Chapter 49
GAbrIEL
The rooftop was old, terracotta tiles, slippery with moss and softened by centuries of salt air, leaving stains on my knees as I knelt down, overlooking the crowded walled garden of the DiRavello palazzo, half hidden by the swaying leaves of an ancient maple tree.
Enzo had planted that tree himself, a sapling barely taller than himself, according to my father.
Now his brother held court beneath those heavy boughs, sitting in the shade of a tree planted by the very male he’d betrayed.
It was grotesque, the way things had worked out. That a heartless monster had taken the place of a good male, stolen his life, his empire… everything he’d ever loved.
And I would take it all back.
For Emberline.
And for me.
Giovanni was surrounded by the heads of the lesser houses, ambitious mafia families scrambling for a seat at the council table.
Even from here, I scented their fear and their greed, backs stiff as they bowed and groveled, laughing too loudly at something Gio said, calculating their chances at negotiating for better territories, a larger cut of the profits, more lucrative shipping routes.
Or one of the golden chairs at the council table.
Little did they know their efforts were wasted.
That Giovanni held all the cards right now, and they could ass-kiss all they wanted—they weren’t getting shit.
Six brutish Dynasty guards were posted inside the garden walls, another two at the arched entrance leading into the palazzo. At least ten outside, hidden by glamour, little more than shimmering smudges against the stone. Undetectable to passing humans.
“They’ve been at this for over an hour.” Dante’s voice was pitched low. “Whatever they’re asking for, Giovanni’s not budging.”
“No.” I studied their body language. Demarco had crossed his arms in a defensive posture, his scowl discernible even from here. Doria was waving his hands in the air between them, mouth moving. “Yup. They’re totally getting fucked over.”
Dante made a low sound of agreement. “If they knew what happened to Aurora and Louis, they would have stayed in their estates, locked behind their wards.”
“Yes, they would. Which means they either don’t know, or they’re fools willing to stick out their worthless necks for more power. My money’s on the second option.”
“Hmmm. Fools, it is.”
My brother and I had snuck into the city through a back-channel Dante used in emergencies, an ancient gondolier who didn’t ask questions in return for a king’s ransom in gold.
I’d worried the male would sell us out until he lifted his stump of a hand and assured me that any chance he had to stick it to Giovanni DiRavello was a favor from the gods.
Which was good enough for me.
After our attack had been aborted, we’d come to the city to recon our enemy’s current positions.
We discovered La Sala was a fortified stronghold, the perimeter around the building filled with traps created from dark magic, an army of glamoured guards, and enough warding to slow us down, turn us into easy targets.
There would have been high fatalities as we fought our way inside, but the advance team…
I took another breath, counting to ten, trying to steady myself.
Emberline, Nico, and my brother would have taken the brunt of that ambush.
I doubted any of them would have survived.
Inside, forms had moved erratically past the windows. Ashbound and Drax, too many for us to count. There was no sign of Lord Blackwood, only his brutish guards, posted at every entrance and along the roofline.
We’d dematerialized to the equally well-protected DiRavello palazzo, only to find the heads of the minor families meeting with Giovanni, likely so he could test their loyalties.
“Look on the bright side. His paranoia has to be through the roof,” my brother observed. “There’s no way he can be sure who is really loyal.”
“As everyone jockeys for power, there will be bloodshed,” I murmured. “The tighter he grips his power, the more he’ll be sure it’s about to slip away.”
“Little does the smug bastard know how close he came to losing that power tonight,” Dante said, then paused, shaking his head. “Who am I kidding? If it wasn’t for Luca, there’s a good chance Giovanni would have us on our knees, not the other way around.”
“After seeing their defenses, I agree. We dodged a fucking bullet tonight.” The words came out sharp, my frustration bleeding through.
“They anticipated every step of our plan. Severin did the recon himself. Two hours before we launched our attack, there were no signs of any extra protections. Now, La Sala is a veritable stronghold.”
Below us, the argument grew more heated, and yet that reptilian smile on Giovanni’s face only grew wider. Oh, you are really enjoying this, aren’t you?
“Blackwood’s been listening to everything we’ve said, everything we’ve planned.” I traded a look with Dante. “They knew our schedule, down to the minute, and they were ready for us tonight.”
Dante was quiet for a moment. “We would have walked straight into a trap if not for the kid.”
“Your mouth to gods’ ears,” I muttered, not ready to delve into the dark thoughts that kept consuming me every time I imagined what would have happened tonight if Luca hadn’t stumbled out of his bedroom at that exact moment.
I would have lost Emberline.
And all of us… we would have lost our future.
A future already teetering on the cusp of this coming war.
No. I fisted my hands. No, I would not allow this. I would not allow this pathetic excuse for a vampire—this devious, cunning Machiavellian bastard—to steal what we deserved.
“Someone got the Drax onto the island,” Dante pointed out, scratching the back of his neck. “I mean, they didn’t just magically appear.”
