Page 24 of High Stakes and Soulmates (Fanged Mistakes #3)

“That’s what I was thinking… but then why did the neighbor go back home ? They literally sat on this for days and never told anyone,” Cyrus says.

I stare at the dead woman for a long moment before my eyes switch over to the streaks of blood next to her.

“Hey, Ezio!” Zach says, all smiles. Like…

this is not the smile you wear when you greet someone.

This is the smile you wear when you want someone’s attention.

How the hell could I have been so blind?

I glance over and see Cyrus’s eyes fixated on us, but I’m not even sure why.

I already told him I would wait years for him.

“Good evening,” I respond.

“Hopefully, we didn’t pull you away from anything too important,” Zach says.

“Nope. I had nothing better to do, so I was simply harassing some college students.”

“Sounds concerning,” Cyrus comments.

“It’s okay, it was Julian’s class. I was teaching them artwork.”

Zach looks mistakenly impressed. “I didn’t know you were an artist. What kind of artwork were you doing?”

“Uh… the G-rated kind,” I assure him.

“The way you say that makes me assume it wasn’t,” Cyrus says.

I grin at him, pleased that he understands me so well. “It’s fine. It was just stick figures doing simple things like piggyback rides and leapfrog.”

Zach laughs way too hard at that. How was I so blind? I was convinced he was over here wooing the shit out of Cyrus while he hasn’t looked away from me once.

I step to the side when something catches my attention. “None of these lines have been the same, but they’re always in the same area and same side of the body… have you overlaid them?”

Cyrus examines them. “I… don’t think we have. That’s a good idea. Let’s get that sent over and see if they can get it to us quickly. Meanwhile, let’s walk around.”

“Okay.” I follow him as we move throughout the house, but I don’t notice anything off.

“Should we call the dog in?” Cyrus asks, talking about Julian.

“I don’t know… I’m not noticing anything in any of the rooms. Let’s head outside,” I say as Zach hurries up. I assume he’s going to laugh overly hard at something I say again to prove to me that I’m the funniest person ever, but instead, he holds out a tablet that Cyrus takes.

“I think you’re right, Ezio. I think it spells something.

The lines butt up perfectly where they meet,” Cyrus muses as he looks at it.

It… doesn’t look like a whole lot of something at the moment, but he’s transfixed.

He hurries outside and over to his car while Zach and I follow.

He grabs a pen for the tablet out of his bag before leaning against the car as I watch him try every word in the alphabet with the first line.

“Obviously, we don’t know if this is the actual first letter, but we know we can subtract letters like S, W, X…

” He gets another piece of paper and then just sits down right there on the sidewalk and starts scratching out letters.

He overlays whatever letters might fit over the picture the techs had sent him and crosses out any letter that doesn’t fit on his paper.

I point to one of them. “I think this line here might connect with this line, not that one. You could make an R out of it if you connect it there.”

“You’re right,” Cyrus says. “There are only a few letters that round like this, and I have to assume it’s an O. It could be a C or a Q, but Q is such an uncommon letter, and C at the end of a word isn’t as common.”

“So you have a T… unknown letter, S, unknown, B, and an O?” I ask.

“Possibly…”

“That B could be an R,” I say.

“I’m leaning that way too. It looks a bit rounded on the bottom, but it could just be the person’s way of spelling.”

“Typing those letters in, I’m not really getting anything,” Zach tells us.

“I’d really prefer not to have to wait until another person dies to figure out a couple more letters,” Cyrus says as he starts swapping out things, then he begins just placing every letter in the alphabet in place of the unknown letters.

“Tes… Tes… something bo?” Zach asks.

“Wait… Tes… tesoro!” Cyrus says. “It means treasure in Spanish.”

It’s like a fucking fist slams into my gut.

I hurriedly get up from where I’d been sitting next to Cyrus and start back toward my car while that single word twists around me.

My world is shattering; it’s squeezing shut and planning to rip me apart.

It’s like someone is tearing my insides out as I reach my car and realize that I can’t even find the door handle.

I drop down to my knees, not even caring that I’m right here in the middle of the fucking road.

Someone could run me over at this point and I’m not sure I’d even care.

“Ezio, what the hell happened?” Cyrus calls as he comes running over to me.

His voice cuts through the darkness suffocating me, but I still feel like curling in on myself. My fingers are digging so deeply into my arms that I can feel the blood running down them and still it’s not enough to snap me out of this.

