Bloody City: Deviants

Chapter Nineteen

As I walked out of the casino where Carmilla already stood next to the Mercedes, the back door open to the vehicle while lights around Genoa lit up the streets, and the various coloured houses of the city. In the distance I could see the many buildings used for office spaces.

Stepping from the alcove outside the casino I breathed in the cool night air, and the smell of distant rain swirling in the air. I was gaining an afinity of the night, and I wondered just how long it would be before I developed nyctophilia as intense as Alessio's.

Looking up I stared at the glittering stars for a moment taking in the distant glow like miniscule diamonds cast across the inky blanket above me.

"Arianna, we must return to the villa," Carmilla says and I pulled my eyes from the sky back to her, before moving towards the car and slipping into the plush leather seats that were already heated, spreading the warmth through me as I relaxed into them. The tension that had accumulated in my back, from walking around in heels began to ebb away while I sighed in response to the ease sitting here gave me.

Opening my eyes I stared into the mirror watching a vehicle roll out of an alley further down the street as Carmilla got into the driver seat, putting the saloon car into drive. Moving away from the curb I watched the car behind us as it trailed us. The lights were off and was moving along the sidewalk so that if it needed to stop it wouldn't be noticed.

Too bad I've noticed.

Pulling the gun from the back of my pants I slowly pulled the hammer back and then set the weapon beside me on the seat in the event whoever was behind us though shooting at the bullet resistant body and glass of the car would get then anywhere.

The vehicles remained behind us as Carmilla kept driving through the city until we reached the highway where the car stopped and turned away from us. Looking to where Carmilla sat she looked like she had not noticed it, and if she hadn't I wasn't going to mention the car unless I absolutely had to.

I had a feeling that the Chimera would try again, and if anything it was them that were in that car so, I would let them try. As Alessio wanted them too, which I still hadn't decided if it was an odd plan or a genius one. I could understand him wanting to let the. Chimera make their move just to catch them and force them into a position that was advantageous for the Familia, but I also knew that they would push their luck until their mistake was made anyway. The only problem with it was that if a bunch if small attacks were done first the Chimera could debilitate the Familia.

When the car eventually reached the villa I spotted Alessio in the living room off the lobby standing by the fireplace looking like he was on the phone.

As Carmilla parked the car I returned the bullet to the magazine and put the gun back where it belonged before climbing out of the car at the same time that Carmilla opened my door.

"Thank you," I say nodding to her and began walking up the steps while she took the car around the house to the garage.

Slipping through the tall doors that even after months of passing through them still made me feel unbelievably small, I pulled off my shoes and followed the sound of the fire and absence of Alessio's voice into the living room where he stood near the fireplace, the lights in the room off, and hid jacket thrown over the back of the nearest sofa. His silence was odd, like the air around him had swallowed any sound aside from the crackling hearth.

"Alessio?" I ask softly because for the first time in months it unsettled me.

"You didn't mention the car following you to Carmilla, before you ask she sent me a number code that tells me the cars being followed," he says turning to face me and I glanced down then back up knowing this conversation could evolve in two directs and one of them was a default for him the other he still was working on.