Chapter 48
EMBERLINE
Nico left, and I pushed my cold coffee away.
The front door clicked shut behind him, the wards settling back into place. The silence he left in his wake pressed against my ears until all I heard was my own pulse pounding, the rush of blood louder than the thudding of my aching heart.
My uncle killed my father.
The words skittered around in my head like shards of broken glass. I tried to pick one up long enough to make sense of it, but they kept slipping through my grasp and cutting me in the process.
Part of me knew. How many times had I entertained the notion, then shoved it away just as quickly, back into the dark place where I wouldn’t have to look at it?
Far easier to blame Marcello than acknowledge everything I’d ever believed was a lie.
And something even darker slithered into the light, something I hadn’t even considered until this very moment. Giovanni knew my father had planned to hand the DiRavello family ventures over to me.
I’d told him how I was looking forward to running the business.
He also knew Enzo never made my inheritance official. Then he’d sold me into marriage, to get me out of the way.
“You’re shaking.” Dante crouched down beside me, his hand resting on the back of my chair. “Ember, talk to me.”
I hadn’t realized. My shoulders were tight, jaw locked down so hard my teeth ached. I forced myself to unclench my fingers from my sweating palms. There were faint, red crescents where my nails had dug into my skin.
“I’m fine.” The lie wasn’t the least convincing.
Dante’s lips thinned out. For a moment, he didn’t touch me.
He wanted to, though. I could see his internal struggle in his trembling hands, the way he focused on me with every piece of his being.
The scars on his forearms were so silver against his tan skin, dark hair still mussed from sleep and everything we’d done before the sun came up.
We’d had one perfect night.
Then my life had unraveled in spectacular fashion.
“Please look at me, Ember,” he pleaded. “If I could do over the past few days, there are about a hundred things I’d handle differently. All I can manage now is not to make the same mistakes again.” He paused. “If you give me the chance, that is.”
His eyes were the color of the ocean today, lighter toward the centers, like waves breaking on a beach, something so raw burning inside them it became hard to breathe.
“You should have told me,” I admonished, wondering if that would have changed a thing.
“I know that now,” he admitted. “You deserved to know the truth long before today. But…” He paused, and when he continued, every word was full of pain.
“I had many reasons for keeping secrets, but the only one that matters was pure selfishness.” When I stayed quiet, he went on, “These past days have been the best I’ve ever known.
And I knew when you had your name, when you knew Giovanni was the killer, either because you heard the truth from my mouth or realized it yourself…
I’d lose you. That you’d get what you came for and leave me behind to wreak your vengeance. ”
He smiled, and it was like the sun came out. “And oh, how I want to see you wreak your vengeance, tesoro. Gods know I want to watch every beautiful, vicious moment.”
Something glimmered in his eyes as he tucked a curl behind my ear. Something that made me want to look away, except I couldn’t.
“So, I kept my secrets, told myself you would find the truth on your own, that you were safer not knowing your uncle was a monster, because that, too, was part of my selfishness, not wanting you to be hurt.
“And in the process, I got to keep you. For a few more minutes or hours or days, every one of them stolen, every one of them more than I deserved, and every single one of them mine. No matter what happens next, even if you leave right now, I won’t regret a moment of it, Emberline.”
“That’s it?” I asked, breathless. “No excuses about protecting me?”
“Protecting you doesn’t work. I tried that and failed spectacularly.
But this is…” He took a breath. “I came to that wedding expecting… I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t you.
I thought I’d find a spoiled princess, with her father’s soft heart and his terrible sense of humor.
I found nothing but a warrior, and I didn’t know what to do with you. ”
“Enzo did have a soft heart.” I sighed, remembering. “I loved that about him. My brother has one, too.”
Just like that, my whole being snapped back to the now. “What about Luca? Will Uncle Gio hurt him?”
Immediately, Dante shook his head vehemently, as if sure of his answer.
“Nico, Gabriel, and I discussed this at length, and your uncle needs Luca right now. He’s a valuable asset and a fast learner.
Your uncle will prepare him for the position, of course, but he’s the perfect face of the DiRavello family.
Young, brash, and ignorant of his uncle’s sins. ”
I toyed with my coffee mug. “You don’t think we should tell him?”
“Do you?” Dante lifted his brow. “How well can your brother hide his feelings? How safe do you think he’ll be if Giovanni suspects he knows the truth? Will he be in more danger or less?”
