Visions

Lucky 7/11! Since this a super lucky day and those boys are pretty damn lucky (bullets not the other, thank you very much Nicholas) I'd thought I'd share something with you all. A little snippet of what's coming via a certain mad scientist and his even more mad surgeon. Like Dr Jekyl and Mr. Hyde (surgeons in the UK go by Mr or Ms) two sides of the same coin, Beppe and Mimi go together like crumble and custard (on a diet, thinking about food sorry). Think of this as a leg up to look in at the dawn (or rather dusk given the scenario) of a strange and all but natural alliance. This is Murano, aka Italian Knights Book Seven...

Prologue

Light stung his eyes, as he slowly regained consciousness. Where am I? He thought. I did the job and... 

“Hello there,” a voice said cheerily. “Welcome back. For a minute, I thought I knocked you out too hard.”

Panic filtered through him. He desperately tried to sit up and found his wrists and ankles bound to the elaborate four poster bed. Perched on his right, sat the blond virus they called Giuseppe Nardiello. Rumoured to be psychologically unstable. The mad doctor who experimented on his victims. 

“I won’t tell you anything,” the man braved, his mind filtering through all the terrible ways men had been disposed of at Giuseppe’s hands.

Giuseppe laughed. “Let’s just set things straight. I mean, you may end up changing your mind. Over to your left, is my lovely, brand new wife, Amelia.”

“Hi!” An even cheerier voice intervened. The man glanced to his left. Amelia suited the soft lighting of the elaborate hotel suite. Her hair rippled in waves like a dark chocolate waterfall over one shoulder, generous mouth curved in a smile. During his attempt to end her life, the man hadn’t appreciated her beauty. He wondered briefly if Giuseppe had drugged him, because the Madonna-on-the-rocks-like serenity that lifted her features gave her an angelic glow. Drugs. For certain.

“Not looking too great there,” Amelia said, a wince in her crisp voice. “Talking will help.”

“My Amelia happens to be a most skilled surgeon,” Giuseppe announced. “I’d say the best in the country.” 

“Aww, Bep!”

“True,” her husband shrugged off the endearment without artifice. “And what you’ve done, is try to kill her on her honeymoon. Do you know how long it took me to convince her to go out with me, let alone marry me?”

“Long time,” Amelia agreed. “Tried to have him sectioned for mentioning marriage.”

“Really tried.”

Amelia made a noise in her throat that vocalised uncertainty. “Kinda tried. If I really tried, you’d still be under psych evaluation.”

“Do you get it?” Giuseppe addressed him directly. “And she actually likes me. She may not seem it, but Amelia is not happy right now.”

“Nope.”

“When she’s not happy, she’s more deadly.” Giuseppe leaned forward, his voice lowering to a whisper. “The longer you keep quiet, the unhappier my sweet, new wife is going to be. All because you fucked up her honeymoon.”

“Truly fucked it up. It wasn’t the way I planned on spending my first twenty four hours as Signora Nardiello, but... You just had to interrupt it.”

“See? She’s fuming. I mean I know she’s smiling, but that’s because she loves me.” Amelia blew Giuseppe a kiss. “And she really enjoys cutting people up.”

“Second most favourite thing to do in the world.”

“Tell me again,” Giuseppe said softly, “how much you don’t want to talk. Make yourself a nice wedding present to my bride.”

Stubbornly, the man kept his mouth shut. Between uncertainty of what was to happen to him and what would be done to him if he did talk, he found his vocal cords frozen.

“Scalpel please, Lost Boy,” Amelia demanded, voice impatient as she snapped her fingers. “I need to cut.”

“Start with a kidney,” Giuseppe offered, getting to his feet. “He’s Venetian. He won’t miss it. Not much. Yeah. He’s going to miss it...”