Chapter 27 #2
Rigid with shock, I suck in air. Rosa’s fury and fear flood my mind.
There’s a pause, some looks of confusion in the crowd, but then the whole room explodes into applause.
Everyone in the court has surged to their feet, and they’re all clapping and stomping and shouting.
It’s a fucking zoo, and in the middle of it, trapped on what now looks like a killing floor, is Rosa. My Rosa.
I make a move to jump down and be at her side, but Matteo grabs my arm, tugging me back. I’m strong enough to take him, but he’s strong enough to delay me—and those few seconds are enough.
Rosa speaks to me, her voice aiming for calm but landing nearer to deadly. Don’t you fucking dare, Luca! I see you. Don’t you dare come down here right now. We need to see where this leads us. We need to keep cool. When the time is right, we’ll kill both of these ancient assholes.
All of this takes a matter of seconds, and during that time, the Grand Ball Sack himself is escorted onto the stage by two of Vincenzo’s guards.
This is the first time I’ve seen him in person, and he is underwhelming, much like the Don.
He’s wearing a three-piece pin-striped suit and an old-fashioned pocket watch, and he and Vincenzo embrace like long lost friends.
They pat each other’s backs and utter heartfelt words in Italian, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from running forward to tear both their goddamn heads off.
Vincenzo, that treacherous old fuck. This can’t have been spontaneous.
It couldn’t have happened in the last hour.
It was planned; this was his little joke.
I thought I was keeping her safe by bringing her here, when in reality I was offering her up as bait.
As a prize. I was giving her back to the evil bastard that calls himself her grandfather.
The Don turns back toward the crowd and opens his arms like a preacher evangelizing to his congregation. “Today is the start of a whole new era. It is the start of the Firenze domination! Tomorrow, together, we take the Romas down. Then the other families. Their time has gone. Our time is here!”
There’s more cheering, but I see enough confused faces to know I’m not the only one hearing a fucking pipe dream.
A dangerous pipe dream. Tomasso wants to take out the other Vecchissime.
Vincenzo wants to take out the other Coscas.
Then they’ll presumably only have each other left to kill—because there is no way this partnership is going to last.
But by that point, thousands will be dead, and the balance of our world and the human world will be in the hands of these two depraved egomaniac assholes. I’m not the only one seeing the downside, but Carlos is searching the crowd for signs of dissent.
I clap along, all the while assessing how much time it would take me to kill my way through to Rosa. She’s being brought up to the stage by one of the guards, her face blank, no external indication of what is going on in her mind.
Don’t try to kill him, I say to her. This isn’t the right time. You’d be dead before you reached him.
Maybe that’s for the best. I’d rather be dead than be used by him.
Please, Rosa. Don’t. If I need to, I promise I’ll kill you myself.
She feigns a struggle against the guard and pulls herself free. The momentary distraction allows her to meet my eyes and nod. Donatella is beside her, and Pietro has been half-dragged, half-carried on stage. He stands upright with one hand on Donna’s shoulder, but he doesn’t look steady.
Vincenzo has moved to the front of the stage and is making some unhinged blood-and-guts speech about Firenze supremacy that wouldn’t have been out of place on the lips of any of the bloodthirsty human dictators we’ve seen come to power over the years.
He wasn’t always like this, and I experience a moment of regret for what he has become and how far he’s fallen into madness.
Yes, we might take the Romas with the element of surprise.
But hoping to then take out the other two Coscas?
Impossible. Even if we did, the other families—the Irish, the Scandinavians, the Russians—would see us as a threat, and we’d have to take them out too.
It’s a recipe for either defeat or genocide, and I don’t see the logic in it.
Maybe that’s my mistake. Looking for logic when there is none.
As the Don drones on, Carlos begins manning some kind of audio-visual show with lights and music.
Dragon wings are projected around the court, and they take flight across the shadows of the walls.
It’s like a totally over-the-top pep rally screaming “megalomaniac madman” with every strobe and thump of the bass.
I wonder if, while Vincenzo’s distracted, there’s an opportunity for me to take him down.
Same applies to you, Rosa buzzes into my brain. I see you weighing odds. For now, you’re free, Luca. Keep that advantage until we’re sure there’s no other option.
She turns to face Tomasso, who’s now standing right in front of her. Even in thick-heeled boots, he’s barely taller than her. They smile evilly at each other.
“We gave you a new nickname,” she announces, voice kept low to fly under the Don’s master-of-the-universe speech. “You are now known as the Grand Ball Sack.”