I pushed away from the table and paced across the tiny kitchen, needing movement, or I’d fly apart. The wards embedded in the stones brushed against the edge of my senses as I passed the walls, a steady thrum that only made the pain inside me cut deeper.
This was like losing Father all over again.
Worse, maybe, because he’d been so terribly betrayed.
“No, Luca can’t know.” I closed my eyes, fully aware I was making the same argument—presumably—Dante made to himself when he’d decided not to tell me the truth, but Luca… my brother couldn’t keep a secret to save his life.
“Giovanni,” I muttered, the once-beloved name tasting like poison, “used to sit beside Father at our family table every night. He drank our wine, taught me how to use a knife, and taught me how to handle the politics of this world.” My throat burned.
“He looked me in the eye and promised he’d always protect our family. ”
Dante watched me, silent.
“And all this time,” I whispered, “he was the one tightening the noose.”
“Ember…”
“Don’t.” I held up a hand. “Not yet.”
If he touched me right now, I wasn’t sure if I’d break or scream or both.
I dragged in a ragged breath that scraped across my ribs.
I’d been so blind. So foolish. I’d seen Giovanni for what he was; I couldn’t even make the excuse that I’d never seen his evil side.
Because I had. I’d seen him betray hundreds of people.
And I’d still trusted him, because he was blood. Family.
Loyal, like that stupid Dominico family motto.
What a bunch of sanctimonious bullshit.
“I’ve been lying to myself,” I went on. “All these years… I knew Giovanni played a dangerous game, but I thought he was on our side. When the other families threatened, he always defended us. When Marcello cornered Enzo, Giovanni found a way out. I thought he was protecting us.”
“Maybe he was,” Dante whispered. “In his own, warped way.”
I shot him a look sharp enough to cut stone. “By murdering my father?”
Pain flickered across his expression. He didn’t look away.
“In his way,” he repeated. “Giovanni’s protection always came with a price. Sometimes, that price was paid with blood that wasn’t his.”
I let out a low, humorless laugh. “Don’t defend him. He’s not my uncle anymore.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The old clock on the wall ticked away. One of the many bells tolled again somewhere across the water, its sound muffled by distance and the blood rushing in my ears.
I’d spent so long hating Marcello, I hadn’t set nearly enough hatred aside for Giovanni.
“Ember. Tesoro, please.” Dante’s voice was softer now, his hand on my shoulder, warm and anchoring.
He reached for me, slow enough I could have pulled away. I didn’t. The backs of his fingers brushed my cheek, rough knuckles catching on long, wet tracks I refused to acknowledge as tears.
I hadn’t even realized I was crying.
“Both our families are rotten at their cores.” Dante’s voice dropped. “We will root out the corruption and fix this. The sins of the father and all that bullshit.”
“How fucking poetic,” I tried to joke, but the word broke halfway through.
He stepped closer, his body heat bleeding into mine, his scent wrapping around me—cloves, smoke, and something darker, something so uniquely Dante, my heart broke a little bit more. His thumb traced the line of my jaw, calloused pad gentle when he was capable of so much violence.
My pulse raced against his fingertips, blood quickening as it always did when he was close.
“I’m not telling you this to hurt you.” He cupped my chin.
“I’m telling you we’re in this together now.
Our families are rotten to the core, and that corruption might be more widespread than we know.
If we’re going to do this—if we’re going to survive this—we have to be willing to burn everything down to ash. ”
I thought of the D’Immortali Dynasty as everyone else saw it—marble and gold and bloodlines stretching back two thousand years, as noble and unshakable as the foundations of this city. Then I thought of Salvatore’s murder by his own son, of Enzo’s blood soaking into the stones in the garden.
How power, in the wrong hands, twisted weakness into evil.
“Strong dynasties aren’t built on rotten foundations,” Dante echoed my thoughts. “You can patch over the decay, pretend it isn’t there, but eventually, the pillars collapse from the inside.”
My throat was so tight I could barely swallow. “And we’re the only ones who know how deep the rot goes.”
“We’re the heirs of centuries of corruption,” he agreed. “It’s our job to clean up the mess. Or walk away, which I’m not willing to do. Luca will make a good Pentarch, Emberline. Give him time. He’s young, but he is your father’s son, and that means something.”