“Stop, what the hell are you doing?” Cyrus asks as he grabs my hands and draws them up. “Ezio, come on. What’s wrong?”

How do I even speak? How do I even tell him what has happened? If I open my mouth, if I tell him what happened, it’ll make it all real. It’ll make everything real.

Suddenly, arms wrap around me, squeezing me tightly. My hands are pinned between us, but it’s keeping me from tearing into myself.

“Calm down. You’re having a panic attack. I… I know you don’t need to breathe, so just… focus on my breathing instead, okay? It’s okay. I’m right here. You’re okay. Can you tell me what happened?”

I close my eyes and think about Arturo comforting me like this after I had to kill someone. He’d hold me and squeeze me… he was my treasure… he was my tesoro.

“It’s what I called Arturo,” I whisper.

“Treasure?” he asks.

“He’s come back. Louis has come back,” I say.

“No… you said he’s dead. Tesoro… I mean… it’s just a word, a common word at that?—”

“Tesoro means my treasure… in Italian too.”

I can feel his body tense.

Cyrus pulls back enough to look at me. “But… no. I mean… it’s such a common word, Ezio.

It’s so common. Hell, it’s so common that multiple languages use it!

It’s just a coincidence. And because you were telling me about him the other day, it just threw you when you heard it.

We don’t even know if it’s right. I’m sure this could make up so many other words. And you said Louis was dead, right?”

“Yes.”

“And that was… one hundred and… what? Fifty years ago? You think a cocky asshole like him played dead for that long?” he asks.

He’s right… Cyrus is right. Why the fuck would I have even… let myself fall into thinking such a foolish thing?

“I’m sorry… you’re right…”

“I wonder if it was sharing your story of him with me that made you anxious and then this is just an awful coincidence.”

I nod. I don’t know if he truly believes that or if he’s simply trying his hardest to calm me down.

“Come on, let’s get off the road. What if I have Julian pick you up?”

“I’m fine. I’m being foolish,” I say.

“How the hell is it being foolish? Don’t ever say something like that again and diminish your feelings. You weren’t being foolish at all,” Cyrus reassures me while he reaches up and smooths my hair back.

I sigh and set my face down against his chest, assuming this is the only time I’ll be permitted to hug him tightly, and I want to get my fill of it. At least one good thing needs to happen from this hell.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Please explain why you’d even consider apologizing?” he asks as he holds me.

“I don’t know. I feel like I made a fool of myself. I’m supposed to be all sexy for you so I can woo you, and instead, I just panicked for no reason and ran off. Then I became one with the road and am now using it as an excuse to hug you.”

“You don’t need an excuse for a hug.”

“So can I hug you every day then?”

“You’re ridiculously greedy,” Cyrus decides.

“Maybe I am,” I say as I squeeze him to me.

“But yes, you can hug me whenever you need a hug. I’m going to call Casimir and tell him you’re going to be heading there. I wish I could help, but I can’t leave here.”

“I can still help.”

“No, that’s okay. I don’t need help. You’ve already done quite a bit. You figured this out and we finally have something to work on,” he assures me.

“But I want to help.”

“I know you do, but there’s nothing else for you to do at this scene, so I don’t need help.

” He drags me to my feet and gets the car door open before guiding me into it.

“Or do you need someone to drive you home? Pukes-a-lot is available. I can have him drive you after he broke your nose. He owes you that much.”

“No, I’m fine,” I say. “You’re right. I just panicked. I hadn’t heard that word in such a long time. I left Italy right after he died and hearing it again…”

“I’m sure. I’m sorry. That had to have been hard. I’ll keep you up to date when I hear something more, okay?”

“Yeah, thank you.”

“Of course. You’re… still hugging me, which I feel might make it hard to drive away.”

“I could figure it out if you let me keep hugging you,” I say, loving every second of it. The smell of him, the feel of him. I really don’t ever want to let go. And if he didn’t make me, I would be prepared to hang on for the rest of the day and then some.

Cyrus manages to pry me off, and then just like… pats my head. It’s an odd gesture, but I love it so much that I find myself wanting him to pat me on the head again. Weirdly, he doesn’t seem ready to, and instead just starts buckling me in like I’m not a vampire who could live through a car crash.

“Be careful.”

