I can’t lose Teddy.
“What do youwant?” I snarl.
Julian blinks at my vehemence. “My goodness, Sandro. I didn’t think you had it in you to care that much.”
“Please.” I don’t think I’ve ever said the wordpleasein my life, not even out of politeness. My father taught me rage and my mother taught me autocracy, neither of which are well-mannered. But I say it now, my knees shaking, and I even think about getting down on them, begging if I have to. “Please, Julian. You want the Family? The ring?” I pull off the Castellani ring and hold it out to him. “Take it. Just let him go.”
Julian studies me. And then—
He lets go of Teddy.
Teddy falls to the floor coughing and spluttering, his chest heaving. I’m left stunned, uncertain, more terrified now than I was when Julian had Teddy by the neck. He would not give in so easily unless he still knew he had the upper hand.
“So thisiswhat you want?” I ask again, levelling out my voice, holding up the ring higher. Julian has seen my weakness. I must master myself, control my emotions, if I want Teddy coming out of this alive.
“What would I want with that bauble? No. I want what I’ve always wanted,” Julian says. “I want out of these cells and back into the house. And I wantyouto show me some respect, brother mine. Just a little bit.”
I want to keep Julian’s attention on me. I gesture to the open door of both his and Teddy’s cells. “But if you wanted out of the cells you could have just walked out—apparently.”
“Yes,” Julian says with exaggerated patience. “If I wanted to, I could have walked out, and I didn’t. What does that tell you?”
“That you have a different agenda.”
“Indeed. And what do you think it might be?”
If I can keep his focus on me, I might be able to goad him out of the cell, away from Teddy, into an attack on me instead. “I’ve never concerned myself with your agenda, Julian. We shared a father, but that’s all. And now we don’t even share that.”
I’ve never seen Julian looksad. He does now, crestfallen and a little hurt, as though I’ve wounded him. But I know better than most that Julian does not have feelings, or not in the way most humans think about them.
Still, he does a good impression of it.
“No, you never cared what I was doing,” he acknowledges softly. “Never cared what our father was doing to me.”
“Showering you with gifts and praise? Raising you as his favored son?”
Those strange eyes are fixed on me. “Is that what you think my life was like?”
“Wait!”
He’s darted to Teddy, and for one cold, heart-stopping moment, I think it’s over—but all Julian does is drag him to his feet. “Youunderstand,” he says, looking intently into Teddy’s face. “You understand me, Teddy MacCallum. Why don’t you see if you can explain it?”
Teddy still looks dazed as he blinks into Julian’s face. But when he looks across to me, he nods. “Julian,” he starts, and has to cough again. “Julian didn’t leave because…” His voice is stronger, but he is searching for the words. “Because he’s a Castellani.”
“Thankyou,” Julian exults. He lets Teddy go and turns to me, throwing his arms wide. “You keep talking about how different we are. The truth is, we’re more similar than you like to admit. And most of all,brother…” He comes close to the bars, and I see Teddy edging away behind him, heading for the door. “We still share blood.”
Those words strike deep. He’s got me there; the one reason I’ve been so reluctant to do the easy thing and kill him.
We share blood.
I’m not a superstitious man, but I was raised to remember the importance of blood, of bloodlines, offamily. I loathe Julian, but my feelings don’t change facts.
We shared a father.
We still share that bloodline.
He smiles, fingers curling slowly around the bars of the open cage. “Yes,” he says with satisfaction. “Youdounderstand.”
Teddy makes a dash for the cell door. It’s still well within Julian’s power to kill him, even now. But Julian just watches him go without interest, eyes following as he stumbles out of the cell toward me. I wrap Teddy up in my arms and turn him away from Julian, looking back over my shoulder. “So we share blood,” I say. “So what?”
