Chapter 6
NICO DRACONI
With my back against the wall, I monitored the bustling Tripoli market from my table, toying with my empty coffee cup as I stewed over my failure.
Every lead I chased on the Fossa dissolved like smoke.
Tunisia gave me nothing.
Egypt offered only dead ends.
Yes, I’d spent nearly five years of my life in that hellhole, but I’d been taken there blindfolded.
Dragged out of there unconscious. The penal colony was a knot of lies and half-truths, and every Dynasty guarded the secret prison as if it was made of solid gold.
Every time I thought I caught a whiff of some familiar scent—violence, blood, some ephemeral relic from that brutal past—it was gone just as quickly, slipping through my fingers like grains of sand.
I could not fail at this.
My shadows wrapped around me like pissed-off ghosts, the mere touch of them against my skin cold and clammy, as though I’d dipped my toe straight into the Underworld. I spooled them back in. No telling who might be watching, and I didn’t need to catch anyone’s interest.
Squinting up at the unforgiving sun, I pushed out of my chair when I spotted my contact. A whip of a human, desiccated by life in the desert, his skin as tanned as leather, every movement watchful. Not a surprise since he hadn’t stepped foot in civilization in ten years.
I wove through the early morning crowd, sending up a prayer to whatever gods might be listening. Please let this lead pan out.
I owed Dante my life ten times over. He was the brother I’d never had, and he would not die there. Not on my watch.
Even worse, I couldn’t stand the thought of disappointing Emberline once again. Every time I came home empty-handed and saw that hopelessness in her eyes… I squared my shoulders.
She deserved answers.
She deserved her husband back, even though some selfish part of me wanted to be the one she greeted with those big, brown eyes when I walked through the door. The one that made her beautiful face light up with a smile.
I couldn’t pinpoint when, exactly, I’d fallen for Emberline, but after three weeks living in the same tiny house, coaxing her out of bed during those dark days after Dante disappeared, trying to get her to eat, to sleep, to live… I was in over my head.
Which was why these missions were a good thing; it was getting harder and harder to hide my feelings from her.
And from Gabriel, who seemed to notice everything these days.
I pulled down the dusty cloth covering my face and dragged in a breath of hot, arid air. I lifted my hand in greeting as my contact nodded once in recognition, then followed him into a darkened doorway, making myself a promise.
Today was the day I would bring my friend home.
Then I could put this fantasy away—the one where Emberline and I had any kind of future together.
Back in Venice, my luck only got worse.
In the desert, I’d had some sense I was close to… something.
Here… I was trapped between secrecy and politics that kept me bound by duty and silence.
My rage, usually kept locked behind an arrogant smirk and years of practice, turned into desperation as another seven days ticked away while I debated how much longer Dante could last under the Overseer’s brutality.
He was running out of time.
We all were.
After Ember filled me in on her midnight excursion—during which I barely kept my temper from boiling over—Gabriel and I renewed our hunt for Dante with new fervor.
I leaned hard on my trusted Brotherhood contacts—especially Lucien Delvecchio—trying to narrow down what this favor might entail.
Severin was incorruptible, but Giovanni had a way of twisting even the most honest males.
So far, I’d found nothing incriminating.
With his father confined to the island and growing sicker, Gabriel ripped Marcello’s office apart, looking for anything out of the ordinary—large payments, routes that didn’t match official manifests, names he didn’t recognize.
As expected, we found plenty of corruption.
But nothing on the Fossa.
Tonight, depending on Gabriel’s spy network, that could change.
I waited on a slick boardwalk that stank of rotting fish, watching ships rock in their berths.
Spotlights swung overhead, casting beams of harsh light across the water.
Mortals in dark coats moved illicit cargo from ship to warehouse, the thud of heavy wood crates and the murmur of voices a steady hum of background noise.
The crates were a shipment from the mortal arms dealer Dante was supposed to eliminate, yet here we were, doing business with him.
Striking a fool’s bargain with our enemy out of pure desperation.
Despicable on every level, but tonight’s business dealings gave Gabriel and me a moment away from the safehouse.
Away from Emberline’s condemning silence.
Emberline.
I scrubbed my hands down my face, my head a tangle of worry. She was losing weight, barely picking at her food. Not eating properly. Not feeding properly—only drinking from a glass, not straight from the vein, something Gabriel and I had to address and soon.
I knew how that fucking conversation would go.
Not how I wanted it to go, that was for sure.
No, if fate had dealt a different hand, Ember would be at my throat, in my bed, but my only task was to protect her. To keep my oath to my friend. Even though I was in love with his wife, so my word was shit at this point.
Yeah, what a fucking tangled web we weave.
I clenched my fists, letting myself imagine, for one lust-filled, foolish moment, what it would feel like to have her fangs in my skin. To hold her in my arms, to feel that soft, willing body melt into mine and…
A shout pulled me away from my pathetic dream of the future and into a present that offered me nothing except dead ends and empty promises. So more of the same, really.
Gabriel stalked across the dock, out of place in his cashmere coat and handmade dress shoes.
“How did your conversation go?” Even the words tasted foul, almost as foul as the fact we were doing business with this piece of shit.
“With the mortal?” He cocked his brow. “The greedy bastard said he’d do it, but for a steep price. As far as the spies we planted in the DiRavello household? Nothing,” Gabriel pressed a folded paper into my hand. “Not a fucking thing.”
“Well, at least we have the mortal on our side,” I said wryly.
“Hardly a testament to success,” Gabriel grumbled. “And trusting him… I’ll expect you to put the fear of the gods into him, Nico, explain what happens if he double-crosses us.”
As he stared out across the water, I opened the note, the ink smeared by saltwater and sweat. The message was brief: Giovanni hadn’t left the city. No unusual visitors. No gossip from the servants about the desert, or Africa, or anything out of the ordinary.
“If we could get a look at Gio’s books, there’s a chance we could follow the money, but my spies tell me the study is better guarded than the Draconi fortress.
” Gabriel shot me a sideways look. “And Marcello hasn’t gotten out of bed in a week.
He doesn’t have anything to do with my brother’s disappearance. ”
“Giovanni masterminded everything,” I said flatly. “He killed Emberline, disappeared Dante, and we’ll never get close enough to find anything substantial.”
“Luca is a Pentarch now,” Gabriel mused, crossing his arms over his chest. “I could arrange a meeting, say I required his presence for delicate Dynasty business. See if he knows anything.”
“The kid’s too unpredictable, and you’d never get him alone. And Emberline would carve off your balls for involving her brother in anything dangerous. We leave Luca out of this for now.”
“I do like my balls right where they are,” He made a low grunt, looking as bleak as I felt.
Sucked when you were out of options.
Sucked worse for Dante, though, trapped in the Fossa, tortured by the Overseer, whose mission in life was to break him. My friend was tough, but four weeks in that place… four weeks was a lifetime.
A bell tolled the hour somewhere deep in the city. The wind off the lagoon carried the distant reek of petrol, the smell of rain heading our way.
I flicked the parchment into the water, watching the paper soak up the dark water, then sink.
“I put out some feelers around Algiers, and one of my old contacts is keeping his eyes open,” I offered. “If he hears anything, he’ll let me know. But I feel like…” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “We can’t wait much longer. We have to get into that palazzo.”
“Giovanni’s hosting a mourning ball to honor Emberline’s death.” Gabriel grit out through clenched teeth. “If you can get inside, that would be the night.”