The room Gregory led me into seemed so surreal.
It was like one of those police interrogation rooms, there were two chairs on either side of a small rectangular table and there was a two way mirror on the side. In the room there were two very large, squarely built men that resembled the guards I had seen earlier. Their dark sunglasses hid any expression that their eyes could have shown.
"Sit." Gregory whispered to me. I obliged and sat down in one of the chairs, Gregory stood behind me with his hands on my shoulders. He leaned down to speak into my ear. "Brian knows we have you now but he doesn't know that you have been treated well, you must try and seem a little frightened, or otherwise he may not cooperate if he suspects you aren't in any danger."
"Okay." I said nervously.
Just then, another man walked into the room. He looked to be about forty, he was tall and well built with short black hair and grey eyes, he strode in looking regal. Another body guard walked in behind him stopping at the open door, blocking it entirely.
"Gregory." He said with a nod.
"Hello dad." Gregory said, his hands gently squeezing my shoulders.
"You must be Aurelia, though I hear you prefer Aurie, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Xavier." He said, extending his hand and giving me a graceful smile.
"Very nice to meet you sir." I said taking his hand, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
"Are you two ready to begin?" He asked. I nodded and Xavier made a motion toward the man at the door.
Seconds later Brian, the man who I had thought I knew who had lied about everything from his name to his family walked in. Or rather, was pushed in. He looked as though he hadn't slept in weeks, his usually smooth face was covered in day's worth of stubble and his eyes were bloodshot and glassy.
"Aurie." He said angrily, "Are you okay? What have they done to you?" The two square men that were there when I had come in each grabbed one of Brian's arms and forced him into the other chair.
"Now Brian, it seems we have a bit of a problem don't we?" Xavier began. "It looks like you've taken just shy of a two million dollars from our families."
"You don't understand, I needed that money, my worthless father cut me off and I had nothing! Do you know the humiliation I faced when I had to see my friends and tell them I had not a penny to my name?" He spat.
"I don't particularly care what your personal humiliations were." Xavier said curtly. "You've robbed from our families and tried to get away with it, your ancestor may have been able to prove himself to our kind but you are still considered new blood to us, you have to prove yourself in order to make things easier for your descendents and gain respect for your family."
"It is not my fault that I'm not from one of the first vampire families like your perfect son or your Mother Teresa daughter." Brian countered.
"Very true." Gregory began speaking for the first time since Brian entered. "However despite what family a vampire comes from, be it a new one like yours or an older one like mine, our entire lives our dedicated to honor our family, and the more you honor it the higher your family is praised. Myself and my sister have our ancestors to thank for making it easier to honor our families, since the families on both my mother and father's side have been around for centuries. You however have not had that privilege, which makes what you did even worse."
Xavier looked to his son and then back to Brian who sat there fuming. "Fine, I disgraced my family, I could care less what the elite vamp families or the precious council thinks about it." Brian said. "My question is what the hell she has to do with it?" He said nodding in my direction.
"Why it's quite simple." Gregory said. "She is collateral. We know you have the money saved away somewhere. You give us the money and we let her go unharmed."
"You would harm her for this?" Brian asked cautiously.
"We know how you followed her, recorded her every moved, and swooped in to be her hero, and we know you were going to take her with you when you gallivanted to Europe under the name Lucas Miller, now that we have her your whole plan goes out the window now doesn't it?" Xavier chided.
Brian began to laugh maniacally. His head swung back in pure laughter. I looked at him with great confusion as he tried to regain composure.
"Here I thought you had it all figured out." Brian said.
"What do you mean?" Gregory asked.
"It's true partly. I did follow this hot little number for quite awhile." He began nodding in my direction again. "Though not for the reasons you think. I saw her and thought she could be one of my many conquests, but when I realized that she was dirt poor I devised an even better plan. I hired a private investigator and followed her myself to find out all I needed. When that was achieved I found the perfect time to lunge in, when she was all alone on her birthday, and I became her knight in shining armor. When the time was right I would ask for her hand in marriage and then put all the money into her account so if I was ever caught I could blame her and get off scot-free."
I couldn't believe this. I couldn't breath anymore, things were beginning to get dark all around me.
