Chapter Twenty-Three — The Moretti Funeral
Chapter Seventeen — The Moretti Funeral
Vincent Moretti’s funeral shut down half the city.
House convoys flooded Cathedral District before sunrise while giant silver screens
stretched his face across Poison City like a saint martyred for the public.
HEIR OF HOUSE MORETTI.
BELOVED SON.
VICTIM OF BIOHAZARD TERRORISM.
Avery nearly tore one of the screens apart with her bare hands.
“They’re turning him into propaganda,” she whispered.
She stood hidden beside a fractured cathedral window high above the district streets while
Poison City woke around her in flashes of green emergency lights and rain-soaked sirens.
Blaine watched the funeral procession through binocular optics beside her.
“They already did.”
Thousands gathered below despite the storm.
Some mourned genuinely.
Others came because fear made public grief mandatory in Poison City.
Black umbrellas flooded the cathedral stairs while silver serpent banners snapped violently
through the rain overhead.
And at the center of it all—
Vinny’s coffin.
Avery physically stopped breathing.
Polished black steel.
Silver detailing.
White poison flowers resting across the top.
Belladonna.
Her chest shattered quietly.
“They used his flowers,” she whispered.
Blaine looked toward her immediately.
Too late.
Tears already blurred her vision.
God.
Vinny would’ve hated this funeral.
Too performative.
Too cold.
He belonged in candlelight and stupid jokes and rain-soaked bouquets left outside
apartment doors.
Not inside a silver coffin surrounded by armed men pretending they loved him.
Avery wrapped trembling arms around herself tighter.
“I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.”
The calm certainty in Blaine’s voice almost made it worse.
Below them, cathedral bells thundered across the district while cameras broadcast the
funeral live across every city screen.
Don Luciano Moretti stepped onto the cathedral platform slowly.
Vinny’s father looked immaculate in mourning black.
Untouched.
That enraged Avery instantly.
How dare he look untouched?
“He knows,” she whispered.
Blaine lowered the optics slightly.
“Yes.”
“He killed his own son.”
“No.” Blaine’s expression darkened. “He allowed it.”
The distinction didn’t help.
Not emotionally.
Don Luciano raised one gloved hand toward the crowd below.
Silence spread almost instantly through Cathedral District.
Then the patriarch began speaking.
“Poison City mourns today.”
His voice echoed mechanically through giant speaker systems across the skyline.
“We lost a son. A leader. A future.”
Avery’s stomach twisted violently.
Lie.
Lie.
Lie.
“Vincent Moretti died protecting this city from contamination.”
Blaine’s jaw hardened visibly beside her.
Avery physically shook now.
Not fear.
Rage.
“He loved this city,” Luciano continued smoothly. “Even as it poisoned him.”
The words shattered something open inside her.
Because that part was true.
Vinny did love the city.
Enough to die trying to expose it.
Avery stepped backward sharply from the window before grief swallowed her whole.
The underground graveyard still clung faintly to her clothes: poison flowers, wet earth,
ghosts.
Vinny should’ve been buried there.
Not here beneath cameras and lies.
Blaine noticed her unraveling instantly.
“Avery.”
“No.”
She pressed gloved hands hard against her mouth trying to stop the shaking.
“He’s turning Vinny into a weapon even after death.”
Below them the crowd applauded.
Applauded.
Avery wanted to scream.
Instead she whispered:
“I hate them.”
Blaine crossed toward her slowly.
Carefully.
Always careful.
“I know.”
“No—you don’t.” Tears blurred hot down her face now. “He was good.”
The confession broke out raw.
“He was actually good.”
Blaine stopped only a few feet away.
Close enough to feel dangerous.
Close enough to feel safe.
“He loved you,” Blaine said quietly.
That hurt worst of all.
Avery looked toward the funeral again just as the cathedral doors opened.
Rows of House officials stepped outward into the rain carrying silver lanterns.
Then—
her blood turned cold.
A figure emerged behind them wearing black Theater formalwear stitched with ivy-thread
embroidery.
Silas.
Of course.
The amber-eyed assassin stood beneath the cathedral arches holding a black umbrella
lazily over one shoulder while rain soaked the stone around him.
Even from this distance—
he found her instantly.
Amber eyes lifted toward the shattered cathedral window where she stood hidden.
Then he smiled.
Small.
Secret.
Beautifully wrong.
Avery’s pulse stumbled.
Blaine noticed immediately.
“What?”
She pointed silently toward the funeral below.
Blaine followed her gaze.
His expression went flat instantly.
“Why is he there?” Avery whispered.
