Page 37 of Be Still My Unbeating Heart

“She’s the one who ended it, isn’t she?” Bastian continued. “How unfortunate. Did you see her walking alone on the beach last night? Decided to punish her? Is that what happened, dear?”

Matteo snarled, and Bastian saw darkness in his eyes. Where Salvador’s gaze had been cunning, Matteo’s was different. Therewasviolence there, Bastian was sure of it. He should know.

Matteo stepped forward, and the full glare of the sun bore down on Bastian. He struggled to stand his ground. To not flinch.

“Say that again, vampire, and you’ll be joining her.”

“Does Daddy know you’re out here brandishing weapons at tourists?” Bastian asked, scanning his surroundings for an escape route. The sight of the dark alley made him shudder at the thought of Salvador, but perhaps he could navigate a path back past the mayor’s office, if he could find his way there.

Matteo’s cheeks colored. He hadn’t expected Bastian to know his father was the commissario.

“You don’t know anything about me, vampire! Luna deserves justice!”

It was a convincing performance, Bastian had to give him that. Perhaps Matteo had even convinced himself that he had nothing to do with Luna’s death. But there was no hiding that lethal glint in his eyes.

Bastian was becoming fiercely aware of the daylight pressing down on him. He was beginning to feel weak from the exposure, and he knew he couldn’t take on Matteo and his friends like this. Not alone.

“Listen,” Bastian said, glancing around for an exit. His head was beginning to feel foggy. “We’ve clearly got off on the wrong foot here. Let’s catch up later. Sound good? Wonderful.”

He began to walk away, hoping that the mob would think twice about giving chase, but their voices followed at his back.

“Get back here!” Matteo yelled.

“Murderer!” another man cried.

Bastian clenched his jaw. He rarely lost his temper nowadays, actively avoided conflict for that very reason, but he was tired, stillreeling from the encounters with the mayor and Salvador. He’d got a handle on the hunger triggered by the goblet of blood, but it was still there, buzzing just beneath his skin. And the sun was making him sotired.

This was meant to be hisholiday,for crying out loud. He should be sipping an Aperol spritz on a veranda somewhere, not defending himself against a mob. Not accused of murder when he wasclean.He wasgoodnow. He wascalm.

He turned, hands raised.

“Look, kid,” Bastian began, but the waiter cut him off, brandishing the stake.

“You’re a filthy parasite. And we’re going to stop you before you kill again.”

“That would be murder, too.”

“You can’t murder the dead,” Matteo spat.

“Yeah!” his buddies cheered, and a couple of them had their phones out, recording the encounter.

Bastian realized he was backed up against the wall. Beyond the wall, the cliff fell into nothing, all the way down to the rocks at the harbor’s edge. Waves lapped the rocks, snagging on their sharp edges, hissing as they tugged free with the tide. In all his years of loving the sea, Bastian had never noticed how painful its whispering waves could sound. He pictured foaming fingers clawing the sand as the undertow dragged everything it could reach into a cool, dark embrace.

“Listen, Zappa junior—” Bastian began, but Matteo rushed him.

“Assassino!”

Bastian stopped the stake just in time. Matteo’s full weight bore down on Bastian’s arms, the weapon between them. It dug into Bastian’s chest, and with it came a surge of anger as Matteo pressed into him, his eyes bloodshot with hatred.

“Show your true face, vampire!”

Bastian felt twin pricks against his bottom lip and realized his fangs had unsheathed. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to bury his teeth in the waiter’s neck. Show Matteo what itreallyfelt like to face a monster.

The rage was there again.

The rage that had controlled him once.

For years, the only way to defuse that rage was to kill. To take out his anger and pain on the kind of people who had made him feel small and wrong when he was alive. The bigots and the homophobes. The people who sneered and pointed and spat. The ones who wanted to crush anybody who was “different” in order to reinforce their own fragile sense of self.