Chapter 27
EMBERLINE
Icollapsed onto the couch, my legs incapable of holding me up anymore.
Nico knelt in front of me, misery gleaming in his eyes as he studied the cut across my throat, the dried blood down my front.
“They drugged me and I couldn’t….” His throat bobbed.
“I didn’t know who you were, Emberline. I didn’t know anything.
And all I wanted to do was… I don’t know what to say to make this right. ”
He looked away, like he couldn’t bear to see me, and my heart cracked wide open.
I touched his hand. “None of that was your fault,” I said firmly.
“It was the draught that made you act like that. Not you.” I slid a finger beneath his chin, forced him to look at me, but he closed his eyes, shutting me out.
“I know this for sure. You would never hurt me, Niccolò.” I rubbed a streak of dirt off his cheek, hating that self-loathing in his voice.
Hating what had been done to us.
“Nothing changes between us, Nico. Nothing. Still ride-or-die friends forever, just like before.”
Nico shook his head violently back and forth. “You can’t possibly… that was my sword at your throat. Mine. And if you hadn’t stopped me… if Gabriel hadn’t gotten there in time, I would have…”
I cupped his face between my hands. “Now you listen to me. You didn’t hurt me. None of this was your fault.”
“But I did hurt you. I could have killed you.” He opened his eyes, his gaze haunted, pupils the barest pinpricks in a sea of pale brown.
“Do you know what scared me the most? Thinking I lost you forever. But you came back to me.” I wound my grimy fingers through his, willing him to listen. “You came back, and that’s all that matters.”
Nico inhaled, shaky, as if he hadn’t taken a full breath since the ring. None of us had. Being here felt surreal, the quiet normalcy, far away from the screams and the violence and the Overseer’s cruelty. Nico finally squeezed my hand and stood, his shoulders still bowed.
“There, you’re forgiven,” Gabriel said as Nico pushed past him through the doorway and took a seat at the kitchen table. “We should debrief. Bring my brother into the loop. Dante, we need to know everything you remember from these past weeks in the Fossa.”
Gabriel’s arms were crossed, his expression schooled into a cool, unreadable mask I had no hope of reading. He’d been near-silent since our escape except for that tense conversation with the idiotic human who thought he could blackmail a vampire.
And not just any vampire, but the Dynasty heir. Moron.
Going by the way Nico was now spinning his knife on the table, I had my doubts the arms dealer would last to see tomorrow morning. But Dante was my only concern.
He needed to feed, he needed sleep, and he needed… gods, he needed a bath.
But the way his infuriated gaze swung between us, picking us down to the bone, all three would have to wait.
“Someone had better start talking,” he rasped, voice rough from the dust and the screaming. “Because I swear to the gods if you tell me you just improvised your way into the Fossa with the help of some human fuck twat who happened to have a helicopter…”
“We didn’t improvise,” I cut in, only to be stared into silence.
“Don’t even get me started on the fact you were there, tesoro, because right now, my instincts are telling me to beat the living shit out of these two assholes for allowing you anywhere close to that shithole,”—his voice turned into a growl—“that close to the fucking Overseer...”
Gabriel inhaled, pinched his nose. “We didn’t have time for a clever plan, Dante. As far as keeping Emberline out of a rescue mission, well, next time, I’ll let you be the one to fucking try to stop her.”
“You don’t know how close you came to being trapped there.” Dante swallowed. “All of you would have been…” He dragged his hands down his face and pivoted away, shoulders shaking. “You don’t know how close you came to dying.”
“We weren’t getting trapped,” I said quietly. My husband shot me a dangerous, pointed look. “We had a contingency plan, and everything worked. Perfectly.”
Well, perfectly might be an overstatement… but we were alive.
“What sort of contingency plan?” Dante groaned sarcastically. “That fucking mortal with the big mouth?”
“A locater, buried beneath my skin,” Gabriel explained, reaching up to rub the nape of his neck.
“Cutting-edge biotech the arms dealer uses for ops. As for that human fuck twat,”—he leveled an amused look in his brother’s direction—“using the humans was a strategic decision.
Giovanni tracks every vampire within the Dynasty, especially the Draconi.
“Humans…” Gabriel shrugged, dust drifting off his shoulders onto the table. “Humans are outside of his realm of interest. Chances are, Gio’s just now receiving the first reports of trouble, and we are long clear.”
“How I would love to be a fly on the wall for that call,” Nico mused, throwing his battered, dusty boots up on the table before I shot him a disapproving glare. “Someone’s getting their asses chewed, right about now.”
Dante’s expression shifted from confusion to a slow, dawning realization. “You let a mortal put a locator in you?”
Gabriel didn’t blink. “I let him put a tracker in me so when we found you, we all had a way out. You’re fucking welcome, you ungrateful bastard.”
My throat tightened from a flash of gratitude so fierce, my eyes watered. Gabriel had risked everything, partnering up with that arms dealer. He hadn’t told Nico or me until the very last second, likely because he knew we’d fight his decision, but now…
Now, I could fucking kiss him.
“Is this, perchance, the arms dealer I was supposed to discredit for Rocco Demente?” Dante wondered out loud.
