With his uncle pulling the strings and a sister with revenge in her heart.
And me with a secret that could blow everything wide open.
I straightened slowly, and Nico’s gaze met mine before he dipped his head.It’s done, he might as well have said.
My hand closed around the iron latch, and I pushed the door open. The corridor beyond was hot and humid, lit by lamps and gilded mirrors. Footsteps and voices drifted from upstairs, as if we weren’t down here, performing the dark deeds that kept this Dynasty intact.
I stepped out, and the stone room sealed itself shut behind me with a soft final sound.
Like a guilty verdict.
6
EMBERLINE
Icrouched down in the courtyard, the hem of my funeral dress settling onto the flagstones, the ground cold against my bare feet. The dried pool of blood was even blacker than I remembered, like an endless hole I could tumble down and never hit bottom.
“For what they did to you, I should have killed Gabriel Dominico tonight,” I whispered, my promise disappearing into that black hole. “They need to pay for what they did. For what they took from me and Luca. I miss you, Dad. I miss you so much, every day, and I don’t know how I’m going to get through this.”
I hated feeling this vulnerable.
Hated our sire was dead, and that Luca was about to be thrust into a life he wasn’t equipped for. My brother liked to paint, draw, and write. A dreamer who had never taken a life. Could hardly squash a spider.
Iwas the one who Father had trained to inherit the DiRavello mantle of power.
The one he’d trusted with his secrets.
I was the one with enough blood on my hands to stain the canals red.
But the D’Immortali Dynasty had strict, outdatedrulesabout primogeniture. Father had been killed before he’d officially signed control of the family over to his eldestdaughter, so by ancient right, all familial responsibilities fell to Luca.
Still, Uncle Gio would guide him, and if anyone so much as moved against my brother, I would slice them ear to ear.
“But I will,” I continued, swiping tears from my eyes. “Iwillgo on, and Iwillmake them pay. In blood. In bodies. Until I’m satisfied, I’ve gotten every last one of them.”
For the hundredth time, I measured the distance between where my father died and the warded twenty-foot-high brick wall enclosing the gardens, wondering who could have disabled the cameras and broken through our wards.
Probably the same way someone had snuck onto our island tonight.
Then gone straight to the Sala del Giuramento.Which only took me straight back to the Dominico’s. The same place every trail seemed to lead these days.
I pulled in a lungful of humid air, still tinged with a hint of Enzo’s cigar-smoke scent, letting the last vestiges of my sire fill my lungs, clearing out the acrid residue of wood smoke and ash.
“I should have cleaned up this gruesome scene days ago.” Giovanni floated out of the shadows, sandals silent, the hem of his robe swishing heavily over stone like sandpaper. “But I thought the boot print would lead us to our assassin. I am sorry I couldn’t find your father’s killer, Emberline.”
I traced the print with my finger, etched the pattern into my brain.
The boot print looked military, perhaps a member of the Draconi Brotherhood or one of those blood-obsessed DiSangue priests, sent to settle an old vendetta.
Both had ironclad ties to Marcello.
“I’ll continue looking.” He sighed, sounding soexhausted, pity stirred in my heart. “Pursue every lead. One of them will lead us to the answer, Emberline. We must be patient.”
“Patience is overrated. We both know who did this.”
Loyalty in Blood, Honor in Strengthwas the Dominico family motto.
Fuck their honor.