" I would tell everyone who asked some sad story of how I had borrowed the money in the first place to try and make it on my own, but then I fell in love with dear, sweet Aurelia Lewis, the pathetic orphan who had only ever graduated high school. I would then go on to say that I had planned to pay every penny back, once of course I doubled the sum I earned in gambling, but that my gold-digging bride stole it all from me. I would get a little slap on the hand and she would be in prison. Of course like I already said I would have found a way to double the money I stole. After paying you back I would live my life as I pleased and find some new piece of ass to chase after."
"That was your plan?" Xavier asked darkly.
"That was the plan if I got caught." Brian said. "If I got away with it I still would have tried to get double the money. I just would have been able to enjoy myself more, screwing any hot chick that wanted some well to do boyfriend, and then coming home and banging my wife Aurie who would still think I was the best thing that ever happened to her in her mundane life." He finished with a satisfied grin.
I tried to choke back tears. Gregory's hands on my shoulders tightened in anger, and Xavier gave him a strong warning glance to maintain composure.
"Did you even love me?" I asked. Xavier's eyes shot to me and then his son.
"Love is for the weak my dear, love is for people like you who don't have the riches that I have." I looked away in pain. Brian stood up gracefully and smoothed his shirt. "Look you all can keep the little bitch for all I care, she's worthless to me now; kill her, change her into a vamp, let the little tramp have a good time with all the vampire males, though I should let you know that she is a virtuous prude." He said with a sneer.
"Sit down Costello we're not through here." Xavier said.
"Oh yes we are." Brian said. He pulled out something from his jacket pocket. It was a small remote with a single button. He pressed it and suddenly smoke filled the room and a loud siren pierced through. Everything happened at once. As my hearing and vision became impaired I felt two familiar arms sweep me up bridal style, and suddenly we were moving. I could barely hear Gregory's father scream for the guards to go after Brian as Gregory led me into what I thought was the hallway. I couldn't really tell because the halls were filled with smoke too. Then suddenly my thoughts became hazy as the fumes of the smoke filled my lungs, and everything went dark.
I woke up tucked back into Gregory's bed. I felt a cool hand touch the side of my face and turned to see Gregory lying next to me.
"Hey." He whispered.
"What happened?" I asked.
"He got away." He said softly, looking at me intently.
"I'm fine." I said. He gave me a look.
"I really am; it was hard and confusing to digest. I mean, I knew he lied before and I shouldn't have thought that there was any truth in anything he told me, but it was still hard to believe that he tricked me so terribly."
"None of this has anything to do with you, I'm not justifying what he did but I don't think it was really personal, Aurie." He assured.
"That's what hurts; I thought that he cared at least a little, that it was more than just convenience and lust."
"Did you love him?"
"No, not really. I mean at the time I cared for him so much because he wined and dined me making me feel special. I thought that this he was as so incredible, but I never loved him. I hoped I could make myself love him because I thought that I could never get anyone who made me feel any better. I realize now that I should not have sold myself short, that I deserved to really fall in love with someone and not think that with time things could just change between me and Brian." I said with a slight frown.
"What's wrong?" he asked me concerned.
"It's not that I deny what you told me, but I'm so afraid, I can feel something so real with you, it's like something inside me had decided to wake up and is taking over my entire mind, body and spirit and it's just happening so fast, I'm afraid."
"Don't be afraid." He said.
"How can you say that?" I asked.
He leaned in to kiss me rolling gently on top of me while we wrapped our arms around each other.
"Because, when I kiss you I feel heat rise in my heart, when I look at you, I can't look away, talking to you allows me to feel so free, as though I can tell you everything and you will know how to make it right, and because when I am away from you, even for a moment, all I think about is finding how to be near you again. What we have is real Aurie. What we have is pure love and I know that deep in your heart you realize that. We didn't have to love each other. I had no reason to love the woman I only needed to help get back money, and you had no reason to love the man who destroyed your world with the truth. Yet love happened anyway, it took over the both of us and showed no mercy and that's what real love is, it is the strongest yet weakest passion in the world."
With that I knew. I kissed him deeply and we sank into each other letting everything consume us.
Thanks for all of you who have reviewed and for all my loyal readers!! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. I will update this story soon, I promise!
