Dante (Blood Brothers Book 5) (2 page)

“See that it doesn’t happen again and no more stealing. Just because humans can’t catch you
,
doesn’t mean you can flaunt your powers. People fear what they don’t understand, and I don’t think I could handle it if anything ever happened to any of you. You three mean the world to me, and I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

“We know.” Niccolo nodded. “We love you
,
too.” They threw their arms around Dante.

The baby whined at being squeezed so tightly, but as if he sensed the magnitude of the moment, he quieted.

“I will always be there for the three of you,”
Dante
promised. “Always.”

Chapter One

They were dead.

He’d killed
every single
one of the bastards, yet the rage
coursing through
his body had yet to subside. In fact, his bloodlust
demanded more casualties.
Dante surveyed hi
s blood-splattered surroundings, ready for another enemy to appear from the shadows.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump
.

A still-beating heart caught his attention.
Slowly,
Dante
stalked toward his prey, his eyes zeroing in on the rogue whose limbs he’d ripped off during battle. He lowered himself to his haunches and dug his talon-sharp nails into
his enemy’s
chest. A pain-filled scream
erupted from the rogue’s throat
.

“My fingers are only inches away from your heart.
And you
have one of two choices: You can either tell me where
the children
are and I’ll end your life quickly,
granting you the mercy you don’t deserve
or you c
ould
remain silent and I’ll squeeze your black heart to a pulp. If you
choose the second option, I assure you, your
death will be slow and painful.”

His red-eyed adversary stared at him with a hat
ful
glare. “Fuck you, Grimaldi. Your precious family is
as good as dead and soon you’
ll be as well.”
To punctuate his venomous words, he
spit in Dante’s face with a combination of blood and saliva.

With a hiss, Dante bared his incisors and
ripped through his
defiant
enemy’s chest and clutched his heart.

The vampire gasped, his eyes widening.

Dante tightened his hold on the pumping organ until it exploded in his palm.
He kept his fist planted firmly in the gaping hole he’d created until he was satisfied the rogue was dead. Once he was on his feet again, he wiped away the rogue’s spittle with the back of his hand.

Another mission complete, yet he was no closer to finding
his nieces and nephews
than
he had been a
week ago. Jagger, Nico’s son
,
a vampire, warlock hybrid,
could hold his own in most fight
s, but these weren’t ordinary circumstances. The other three missing Grimaldi children were particularly vulnerable.
Jaxson and Adrienne, Romeo’s children, adopted into their family a short time ago
were only
six and three years of age
. And human. They had to be frightened with what was happening with them. They had already suffered at the hands of cruel biological relatives before they’d been taken out of their home. It didn’t seem fair that they would now have to contend with this as well.

It scared the hell out of Dante to think of the possible scenarios they could be facing, especially when most rogues viewed humans as food. And lastly, there was baby Gia
nna, Gia for short
,
Marco’s infant daughter, not even a month old.
She needed constant care and feedings.
Would
her captors give her the proper care she required or willfully neglect her?

A chill raced down
Dante’s
spine as he imagined different scenarios.
His thoughts strayed to Jagger. When his disappearance had been discovered, his blood had splattered the walls. What had they done to him and had the torture continued? He had to believe they were all still alive because to give up hope would cause his family to spiral into a dark place of no return. Marco had already lost one child. Fate couldn’t be so malicious
as
to take a second one.

All the misfortunate and tragedy he and his brothers had suffered throughout the centuries rested at the feet of Adonis, a rogue hell bent on destroying the Grimaldis.
Dante and his brothers had hunted relentlessly, but Adonis had remained elusive through the centuries. He was also their brother.

Recently, Dante had learned of yet another sibling: Giovanni, an elusive vampire
,
who seemed to pop up wherever they went in the last several months. It had been a shock to all of them to learn of not one more brother, but two. Seeing Adonis and Giovanni, so like them in features, there was no denying they shared a bloodline, but how? Papa had never spoken of the two other children he’d fathered.

Dante released a deep breath.
Time was wasting and every precious second counted. He needed to move on to his next lead.
The shrill ring of a mobile phone cut through the silence in the room. It wasn’t his, as the one resting in his breast pocket was set on vibrate. It
obviously belonged to one of the dead rogues. Answering it would hopefully lead to a clue.

He followed the sound of the ring tone and
extracted the device from the pants pocket of one of the first rogues he’d killed.

“Yes?” Dante kept
his voice low in hopes the caller wouldn’t recognize he wasn’t the
intended recipient of the message.

“Snake?” the deep voice on the other end queried with uncertainty.

“Yes.”

