Chapter 12
EMBERLINE
Islammed my fist down on the table so hard, coffee cups bounced.
By that morning, my face, hair, and voice had returned to their usual appearance, and I was back in my t-shirt and pants, back to being told to sit down and stay here, as if I was the one who needed protecting.
“I’m going with you, and that is the end of this discussion.”
Gabriel flinched, but Nico didn’t. He stared stoically down at the map of North Africa covered in hastily scrawled notes, arrows, and circles, all of them stark against the desert rendered as a flat, endless wash of tan pigment stretching the breadth of a continent.
At the very top of the Sahara Desert in Tunisia, someone had circled a name in red.
Tazroum.
“For about a thousand different reasons, you’re not going.” Gabriel’s voice was clipped, controlled, the same tone he used when he was trying to order me around, but it wasn’t going to work this time.
I lifted my chin. “Oh, trust me, I am.”
“No.” He leaned forward, palms braced on the table, dark hair falling into his eyes. “Emberline, you have no idea…”
“Don’t you fucking dare.” I jabbed my finger in Gabriel’s smug, handsome face. “Don’t you dare tell me I don’t know what to expect when you don’t either. Nico has been there, and neither of us has, so don’t presume to think you’re any better prepared than me for what’s down there.”
But I eyed that red circle, panic crawling up my throat in great, choking waves.
Nico looked between us, mouth set in an unflinching line. Arms crossed, shoulders tense, the sharp planes of his face set in that stern expression he wore when he’d already made a decision and was waiting for the two of us to catch up.
“Neither of you should go,” Nico said unapologetically. “This isn’t the kind of rescue mission where the good guys automatically win because they have good intentions. This is a suicide mission, at best. Let me talk to some of my old Draconi buddies and put together a proper team.”
“We are a proper team,” I snapped. “Dante has been there for a month.” I rubbed my chest, trying to ease that nagging knot of fear. “He’s running out of time. I feel it.”
“The Fossa isn’t like traipsing across the rooftops of Venice.” Gabriel’s jaw clenched as he and Nico traded one of their stupid superior looks. “It’s a black site. A hellhole no one ever returns from. Like Nico said, this is a suicide mission, bella.”
“And?”
“And Tunisia is dangerous,” he shot back, as if I were a child throwing a godsdamned tantrum. “It’s unknown territory. We don’t know who controls the Fossa, and we don’t know the layout. Who is waiting for us, or how many guards there are. We’re going in blind.”
My laugh was short and humorless. “Nico knows the layout. How many guards there will reasonably be. And we do know who controls the Fossa—Giovanni and his endless piles of money.”
Gabriel went still, the muscles in his throat shifting. Nico’s gaze sharpened, a flicker of rage illuminating his pale eyes. I forced myself to calm down, trying to convince my heart to stop flipping over itself and focus on the only thing that mattered.
Freeing my husband and not dying in the process.
“Thanks to Nico, we know more than most about where we’re going.” I tapped that red circle. “We know where it is located, we know about the Overseer, and we know how much money my uncle has spent keeping Dante there. Let’s find some way to leverage all this information.”
Gabriel exhaled slowly, running his tongue over his teeth, formulating his argument forbidding me from going altogether. “Information won’t protect us once we’re there. Tell her, Nico. Tell her what the Fossa is really like.”
I stepped close enough to smell him—cold night air, leather, the metallic tang of pent-up rage. Even sitting down, Gabriel was so much bigger than me, had so much more presence, that infuriating mix of protectiveness and arrogant superiority that worked under my skin.
My throat tightened at the impossible idea I’d been grappling with ever since last night. The things Gabriel had said. The way he’d looked at that painting of me. The way I was reading more into his comment than I should.
Because there was no possible way Gabriel Dominico… loved me?
Except every time I entertained the thought, my pitter-pattering heart threatened to break through my ribs and claw its way out of my chest.
“This place is a deathtrap, princessa. This is the closest town.” Nico jabbed his finger down on the coastline.
“And from there, we’ll have to slog through miles of sand to get there because you can’t dematerialize in or out.
By the time we arrive, you’ll be too drained to fight.
There is a minimum of fifty guards, all of them bigger and meaner than any Vendetarri. ”
His eyes narrowed. “You haven’t fed properly in weeks. You’re weak, your endurance is low, and you are a liability right now. Argue with us until you’re blue in the face, but don’t lie to yourself.”
Nico’s calm, matter-of-fact tone forced me to take a breath and reevaluate. “Fine. I’ll admit I’m not at full strength, but why,” I asked, looking between them, “do you get to decide my fate? Why don’t I even get a vote?”
Emotion flashed in Gabriel’s eyes. “Because I’ve already lost my brother. I’m not losing you, too.”
The words, thick with meaning, hung between us, my heart doing that stupid little dance in my chest as I told myself I was an idiot for thinking Gabriel Dominico had any designs on me other than as his brother’s wife; there wasn’t any room in his heart for anything but his precious Dynasty.
