Page 107 of Devoted

Ahead of us, Gabriel’s head tilted, and Nico’s shadows spun out all around us, sifting over the rock and sand before forming a protective shield.

We were running when we crossed the threshold into the villa.

Then I stopped, the boots slipping from my hand, panic rising so fast my throat closed off.

Valeria was on the floor, folded against Luca’s chest, both hands fisted in his shirt, her golden hair disheveled, her delicate face ruined—skin red and blotchy, mascara tracked in thin black lines down her cheekbones, around her mouth.

She was weeping so hard, she didn’t even notice us.

Luca’s chin rested on the top of her head, his arms wrapped tight around her, murmuring to her in a soft, calming voice, his shirt soaked with tears and mascara. The moment we crossed over the threshold, his head snapped up, fangs bared, as if he was warning off a threat.

Gods. He looked possessed.

Or… like a male protecting his mate.

I’d never seen Valeria anything but perfectly composed, and now, she was distraught, broken, and pity swept through me. Pity and fear, because what could have happened to fracture someone forged from steel?

All I could do was watch helplessly, pulse jittering as a thousand scenarios ran through my head.

When I stepped toward them, Luca’s dark eyes stopped me cold, brimming with fury as he held the shattered, sobbing female in his arms. I instinctively reached for that familiar mental connection…

There was nothing.

No, not nothing, exactly. There was a wall. Immovable and completely impenetrable.

Luca. Let me in, damn it.

He looked at me over Valeria’s head and shook his head. Not now, Em. A flood of Luca’s emotion hit me along with those words. Rage and protectiveness, a fierce, territorial instinct.

I grit my teeth, pushing at that barrier harder, but I couldn’t shove my way through.

“Valeria. Look at me.” Gabriel approached slowly, then touched her shoulder. She lifted hazy, red-rimmed eyes to him, as if she wasn’t quite sure where she was. “What’s happened? Are you hurt?”

“He’s back,” she rasped, her voice scraped hollow. “Giovanni. He’s not hiding any longer. He was at council today.”

The warm happiness of our afternoon evaporated.

Gabriel crouched down beside them, hands hanging loose, his expression giving nothing away. “Back… how?” he asked quietly as Nico crossed to the window, monitoring the surroundings. Dante stayed beside me, hand resting at the curve of my back, grounding me against whatever she was about to say.

Or ready to spirit me away.

“Tell them what you told me.” Luca stroked a hand down Valeria’s hair, and though his tone was gentle, his expression was strangely empty, not a hint of animation on his face.

Unease moved through me. Not alarm, exactly, just some odd sense that something wasn’t right. I knew Luca better than anyone, knew his every tell, his every little twitch, and much like our father, he wore his heart on his sleeve.

There was nothing about my brother right now that indicated he even had a heart.

But Luca wasn’t my primary concern right now.

“Tell us what happened today, Valeria.” I knelt beside Gabriel, close enough to see her eyes were unfocused, hear the panicked little breaths hissing between her teeth.

“He was there, in the Don’s chair, when I arrived, and my first thought was… finally. Finally, he’s come out of hiding, and we can kill him and drive Blackwood out of Venice, and then…” Her lips closed, as if she was trying to hold back a scream.

“And then he announced the Dynasty is returning to the old ways, whatever the fuck that means, which, as it turns out, is public executions, and…” She started breathing hard through her nose. “He had my family dragged in. My Aunt Aurora, my cousins, Sophia and Leon. You remember them?”

I nodded, that tightness in my chest turning painful. We’d all grown up moving in the same social circles, had all crossed paths enough not to be friends, exactly, more like toxic acquaintances.

“I remember them.”