Chapter 4
GAbrIEL DOMINICO
Gods, what a cluster.
What the holy fuck was the DiRavello girl thinking, coming here, throwing around accusations like confetti?
Was she determined to become a bloodstain, just like her father?
“Did I hear voices?” Marcello husked as I stepped back into my office. “Is there a problem, figlio mio?”
“No problem at all.” I lied, wondering why I was covering for a spoiled aristocrat I barely even recognized. One who’d come here, most likely, to stab that knife into one of us in some poorly thought-out attempt at retribution.
I leaned back in my chair, the beginnings of a headache pounding in the front of my skull as I faced my sire, seated across the desk.
At night, the petroleum-tinged reek of the canals floated in through the open windows. I loosened my tie, the day’s heat still lingering in the bones of this place. There was another smell—even fouler than the reek from the constant boat traffic—I couldn’t quite place.
“The Blood Compact is in one week.” Marcello’s tone rang with six centuries of violence, a hint of old Italian before the Renaissance, and of a thousand enemies dead and a thousand truces made so no more blood would be shed.
“This ceremony is… special, il mio caro figlio.” There was a careful watchfulness in Marcello’s eyes, a tenseness in his body that set my nerves on edge. “Nothing can go wrong.”
“We are ready for anything,” I insisted, trying to ignore the exhaustion lodged in my bones. “The city will be locked up tight; Draconi guards will be in place. Everything is planned, down to the timing of each family’s blood offering. There will be no unexpected surprises.”
Without the Blood Compact, our Dynasty would cease to exist.
Something told me there was more riding on this ceremony than any that had come before, and it was up to me to ensure everything went smoothly, each family swearing fealty to the Dominicos, spilling their blood in the name of honor and obedience.
We called ourselves the D’Immortali Dynasty—Dynasty of Death, and we had been in power for so long, modern vampires of Venice knew no other reality than to kiss the ring of the Dominico family.
And soon enough, that ring would be on my finger.
But… I frowned across the desk at my father. The hour was late, and Marcello should be secured on our family island behind thick stone walls and a full contingent of Dominico guards.
Not here.
Not without his ever-present protection.
Not showing up unannounced, looking like he was about to collapse.
It was not my place to question the Don. The fact he’d come all the way to the city at such an ungodly hour… No, I should keep my mouth shut… But why was he here?
Why did he smell so strongly of wood smoke?
“So...” I pulled my father’s wandering attention to the matter at hand. “Shall I assume you are here to discuss Enzo DiRavello’s death?” Then added, “I am sorry Il Duca is gone. I respected the male, and I know you and he were once friends, Don.”
“Once,” my father agreed, his gaze sharpening, “Yes, once we were friends. When we were very young. But that was a long time ago.”
All I knew of their rift was some ancient history involving an agreement gone bad. Their feud had nearly destroyed the entire Dynasty before they had retreated to their fortified palazzos on opposite ends of Venice.
As far as I was concerned, that was all I needed to know.
“They held the funeral pyre tonight on Isola Rocca Nera.” My sire’s expression was devoid of emotion, but there was a dark, hollow edge to his voice I’d seldom heard before. “Burned all night, I heard.”
That explained the smoke smell. I leaned back in my chair, silent, until he lifted his head and met my stare. “Did you go to the island, Don?” I asked out of pure curiosity, the kind of question that would have gotten me killed fifty years ago, but tonight… only earned me a tired nod.
So, the DiRavello girl hadn’t been lying, after all.
She had tracked someone here, but not one of our soldiers or a spy.
She’d followed my father.
Good gods, I needed to put an extra security patrol on him.
“Call me an old fool, but I felt compelled to say goodbye.” My sire ran a veined hand through his hair, white as snow at his temples.
“Enzo deserved better than having his throat slit in his own home, betrayed by someone close to him, no doubt. The son, Luca, will take over. He is no Enzo, but the boy is fiercely loyal to the Dynasty, I am told.”
The boy was just that… a boy, but I kept my mouth shut.
“Now the girl… the girl is a different story.”
Curiosity had my ears perking up.
“It’s come to my attention she’s been under Giovanni’s tutelage since she turned five.” He drummed his fingers on the edge of my desk. “A clever male, Giovanni, but too arrogant for his own good. Once, he believed he was in line to become Don himself, did you know?”
“Yes, I’m well aware.” I tamped down my impatience at my father’s foray into the past.
These… episodes were happening more and more often, and his fingers trembled where they rested on the edge of the desk, age spots marking the tops of his veiny hands.
“This is old news, Don. And this girl… she’s a DiRavello.
