Bled Dry (Vegas Vampires #3)(34)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Corbin sucked in a breath.

Alexis’s head snapped up.

He saw the moment she realized what she had said. “Italians… where did that come from? I never remembered that before… crap, what does that mean? I always thought it was my mother who was of Italian descent. That’s where we got Baldizzi from—it was her maiden name.”

“It means that either your mother was lying to irritate your father, she thought the man she slept with was Italian, or the man she slept with really was Italian.” Corbin’s mind was racing, trying to mentally sort through his database. Did he have any Italian vampires’ DNA to do a comp? He had Brittany’s hair from the night they had last spent together, and he had analyzed it weeks ago, but had only begun the laborious process of matching it against potential fathers. He had started with a group of European vampires, but that number was well over twelve hundred. He had only gone through three hundred, with no match. If he could isolate that grouping to Italians only…

They might know the answer to who Brittany’s father was.

Then again, Corbin only had twenty percent of all vampires in his database. Since they were a seventy-five percent male population, that left over five thousand potential candidates still at large.

“How many vampires are Italian?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe a hundred. Two hundred.”

“So what do we do, ask them all to take paternity tests? And why does it matter anyway?”

Corbin started pacing. “It matters because who that man is plays an important role in the political pull over our child, if it were ever to become common knowledge. That man, Brittany’s biological father, could either protect or harm our child, or be utterly powerless to stop those who would. And it is important for simple genetics. If there is the presence of a particular gene in her father, it means our child will have unseen power and talents.”

“It all sounds so awful I’m not sure which is the worst-case scenario. And how do we find out who our culprit is?”

“Run DNA, of course. And when members of the Nation register to vote, they list their nationalities. Wouldn’t Seamus Fox have access to those type of records?”

“If it’s on a computer, I bet Seamus could get to it.” Alexis bit her fingernail. “Hey, just an FYI, for a while I was getting strange e-mails from a group claiming to be vampire slayers. It seemed hokey, and they’ve stopped now, but just so you know.”

“Vampire slayers?” Corbin almost snorted. “That is a myth.”

“Yeah, well, those e-mails weren’t a myth. And maybe slayers aren’t real, but some people are delusional enough to think it’s real and jump on board.”

“Just what we need. Vigilantes thrown into the mix.” He fished his car keys out of his pocket. “Please tell Brittany that I stopped by and that I would like to speak with her.”

“Do you want her to call you or what? Because last time I checked, she didn’t even know where you live.”

That drew him up short. “No?” That sounded terrible. That was wrong. “Do you have any paper? I will write down my address and phone number.” He didn’t have a cell phone because there was no one who would be calling him, but he did have a phone in his apartment.

“It’s about time,” Alexis muttered as she opened the drawer of the desk Brittany kept by the kitchen door. She pulled out paper and pen and handed them to him.

The memo pad said, Bright Smiles by Dr. Brittany Baldizzi . A big molar with a smiley face was next to it. It made him subconsciously rub his tongue over his teeth. He had never been to a dentist.

As he wrote, he asked, “Can you ask Seamus if he can retrieve that information? I will start running the data that I already have.”

“Can’t you just isolate a search by nationality already? If you can’t, I can ask, but Seamus and I don’t really get along. He won’t do backflips to help me out.”

“Is there anyone you do get along with?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“Brittany. And Ethan.” She shrugged. “Most of the time. Cara. Kelsey. My friend from college, Judith. My old neighbor Bob, who is renting my old house for the winter so his mother can visit from South Dakota without actually living with him.”

“You have a house?” That piqued Corbin’s interest. Brittany had an apartment, as did he. She wanted a house, with a yard. “Does it have land with it?”

“Like a yard? Yeah, though it’s mostly indigenous desert plants. No grass. I’ll probably sell it when Bob’s mom goes back north in the spring. Why?”

“Brittany would like us to live in a house, that is all. Perhaps I could purchase it from you for her.”

Alexis grimaced as she took the paper from him. “Wow. We’ll just be one big happy undead family, won’t we?”

“We can only hope.” Corbin sketched her a bow. “Now, excuse-moi . I am off to run that search through my database and to feed.”

“That’s special. The Cleavers have nothing on us, I’m telling you. We’re the new All-American family.”

“Zat is the plan.” Corbin grinned, almost able to picture it. “We will be a family.” But first he had a fertile vampire to unearth and a genetic mystery to solve.

Ten

Ringo stood in front of the fountain that rose majestically in front of the Bellagio. The water was a constant hum behind him, the pool lit with spotlights as he tried not to pace, his knee bouncing up and down nonetheless. Donatelli had told him to be there at four in the f**king morning and he was on time after a hard night’s travel from New York.

Kelsey was across the street at a bar, afraid to go back to her apartment in the Ava, sure that Carrick had changed the key card. Ringo had to admit it was possible, and he didn’t doubt that he’d been evicted from his own apartment months before, all his shit sold on eBay by his landlord. So he hadn’t protested when Kelsey had insisted on accompanying him, because the truth was he wasn’t sure what to do with her. The cash in Donatelli’s wallet had covered their hotel and airline expenses, and that was it. He hadn’t wanted to use the credit cards and risk pissing the Italian off before Ringo could cash in on the serious prize.

Twenty-five grand. Donatelli had told him the Russian, Chechikov, would be handing the money over to him, and he was supposed to turn over the name of the woman carrying Atelier’s baby. Easy.

So why did he feel like he was standing in a big-ass trap?