There was a slight pause. “The cargo is on the move. Our position has been compromised.
It’ll make it’s
final destination ahead of schedule. Niccolo Grimaldi busted up
El Corazon Negro
last night. The Romanovs were with him. I managed to escape, but other than myself, there were no survivors. Warn the others. Snake, are you there?”

“Yes.”

“A bunch of us are meeting at Sidewinder’s to await further instruction. I need to get out of here, but I’ll call again when I’m able.”

The phone clicked off and Dante stuffed it in his pocket. It would probably come in handy later if there were any other calls of importance.
He had no doubt
the “cargo” was the children. They were so close, he could
feel it.

After coming up against one too many dead ends, Dante had received a tip from one of his agents regarding a group of vampires called the Serpent Gang, a band of rogues whose main goals were causing chaos and feeding on humans. Rumor had it that they were also mercenaries, performing tasks for the highest bidders, so
it made sense
Adonis was using them to hold his nieces and nephews.

Dante had sent his brothers to the gang’s known hideouts. So far, he’d only heard back from Romeo, who still had no new information, and that phone call from the unknown rogue told Dante that Nico had no better luck. That only left Marco. He’d have to get out of here in case reinforcements came.

<><><>

Back at the hotel, Dante paced back and forth, waiting for Marco’s call.
It worried him that he hadn’t heard anything from his youngest brother thus far. GianMarco was more than capable
of taking care of himself and had been on countless missions, but this was no ordinary
assignment
.
A handful of agents had lost their lives to this particular rogue and his minions.

It seemed like ages ago when the entire family had assembled to celebrate the joyous occasion of Gianna’s birth. But in truth
,
it had only been a few short weeks. Briefly
,
they’d put aside the
ir
worry over the threat of the mysterious brothers hanging over their heads to be thankful
for
the good things that had happened to them
;
like most of them finding their mates and the addition of the children to the family. The joy and good cheer they’d shared had been wiped out suddenly with the kidnappings. The timing had almost seemed deliberate
,
as if their enemy wanted them to know how easily he could snatch their happiness away.

He prayed they were okay.

His phone vibrated, interrupting his musings. “Dante here.”

“It’s me.”

Relief flooded his chest at the sound of his brother’s voice. Once it sank in Marco was all right, irritation took over. “Where the hell have you been? You should have checked in hours ago. Yesterday, in fact.”

“Calm down, Dante. I had a narrow escape from a group of rogues. We lost two more agents, and I barely made it out of the skirmish alive.”

“Anton and Dominic
?” Dante closed his eyes in regret. In the past few days, the Underground had taken a hit in manpower. They’d lost five members in all. The situation was growing dire.

“Yes,” Marco finally answered with a sigh. “They fought valiantly. Any news on your end?”

Dante told him about the phone call. “So now we have to figure out where Sidewinder’s is. I can only infer from the call the kids are still alive. I believe the caller would have said otherwise if they weren’t.”

“They damn sure better be. If they so much as harm one hair on Gia’s head, I swear…” A sob
escaped
from Marco, his voice filled with emotion. “I will not rest until every single one of them dies a slow, painful death.”

“We’ll find her, Marco. We’ll find them all.”

“It will kill Maggie if something happens to Gia.”

It went without saying that it would be
devastating for
Marco as well
. Now more than ever,
Dante
was determined to bring the children to safety. “We’ll meet tomorrow in New York, at my penthouse. We’re going to need all the reinforcements we can get. Paris and Aries, along with a handful of their pack members should be in attendance, as will Sasha’s brothers.”

“I’ll see you then.” Marco clicked off without waiting for Dante to respond.

Dante sank onto the nearest chair, letting his head fall into his cupped palms. He
had to
be strong for his family with these turbulent times ahead. But who would be strong for him?

<><><>

Isis Vasquez paced her best friend’s
sitting room
floor, nervous energy flowing through her
body.

“Would you have a seat? You’re making me dizzy with all that walking back and forth,” Persephone Kyriakis snapped.

Isis sighed in resignation, raking her fingers through her hair. She was unable to keep still when she had so much on her mind. “I can’t. As a matter of fact, I should be heading for Manhattan with your father.”

Persephone raised one dark arched brow. “My, my, my. Someone is anxious and I know why.”

Isis folded her ar
ms across her chest. “I can’t stand idly by when the lives of innocent children are at stake. I think it’s awful how they were just taken the way they were.”

“I agree and it’s an admirable reason to want to help but
let’s not
play dumb. The children aren’t the only reason you want to volunteer.”

Isis halted in mid pace. Folding her arms across her chest, she gave her friend a narrow-eyed stare. “Oh? You seem to be privy to information I’m not aware of.”

