Page 29 of Fastest Kill

"You're very protective of him," Serapis commented, a slow smile lifting the corners of his mouth. That smile, if nothing else, proved what Serapis had said about really being Dario's great descendant. It was the same cocky smile that made her want to kick things.

"Someone has to be. Seems to me, for all your talk of family, you have brought a lot of bullshit to their door," she replied, her fingers itching for a gun. "Now you're doing it again by asking him to vouch for you and clean up your fucking mess with Agrippa. When you first arrived tonight, you said you were going to tell us what Agrippa would do to everyone we love if we don't stop him. He wants to kill you, old man, because of what you did to him. He's going to kill everyone else just to prove a point because that's what men with big fucking egos do. Did you ever think that maybe if you had killed him way back then instead of putting him to sleep, it would have saved you a lot of problems?"

Serapis's eyes sparkled and started to match the taunting smile, like he was happy she was poking at him. "My dear girl, of course, I wanted to kill the old monster. I couldn't because of how apotheosis works. He had just charged himself up full of the life and magic of his disciples. If I had killed him, he would have resurrected as a god for certain, and there would be no stopping him. I kept him asleep because I needed that power to drain out of him like a battery before I cut his fucking head off. I learned about containment magic, like the djinn ring, because if he succeeds in his godhood, we need to have a plan to trap something that powerful, because there is no way to kill it for good."

"And do you have that knowledge now?" Frederica asked, hating how much sense he was making and still wanting the fight to relieve the pressure in her chest. "Because if you don't and we fail, all you would have done is offer your family, Kon, Athena, Altun, and everyone else as bait."

Serapis had the audacity to laugh. "God, I forgot what it was like to be around someone so comfortable with challenging me. Rest assured, I have no plan to hurt anyone except Agrippa."

Frederica hummed and smiled sweetly. "Rest assured, if you do walk us into a trap, I'll make sure you die with my bullet in your brain. If you survive that, I'll ensure Altun's scimitar does the rest."

"Agreed," Serapis said and raised his glass to her. "Congratulations on your daughter, Despina. She's almost as vicious as you are."

"Almost," her mother replied, looking exasperated. "She still has a lot to learn."

The back door opened, and Frederica stood down. Dario didn't need to know she was being an overprotective asshole. It would give him the wrong idea.

"Rodrigo wants to shoot him," Dario announced to the room, reaching for his wine but not sitting.

"Of course he does. It's Rodrigo," Frederica replied.

"Leo wants to do something I'm not going to repeat in polite company."

"Also expected."

"They're flying in tomorrow." He looked across the table at her, and something had shifted into the directness that she was starting to understand was the true version of him. "All of them are coming. Rodrigo, Giana, Leo, Dante, and the Edgeworths. I'll ring Altun in the morning at a decent hour. We are about to have a very full house, at least for a few hours."

Despina was sitting on the arm of Tore's chair, her arm draped around his shoulders.

"We have room," her father said simply. "Despina will be in her element to have so many people to fuss over."

"You'd better be helping me set up the garden for a party, Ettore Alesci," Despina replied. "If we're feeding so many mercenaries tomorrow, I don't want them in the house when the fights break out."

"Of course I'll help, my love," Tore replied and kissed her cheek. She gave him a playful look that meant sex in the language of her parents, and Frederica tried not to gag.

"You handled that conversation better than I expected," Serapis told Dario.

"Don't," Dario said, and the word had enough quiet weight to it that Serapis didn't. "Tonight, I had to tell my brothers that our father died because of my mother's jealousy and that he was secretly working with you. Nobody could be bothered to tell us the truth for years, so give me until morning before you tell me how fucking well I handled it."

Serapis inclined his head. The gesture had something almost ceremonial in it, like he understood grief well enough to know when to leave it alone.

Dario drained his wine and didn't look like a silly playboy. He looked tired and pissed off because he knew the cost of hurting his brothers and did it anyway because it was the right thing to do.

Under the table, the stray orange cat from the garden wall had gotten in through the back door and was now winding itself around Dario's ankles with the single-minded purpose of a creature that had identified the most useful warm surface in the room.

Dario reached down without comment and cradled it to him, where it immediately settled against his chest and started purring like it had been there a thousand times before. Frederica could see the appeal.

God damn it. I do like him, she thought, against her better judgment.

Tomorrow hadn't even begun, and she already had a headache brewing just thinking about it.

Rodrigo Colleoni was going to arrive in Rhodes with a full head of steam and a deeply justified desire to put his fist through something. Leo would turn up with his formidable brain, already running ahead of every conversation they hadn't had yet.

The Edgeworth crew would want a full briefing and a tactical assessment, but they could only do all of that after they convinced Athena and Altun not to chop Serapis up into tiny bits.

Serapis himself would have to sit in a room and be patient while all the dangerous people around him, who had every reason to hate him, decided whether they would trust him anyway.

And somehow, Dario would have to hold all of it together, because that was apparently what he did best. Suddenly, she was grinning before she could stop it.