Tony Caspada sits on a large couch in the center of the Caspada family's country estate, nearly an hour's drive from Rome.
The estate was once used for receptions or to host important guests, but it has been abandoned for years.
Yet no guest ever received here has been more important than the one Tony is waiting for now: the vampire Levreshka Dulcar, better known as Levreshka Hawkley, or rather, Velshekar.
Despite all his efforts to hide it, Tony trembles with fear and restlessness.
He drums his fingers nervously against the armrest and taps his heel on the floor again and again.
A cigarette dangles from his lips—the third in twenty minutes.
He is afraid—he knows perfectly well that at the slightest hesitation or suspicion, Velshekar could kill him without effort.
More than once, he has been tempted to drop everything and leave.
But his obsession with being the center of attention wins out.