“You too,” I respond, reluctant to leave him alone. Especially with this killer on the loose. “Maybe I should stay with you.”

“I’m fine, okay? I honestly do have to work here. And then my friend is staying the night, so I’ll be fine.”

“Your friend?” I ask, feeling disappointed again.

He must notice because he says, “The most platonic of friends I could ever have, okay? I promise. I will introduce you… later.” He glances over at the people staring at us. “Sometime when we’re alone.”

I’m not convinced, but he holds up his phone. “I’m calling Casimir to tell him you’re headed there. Got it?”

“Yeah,” I say as I grudgingly start the car and pull away. I glance in my mirror to see if he’s still there, but he’s already heading back into the house. I long to go back to him, but I know that I can’t.

I quickly drive to Casimir’s, and when I pull in, I see that Julian’s not here yet. Even though I’ve known Casimir so much longer, I find myself wanting to lean on Julian because he’s easier to talk to than Casimir when it comes to things like this.

I get out of the car and head inside, where Gustov greets me.

“You alright?” Casimir asks the moment I enter.

I give him a smile, like that’ll make everything better. “Fine.”

He watches me for a minute, clearly wanting me to willingly say something more myself. “Cyrus told me what happened. I promise I’m doing everything I can on my end to try to track down whoever the fuck is involved.”

“I know it’s not him. I just… it got in my head,” I say, petting Gustov who seems to know something’s up as he leans against my legs.

“Okay… do you want to talk?”

“I don’t know what I want,” I admit. Honestly, I’ve already told him some of what has happened; he knows more than anyone else, at least. He knew some from many years ago, and the rest, I’d told him in a moment of vulnerability after he’d dealt with the masked man who was trying to tear apart his life.

I think the two of us had needed someone to rely on who’d gone through shit that they were still dealing with.

“I want… to have not fucked up so badly in the past.”

Casimir laughs. “So do I. But no matter what we do, that’s not going to happen.

I ended up having to kill people who were like family to me.

People who… were all I really ever had. I wish I could have done something to save them.

But the shitty thing about life is you don’t know how it’s going to go until it happens. ”

“I know…”

“But it’d be nothing like… losing Julian,” he says.

“I don’t even know how you kept going. I don’t know how I’d keep going without him.

Knowing that Julian literally has silver inside of him that could kill him if we simply fucked up is bad enough…

I can’t imagine how hard it was for you to have lost someone you loved. ”

I sink down on the couch where Gustov climbs onto my lap and reveals his belly since he thinks I should pet it.

“It was really fucking hard. I think… my rage kept me going. This idea that I could kill his killer… kept me moving forward. He’d turned me into a vampire, and I knew it was to torment me.

It was to make it harder for me to die so I could continue being tormented by him for years to come. What if he’s not dead?”

“What do you mean?”

“This man who killed Arturo… what if he’s not dead?

I… there were three of us who went to kill him.

I was an extremely young vampire and he was hundreds of years old, so I knew I couldn’t do it myself.

He nearly killed me within minutes. The only reason I survived was because one of the two others, a woman named Caterina, shielded me from an attack and drew me back as I nearly bled out.

The man who assisted us is the one who killed him. ”

“If the three of you went to kill him, why would any of them lie about him being dead?” Casimir asks.

“They wouldn’t. I don’t know, I’m just… my mind is all over the place.”

“Just… stop beating yourself up over it.”

“If Arturo had never met me, he’d have lived a good life.”

“If this man was so quick to kill him, you don’t think he’d have killed him over something else?

” Casimir asks. “Monsters like him… they look for ways to manipulate, to push you, to see how far you will go. He was never going to let him live a good life. When you told me about your past, it was quite apparent that the man who owned him was never going to let him have the life he deserved.”

“I know,” I say.

“Pet Gustov… oh! I know what will make you feel better.” He hurries off and when he returns, he’s holding a brush. “You may brush him with supervision.”

“You think brushing your dog will make me feel better?”

“Do you want to hold a Gustov painting? I will permit it,” he says before he pulls one off the wall and holds it out to me.

I reluctantly take it, but evidently, I’m not holding it right, so he makes me cradle it while helping me brush his dog. “Does… any… of this make me feel better?” I ask as he gives me a disapproving look when I hit a snag in Gustov’s fur.

“All of it,” Casimir assures me as Julian walks in and gives me a questioning look.