A smile of pure mischief
curled Persephone’s gloss
ed lips. “
Isis, the only person you’re kidding is yourself if you truly believe that, but if you need me to spell it out for you
,
it s
tarts with a
D
, ends with an
E
. About six feet five inches tall, dreamy, dark blue eyes, and a killer
body
.”

Heat crept
up
Isis’s
neck and stung her cheeks.
“Okay, so I wouldn’t mind seeing Dante again, but it isn’t the main reason I’d like to go. I
need
to go.”

“
What
is
the main reason then?
Ever since we overheard my father and Aries plan their trip
,
you’ve been jumpy.”

Isis released a deep breath. She
had feared her past would
come back to haunt her one day, but she never figured it would come in this form. “
They mentioned The Serpent Gang was embroiled in this mess, that they’re likely the ones who are keeping the children hostage.”

Persephone cocked her head to the side. “You’re going to need to give me more detail than that.”

“
I was
in a relationship
with one of
their
members
a long time ago
.”

“Are you serious? My father
attempts to keep me unaware of his
Underground
dealings
, but even I’ve heard of them. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“
Because your friendship means more to me than you could possibly know.
But you’re part o
f a powerful pack, and your father already has concerns about our connection because I have no pack allegiance. I didn’t want to give him another reason to think less of me
. I didn’t want you to think less of me, either. I’m not proud of some of the things I used to do, and I haven’t seen Black Adder for years.
And I had hope
d
to put all that behind me.”

Persephone’s dark brows knitted together
, while a frown
caused
her lips
to droop
. “Were you also a member?”

“I couldn’t be a full member because I’m not a vampire, but because I was the leader’s lov
er, they tolerated my presence.” Isis lowered her lids unable to maintain the intense scrutiny of Persephone’s gaze. “I can tell from your look that you don’t approve.”

“
I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to. Your expression says it all.”

“What exactly is it saying?”

“
That
I’m a horrible person.”

“
I could never think that about you. I’m just trying to make sense of how you could keep the fact that you were
once associated with one of the most dangerous groups of rogues in the immortal community
a secret
. They’re responsible for a countless number of immortal and human deaths alike.”

Isis
bit the inside of cheek to keep herself from making excuses because there were none. She couldn’t blame Persephone for judging her.
The Serpent Gang fed off the weak, bringing chaos wherever they went.
During her
association with them, Isis had done things she now deeply regretted, but at the time
,
the need to belong had overridden her sense of
right and wrong
. “I know, Seph.
It’s one of the reasons I never mentioned it to you before this. I suppose if your father finds out
,
he’ll see that our friendship is severed. Will you tell him?”

Persephone opened her mouth then closed it.

As the silence stretched, tension
coiled within
Isis’s body until her nerves were ready to snap. “
Say
something.” Persephone’s friendship had been one of the things that had helped her out of a dark place in her life. Since the brutal slaughter of
her pack by a group of Hunters and her rejection from her mother’s former pack,
Is
is had been on her own. As a lone wolf, she’d done whatever she had to in order to survive, often things she was now ashamed of. Several of those things involved the Serpent Gang. Isis had been on a continuous downward spiral until she could no longer look at herself in a mirror. Once she’d finally turned her back on that life of mayhem and destruction, it had been a constant struggle not to fall back into her old ways. But one day she’d met Persephone, someone who didn’t automatically label Isis as no good because she didn’t have a pack. Lone wolves were usually shifters who had been shunned by their pack for behavior unbecoming of the pack. Most of these wolves later went on to become rogue
,
which earned them all bad reputations. Isis had been marked by that stigma by many, but not Persephone.

“Seph?” Isis prompted again.

Persephone
swung her legs off her chaise lounge and stood in front of Isis to give her a tight hug.
“I’m not
going to stop being your friend. I just
wish you would have been more open with
me about your past before now.” She pulled away and studied Isis with an indiscernible expression. “
How
did you get entangled with them in the first place?”

Isis
sighed
and gestured to the nearest chair. “It’s a pretty lengthy story. Let’s sit.”

Persephone nodded returning to the chaise.

Isis plopped down on the edge of the chair and folded her hands in
her
lap. “You already know, I’ve always had an affinity for vampires, particularly the tall dark and dangerous ones.
I guess it comes from being raised by a very conservative pack. My papa was a lot like yours, very protective
but amplified. He had a very set ideal of how women in the pact should behave
and at times
,
his rules were
suffocating to the point where I wanted to rebel every chance I could get.
”

“
I guess that’s why I’ve been attracted to men who live on the edge, and no group embodies that as much as vampires. After my pack was decimated,
I sought out my mother’s old pack only to be told I’m a worthless mutt by my own grandfather. He told me if I showed up on their lands again, he’d send his pack out to erase me from Earth, his exact words. He said I was an abomination who shouldn’t have been born.”