“That we know of.” Not that we knew enough about them to absolutely cross that possibility off the list. No, we knew so little of what we were up against, it was impossible to anticipate our enemy’s next move.
“That we know of,” he conceded.
For a moment, we just watched the garden below, Giovanni manipulating his sycophantic guests with the ease of a man who had spent half a millennium wielding power from the shadows.
“Do you remember,” Dante whispered, “the summer Mamma took us to the villa outside Verona?”
I sent him a sideways look, but nodded. “The one with the fishing pond.”
“You were clumsy and fell in.”
“You pushed me, you fucking bastard, and you know it.”
“To be fair, I figured I was helping you learn to swim.”
“Right, because you’re always so helpful.” But I was smiling now, a godsdamned miracle, given tonight’s clusterfuck. “That water was fucking freezing. And there were leeches.”
“Gods, how you screamed when you got out and found them.” His lips twitched. “I had to pick them all off you before mother saw because she’d scold me.”
Dante was quiet for a moment. “I miss her. I wonder what would have happened if she’d lived. If Marcello would have been different. If everything would have been different.”
“Too bad we’ll never know, will we?” I paused, peering down at the garden. Now Demarco was in Gio’s face, gesturing wildly, face red enough, I wondered if he was stroking out.
“This doesn’t seem to be going the way he… Well, fuck me.” Dante let out a low whistle as two of the guards stepped forward and, without missing a beat, swept Demarco’s head off his shoulders with a single strike of their blades.
“Bad luck. I guess he won’t be sitting in one of the golden chairs,” my brother muttered as the other family heads fell to their knees in front of Giovanni. I couldn’t hear them, but I suspected begging for their lives was at the top of their agenda.
The guards in the garden closed in around them, and I watched Giovanni’s face as four vampires, all of them powerful and ruthless enough to rule their own smaller empires, pleaded for mercy from a false, dough-faced monk with no discernible power other than his ability to manipulate and lie.
In any other scenario, I might have found this amusing.
Tonight, all I wanted to do was fly down there and twist the bastard’s head off his shoulders.
“We need to move. The new rotation changes in a few minutes, and they’ll have eyes on this roof. I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to lead those guards—or their little spiders—on a chase through the city tonight.”
Two guards dragged away the headless torso, while another dipped a bucket into the fountain and tried to splash away the bloodstains. It didn’t work.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Dante groaned, “at least pick up his head. At this point, there’s so godsdamned much blood, they’ll have to get a cleaning crew in there.”
For a minute, we watched the guards struggle, Giovanni looking on with a pinched expression, the other family heads bowing their way out of the garden, most likely to skitter back to the safety of their warded estate—though a lot of good that would do them.
“We have to convince Emberline to send Luca to the fortress,” my brother said finally.
“She’ll never agree.” My voice came out rougher than I intended, anticipating that impossible conversation. “Even knowing Blackwood is inside Luca’s head, she’d still rather be with him when he wakes up than safely on the other side of a locked door.” I paused. “Which isn’t logical.”
“No,” Dante agreed. “But that’s siblings for you.”
“And sibling bonds,”—I looked at my brother—“aren’t rational.”
“No. They are not.” Dante’s tone was soft in a way I hadn’t heard in a long, long time.
“If that was you lying in that bed,”—I looked over to find him staring at me—“nothing could drag me away from you, Gabriel. Not a godsdamned thing. And I sure as shit wouldn’t let anyone lock you behind bars in a cold, stone cell. ”
Silence stretched between us as I fumbled for something to say.
“Even so, she can’t be alone with him.” I shifted position, the rooftop grit grinding under my knees. “If Luca is Blackwood’s conduit, his pawn… whatever the fuck he is, keeping him close puts her in too much danger. Especially when she’s alone.”
“Then she won’t be alone.” Dante shrugged. “One of us stays with her and Luca at all times.”
“Me, Nico, or you. That way, she’s always watched over.” I met his eyes. “I don’t care if she argues. I don’t care if she hates it. I’m not putting her in danger.”
“That bastard…” My brother’s jaw flexed. “Fuck knows what he’s doing inside that kid’s head. The ideas he’s planting, the things he’s….” His teeth snapped together. “Fucking hell. Fucking hell.”
“Now what?” I rubbed my aching temples. “I swear to the gods, Dante, I cannot take another fucking setback tonight, I just…”
“Luca helped me hide the godsdamned thing.” His eyes were unfocused, every movement messy.
“After we stole it from the mausoleum, Luca was with me that night. Motherfucker. He helped me… we have to go now.” Dante burst to his feet, in spite of the twenty or so guards posted below.
In spite of the fact that the bounties on our heads were astronomical enough, everyone in Venice was searching for us.
“Get down, you fucking idiot, before they see you.”
But Dante was already gone. I gathered my magic, turning myself to an array of atoms and followed, ghosting myself past the DiRavello garden and over the city, toward the lagoon, stretching like a black plate of glass before us.