That bloodline has always been our weakest link.
In my opinion, they are nothing but a necessary evil.
” I shook my head. “Filled with lies, charm, and pointless wealth, and while they wield tremendous diplomatic influence, they lack any real strength.”
Breeding. Banking. Connections. Politics.
That was all they brought to the table. But I needed to lock up this shit with Enzo’s murder before his daughter got herself killed.
“So far, Enzo’s assassination has not tipped the power balance,” I pointed out, hoping to pull him back to current events. “Even so, I’m working around the clock to get this incident wrapped up.”
“I remember the day the bad blood started between Enzo and me,” my father explained, his voice rasping like dry sandpaper.
“Once, we were as loyal as brothers, but after Giovanni…” His eyes turned unfocused, his lips trembling.
“Jealousy is a dark poison that eats away at you, a little at a time, Erede, until there is nothing left but bitterness.”
His face was slack, and those drumming fingers kept pace with the cadence of his voice, heavily accented and shaky, a far cry from the strength of just a few weeks ago. I should call in the healers, I decided. Have them give him a thorough physical.
“You were saying something about the DiRavello daughter, Father?” I prompted, recalling the hate blazing from those dark eyes.
Those two minutes in a dark hallway had been the closest I’d ever been to the girl. Yes, she was beautiful to a fault, petite and dark-haired, younger than me by at least two decades, but I hadn’t anticipated the sheer force of her personality.
I’d expected someone prim. Proper. Controllable.
Not a fierce little monster who flashed her fangs at me in challenge.
For fucks sake, her entire life was fancy dinner parties and weekends spent gambling in Monaco, while mine was managing the gritty underbelly of this city, the criminals, the black market, and the bribery that made Venice this city run like a well-oiled machine.
And yet… she’d marked a trespasser at her father’s Nightfire ceremony, tracked him all the way through the city—alone, barefoot—then debated whether or not to stick a knife in me.
Not the actions of a pampered princess.
“The son will take over, as is proper, but the girl… the girl is the one you should watch out for.” Marcello fixed his bleary eyes on me.
“Giovanni is very dangerous, Gabriel. Do not underestimate him because of the ridiculous monk’s robe he wears.
He is the most dangerous threat we face in la Famiglia, and…
” The drumming stopped abruptly, his eyes clearing as he came back to the present.
“It’s convenient Enzo died so close to the swearing of the Compact,” Marcello abruptly changed the subject.
“According to my sources, he died alone. No sign of a struggle, and… no sign the killer has been identified. Rumors will spread, Gabriel, and rumors take on a life of their own if they are not crushed.”
More than just rumors since the daughter was here earlier, looking ready to stab one of us. I was definitely putting extra guards on my father for the foreseeable future.
“You are handling this situation, mio figlio?”
Marcello was old, but better males than I had underestimated him. I might be Don in all but name, but there was no one who understood this city and the inner workings of the Dynasty better than my sire.
Not a drop of blood fell to the cobblestones of this city without my father hearing the splash.
Even now, I’d trust Marcello’s intuition over anyone else’s.
“I am.” I dipped my head. “I thought the timing suspect as well, and I have people canvassing the city, questioning every Dynasty member. Discreetly, of course,” I added, as his dark eyes settled on me.
“Nico Draconi is heading up the investigation. I’ll have this city locked down in the next two days. We will be ready.”
“Good,” Marcello rubbed the back of his head. “Nico is a good soldier. He must find the assassin, bring them here, and you must question them. I want to know why they killed Enzo, how they got into his palazzo, and most of all… what they hoped to gain by killing an old male who was no threat.”
He climbed to his feet, his face showing the strain.
“There hasn’t been an assassination on our territory in two hundred years, Gabriel.
Every family must swear the Compact, or we will have war.
This world is bad enough with the cellphones, the internet, and the satellites.
” He waved a veined hand in the air. “I wish that we could once again rule through might and fear, but this is a new world. We must exercise discretion.”
“This world offers advantages our old one did not, Father.” I sighed, knowing this ongoing argument would never convince my father that things were better than the olden days.
“There are cameras everywhere in the city. Nico is using technology to locate this assassin, and soon, we will have our answers.”
I didn’t miss the way Marcello hung onto the chair for an extra second for support before leaving nor the strange scent he left behind after he was gone.
Then it hit me. That was what death smelled like.
I realized he’d never finished telling me about Emberline DiRavello or why it mattered in the least that she was under her uncle’s tutelage.
But I had more pressing problems to deal with than a spoiled mafia princess with misplaced suspicions.
Problems currently handcuffed to a chair in a soundproofed room at the heart of this very building.