His knuckles grazed tenderly over my temple, and I wondered how someone so scarred, so damaged was still capable of so much gentleness. While he saw himself as broken, to me, Dante was the strongest male I’d ever known.
And the most pissed off, from the sheer amount of heat rolling off his body.
“Whoever touched you,” he promised quietly, “is going to wish they were already dead. And I know exactly how I’m going to hurt them,tesoro.”
Nico uncrossed his arms. “Whoever being Giovanni, is what he means.”
“Of course, I mean Giovanni,” Dante snarled. “He’s going to suffer for this.”
“We could go back there tonight,” Nico suggested. “Take a few hours to deal with him, then we’d only have Marcello to worry about.”
“As long as I get first dibs.” Dante straightened. “Depending on how talkative he is, I’ll spend the rest of the night making him regret the day he was born. Let me get a knife.” He turned away from the bed, heading for the stairs.
“Where do you two think you’re going?” I demanded, trying to untwist myself from the mammoth pile of blankets, which was harder than it looked.
“The DiRavello palazzo.” Dante tipped his head like this was self-evident. “To tear your dear uncle apart and see what secrets spill out.”
“Which will be messy. He’ll need someone to dispose of the body, of course. Clean up the blood.” Nico pushed off the doorframe. “Luckily, I work for free, so long as I get to help carve him apart.”
Great. Tonight had turned them both into psychopaths.
“No.” I threw my hands up in the air, trying to be the adult in the room, if only I could get myself untangled. “We have a plan in place.”At least, I assumed there was still a plan.“Infiltrate, gather intel, then strike. We’re still on step one.Infiltrate.”
“Clearly, your uncle moved up the schedule. Now, we’re to the part where things get messy,” Dante stalked back over and caged me between his arms, nothing gentle about him now. “This is happening, dear wife. Nobody touches you and lives. He is going to die. I’ll bring you back his head as a prize since I never got you a wedding present.”
Good gods, he was absolutely terrifying.
This was Dante in The Fossa. This was the male who’d survived the pits longer than any other, the only prisoner who’d ever escaped and lived to talk about it.
Except… he never talked about that place, did he?
“Both of you are staying right here.” My voice rose higher, and Nico’s shadows surged, unfurling around his boots like an ominous warning, tendrils of darkness reaching toward me. “You storm that palazzo now, and neither of you will be coming back.”
Dante took a half-step closer. “He tried tokillyou, Emberline. If not for a miracle, he would have succeeded.”
“Well, hedidn’t.” I tipped my chin up. “I need you alive, Dante. You want to put a knife in my uncle this badly? Fine.I’ll let you kill him after we expose Marcello.” I swallowed down my disappointment at the concession. “But we need that proof. We do this with a plan in place. Not because you’re terrified of losing me,but because we’re playing to win.”
Some of the blind rage drained out of his expression, “I am not?—”
“Terrified?” Nico worked his jaw back and forth. “Yeah, you’re fucking terrified. I watched you try to breathe life into her and fail. We both want Giovanni dead because he hurt her. We’re both scared he’ll hurt her again. But… the princess is right. Fear makes you sloppy. And sloppy getsallof us killed.”
I stared at him, trying to wrap my head around this ‘we’angle. It was confusing. It was nice. It pissed my jealous husband off even more.
Dante’s hands clenched at his sides. “The bastard has to pay.”
“And he will,” Nico agreed easily, then went back to lounging on the bedroom doorframe, as if he belonged there. “We have a rare advantage, my friend. Giovanni will waste time looking for her body. Squeezing his spy network for confirmation. Trying to cover his tracks. That buys us some breathing room while he’s distracted.”
“Nico’s right,” I sighed, instantly regretting my words when my husband’s glower deepened. I pushed myself up on too many pillows. “Giovanni’s hopelessly paranoid; he doesn’t trust a soul. He’ll wallow in uncertainty while he explores every possible scenario regarding my disappearance, but in the meantime, he’ll move the evidence, if he hasn’t already destroyed it.”
I really hoped I was wrong about that last part.
“Right before I…drowned,” I shuddered, reliving thatawful water-filled room. “There was a box stashed in an alcove, about this big,” I spread my hands. “Something tells me he won’t burn them, not yet. Which means they’re still inside the palazzo. He’d keep them close, somewhere safe.”
“Then your uncle has two problems. A missing bodyanddocuments he can’t afford to get caught with.” Dante’s voice was harder than his glare. “We need to keep him off guard, keep him guessing.”
I mulled that over. “Did anyone see you pull me out of the water?”
“There is no hard evidence.” Nico frowned as he thought back. “I kept us shielded. The cameras were turned off, and there were no Draconi guards in place.”