The answer came from behind them.
Soft.
Amused.
“Because funerals are terribly romantic.”
Both of them spun instantly.
Silas leaned casually against the ruined cathedral doorway behind them, rain dripping
slowly from dark curls while several white poison flowers rested in his gloved hand.
Avery’s pulse crashed.
“You were downstairs.”
“I was multitasking.”
“You infiltrated a Moretti funeral.”
“Yes.” Silas smiled lazily. “It was lovely.” His amber eyes drifted toward Avery. “Your
boyfriend looked handsome in death.”
The entire room went deadly still.
Then Blaine moved.
What Silas Actually Wants
Avery fell asleep before midnight.
She hadn’t intended to. She’d been staring at the safehouse wall listening to the distant
riots and thinking about Luciano’s face on the skyline screens, and then she was simply
gone — the way exhaustion took people who’d been surviving too hard for too long.
Blaine left her the cot.
He sat near the entrance to the upper chapel level in the dark, monitoring the street feeds
cycling across the old surveillance panel.
Green.
Yellow.
Green.
Twenty minutes passed before Silas appeared.
Not through any entrance Blaine was watching. Which was either deliberate demonstration
or simply habit.
“She’s out,” Silas noted.
“Yes.”
The amber-eyed assassin dropped into the opposite chair and extended both legs in front
of him with the casual comfort of someone who treated every location like a living room.
“House feeds show the convoy reassembled near Cathedral South.”
“I know.”
“They’ll move again by morning.”
“I know.”
Silas looked at the ceiling.
“You’re doing that thing.”
“What thing.”
“Where you answer questions with the minimum possible words and hope I lose interest.”
Blaine kept his eyes on the screens.
“Does it ever work?”
“No.” Silas smiled faintly. “But I appreciate the optimism.”
Silence settled between them.
Outside, rain tapped softly against the chapel walls while distant sirens marked the riot
lines through lower Poison City.
“The boy in the graveyard,” Blaine said finally.
Silas went still.
Almost imperceptibly.
But Blaine had known him long enough to read the tells.
“What about him.”
“Did you try to bring him back?”
The question hung in the stale chapel air.
Silas didn’t answer immediately.
Not performing consideration. Actually considering.
“Yes,” he said finally.
Blaine looked toward him now.
Silas stared at the ceiling with his jaw set slightly wrong.
“He was seventeen. He’d been out six weeks — got himself almost to the outer ring.”
Something briefly unguarded moved behind the amber eyes. “He didn’t want to go back.”
“But you tried.”
“I had an assignment.” The performance crept back in. “I’m a professional.”
“Silas.”
The name dropped quiet and entirely serious.
Silas looked at him.
Then away.
“He reminded me of someone,” he said. Quieter now. “Before the Theater. Someone I didn’t
save when I should have.”
The chapel sat still around them.
Blaine said nothing.
Which was its own kind of answer.
“I told the Theater he died running,” Silas said eventually. “Officially.”
“And unofficially?”
“I gave him three days’ head start before I filed the report.”
The admission settled between them.
Not absolution.
Just truth.
Blaine looked back toward the surveillance feeds.
“Vincent Moretti,” Silas said quietly. “His investigation.”
Blaine didn’t move.
“You knew,” Blaine said.
Silas didn’t deny it.
“I suspected,” he said. “Two months before his death.”
The number landed.
Blaine let the silence after it stretch long enough to mean something.
Silas absorbed it without flinching. But he didn’t perform indifference this time.
“I thought the Moretti name protected him,” Silas said finally. “Luciano wouldn’t openly
harm a direct heir.”
“He did it quietly instead.”
“Yes.” Simple. Flat. “He did.”
Rain hit the chapel walls harder for a moment.
Then eased.
“She’ll forgive herself for Vinny,” Blaine said quietly. “Eventually.”
Silas looked at him sharply.
Something very close to nakedly honest crossed his expression.
“I’m not sure I’m working toward the same thing.”
The sentence cost him something.
Blaine could tell.
“I know,” he said.
Silas looked at him for a long moment.
Then, with the careful carelessness he used when something actually mattered:
“You’re going to protect her.”
Not a question.
“Yes.”
“Even if it kills you.”
Blaine held his gaze evenly.
“Yes.”
Silas exhaled once. Slowly.
“Right.” He stood, adjusting his coat with practiced ease. “I suppose I’m staying then.”
Blaine looked back toward the screens.
“You were always staying.”
Silas paused.
Then, very quietly:
“Don’t tell anyone.”
He vanished back into the shadows before Blaine answered.
Which was answer enough.