Chapter 40
EMBERLINE
Astorm blew up from the southeast over the lagoon, the low rumble of thunder vibrating through the stone walls. The electric flickered again, so I lit a candle, angling my book closer to the light so I didn’t have to stop.
Tension was coiled tight, and I kept glancing at Nico, noticing the way his long lashes brushed his high cheekbones, that dream still rattling around inside my head. I rubbed the top of my hand, as if I could still feel the burning pressure of his lips.
Every time I looked away, I swore I felt Nico’s eyes burning holes in the back of my head, and yet, whenever I glanced up, he was looking anywhere but in my direction. How was he inside my dream last night? None of that could be real, right?
Except… now I had a dark mark on my right shoulder that hadn’t been there yesterday.
My head was so tangled up with questions, I could barely concentrate on the page.
Gabriel was exhausted, new lines carved into his face, his eyes muddy, like the shadows had taken over. Dante was quiet today, watching Nico with a new watchfulness edged in violence, his hands curling and relaxing, over and over.
We were nearing a breaking point.
And Death had finally caught up to us.
“Marcello’s organs are failing, according to the healers.” Gabriel’s voice cut through the silence.
My gaze stayed fixed on the pages, words blurring as I tried to anticipate how Marcello’s death would change our already precarious situation.
“Define failing.” Dante’s tone was calm, but I heard the razor-edged strain beneath the flatness as he glanced over at his brother.
We all knew Marcello’s death put Gabriel squarely in Giovanni’s sights, and we had no idea what my uncle would try next, so we had taken precautions.
Poison had worked on their father, but there was always the possibility of a knife in the darkness, a bullet fired from a high place.
Gabriel was only eating food I prepared here, at the safehouse and only drank wine and water from sealed bottles.
Nico was shadowing him twenty-four-seven when he wasn’t watching over my brother and delivering messages to Rocco.
Gabriel didn’t flinch. “They can’t give me a timeline, but the poison has rotted his veins, his bones. Whatever’s keeping him alive…” He exhaled slowly. “Won’t hold much longer.”
Dread settled into my bones. I could stay hidden, sneaking out for nightly jaunts yet staying well out of sight. But Gabriel was forced to attend council meetings and hold court at La Sala as his father’s proxy, the perfect target for an assassination attempt.
Nico shifted closer to the windows, arms crossed as he watched the storm approach, his usual easy confidence nowhere to be found. “Then we’re out of time. We all know what we have to do, we’re just dragging our feet.”
“No,” Dante said quietly. “We agreed, it’s too dangerous. We wait until Marcello kicks the bucket and Gabriel takes over as Don. With the power of the Dynasty behind us, we’ll attack Giovanni from a position of strength.”
“You mean you decided it’s too dangerous,” Nico muttered with an edge of bitterness. “I don’t remember there being a discussion or agreement.”
I marked my place in the book for later.
“I think,” I said carefully, “we’re all in danger, and none of us more than Gabriel.
Our only leverage is that Gio requires the Basin for his plan to work.
Without that relic, he’s nothing but a power-hungry male, something we could accuse Rocco and half the lesser house heads of. ”
“You’re saying he’s not dangerous?” Dante lifted his brow.
“Don’t play devil’s advocate,” I admonished. “I’m saying he’s a threat, but the Basin is what makes him truly dangerous. Without it, he’s left with nothing but his schemes, his spies, and his resentments. As long as he can’t touch the Basin, he’s powerless. It’s still under lock and key, right?”
“In a room at the very center of the Draconi fortress, principessa.” Nico tipped his head and looked straight at Gabriel. “I could put eyes on the damned thing, assign another twenty extra guards.”
“And tip Giovanni off that we know what he’s planning?” My husband shook his head. “No. He can’t know that we know about the Basin. Any extra interest or security will be a dead giveaway.”
I sighed. We’d agreed that nobody would make any moves that called attention to the fact that we knew his plans for the Basin. Even a small change in protocols could tip Giovanni off, and we didn’t need to give my uncle an advantage. He already had enough of those.
“As much as I hate to say this,”—Gabriel leaned forward slightly, bracing his hands on the table—“Nico’s right. Once Marcello dies, Giovanni will accelerate. I’d like to know for a fact the Basin is securely out of his reach.”
“I still think the Basin would be safer in our possession,” I argued, bracing myself for the expected arguments. “If we stole it, at least we’d know it was safe.”
As expected, everyone stared at me like I’d lost my damn mind.
Dante’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not going anywhere near that fucking thing. Nico already gave us his word it’s behind lock and key, and that’s good enough for me.” The two of them shared a look, and for a second, it was like old times. “Giovanni won’t get anywhere close.”
Except he had. I’d seen it with my own eyes.
“The thing is locked up inside a warded vault.” Nico tried to soothe my concerns. “Guarded by a rotating patrol of handpicked guards. Severin himself does an inspection once a day, and when he can’t, Lucien Delvecchio makes the rounds, instead.”
“Lucien?” I asked curiously.
“An old friend, and one I trust,” Nico said. “He’s a freelancer, of sorts, Severin uses him for delicate jobs.”
“I’d still feel better if…”
“My wife has a point,” Dante interrupted, his softening gaze locked on me. “Put eyes on the Basin, make sure it’s secure. Then we can all sleep at night.”
“I’ll confirm it’s there, then use Marcello’s dying as an excuse to add a few more guards. I’ll hand-pick them myself.” Nico gave me a sympathetic nod.
