Everything was getting too complicated too fast, and my feelings—feelings I shouldn’t even be having—were spiraling out of control. I couldn’t betray someone I actually… liked.
Well, didn’t completely despise.
Grabbing two knives, I groaned, the rough sound vibrating off the walls.
I braced my boots on the rubber-matted training floor and sent my knives singing through the air.
They glinted beautifully as they spun—flashing before the blades slammed into the target dummy with that satisfying, meaty soundthat was better than any symphony. Within minutes, my mind calmed, my body falling into a routine.
Draw back. Step. Throw.
The weight of each blade was familiar, the balance perfect. They were hand-forged by our best bladesmiths on Burano, made to fit my fingers, my stance. Not ornamental in the least. Utilitarian.
Weapons meant to take lives.
The palazzo wrapped around me like a beautiful cage—all marble floors and frescoed ceilings, Murano chandeliers dripping crystal and colored glass. Outside, Venice pulsed with energy; inside, I was a prisoner.
Protected,my uncle called this arrangement.
Locked up,I’d grumbled back, even though I’d been roaming around the city more these past two days than I’d been trapped inside, the soldiers from the Brotherhood no more enlightened to my nightly excursions than my uncle.
Once, I would have reported to him first and told him everything I’d seen tonight, but he’d lost access to my secrets, the day he sold me out.
Now, the only person I owed any loyalty to was Luca. If my uncle wanted me to ever trust him again, he’d have to earn that back, and after his betrayal, I didn’t know if I could ever find it in me to forgive him.
I flicked another knife, sinking right through the throat of a straw figure.A little low. I clicked my tongue and tugged the blade free, straw rasping beneath my fingers.
I fell into the familiar rhythm until everything else blurred. The palazzo, my uncle’s schemes, this looming marriage I wanted no part of, but would accept becauseapparently it was my only avenue of revenge. All of that dissolved beneath the simple, bone-deep movements of combat.
Footwork.
Breathing.
Execution.
I didn’t think about Gabriel Dominico’s handsome face, wild blue eyes, or perfectly cleft chin. About the way my whole body went taut when he’d killed that male. About the gentle, kind way he’d treated the humans.About the gentle way he’d treated me.
No, I didn’t think about that at all; he was my enemy, and we weren’t actors in some tragic Shakespearean play. This was war, and in war, someone always died.
I was lining up my next throw when the worldshifted.
My body froze at the sudden, hollowdropin the air, my stomach dropping with it, like that horrible second before an accidental fall. Layer after layer of magic protecting the palazzo collapsed, leaving a screaming vacuum as we were laid defenseless.
Fucking gods, we were under attack.
The DiRavello wards were ancient, centuries of blood and magic, woven into every stone of this palazzo, seeped into the very mortar that knit this place together.
They did not fail, not unless someone removed them.
And those extra protections Marcello promised—no, threatened me with—those were gone, too. I reached for my weapon stash, realizing we were completely vulnerable.Luca, where are you?I scrambled to establish a mental bond with my brother, to calm my racing heart.Tell me you’re okay.
No answer. Nothing but a ripple of fear on the other end.
I didn’t hesitate.
A knife slid back into the sheath at my wrist with a whisper.I grabbed two more, hiding one at the small of my back under my jacket, another in my boot. In the polished mirror behind the practice dummies, a stranger stared back at me—long, dark curls damp with sweat, pale cheeks flushed, eyes too sharp, coat still covered with a haze of city dust.
I wasted three precious seconds taking a bracing breath.
