Page 6 of A Bond Beyond Blood (The Butcher’s Daughter Trilogy #1)

V inny

Two days had passed since she kicked me out of her shop, but the sting of Jacqueline’s rejection hadn’t abated.

She wanted me, I knew that much to be true, but I couldn’t figure out why she fought that fact with every fiber of her being.

It was inevitable; we’d been working toward this point since the day we met.

It couldn’t be the treaty, could it? Did she really care that much about an outdated law when vampires and humans circumvented the treaty all the time?

Unless something went horribly wrong—a vampire accidentally draining his human bride on their wedding night, for instance, which happened a few years back and caused quite the stir in both communities—most interspecies relationships were overlooked or ignored.

Ours wouldn’t be any different, if she’d just give us a damn chance.

The night she walked into my gym, I knew she’d be mine.

Even as Jacqueline explained how much she loathed my kind and wanted to protect herself against monsters— no offense to present company , she’d said—she’d looked at me with a hint of wonder in her bright blue eyes, and more than a hint of lust.

And I’d been a goner ever since.

But I was also a patient man. I may only be twenty-four years old, technically speaking, but the past half-century as a vampire taught me patience, if nothing else. She had too much anger toward my kind to come around quickly, but I’d waited.

With Jacqueline, it was a long game.

One I intended to win.

But now, an hour past our usual Friday night meeting time, when there was still no sign of her, I began to doubt myself.

I was also worried.

I didn’t know who she wanted to kill or why, but I did know that even with all the hours she’d spent in my gym, all the sparring and training in the world couldn’t prepare her to actually go head-to-head with a vampire.

Not unless he was already injured and damn near dead.

And I should have warned her.

I paced the empty gym, threw swings at the various punching bags hanging around the perimeter, but instead of working off this frustration, my muscles grew more rigid with each second that ticked by. She’d never missed an appointment and was annoyingly punctual.

Had I upset her so much by surprising her at her butcher shop? Did I cross a line? Had she decided not to return, to forgo her remaining sessions?

The way that thought caused my chest to tighten was disturbing, but I didn’t have time to analyze my feelings for her now. There were bigger things at play here, things she knew nothing about. Regardless of where I stood with Jacqueline Fiorino, she owed me money.

Money that I, in turn, owed Carmine.

When his goons showed up tomorrow morning to collect, as they did every Saturday, being short would cost me. Not my life—Carmine wasn’t stupid enough to let me off the hook that easily—but I had no doubt I’d suffer for the perceived slight against the Donati family.

As a young vampire, I hadn’t yet amassed my wealth, and as a Ricci , I would long be burdened by my family’s debts.

Until I could pay off Carmine and move the fuck away from the mess my grandfather created for his bloodline nearly a century ago, I was trapped here and indebted to the largest crime family to ever come out of Italy.

But even with my inherited debt a constantly looming shadow, and tomorrow’s weekly visit with Carmine’s henchmen to occupy my mind, all I could think about was Jacqueline.

I threw one last punch, knocking the punching bag clean off its hook and sending it soaring across the gym. I didn’t stay long enough to hear it hit the mat. In a flash, I was outside, running through the night toward the Fiorino family butcher shop across town.

When I reached the stairwell in the parking lot behind the shop, I stopped and stared up at the apartment above the store.

I’d been training Jacqueline for nearly a year now, and I had yet to step inside her home. And now, after that stupid stunt I pulled Wednesday night, any chance of doing so was likely ruined.

But I could try.

I took the stairs two at a time, stopping at her front door, my hand raised to knock. For the first time in years, I hesitated as an old, unwanted feeling came over me.

Doubt.

Would she be mad that I showed up here uninvited? Would she turn me away?

Soft whimpers came from inside the apartment and my body went rigid. I leaned forward and listened.

Somewhere within these four walls, Jacqueline was crying.

I pounded on the door. “Jacqueline? Open the door.”

The crying stopped and I tilted my head and listened to her footsteps as she approached the door. “Vinny?”

“What’s wrong?” I asked the useless piece of wood separating us.

She cursed under her breath and I smiled at the sound. God, I loved dirty words from her sweet mouth. The doorknob moved as she twisted it, then she opened the door and I was blessed with the sight of her.

I had little time to take her in, too aware of the circles under her eyes and the streaks of mascara trailing down over her cheeks to appreciate her bare legs beneath the nightshirt and open robe she wore.

I scanned the apartment behind her, looking and listening for any signs that she wasn’t alone, then searched her eyes. “What happened?”

“Why are you here?” She sniffled, then swiped her fingertips over her cheeks, laughing bitterly when they came away streaked with black. “Oh, great. I must look amazing.”

She did. She always did. “Invite me in, Jacqueline.”

Her eyes flicked up to mine and her face went slack. After a painfully long moment, she whispered, “Why?”

“So I can hold you.”

Her lip trembled and my hands tightened on either side of the doorway. The wood creaked and moaned beneath my grip and her gaze flicked up at the sound.

“Jacqueline,” I whispered. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s the anniversary,” she stated without emotion, still staring blankly at my hand gripping the door frame.