A cold chill slid down my spine. Wondering, as always, if Giovanni was already a step ahead of us, as he’d always been a step ahead of his enemies.
Dante finally leaned back, running a hand over his jaw. “I’m not saying you’re wrong about the Basin being safer with us, Emberline,”—he touched my hand—“but I don’t want you anywhere near that thing, now that we know it’s dangerous.”
“I agree with that.” Gabriel nodded. “Nico, secure the Basin. I’m heading back to the island to meet with the healers for an update.”
Nico was already turning toward the door. “Severin can plant a story about an undisclosed threat. Make sure we don’t set off any warning bells,” he finished, his eyes more intense than usual. “I’ll leave now.”
“Make sure he understands what’s at stake,” Dante said.
Nico’s expression darkened. “He does, trust me.” Then he was gone, the door shutting behind him with a quiet, final click.
Gabriel straightened, glancing between Dante and me. “Marcello’s death is going to trigger all-out war. Your uncle will come for us, and he won’t hold back. Are you both ready?”
“I’m ready, though I do feel cheated,” I admitted quietly, pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes. “I always thought I’d be the one to kill Marcello. And my uncle got him in the end.”
Gabriel’s brow furrowed slightly. “Emberline…”
“Marcello didn’t kill Enzo,” I went on, looking at Dante now. “But he did hurt you. And after everything…” My throat tightened, “I just feel like he’s getting off too easy. He should be suffering, like he made you suffer, in a prison cell for the next fifty years.”
No, Marcello got to die in his own bed, relatively painlessly, wrapped in healer’s spells and opium, drifting away on a calm sea. My husband’s suffering had left lasting scars I saw with my very own eyes.
No consequences. No reckoning. No godsdamned justice.
Dante’s gaze met mine, something raw flickering beneath the surface. Softness, too, and I reached out and took his hand.
“You think I don’t feel the same?” he said softly, and the room seemed to shrink down to just the two of us.
“My entire life,” he continued, “everything he did to me… I told myself one day I’d make him pay.
” A hollow laugh escaped him. “And now? He’s dying in a bed somewhere, rotting from the inside out. A shitty way to go.”
Still, this wasn’t justice. Not even close.
Gabriel’s expression was unreadable when he pushed off the table. “We don’t always get the ending we want.” His voice had softened, just a fraction.
“But the world will be a better place when he’s gone.”
The storm blew through, taking our electricity with it.
I pored over the tiny handwritten notes, nose practically pressed to the old, yellowed paper.
Technically, I hadn’t discovered anything new, but there was still a stack to go through, and it seemed a shame to leave any page unturned, so to speak.
The front door blew open, and for a second, I thought it was just the wind.
But Nico was there, rain-drenched, outlined by a gray sky. Chest rising and falling like he’d run the entire way back, darkness pouring off him in sheets of shadow. He stepped inside, dragging a hand through his hair, his eyes unfocused.
“Severin’s locked down the island,” he said. “No one in or out. I was the last one through the fixed gate. I came straight here.”
“Why would he lock…” I asked, even though my stomach had already started to drop. When Nico looked at me, I knew.
“No,” I whispered. “How?”
“We’re not sure. The Basin was there, but it was a clever illusion. Fooled even Severin. No one knows how long the thing’s been gone. Could have been since the Blood Compact ceremony weeks ago.” His eyes found mine. “Could be anywhere.”
The words hit like a physical blow.
“That’s impossible,” I whispered. “You said it was sealed… guarded…”
“And it was. Around the clock. Inside a locked room, secured by wards. The same godsdamned room it’s been in for hundreds of years.”
“Then how…”
“We don’t know.” He shoved his wet hair out of his face and stalked past us to the cabinet, pulling out a bottle of scotch from behind a stack of dishes. “We don’t fucking know, except….”
He tipped the bottle to his lips and chugged, throat bobbing before he wiped his mouth and handed the bottle off to Dante.
“I picked up some old traces of magic around the perimeter of the room where the illusion had been anchored into place. Magic that has a unique footprint. And a unique color. Red. DiSangue magic, though I couldn’t narrow it down to the caster, but it is someone powerful.”
Silence crashed down around us, blood roaring in my ears.
Dante took a step forward, his entire body going rigid. “You told Severin what you saw?”
Nico shook his head. “No, not yet. I told him I had to check out a lead and came straight here. By my estimate, the spell was weeks old. They’ll bring in investigators, and while they might not be able to narrow down who cast the spell, they will figure out the Basin’s been gone for a while.”
“Which means the Basin could be on another continent.” I sounded more desperate with every word. “Are you sure about how long it’s been?”
“Damn sure. Weeks.”
I’d never really wondered about Nico’s strange abilities, never asked about his magic or those shadows I saw so clearly, but I wondered now, and a cold, creeping dread began to spread through me.
He’d been inside my dream.
And he’d been real.
“If Emilia is involved, this changes everything,” Dante pointed out, frowning.
“Yeah, no shit. I can’t believe she’d sell us out, though. I always thought she was on our side,” Nico muttered, looking like he’d been betrayed. He’d blame himself for losing the Basin, but not as much as I was blaming myself.
We should have stolen that Basin the second we realized its importance.
Now Giovanni was one… no, ten steps ahead of us.
And somehow… we hadn’t even known we’d fallen behind.