“The very one. Now, he’s working for us on retainer.”
“Unless you let me kill him,” Nico interrupted, stopping his spinning knife. “Could get that little job done right now and save you a couple hundred k.”
“No killing. For now. I told him I’d pay, and I mean to keep my word.” Gabriel rolled his neck, then his shoulders, things popping grotesquely back into place. I was tempted to tell him that was bad for the joints, but honestly, I was too fucking exhausted to micromanage.
“So, what now?” Dante shook his head and took two steps to the couch, falling onto the cushions beside me with a groan. I wrinkled my nose. That bath couldn’t come soon enough.
“There might be survivors. By tomorrow, Giovanni could know about the rescue mission, that I’m free, that Emberline’s alive, that you and Nico are both working against him, and we’ll all be fucked.”
“Not necessarily,” I murmured. “Half the guards got buried beneath tons of rock; the prisoners killed the rest. There might not be anyone for him to talk to. We need to tell you about the meeting between Gio and Severin…”
“We’ll talk about your uncle’s schemes later. I should get back to the family palazzo,” Gabriel interrupted, shooting his brother a hard look. “Have a heart-to-heart with our new chef. Nico, I want you there. For moral support.”
I chuffed out a tired laugh at the euphemism.
The room was growing fuzzy around the edges, my knees were like rubber, now that all the adrenaline had drained away, and every bruised and battered piece of me ached like I was a thousand years old.
“That’s what he said. I don’t know how long he’s been poisoning Marcello,” Dante was explaining when I blinked the room back into focus. “Or if he can even be saved at this point.”
“I say we let nature… or, in this case, silver oxide, take its course.” An unrepentant Nico shrugged. “Save ourselves the trouble. If Marcello dies, Gabriel takes over the Dynasty, and our plan moves forward faster, with less red tape.”
“Except that makes Gabriel his next target. The pompous bastard was very talkative when he signed my execution order, the day before you three arrived, so… uhm…” Dante leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees, a sheepish look on his face. “Thank you for coming.”
Everything inside me went quiet. Ottavia was right to warn me, right about Dante only having a day left. I leaned back into the couch beside my husband, exhaustion finally taking its toll.
How had she known? I’d ask Emilia, but she’d probably charge me another godsdamned favor for the information.
“Always such a way with words,” Nico smirked, though the smile seemed forced. “Execution order, huh? And what was your contingency plan, hero?”
“Take as many of those bastards with me when I went.” Dante’s words pulled me out of my thoughts and sent a bolt of terror straight through my heart.
“That’s not a plan; that’s a suicide pact.” I shook my head, horrified at what would have happened if we’d been even a day late.
“So, what was this meeting between Giovanni and Severin?” Dante asked, looking between his brother and Nico as if he was deciding who to throttle first. “Did one of you geniuses witness them talking, or…”
“I did,” I volunteered, wilting beneath Dante’s glare. “Giovanni asked Severin for a favor, they argued. The meeting took place at the Draconi fortress.”
“Hard place to get into without an invitation,” Nico pointed out, boots still up on the table, and again, I was too tired to scold him, but not too tired to be irritated.
“What favor?” Dante leaned forward, his glower even darker.
“That’s why we spoke to Severin before we headed to the Fossa. We had to make sure we weren’t betrayed by our closest ally.” I blew out a breath. “According to him, my uncle requested a tour of the fortress. His request was denied.”
“And… why would he want to see the fortress?” Dante turned to me. “Sounds like a bullshit reason to me.”
Nico’s mouth twisted. “We thought the same. Maybe he went there to test our defenses or get a look at our wards first hand… I don’t know, but Severin locked the island down and doubled the guard on that gate. Anyone comes through, they’ll have to fight their way through a hundred Vendetarri.”
“Severin’s on our side.” Nico nodded, as if to himself. “If Giovanni contacts him again, he’ll let us know.”
“There’s a fuckton more, but it can wait until tomorrow. Nico, are you coming?” Gabriel pushed off the wall. “Let’s find this chef, get him talking, call in a healer to treat Marcello for silver oxide poisoning.”
It seemed unfair, grotesque, even, to save the Don, only to execute him later, but that was the way of things. Violence begets violence, and this was the world we lived in.
Dante’s eyes were wary when I pressed my hand against his chest, over the uneven rise and fall of his breathing, grounding myself in the fact that he was here.
Warm.
Alive.
Dante’s throat worked. His eyes were so blue, like the ocean stretching out before me. His fingers captured my wrist, and my breath stuttered.
Gabriel spoke from the doorway, his voice cool.
“We’re safe for the moment. It will take Giovanni time to regroup after what happened, time to question any surviving guards and prisoners.
After I deal with Marcello, I’ll keep my ears to the ground for information coming out of the Fossa.
” He cleared his throat, eyes bouncing between us.
“You two should… get some rest.” Then he was gone, the house was empty.
I ran my fingers over my husband, cataloging every new wound, every fresh bruise, and made myself a silent promise.
Whatever came next, Giovanni would learn to suffer, and he would learn to beg because I was going to make him pay for every new scar.
And every old one.