Proof.
My heart hammered against my ribs and my thoughts went immediately to Isola della Cenere, the abandoned island my uncle spent to much time at…thinking. But the island was far out in the lagoon, not close by.
Proof.
A different memory surfaced—Giovanni the night of Enzo’sBruciore Notturno,when the hem of my uncle’s robe had been soaked in boggy canal water.
What had seemed out of place then now became a damning clue.
“Ember?” Dante prompted gently.
I blinked, dragging myself back to the present. “There’s… a place. In our palazzo. A hidden cellar.”
His brows drew together. “We don’t have cellars here, Ember.”
“Our palazzo does. A secret chamber at the very center of the house. A godawful place, full of water and black mold that floods during high tides, but… it would make the perfect hiding place, since it shouldn’t even exist.”
“You think the documents are there?”
“It’s possible.” I considered it, my mind racing. “No… not possible. Likely.”
Dante’s fingers tightened against my jaw, enough to anchor me in place. “Is there a way down?” he asked. “During low tide?”
“Yes. A set of stairs; you reach them through a storage room behind the kitchens.” I met his gaze, confident I was right about this. “If Giovanni wanted to hide something, that would be a logical place to start searching.”
“Then that’s where we start,” he said, a vicious edge to his voice. “We’ll make some excuse, get inside your palazzo, and you can show me that door. In the meantime, tell me everything you can remember about that place.”
The idea of going down into the submerged bones of the house made my skin crawl—and my pulse quicken. “If we find it,” I hesitated, “if we find this proof… we’ll be at war with Marcello. And Giovanni.”
“We will be ready.” Dante sounded so sure as he stared into my eyes. “They have no idea how ready we will be or the battle we will bring to their doors.”
“This won’t be talking about plans and strategies. This will get ugly. Giovanni…” I forced his name out between my lips. “My uncle won’t go down easy.”
“No,” Dante agreed. “Which is why we don’t go near that basement until we’re ready. We need to have everything in place, so there’s no risk of him slipping through our trap.”
He was still cupping my face, thumbs tracing my cheeks. My hands had found his wrists somewhere along the way, fingers wrapped around the hard lines of bone and tendon. I hadn’t even noticed.
“We’re really doing this,” I said, feeling a little dazed. “We’re actually going to topple the two oldest, most powerful vampires in our Dynasty.”
“We are,” he agreed. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”
I searched for a good reason not to. Beneath the grief, the betrayal, the fury, and the exhausted ache in my bones, I remembered my father, with his good heart and overly optimistic sayings, and found a cold, clear blade of purpose.
“No.” I blew out a long breath. “I haven’t.”
His shoulders loosened, just a fraction. Then, before Icould second-guess myself, before fear could curl its fingers fully around my throat, I rose onto my toes and kissed him.
I meant it to be quick—just a press of mouths to seal the vow hanging between us.
It wasn’t.
The moment our lips met, heat flared through me. Dante made a small, rough sound, deep in his chest, and angled my head to deepen the kiss. His hands slid from my jaw to the back of my neck, fingers cradling my head, holding me there like I was the only solid thing in a world built on lies.
I opened for him because, for all his secrets, all the ways he’d hurt me and might hurt me again, I trusted this. The honesty of his mouth on mine. The way he kissed like a male who’d faced down hell and still choseme.
His body pressed against mine, solid and warm and familiar from last night, but different, too. This wasn’t desperation or distraction. This was something better. A bargain forged in the beginnings of trust.
When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard. His forehead rested against mine, our noses brushing, our breaths mingling in the sun-drenched kitchen.
