left a nice thank-you note, though, he thought as he read it.
Hey, guys!
Thank you for all your help.
I have to go have the front desk call the authorities to help my friends.
I’ll return your towel as soon as I can.
Thanks again,
Jess
“If she tells anyone there are vampires out there—” Santo began in a concerned rumble that died when Raffaele cursed and hurried for the door.
Clutching the still-damp life vest with one hand, and the front of the towel with her other to be sure it didn’t slip apart, Jess hurried to the stairs and jogged lightly down them. She thought she heard a door close as she turned the first bend and started down the next flight, but didn’t slow or stop to see if it might be Raffaele or one of the other men looking for her. She didn’t have time to explain things to them. That was why she’d simply scribbled a note and left when she stepped out of the bathroom to find the sitting room empty. She’d known they’d want her to tell them how she’d wound up floating around in the ocean, and that was a long conversation, and one Jess wasn’t even sure she should have . . . with anyone. They’d think she was nuts.
The thought made Jess frown. She still wasn’t sure what she was going to say to the authorities to get them to call in the coast guard and go after the pirate ship, but was hoping something would come to mind before she reached the hotel lobby.
The sound of feet pounding down the stairs above her made her heart jump suddenly. Intellectually, Jess knew it was probably one of the men, or all of them, simply looking to help her. But her body responded with the panic of a rabbit being chased by a fox, and despite the fact that every muscle in her body was still weak and rubbery from her marathon swim, Jess broke into a run as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
There were two routes to the hotel lobby. The inner path alongside the system of pools that filled the center of the resort, and the outer path that ran between the buildings and the tropical forest that surrounded three sides of the resort. Jess chose the outer route. It was a sloping path the staff used to push carts and luggage carriers down and was longer, but the inner path finished with a set of a good thirty steps leading up to the lobby. Jess just didn’t think she had the strength and energy needed to manage the steps.
She was halfway up the sloping lane and breathing heavily when Jess realized she could no longer hear the pounding of feet behind her. Whoever had been on the stairs hadn’t come this way, she realized with relief, and allowed herself to slow, but only a little. It was dark on the path and she was a woman alone in a world that apparently had more dangers than she’d ever imagined, so she continued at a fast jog. But the rush of adrenaline that had sent her running out of the stairwell in the first place was quickly draining away, leaving her weak, shaky, and feeling like she was on the verge of hyperventilating. The combination forced her to slow to a walk. Even so, Jess was gasping for breath when she rounded the curve at the top of the hill and bumped into someone.
“Sorry,” she wheezed, pressing a hand to the stitch that had developed in her side. Jess was so exhausted that she didn’t even look up to see who she’d bumped into, but simply stepped to the side. The front entrance of the lobby was just steps away now. She could make it.
“Wait. Jess?”
A hand caught her arm as she continued forward, and Jess paused and swung back, her eyes widening as she recognized Raffaele in the lights from the porte cochere where vehicles picked up and dropped off hotel guests. It must have been him on the stairs, and he’d obviously taken the shorter, inner path and beat her up here.
“Oh, hi,” Jess puffed weakly, her gaze drifting toward the hotel entry. Noting the bus parked in front of the doors, she frowned slightly. It was late for a tour to be returning, she thought as she watched the people file off the bus. All were laughing and chattering as they disembarked.
“Jess?” Raffaele said again.
“Hmm?” she murmured, her gaze narrowing on the growing group ahead, gathering in front of the lobby doors. A couple of the people looked familiar.
“I know you want to call the authorities and get help for your friend.”
“Allison,” Jess breathed as she spotted her cousin in the group.
“Yes, for your friend Allison,” he agreed, but Jess wasn’t listening anymore.
She tugged her arm free, dropped the life jacket she’d been clutching since leaving the room, and rushed forward, calling, “Allison!”
Her cousin turned to glance her way at the call, but so did the others and Jess’s eyes widened as she recognized Tyler and several other people from the pirate ship. Dear God, they were all here and all alive and well, she thought, almost faint with relief.
“Jessica!” Allison snapped when Jess reached her and tried to give her a relieved hug. “Get off me! God, it’s bad enough you left me to go on the shark-feeding tour alone, don’t—”
“What?” Jess asked with shock, stepping back to stare at her.
“You heard me.” Allison scowled at her briefly, but then a smile suddenly plucked at her lips and she added with satisfaction, “Your loss in the end. We had a blast. Didn’t we, Tyler?”
Tyler had been standing back, waiting for Allison while everyone else slowly moved through the hotel doors and into the lobby in small, laughing, and chattering groups, but now he stepped forward and smiled at Jess. “She’s right. It was a great time. You should have come.”
Jess gaped at the pair of them, unable to believe what she was hearing.
“Vasco will be pleased to learn you are alive and well, little dove.”
Jess froze at that voice with its strange accent, and then turned warily to see Cristo stepping down from the bus.