“Yeah, well, I don’t want to lose either of you two idiots, either,” I muttered beneath my breath. “But we’re wasting time Dante doesn’t have.”
Gabriel shook his head. “We’re wasting time because you’re being unreasonable. Let Nico gather some soldiers, I’ll arrange transport. You stay in Venice. Keep an eye on your uncle, make sure he stays in the city and doesn’t complicate our mission.”
“I’m not babysitting my fucking uncle. I’m going with you. You forget, I spent years training. I know how to fight.” My tone turned pleading. “Don’t leave me behind. I need to go, Gabriel. I can’t sit here and do nothing.” I swallowed. “Please.”
My gaze clashed with Gabriel’s so violently, we might as well have been wielding knives.
“Fine,” he said smoothly. “But I have one requirement. You’ll feed before you go. From me.” I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off. “From my fucking vein. I want you strong, sharp, and at the top of your game. Refuse, and you stay here.”
Gabriel’s unflinching expression invited no other option, so I nodded.
Out of the corner of my eye, Nico stood frozen in place, dark shadows whipping around him in a frantic dance before he slowly relaxed, his shoulders sagging.
“Nico,” Gabriel prodded, his tone almost gentle. “Walk us through the layout. We need to put a plan together by nightfall, with all the players in place.”
“How are we getting there and back?” Nico asked hoarsely, his eyes lifting, and in them, I glimpsed misery. Pure, abject misery, though I had no idea what he had to be miserable about, other than the fact we were charging into a mission we may not return from.
“We still have the cipher, don’t we? There’s a fixed door on the eastern edge of the city.
” I paused. “Father showed me, in case we were in trouble and I ever needed to get Luca out of Venice. With the cipher, that doorway will take us anywhere we want to go.” I nodded to Nico.
“We won’t have to slog through miles of sand.
As long as you picture the destination, and we’re all touching, the magic will take us there. ”
“And back?”
“The same rules apply. The cipher should activate the door and bring us back to Venice. All four of us.”
Nico stared at me for a long beat. “Any chance of you telling us where this portal is located?” He asked, deadpan. “Since we’re such old friends?”
I grinned. “Not a chance, stronzo. You’re not leaving me behind.”
Gabriel made a choking sound in his throat. “Gods, you are fucking impossible.”
“I’m not impossible; she’s impossible,” Nico muttered.
“The portal is instantaneous,” I redirected. “Once we’re there, all we have to do is find Dante, get clear of the prison, and get back to the city.”
Gabriel rubbed a hand over his mouth, eyes darkening. “Tazroum is an unknown. We don’t even know for sure if the Fossa is there. This is all just conjecture until we have boots on the ground, and once we’re in the thick of the fighting, it’s too late to turn back.”
“The prison is there,” I insisted with a hint of desperation. “I saw my uncle’s notes, and the amounts of money. Why do you two keep throwing up roadblocks?”
“Because…” Nico’s gaze flicked to the circled name, then to me, mouth pinched in a thin line, as though he was trying to hold his next words back. “What if he’s not alive, Ember? What then?”
I inhaled and turned away.
Dante was bigger-than-life, too big to kill, too strong for even the Fossa to break.
I rejected the idea that Dante was dead. Rejected the idea that my husband could ever die.
When I spun back around, Nico’s unflinching stare was waiting. “It’s a possibility we should prepare ourselves for. What will you do, princessa, if you get there and there is no one to rescue?”
I forced my seething rage into something colder, something that wasn’t distracting. “We prepare for every possible outcome,” I grit out. “But we’re not talking about this again. He is there. He is alive. We are bringing him home.”
Gabriel nodded once, then pointed at the map, a spot just west of Tazroum. “If the prison is here… then this could be our entry point. Tonight is a new moon, so it’ll be dark.”
“Those guards hear everything.” Nico spun the map around.
“North would be better. Once, they marched us all into the desert for training, so I’ve been in this region before.
” He tipped his head at me. “There’s a rock formation that was unique.
I feed the fixed gate a mental image, and the magic will take us there? It’s really that simple?”
“My father did it all the time,” I said, even though I had no earthly idea how many times Enzo had used the doorway. But he’d trusted the gate’s magic enough to save his two children.
I trusted it enough to save my husband.
“Get us close. Once we locate him, we’ll break him out of his—”
“Cell,” Nico interjected, scratching his chin.
“He’ll be underground. The soldiers stay in barracks on the eastern end of the complex.
” He drew an imaginary circle. “The prison is at the center,” Nico then traced a smaller shape onto the paper.
“The Fossa is a sprawling labyrinth of tunnels located underground, and I don’t know half of the passages.
But I know where the cells are; I’ve been there before. ”
“Then that’s where we’ll start looking,” Gabriel said, shooting me a brooding glare. “Come with me. Let’s get this over with,” he muttered, looking like he was heading to his own execution.
“Get what over with?”
“Feeding, Emberline. You want to go to Tazroum?” His tone was cold as ice, but his eyes were blazing. “First, you’ll feed.”