Page 20 of Three Bites

Ah, so he finally was going to explain his newest fixation.

“Is it maybe about a certain young man?” I asked.

“How did you— Nevermind, I wasn’t subtle, was I?” Matthias slumped in his seat. “Tristan, something is very, very wrong in that household.”

I listened to Matthias explain what he discovered and, in light of the new information, I had to re-contextualize several comments Mr. Feliciano had made about his son when he was speaking with me.

“Theodore never makes mistakes,” Feliciano said about the flawless violin performance. “I trained it out of him.”

“Oh yes, I picked out my son’s suit. Isn’t it lovely? My dear late wife loved to dress him up so I’m continuing the tradition,” Feliciano laughed.

“College? Theodore doesn’t need it,” Feliciano waved a careless hand. “He will stay here and help me with the company. Right, son?”

Now I was glad I decided to ask those questions about the young man after I saw Matthias pull him to the side.

“Are you sure you want to involve yourself in this?” I asked seriously. At Matthias’ determined nod I shot him a reassuring smile. “Then it’s good I know Feliciano is going abroad for the next month. If he doesn’t take Theodore with him we can try to get in contact. And if he does...”

We discussed plans through the two hours long drive and I only hoped Matthias wasn’t going to get too attached. I could spare money and time and use my contacts to get Theodore out of trouble but we could not keep him. Doubly so, because of our vampiric status and the secrecy surrounding it.

Soon, I learned Feliciano did take Theodore with him to Turkey. We decided to focus on gathering information about the millionaire and his son. Feliciano’s stays abroad and the rumors of his connections to the party that stood in opposition to Turkey’s current ruling power looked like a promising venue for blackmail.

As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one thinking so.

“Arrested?” Matthias asked with disbelief. “He was arrested there?”

“Apparently, he was being a pain in the ass of a local politician. I don’t know if the charges are real or made up but my contact says they are going to keep him at least for a week or two to teach him a lesson,” I explained what I have learned.

“And Theodore? Was he arrested too?”

“No. And Feliciano refuses to say where he is,” I put a stack of paper on the table. “My contact faxed me the transcript of the interrogation. I had to pay through the nose for it, so let’s hope it will prove helpful and we can use the situation to our advantage.”

Matthias grabbed a few pages of the transcript, eager to be able to do something, and I started reading the rest.

My blood froze as I found what I was looking for.

“Matthias,” I called and we studied the conversation between two police officers and Alfredo Feliciano together.

AF: You should let me go. My son won’t survive without me.

PO1: Ha! Did you hear that Luis? My son is useless like that too. Kids those days.

PO2: But his kid isn’t a kid. He is twenty-one. He can take care of himself. And he can be tried as an adult too, so if you care for him better work with us and tell us...

What followed was more pages of the interrogation going in circles as Feliciano refused to cooperate but I was stuck on that first line.

My son won’t survive without me.

“He wasn’t joking or using a hyperbole, was he?” Matthias asked with the quietness of a volcano about to explode.

“I fear so as well,” I nodded.

We had to find Theodore.

I poured everything I had into the search. Used both human and supernatural contacts to find every last scrap of information. Feliciano owned several buildings in Turkey and was connected to even more. We made our way to Turkey as quickly as possible but getting there took nearly a whole day.

Finally, after three days of searching, we found Theodore.

And we were too late.

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