by SL Perrine
Gianna took out a black candle and situated it in front of her mirror. She focused her energies on the flame, lighting it made the rest of the candles in the room go out. The gold flame encased with a black hue. She knelt in front of the altar and her mirror.
“Dark and evil forces have no place here.
You may return to your source
May my home and my vessel now be free
Safe and well – so mote it be.”
She let out a long breath and sat back on her heels. She waited until the flame lifted high above her, reaching up to the ceiling and back down until it had gone out. The rest of the candles in the room reignited. Her bare flesh casts a golden glow around the room. Her body tingled from head to toe. Her nipples hardened as a breeze caressed her body and sent shock waves down to her sex.
She could feel the warmth of her body seep out between her legs, and she wondered why it had happened. Was she touched by more than just his influential magic? What had he tried to do? Stifle her sexual desires, perhaps? Whatever it was, he wouldn’t succeed. Though maybe she should act as if he had.
Gianna looked in the mirror. She thought for a long while that the reason she was unable to seek the visions of the future was due to Giovanni’s magic. Now as a vision played out in the mirror, she knew it to be true. She also knew something more. She was about to play with fire. The image before her told her so much more than she had even questioned. Her body shivered, though it had nothing to do with the breeze moving around the room. She stood and put on her robe, collected her clothes from the floor and with a flick of her hand the flames died down. She closed and locked her door and descended the stairs.
She had much to do, and Gianna was going to need help to do it if she wanted to stop Giovanni from succeeding.
Gianna couldn’t sleep. Not after what she saw. She needed to find something and knew it must be somewhere in her office. She showered and dressed. An hour earlier than she usually woke was nothing. No one in the house would question her being up. So, she made her way to her office, noting there was no noise from the first floor, save for the kitchen. She took the path of least resistance rounding the staircase and going through the parlor to the back of the house to her office.
She had decorated her office just as every other room she dressed in her own taste. Having hand-picked the Victorian style chairs; dark wood, light colored cushions covered the back and seat. A complete opposite to the black leather chairs in Giovanni’s office. He was always into the modern, sleek look. Anything to make him appear more powerful. Gianna valued comfort.
Her desk was cherry. Heavy as hell, and difficult to move on her own when she was in the mood to redecorate, but gorgeous. She flicked on the copper desk lamp. She purchased that to merely have a little of her own defiance in her office. It was from The Gianna Collection; a little side project she’d started a year after she and Giovanni married.
She pulled the filing cabinet drawers open in search of the document she’d glimpsed in her vision. Giovanni was always buying and selling things in her name to take advantage of her family’s influence. To hide stuff out of sight of his family and to drive his wife insane. He knew it bothered her to have property and land purchased in her name when she had no real ownership of it.
A part of her vision showed an estate. She needed to find the document he’d thrust at her only weeks ago to sign. It was an estimate for a piece of property they acquired when Mila was born. Giovanni told Gianna it was for Mila’s future. Something to secure her place as the head of the two families when she came of age.
Each year Giovanni had the property appraised for it’s worth. Insurance purposes, he’d claimed. Now, she wasn’t so sure. To be confident of its involvement in the vision, she was going to have to enlist Anthony’s help in uncovering the truth. She agonized over that realization while she searched her files. She knew speaking with him was a necessity; she just didn’t want to. Either way, it was Monday morning, and they had a meeting in forty minutes.
She thought about how unfortunate it would be for him if he were not up and ready in ten, as she pulled the document from the drawer. She looked it over, realizing the property was an hour and forty minutes north, toward New York, but still had a New Jersey address. They would need to be gone for almost an entire day. How would they pull that off without raising suspicion?
Gianna folded the paper and stuffed it in the back pocket of her black dress slacks. They were form fitting and for a moment, she wished she put on something less eye-catching. Her shirt was no better. Had she even thought about what she was doing when she threw on the V-neck blouse? No, she could only recall thinking about the document. She also didn’t remember grabbing the blood red blouse; she thanked the goddess that it was long enough to cover her backside. She couldn’t take the time to go change. Instead she padded her way down to Anthony’s apartment, noting as she moved through the hall, that Giovanni wasn’t in his study. Monday meant he’d be spending the day at the office but, after the previous night’s activities, such as they were, she had no idea if he planned to leave the house.
When she was standing inside Anthony’s door, she had to stop. Noises came from the equipment room on the west side of the house. Heading toward the sound of the treadmill, she found Anthony running. He was facing the wall with the television mounted high up. The morning news was on, the volume turned down all the way.
“Jax?” She called but received no response. She watched as sweat slid down the back of his neck and disappeared under his shirt. It was larger than necessary, currently discolored from the collection of perspiration from an obviously rigorous workout. Then she noticed the white buds in his ears. He must have been listening to music, that’s why the volume was down on the television.