My shoulders fell as the realization hit me. Her father’s death, a year ago today. Just days before Christmas. “Franco.”

She swallowed, then nodded.

She was barely twenty-one years old and had already suffered the loss of the man who raised her.

I didn’t know what happened to her mother, but she wasn’t around, so I could only assume Jacqueline had mourned that loss as well. So young and already so familiar with grief.

It wasn’t fair.

After a long moment of internal debate, she finally sighed. “Come in, Vincenzo.”

She turned away from me, but before she could make it a full step, I scooped her into my arms, kicking the door closed behind me.

Jacqueline startled, looking up at me with wide eyes, but then she circled her arms around my neck and pressed her face against my chest. “It hurts.” She shook with a silent cry and I picked up my pace, striding down the hallway until the unmistakable scent of her led me to a bedroom at the end of the hall.

I walked to the bed, then placed her on top of it, letting go of her long enough to pull the covers down and nudge her within the sheets, then I kicked off my shoes and slid in beside her, pulling her into my arms.

With her face tucked against my throat and completely surrounded by the delicious scent of her, I held her tightly through her grief.

Eventually, when her sobs turned to heavy breaths and then those slowed to deep, rhythmic breathing, I closed my eyes and reveled in the way it felt to finally hold her.

Pressing my nose into her hair, I inhaled deeply to pull the scent of her into my lungs.

I’d memorized the unique essence of her in the months we’d trained—the hint of vanilla and musk in her shampoo, the wildflower and orange bouquet of her perfume—and had desperately wished I could trap it within my lungs and pull from it whenever the need for her was too strong to bear.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she whispered, startling me from my thoughts.

I smiled against her hair, slightly embarrassed that she’d caught me doing something so creepy while I’d thought she was asleep.

“I like the way you smell, too,” she admitted, and I froze as she readjusted, turning to look up at me.

“Like the changing of the season from fall to winter.” Her eyes searched mine, flicking back and forth, and it took everything in me not to push her for more, to squeeze this moment for everything she would never allow herself to say.

Instead, I waited.

For whatever inner battle she struggled with.

She licked her lips and I held my breath, teeth clenched as I fought my impatience to move things along. Jacqueline didn’t need that from me right now. She needed comfort. Care.

She needed me to be here for her, nothing more.

I’d been patient this long; what was a little while longer when faced with eternity?

Thankfully, I’d fed before our missed appointment. I was always careful not to go into our training sessions hungry. Lust and hunger would not mix well where Jacqueline Fiorino was concerned; I wanted her too damn badly.

But that recent feeding meant life thrummed in my veins, hot and human. It responded to her closeness, that dark look in her eyes. I tightened my hands into fists at my sides to keep from touching her.

“Vinny?” she said softly.

“Hm?”

“I don’t want to like you.”

I chuckled in spite of the way her admission hurt. “You’ve made that quite clear.” I wanted her with every beat of my undead heart.

And she was determined to keep me at arm’s length.

“I understand,” I finally said when she didn’t elaborate.

She nodded slowly, then rested her head on my chest. I tucked her close to my body, fingers tangling in her hair.

I wouldn’t rush her, not after we’d just made such strides.

Allowing me—no, inviting me—into her home, into her bed, was a major step forward, and I didn’t dare risk pushing her away now.

“I can hear your heartbeat,” she said, her voice laced with awe.

I smirked. “You thought I wouldn’t have one?”

She flinched and I felt the movement against my chest.

“There are a lot of things about me you may have assumed incorrectly.”

Jacqueline’s shoulders rose and fell on a deep sigh, then she snuggled closer to me, stretching her arm around my waist and tightening her fingers into the hem of my t-shirt. “Thank you for being here.”

I nodded, then kissed the top of her head. “Tell me about him.”

“He loved this time of year... Especially Christmas.”

I grimaced. Enduring the holidays must have been brutal last year.

This year, too, obviously, but I was here now. I could help.

As she began telling me stories of her childhood and all the ways Franco Fiorino made December a magical time of year for his children, my gaze flicked around her room.

The decorations, what few there were, spoke nothing of a twenty-year-old woman’s life.

No pictures with girlfriends or posters of favorite bands... nothing to indicate what kind of music she listened to, or movies she enjoyed watching. No books.

Even though Jacqueline wasn’t especially girly —I hadn’t expected pink flowers and lace—the more I surveyed my surroundings, the more this room didn’t feel like her at all.

The few pictures displayed on the wall told someone else’s story. Had I settled us in someone else’s bedroom?

I scanned the photographs, focusing on the one closest to me.

Three children, two boys and one small girl with mischief in her eyes, the image yellowed by age and the stain of tobacco smoke that still lingered in the air an entire year after the man’s death.

Another photo displayed higher on the wall showed a man and his bride, a striking woman who bore a profound resemblance to the one in my arms.

Jacqueline’s mom, I realized.

Though there were unmistakable touches of her, from body sprays and makeup strewn about the top of the dresser, to her clothes spilling out of the closet, nothing could hide the fact that this was Franco’s room.

The sheets and comforter smelled like Jacqueline, but how much of this was hers—and how much was left over from her father?

How could she heal when she was surrounded by the absence of him?