TWENTY
AURORA
Aurora watched helplesslyas Gia thrashed in the chair. “Stop!”
Viv whirled around, eyes glowing. “I’m not doing anything. The memories I released are flooding her consciousness. I can’t stop them now.”
Satan on a stick, this was bad. Aurora had thought she’d been prepared. She thought she’d imagined the worst, but whatever Gia was seeing was something else altogether.
Agony twisted Gia’s face, her eyes blank and streaming with tears as she saw things Aurora couldn’t.
Whoever had done this was Aurora’s number one enemy. Screw the Thornfields. At least they’d never tortured her like this.
“Gia, can you hear me?” Aurora ran a delicate finger along Gia’s cheek, unable to wipe her tears away.
Gia gasped at the touch, and her eyes focused for a split second before her pupils blew wide. “Aurora?”
“It’s me. You’re okay. You’re safe. Whatever you’re seeing is a memory.” Aurora’s hands jumped from Gia’s tear-stained faceto her shoulders, to her wrists, and she had never been so bereft that they couldn’t touch beyond tingles and sparks.
“I know who it was,” Gia gasped, reaching for Aurora, their hands passing through each other.
“Who was it? Who did this?”
Gia wiped her bloodshot eyes. “Franco Balzano.”
Heat flared deep in Aurora’s soul. “And what did he do? What does he need to pay for?”
Gia’s broken expression hardened. “Too many things to count.”
“Still, a list would be nice,” Viv butted in, sounding as glib as only a vampire could at a time like this.
“We’ll all help deal with this, Gia,” Edward added with far more compassion.
Gia seemed startled by the offer. “You’ll help even if it means burning the Balzano family to ash?”
“Oh, fuck yes,” Viv said, fangs out and practically salivating.
Gia had eyes for Aurora and no one else. She waited, uncertainty creeping into her expression.
Aurora cupped Gia’s cheek. “I’m with you one hundred percent. However long it takes. Whatever we need to do. “
“But you don’t even know why?”
“I know it’ll be a damn good reason. Hell, taking your memories, making you sick, gaslighting you, and keeping you tied to them is reason enough.”
“Agreed,” Edward said, surprising Aurora this time.
Enacting vengeance wasn’t the Lockwood Coven’s way, as far as she’d known, but if the coven elders had been trying to free Gia for years, they’d want to see this through to the end.
Gia nodded, a shudder coursing through her as she gathered her words. “To gain power in Ashton Lakes, Franco killed the previous head of the mob and all his supporters, but it turns out,he didn’t kill them with guns or men like Salvator. He had me do it.”
Aurora reared back. “You?”
“With my magic. Once he realized Jeffrey was a witch and had passed his power on to me, he found a way to use me, though it took him five years to do it. He became a vampire when I was ten. There was some guy in the shadows, coaching him. I think he was a vampire, too. Franco would hypnotize me. Direct me to…to torture and kill his enemies, track their whereabouts, terrorize them until they came running to him for help againstunknown evil.”
“When you were ten?” Aurora’s burning soul wavered. Her heart didn’t need to be present for it to break.
“Why wait for me to grow up?” Gia laughed bitterly. “Franco wanted to seize power, and once he had it, he wanted more. Which meant keeping me dependent on him so I wouldn’t leave. The only reason he didn’t hypnotize me twenty-four-seven and keep me locked away was his image. I couldn’t disappear from the public eye without drawing unwanted attention.”