She walked into the room a little more. Waiting for him to finish his run, and not wanting to startle him. She peeked around Anthony to view the control panel. The time was almost up on the treadmill, so she took a seat and began to admire the muscles she could see above the edge of his shirt. Then the way his biceps flexed as he moved, right down to the tightening of his calves. There was something sexy about a man working out. His sweat would have repulsed other women of her status, but not Gianna. The warmth between her legs grew, and she quickly stood to look away. She turned to walk from the room, but Anthony called after her.
“Gianna?” His tone was terse, clearly aggravated at the intrusion. Maybe pissed off at her for keeping who and what she is from him. She didn’t care. She couldn’t. She had a child to protect. Besides, she was just as upset as he was.
She spun back around to face him. The treadmill went silent, and he stepped off wiping his face with a towel and took a sip of water from a bottle he had in the cup holder of the machine. The earbuds dangled over his ears.
“If you could clean up, I have need of your services.” She stated plainly.
“Services? At three in the morning? Couldn’t you have asked to get laid last night, or were you just too tired from holding me against a wall?”
“I don’t particularly like your insinuations, and…as I said, I was teaching Mila a lesson. It was nothing personal, and neither is this request. I have a need for you, and it involves your job, which is to help keep my daughter safe. So, if you please.” She pointed to the bathroom off the gym, and he stepped off the treadmill and walked past her to his apartment. “Quit being ludicrous.”
“You’re infuriating. So, we have something in common…finally. Oh, wait, that would be two things.” He snapped at her.
“I couldn’t tell you any more than you thought you could tell me. I might add, I have a lot more to keep safe with that omission, than you do.”
“I’ll give you that, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“Obviously. Listen, I don’t know what you think this is, but me being here is strictly business, and will remain so. I have no intention of further discussion involving a drunken interlude. Now, if you care for Mila would you please help me?”<
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“Interlude…” He harrumphed. “Fine, can I take a shower?”
“Yes.”
“Then would you mind?”
“Wha-” She looked around and realized, during their banter she had inadvertently followed Anthony into his bedroom. The heat rose in her face, and she turned without another word and left the room.
When he’d come back out, she had two cups of coffee poured and was waiting for him.
“Okay, Ice Princess, let’s have it.”
“Can we not return to the juvenile name calling?”
“Why, yes, Mrs. Moretti. Let’s not name call.” He sat on the sofa while she stayed on the stool next to the island.
“I can see we’ve hit an impasse, so I’ll get right to it. Knowing what you now know, I must tell you I’ve been struggling. I’m a clairvoyant,” she stopped to take a sip of her coffee and waited for Anthony to speak. When he just gave her a look of impatience she continued. “I haven’t been able to see future visions for a few weeks now. Months really. I could recall events in the past, but the future was cloudy.”
“So, at the restaurant, with your friend’s nannies. You saw my conduct that way?”
Gianna ignored the jibe. “Yes. I’ll admit it was a lie and I did not get the recording. However, I did see everything. I was trying to ascertain the reason behind the man’s interest in my daughter, and when I tried for a future vision, I got nothing. It’s been that way since you started working for us. Since the first attack.”
“So, you were blaming me?”
“No! That’s not what I’m trying to say here. Why don’t you just save your commentary for the end. Okay?”
He held up his hands in a defensive gesture and then brought his fingers to his lip, zipping and locking them. He had evidently spent too much time with Mila if he was copying her mannerisms.
To keep from laughing, Gianna stood and began to pace as she recounted the last few weeks, and the frustration at not being able to use her ability. “I tried every day. First to see things about the men who attacked Mila, then little things like what cook would be making for dinner. I hoped I would be able to use it with somethings and weed out what could be blocking me, or who. Last night, after I blew up, I went to bed only to wake from a dream. Years ago, when Giovanni and I had a fight, and he wanted to do more than leave bruises on my body, he’d torture me with his power. Horrid dreams of me dying by his hand or Mila abducted and me not being able to stop it. Things like that. Well, I had one of those dreams last night. When I woke, I decided to do a banishing spell. I thought of it days ago, but never got around to it.” She stopped and took a sip of her coffee to help the dryness in her throat.
“What happened? Did it work?”
“Yes, and no. I found out Giovanni is blocking my magic, but I still wasn’t able to see anything. He’s too uncertain. He knows, to keep me from learning anything he may be doing, he’d have to wait until the last minute to decide about it. However, I saw a location.”
Anthony perked up and sat on the edge of the sofa. “Anywhere you know?”
“Yes. It’s a plot of land he purchased after Mila was born. He said it was for her, to build an empire for her after she reached ascension. I had no idea what that meant; I still don’t. All I know is every year he has it appraised for insurance. One year we had to go to the property to meet with contractors who were going to run the utilities for the day we would build.”
“So, why is that important?”
“Because, I remembered signing the order a year later for sewage, and then there is this,” she said handing him the document from her back pocket. “It’s from a few months ago. Only a couple days before the first kidnapping attempt. He’s had something built on the property.”
“How can you be sure?”
