“Yes,” Giovanni admitted. “Transition is bloody. But power vacuums do not remain empty forever, and the DiRavellos will be ready to step in and lead, once our enemies are gone.”
He turned to Luca, eyes sharpening.
“The family business rests on your shoulders now.” His tone hardened. “You are the head of this house. The contracts, the debts, the alliances—every one of them will be looking to you for direction. You cannot afford to indulge in moral outrage, ragazzo. You must think in decades, not days.”
“I’m not outraged for myself,” Luca shot back. “I’m outraged that you’re selling my sister off like she’s a piece on your board.”
I flinched.
Giovanni exhaled slowly. “I am not blind to what I’m asking of her. Or of you. I loved your father. He was a good male, and he wanted to keep you away from the worst of ourworld. But Enzo is gone, and his softness will not protect you now.”
He studied Luca, gaze weighing and measuring, like a scale.
“You want to step into his shoes?” he asked. “Then understand what that means. It means making choices you despise. Sending loved ones into battle. Trusting their training makes them strong.”
Luca swallowed hard, fists clenched on his knees. “And if Ember decides she doesn’t want to be your blade? What then?”
Giovanni looked back at me. “Then,” he said quietly, “we face Arbitration without leverage. Without any story but the one that paints her as a foolish girl who tried to topple a Dynasty with her tongue. Marcello will never be found guilty, and he will be forced to punish her, publicly, or appear weak. She will be executed under the banner of the very justice she invoked.”
“In other words,” Luca muttered, “if I don’t play along, my sister dies.”
“If you don’t play along,” Gio agreed calmly, “we willalldie. You can still try to run. We could throw ourselves at Don Marcello’s feet. Beg his forgiveness. But you know as well as I how far mercy goes in our world.”
I pushed to my feet, pacing away from the chair, needing distance from Luca’s desperate shock, from the smell of brandy, old paper, and the ghost of my father.
How did Giovanni know all this? I wondered, then the answer came to me.Because he always does,I realized bitterly. My uncle always knew the Dynasty’s next move, and he was always ten steps ahead.
How I wishedIcould go to the Isola della Cenere likemy uncle did, and clearmyhead.I needed some damn clarity right now.
But I’d never been to the abandoned island, and I wouldn’t be going there tonight.
The window overlooked the canal. Across the water, in the hazy distance, I could just make out the shimmer of wards over another building in the distance—theSala del Giuramento, where a grand banquet was taking place, the Dominico’s celebrating another successful Compact.
They had everything.
And Luca… he was all I had left.
Father would have wanted me to protect him. He would have counseled us tostick togetherin one of his uplifting speeches about there still being good in the world, and we shouldn’t overlook things like family bonds and loyalty.
I pressed my palm against the cool glass, feeling my wound throb through the bandage.
Ember,Luca sent, the mental touch tentative.You don’t have to do this. We can find some other way to fix this mess. There’s always another way.
Is there?I thought back.Tell me how.
He had no answer.
Giovanni’s reflection appeared beside mine, slightly warped in the thick glass. “Once, you asked me what the difference was between a pawn and a queen.”
I remembered. I’d been fourteen, bent over a chessboard in this very room, frustrated beyond belief that all my little pieces kept dying while the king hid behind them like a fucking coward.
“Pawns move where they are told,” he reminded me. “They are expendable. Queens go where they please. They are terrifying not because they are safe, but because they are lethal, mobile, and too valuable to ignore.”
“I don’t feel very lethal right now.” I laid my cheek against the glass and closed my eyes, wishing this was all a dream.
“If you choose this, you will be. If you walk into their house not as a lamb to slaughter but as a queen stepping onto the board. They think we are weak. They will underestimate you. Use your training to hurt them.”
“And if I fail?” Tears pricked at my eyes, and I was too tired to stop them. “If they kill me before I accomplish anything?”