“He was crushed when he found you missing,” Cristo said, his expression and tone reprimanding. “We searched the ship from top to bottom three times before he would admit you must have jumped overboard rather than be with him. By then, we were sure you must have drowned.” Eyes narrowing, he said, “The waters were rough and we were far out to sea—how did you survive and make it ashore?”
Jess glanced instinctively down at her hand, but she was no longer clutching the life jacket.
“Ah,” Cristo said with understanding. “Clever lady. You stole a life jacket and escaped through the porthole.”
Jess jerked her head up sharply at the words. He’d obviously read her mind, which reminded her that these creatures could do things humans couldn’t. Like control them.
“Aye, we can,” Cristo said with a smile. “And now I think you should get on the bus. The tourists are all off, and Vasco will be pleased to have you back. He is looking forward to enjoying your . . . company,” he said with a suggestive wink.
Jess didn’t want to get on the bus, and she tried not to, but she was no longer in control. Cristo was. Only it felt different than when Ildaria had taken control of her. Then, Jess hadn’t really realized she’d been under someone’s control until after. Her only thought had been that she must go to Vasco and kiss him, as if her thoughts were not her own. Now, her thoughts were her own, and it was her body betraying her and moving toward the bus against her will.
“I think not.” Those words were spoken in a cold, hard voice as a hand closed around Jess’s upper arm, drawing her to a halt.
Turning her head, Jess peered at Raffaele with surprise, relief, and concern. She hadn’t realized he’d followed her to her cousin, and she was grateful for the intervention, but also worried that Cristo would just take control of him too.
“I believe this is yours.” Raffaele shoved the lost life jacket at the pirate even as he drew Jess back so that she stood a step behind and to the side of him. “I suggest you take it and go, or you’ll force me to do something in front of all these witnesses that we may both regret.”
Cristo didn’t take the life jacket at first. Instead, his eyes narrowed on Raffaele and then widened with something like realization, or perhaps recognition. She saw the pirate’s hand reach instinctively to his side as if to grab a sword, but the scabbard that hung there was empty. Apparently, he’d left his weapon on the ship rather than risk trouble from mortals for carrying it around.
Cristo’s mouth tightened briefly, and then his gaze slid to Jess before moving beyond her and narrowing again.
Jess glanced over her shoulder with curiosity, her eyebrows rising when she saw Santo and Zanipolo pushing their way through the crowd in the lobby, trying to get to the doors and, presumably, out to them.
A curse from Cristo drew her gaze around in time to see the look of regret he cast her way.
“I fear this is one of those situations where discretion is the better part of valor, little dove,” he said, beginning to back toward the bus. “But we will meet again. Vasco will see to that.”
Raffaele released Jess’s arm and started after the pirate, but she caught his hand to stop him. He paused at once and glanced back with surprise.
Jess merely stared at him at first, too surprised by the tingle of awareness that shot through her fingers to speak. She lowered her gaze to their clasped hands with confusion. She hadn’t experienced that same awareness when he’d grabbed her arm, she thought. But their skin hadn’t touched then; his hand had closed around the sleeve of her T-shirt.
Raffaele gave a tug on his hand, trying to free himself, and Jess instinctively tightened her grip. Lifting her head, she said, “Let him go. He can . . . do things,” she finished lamely, and then added, “I wouldn’t want you hurt.”
Raffaele’s expression softened at her words. He covered her hand with his own, sending more tingles up her arm, and then squeezed gently, before removing her hold.
“It is fine,” he assured her, and then turned to start forward again, only to pause almost at once.
Jess glanced around to see that while they had been distracted, Cristo had returned to the bus. She let out a relieved breath as she watched it pull away. They were safe. For now, she thought grimly, recalling Cristo’s promise that they would meet again. He’d said Vasco would see to that, and remembering the passion that had exploded between them on the ship, Jess had no doubt Cristo was right. Vasco would come for her.
The thought was a terrifying one. The man was a big scary vampire, but all he had to do was touch her and she went up in flames. She had managed to override the desire he stirred in her and escape him once, but wasn’t at all sure she could again. She needed to get away from there. She needed to check out, head straight for the airport, and catch the first available flight out of Punta Cana. Jess didn’t even care where it was going. She could catch a connecting flight home to Montana from nearly anywhere, but she desperately needed to leave Punta Cana as soon as humanly possible.
With that thought dominating her mind, Jess glanced around a bit wildly for Allison and frowned when she saw that her cousin was gone. Every last member of the returning party was now inside the lobby, heading for the exit at the back, and the steps down to the short path around the pools. It left only her and Raffaele under the lighted porte cochere. And Santo and Zanipolo, Jess saw as the two men finally pushed through the hotel doors and hurried toward them.
Quite sure that Allison would head back to their room, Jess turned to Raffaele and forced a smile. “I need to speak to my cousin. But thank you again. For everything.”
Not waiting for a response, Jess then turned and hurried back the way she’d come. She could have taken the shorter route this time and tried to catch up with Allison; but while going down stairs was always easier than going up, she wasn’t sure her rubbery legs could manage them. Jess had no desire to take a tumble down the stairs and end up dead, or stuck in a hospital here where Vasco might find her and tempt her to join the dark side.