“The appraisal is a hundred thousand dollars more than it was the years before. I remember it because I noticed it went up by a few thousand dollars every year. I thought it was funny seeing as how it was just an empty plot of land that we hadn’t built on yet. Land doesn’t increase in value in one year by a hundred thousand, I’d buy the thousand or two, but even I’m not that gullible. He must have distracted me with one of our fights. The only way to be sure is to drive out and look.”
“Ok, when do we go?”
Chapter 16
Anthony watched Gianna leave the room without comment. Once he shut the door behind her, he turned and launched the empty coffee cup in his hand at the wall across the room. It shattered and left a small indent in the drywall, but not with the satisfaction he thought it would.
“Bitch,” he growled under his breath as he paced circles around the couch and coffee table in the living room. “First, she magically and physically abuses me by slamming me against a wall. Next, she chastises me for keeping my magic a secret just as she did. Then, she dares to waltz down here and dismiss our lovemaking as a drunken interlude before asking me for my help. Well, if all I am was an interlude, so be it. I can be cold as well. If it weren’t for Mila, I’d be out of here. Maybe...”
Mila. Just the thought of the young girl squashed every bit of anger coursing through his body. Anthony dropped onto the couch and took some time to compose himself. It was several minutes before his chest quit rising and falling in anger. Once he regained control of his emotions, Anthony began to process what he learned over the last day.
One of Anthony’s abilities was the capability to measure a witch’s power in their presence once he was of aware of said power. Gianna Moretti was a witch of no small measure. Anthony had to admit to himself that she was of a level on par with his own, even though she hid it better than most. Most likely an ability she developed to keep her strength hidden from her husband.
Giovanni Moretti was a different matter altogether. His statement about his family’s magical lineage was no boast. Raw, dark, seething, unbridled power coiled throughout his body. Anthony shivered when he recalled plumbing its depths. The man was a magical monster. Anthony could tell that he and Gianna together couldn’t rival Giovanni’s arcane ability.
So why did he agree to help her?
Mila.
Regardless of how Giovanni proclaimed his love for Mila, the power within the man defied anything remotely resembling love.
Anthony pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the time. He still had a few minutes before he was to meet Gianna in the garage. Pulling up his contacts on the phone, Anthony cycled through the names until he came to the one he wanted. His finger hovered over the name for a moment while he debated making the call. Shaking his head, he finally pushed the button. A short conversation followed before Anthony hung up.
Exiting the apartment, Anthony made his way into the garage. Nico jerked his head up in greeting as he entered before tossing Anthony the keys to the SUV. Anthony hit the button on the key fob that unlocked the doors. He climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Gianna entered the garage a few minutes later and approached the vehicle. She stopped at the passenger door and stared at Anthony through the window.
Anthony glanced at her before looking at Nico. When he had his attention, he jerked his head towards the door. Nico approached and opened the door for Gianna; she climbed in, and Nico closed it behind her.
“Really, Jax?” she asked after Nico had moved away from the car.
Anthony put the vehicle in gear and backed out of the garage without a word. Gianna sighed, pulled up the onboard GPS, and punched in their destination. Anthony followed the directions calling to him from the screen of the GPS for some time but eventually turned off the projected route.
“Where are you going?” Gianna asked crossly.
“Slight detour.”
“I didn’t sanction this.”
“I didn’t ask.”
Gianna opened her mouth to object further but abruptly closed it, refusing to give Anthony the satisfaction of an argument. She watched where they were going without comment until the vehicle turned towards the more disreputa
ble area of the city. Gianna turned in her seat and examined Anthony’s face.
“Where are we going? And don’t give me that detour bullshit.”
“I have to visit an old friend.”
“Why?”
“He has something I need. Now, shush.”
“Don’t shush me.”
Anthony ignored Gianna as he turned the SUV into an abandoned warehouse. Driving the vehicle into the center of the empty building, he eventually brought the vehicle to a halt.
“Stay in the truck.”
“Did you forget that you work for me?”
“No. You take every opportunity to remind me,” he replied as he pressed the button to unlock the door. “But just the same, keep your pretty little butt firmly planted in your seat.”
Gianna was about to protest until headlights splashed through the cab of the vehicle as Anthony shut the door. Turning, she tracked the approach of a black Hummer with blacked out windows until it pulled up beside them. The headlights went out, and a short, balding man exited the vehicle and approached Anthony cautiously with his hands held out at his side. Gianna reached across the center console and depressed the button to roll down the driver side window so she could hear what was transpiring.
“Did you bring what I asked for?” Anthony asked.
“I did, Yeti.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“As you wish.” The bald man replied with a small bow before hastening to the rear of his vehicle.
He returned a moment later and handed Anthony a shoulder harness holding two firearms. Anthony passed the man his suit jacket as he slipped into the harness. He removed the weapons from and performed a push check on the pistols before returning them to their holsters. When he had the guns situated, the bald man passed his jacket back, and Anthony donned the coat once again.