Persephone mouth formed a perfect oh as a gasp escaped. “You’re kidding me
,
right? Pack relationships are very important. Your own grandfather said that to you?”

Isis bit the inside of her lip as a shudder wiggled up her spine. The memory of her grandfather’s words still had the ability to make her heart go cold. He’d looked at her as if she’d been the lowest life
form
he’d ever come across. “Yes. He actually said that.”

“Why? I don’t understand. With your mother dead…”

“That didn’t matter to my grandfather. In his eyes my blood was impure so I wasn’t worthy to be part of his pack. You see, Pack Khan had several members with some type of psychic ability, like clairvoyance, telekinesis, mediumship and slew of other abilities. My mother could sometime gage events before they happened. It was these abilities my grandfather believed made Pack Khan superior to other packs. No one mated outside the pack. The problem lay with the small size of the pack. After a while inbreeding occurred, cousins and sometimes siblings mated.” Isis barely stopped herself from shuttering as she had relayed that last bit.

Persephone’s lips curved into a frown and her nose crinkled. “I vaguely remember hearing about a pack from Bangladesh that never mated out. I heard a lot of them succumbed to
Mal
um
,
disease that wiped out so many of our kind, because of the weak gene pool.”

Isis shrugged. “That could have been Pack Khan. They weren’t the only ones who stuck to their own pack. But getting back to the story, my grandfather wanted my mother to mate with his brother, her uncle. My mother
,
of course
,
had no feelings for this man who was every bit the zealot my grandfather was.”

Persephone curled her lips making her disgust evident. “So how did she manage to meet your father?”

“My father was visiting a neighboring pack and he and my mother happened to meet each other while they were both out on a run. From the way my mother described it, she realized she’d found the one she was meant to be with. They began to see each other secretly. My father
,
however being the traditionalist he was
,
wanted to ask for my grandfather’s blessing when they decided to mate. Grandfather forbade them from seeing each other but my mother stood up to him. So she was given an ultimatum, do as she was told and marry her uncle or be banished from the pack. I’m sure you’ve already figured out the rest. My father took her back to his home in the Dominican Republic where they had me and we all lived until the pack was wiped out by hunters and rogue shifters.”

“If my mother hadn’t sacrificed herself so that I could make my escape, I’d be dead
,
too. I was only sixteen years old when it happened and I
had never ventured off the island. I was terrified and didn’t know how I’d survive. Pack Vasquez wasn’t wealthy like my mother’s old one had been so I
had
very few resources once my parents were gone. And if my father had money put away somewhere, I had no idea how to access it. I got the idea to seek out my grandfather because my mom told me about the grand compound in Bangladesh where her old pack resided. I thought for sure my grandfather would be happy to see me and that he’d forget his old grudge with my parents and take me into his fold.”

Persephone crinkled her nose in a grimace. “Weren’t you worried, he’d want to mate you to one of your cousins or something?”

Isis raised a brow.

“Sorry. Just curious.”

“At the time, it didn’t really cross my mind. Throwing myself on my
grandfather’s
mercy seemed better than being on my own. For all I knew, the hunters would come back for me. I was terrified so I figure out a way to get to Bangladesh. I ended up selling the only valuables my parents owned and I begged on the streets, relying on other people’s charity. At night
,
I would sleep in the woods in my second form for protection. After several weeks
,
I finally earned enough to purchase a boat ticket and some items I’d need for my journey. When I finally made it to the compound, my grandfather told me I’d wasted my time coming to him. He called me an abomination and it was because of me my mother had died. He said if she had obeyed him, she’d still be alive.” Isis hastily swiped at the tear that had slid from the corner of her eye. Though it had been nearly two centuries, remembering that conversation still had the power to make her gut clench with anxiety. That feeling of worthlessness reared its head and gnawed at her soul.

“That was his loss, hon. You’re much off better without those fanatics.”

Isis shrugged. “Considering most of them have been wiped out and the survivors have gone into hiding, I suppose you’re right. But I always wonder how different things could have been for me had Grandfather accepted me. Oh, well, that’s neither here nor there. Anyway,
as a lone wolf
,
I had
to fight every day for my survival.
I stole, fought, and did whatever I could to make it to the next day. After a while, I was just…tired. I looked to align myself with another pack for protection. Unfortunately, all the ones I encountered were unwilling to take me in. I’d been on my own for maybe a few years
at
that point and some even labeled me a rogue,
Malum
was prevalent around then and they didn’t want to chance contacting it through me. I roamed
South
Asia for a while and moved on to Europe. I never stayed in one place for very long because of my fear of the hunters coming for me.”