Grimacing, Jess rolled her eyes at her own thoughts. Join the dark side? Seriously? Could she get any more drama queen-ish? But it did speak to what was happening. Vasco was a huge temptation. Well . . . when he could manage to keep his mouth shut he was, she added on a sigh. However, if she gave in to the temptation he offered, and he turned her into a vampire . . . The thought of sleeping in a coffin made her shudder. As for biting people and drinking their blood? Well, that was just gross.
“Not gonna happen,” Jess muttered to herself as she rounded the corner and started down the slope toward the buildings holding the hotel rooms.
Raffaele watched Jess hurry away, torn between chasing after her and waiting for Santo and Zanipolo to reach him. In the end, he waited for the men. The pirate had left. Jess should be safe . . . for now at least. But he needed to talk to Santo and Zanipolo and come up with a plan to keep her that way. He hadn’t missed Cristo’s last words to her. They’d sounded like a threat to him. The man seemed sure that this Vasco fellow would pursue her, and he probably would. Even rogues weren’t foolish enough to leave mortals running around with the knowledge of their existence in their heads. The pirates would want to wipe the memory of the whole incident from her mind.
“That guy was one of the vampirates from the ship Jess was on,” Zanipolo said as he and Santo reached him.
“Yes,” Raffaele said grimly. “And now that they know Jess survived her dunk in the ocean, they’ll be back. We’re going to have to keep her safe.”
“Hmm.” Zanipolo nodded. “Did you see the people who came off the bus? At least half of them had visible bites on them. Some had more than one.”
“And the others no doubt have them where they aren’t easily seen,” Raffaele said, running a hand through his hair.
“They think they were feeding the sharks,” Santo said in a deep rumble full of disgust.
“They were,” Raffaele assured him. “Just not the kind with fins and gills.”
Santo grunted in agreement, and turned to Zanipolo. “Has Lucian returned your call yet?”
“No. I’ll call him again,” Zanipolo said, pulling out his phone and scrolling through his contacts.
“What will you do about Jess?” Santo asked.
“Keep her safe,” Raffaele said at once.
Santo nodded and then they both glanced to Zani as he muttered under his breath and put his phone away.
“No answer,” he explained. “I’ll try again in half an hour and leave a message if he doesn’t answer then.”
Nodding, Raffaele turned to start following the path Jess had taken just moments ago.
“So, are we heading back to the restaurant?” Zanipolo asked as they rounded the building. “I still haven’t had my dinner.”
“You and Santo can go there if you like. I need to go talk to Jess, convince her that she needs protection, and assure her that we can be that protection.”
Zanipolo nodded, and then pointed out, “She probably hasn’t eaten either. Do you want us to pick her up something when we head back?”
“That’s a good idea. Thank you.”
Zanipolo nodded. “You can text us her order and her room number after you ask her what she wants.”
Raffaele stopped walking.
“What’s wrong?” Zanipolo asked.
“I don’t know her room number,” Raffaele admitted with alarm. He peered from one man to the other. “Did either of you read it from her mind?”
Both men shook their heads, and Raffaele was just starting to panic when Zanipolo said, “We can go to reception and have them look up her room number.”
“Right,” Raffaele said with relief.
“Except we do not know her last name,” Santo pointed out quietly. “Once she told us her name was Jess, I didn’t trouble to read her mind for the rest of her name.” Turning to Zanipolo, he asked, “Did you?”
Zanipolo grimaced and shook his head apologetically.
Cursing, Raffaele closed his eyes briefly and then shook his head and started walking again. “We’re going to have to search this entire resort again to find out her room number. We’re going to have to go door-to-door.”
“Or we could go to the restaurant first,” Zanipolo suggested, and then pointed out, “She has to be starved after expending all that energy in the ocean, not to mention everything else that has happened to her today. The beachside restaurant is the only one still open. She’ll have to go there if she wants food.”
Raffaele’s mouth tightened briefly with irritation at the suggestion. It was obvious the man was just trying to find an excuse to be able to eat. But then he forced himself to be patient. Zanipolo wasn’t yet a hundred years old. He still ate food, and he’d been without it for quite a while. The man must be starved, he realized. Besides, they weren’t on a job. Finding Jess was really his problem, and not something the other two men need trouble themselves with, yet neither of them were protesting being tasked with the chore. Zanipolo just wanted some food to sustain him for the effort. He could hardly begrudge him that.
“You two go down to the restaurant and see if she shows up while you’re there, and I’ll start the door-to-door search,” he suggested. “Perhaps I’ll get lucky and find someone who knows her and can give me her room number before you guys get done.”
“Or you could ask her,” Santo said suddenly.
When Raffaele glanced at him sharply, the big man nodded to the path ahead. Raffaele turned to scan the area. His eyebrows rose and relief coursed through him when he saw Jess sitting on a bench across the footpath from where Buildings 1 and 2 met.
“Thank God,” Zanipolo muttered. A sentiment Raffaele silently echoed as he hurried forward, determined to get to the woman before she disappeared again.