He curls his lip and waves his hand. “Pathetic and childish, as usual. Once you have produced a Seer child, I will enjoy watching your decline. And once I have that child—I think I may call her Serena in memory of your sister—she will be raised to obey and do her duty. She will be raised to be my tool. You’ve never understood your own strength, the potential of the Seer, and now you never will.
You’ve always been too slow, too stupid. Too you.”
Rosa struggles to keep her face neutral. His words will have infuriated her, but they also hurt. Nobody has quite the same ability to scar you as those who should love you.
He moves along to Pietro and taps the side of his face in what might be affection.
“Ah, Pietro. Cucciolo. At first I thought they killed you. I was even sad about that. But then my new tech manager—did you assume you were irreplaceable?—saw you creeping around in my systems. It’s what I hoped for, and why I left the passwords the same.
“I let you see what I wanted you to see. While you were laughing at the silly old man, Don Vincenzo reached out to tell me he had you both. After that, it was a short step to broker a deal that works for both of us. We have a lot in common. There’s no real reason to be enemies when joining forces makes so much more sense.
Look around you. It’s a new world order!
” His smug tone and curled lip suggest he disapproves of the garish display of power and ambition going on around him, that he finds it all a bit vulgar.
He leans forward and adds, “And guess what? I drove here in a different car.”
I’m ignoring my fury, tuning out the endless chanting and hand clapping and madness that Carlos and Vincenzo are inciting around the room. I’m ignoring everything apart from Tomasso and Rosa and how I can separate one from the other. She meant it when she said she’d rather be dead than his.
So far, there has been no indication that Tomasso knows who I am or what my role in this is.
He hasn’t even glanced in my direction. I’m just another vamp enforcer standing in the wings at his master’s beck and call.
It’s a small advantage, and I’m wondering how to play it when the music goes low.
It’s left as a background boom, a bass heartbeat, and the stage lights are dimmed until the space is bathed in a deep red glow.
Carlos’s face is painted in it and looks more demonic than usual as he smiles over at me.
Why the fuck is Carlos smiling at me?
I’m grabbed from behind, my arms twisted behind my back, my wrists slammed into cuffs.
A swift punch smashes into my side, one to the base of my spine, another to my ear.
All strikes that would have been lethal to a human and are enough to take me down.
The kicks and blows come swiftly after that, all targeting parts of my body that are the most vulnerable, blinding me with pain and confusion.
Blood oozes from my mouth and drips from my scalp as I’m dragged to the center of the stage, Matteo scuffling in the background, Rosa screaming inside my mind and out of it.
“You see before you a traitor,” the Don announces, putting some regret into his tone. “A once-trusted son who has proved himself disloyal. I have loved him and honored him, and he has betrayed me. And now he must suffer the consequences.”
I’m not hearing so well with the blood trickling out of my ear, but there are some cheers.
Not from everyone though, and I’d take some comfort from that if I gave a shit.
All I care about is Rosa and making my last moments count.
It’s over for me, but Matteo knows what to do.
He can still get her out. There’s still a chance for her.
Two guards pull me upright, dangling me by my twisted arms, and a bone snaps from the unnatural angle.
Vincenzo is in front of me, small, coiled, foul, and grinning.
“Mio figlio,” he says, running one of his yellowed fingernails down the side of my face so it draws blood.
“Did you think you had fooled me? I have known you since you were human. I made you who you are. I own you. You cannot fool me. I might not have known the details, the finer points, but I knew that something changed in you as soon as you met the charming Rosa. And now it will change again, for both of you. Don’t worry, though, we won’t kill her.
Once she’s produced Tomasso’s precious heir, it’ll be my turn for a ride on the Seer. I hope she isn’t too broken by then.”
I growl and snarl and spit blood in his face, willing to tear off my own arms for a chance to get to him.
I hear her voice in my mind, trying to calm me, but it’s useless.
She has no clue what this man is capable of, how much suffering he would inflict on her.
I cannot let that happen. She is mine, and the vows I made to myself still stand.
I love her. I will kill for her. I will die for her.
I murmur a few words, deliberately low, deliberately obscure. One of the guards snatches up a fistful of my hair and pulls my head up and back so hard something snaps. I mumble again.
“What was that Luca, once of Firenze?” the Don says, frowning at me. Maybe he’s hoping I’m begging his forgiveness. This is traditionally the stage at which that occurs.
“I. Challenge. You.” I grit the words out, each one a battle against the blood pooled in my mouth and the jaw that I suspect is fractured.
It fucking hurts, but I get those words out.
Loud enough for the guards and the front rows to hear.
Vincenzo tries to look amused, but I see it, a flicker of doubt licking its way across his sallow, greasy skin.
“I challenge you!” I manage to yell this time. “You fucking crazy asshole. In front of the court of Firenze, I challenge you!”