Nico’s voice was very quiet when he answered. “The worst monstersarefriendly, principessa. That’s how they get close.”
I took one step, and she flinched away. “Don’t.Just… don’t. I can’t…”
“I’m sorry,tesoro,” I tucked my hands in my pockets, so Ididn’t scoop her up. “I wish… I wish I’d come back sooner and that your father was still alive.”
One week.
One week sooner and perhaps none of this would have happened.
Enzo would have gone to the Council, I would have backed his claim—disgraced, banished, and broken but still the voice of a Dominico.
“I want to see that proof,” she demanded. “Real proof. The kind that ends dynasties.”
Nico’s mouth curved, this time with a hint of his usual sharp-edged amusement. “Now you’re speaking my language.”
We both ignored him.
“You say there’s a stash of documents, records, whatever. You don’t know where it is.” She spread her trembling hands. “We find it. We use it. Against Marcello. Against Giovanni, and anyone else who had a hand in my father’s murder.” Devastation was still there, sorrow bleeding across her beautiful face, but resolve spiked to life, too.
“You understand what comes next,” I cautioned softly. “That means we’re going after your uncle, the most powerful male in the entire Dynasty. It means, Ember, that at the end of this, he has to die.”
“Yes.” She took a shuddering breath.
“But if this is true, I don’t have an uncle anymore. I only have a target.”
48
EMBERLINE
Nico left, and I pushed my cold coffee away.
The front door clicked shut behind him, the wards settling back into place. The silence he left in his wake pressed against my ears until all I heard was my own pulse pounding, the rush of blood louder than the thudding of my aching heart.
My uncle killed my father.
The words skittered around in my head like shards of broken glass. I tried to pick one up long enough to make sense of it, but they kept slipping through my grasp and cutting me in the process.
Part of me knew.How many times had I entertained the notion, then shoved it away just as quickly, back into the dark place where I wouldn’t have to look at it?
Far easier to blame Marcello than acknowledge everything I’d ever believed was a lie.
And something even darker slithered into the light, something I hadn’t even considered until this very moment. Giovanniknewmy father had planned to hand the DiRavello family ventures over to me.
I’dtoldhim how I was looking forward to running the business.
He also knew Enzo never made my inheritance official.Then he’d sold me into marriage, to get me out of the way.
“You’re shaking.” Dante crouched down beside me, his hand resting on the back of my chair. “Ember, talk to me.”
I hadn’t realized. My shoulders were tight, jaw locked down so hard my teeth ached. I forced myself to unclench my fingers from my sweating palms. There were faint, red crescents where my nails had dug into my skin.
“I’m fine.” The lie wasn’t the least convincing.
Dante’s lips thinned out. For a moment, he didn’t touch me. He wanted to, though. I could see his internal struggle in his trembling hands, the way he focused on me with every piece of his being. The scars on his forearms were so silver against his tan skin, dark hair still mussed from sleep and everything we’d done before the sun came up.
We’d had one perfect night.
Then my life had unraveled in spectacular fashion.
