Page 12 of Devoted

“There will never be anyone else for me, tesoro. Ever.” This time, when he kissed my hand, he touched the tip of his tongue to my skin, and my toes curled.

“Well, then, you’re stuck with me until the end of time, I suppose.”

“I suppose I am.”

Then he went back to surveying the canal ahead, his strong profile catching the light—the clean, severe lines of his cheeks, the strong set of his jaw, the unflinching expression that meant he was already thinking of all the ways he’d protect me once things went to shit.

“Be careful,” I murmured, squeezing his hand. “I can take care of myself, so no unnecessary risks. No matter what happens, Dante. We go in, free Rocco, and we get out.”

When he didn’t respond, a tickle of worry curled in my stomach. I knew my husband and how deep his anger ran. If my uncle or Lord Blackwood were here tonight, and he saw them…

“Dante, I mean it. Tonight is not the time to be a hero.”

We were closing in on the Sala del Giuramento, the elegant silhouette materializing out of the dark, shadow turning to substance as we came around the turn. Out of habit, I scanned the roofline as we passed, counting the number of shadowy forms moving against the night sky.

Luca was doing the same, lips pinched together as he searched their minds.

The palazzo was the epitome of old Venice, beautifully crafted in the way buildings used to be built to withstand the test of time by craftsmen who understood their craft the way no one did these days. The upper stories were washed by the ambient light of the city, while the lower section, where ancient stone met brackish water, was black and furred with algae.

“I can’t make that promise, Emberline,” Dante murmured as we slowed down, Nico easing us toward the smaller canal leading off to our right. “If I have the chance to kill Giovanni or Blackwood, I’m taking it.”

“That’s not part of the plan,” I hissed, squeezing his hand. “Dante, this is no time to go rogue.”

“Fuck the plan. All these months, we’ve been playing the long game… I’ve been playing the long game for decades. Every day those bastards draw air is too long. They need to die, and if I can make that happen, well…”

His words trailed off as Nico steered us into the mouth of the canal, straight into oncoming boat traffic, curses trailing after us as we narrowly avoided a collision. Overhead, pale faces stared down, monitoring our progress.

I wanted to argue with him, convince him now was not the time to go off script, but we were under too much scrutiny right now.

“Any sign they suspect who we are, Luca?” Gabriel asked in a low voice.

“So far, they just think we’re careless humans,” Luca murmured as Nico barely avoided the frantic gondolier poling his packed boat out of our way. “The incompetent driving is helping.”

“Who are you calling incompetent?” Nico snapped from the cabin. “You try navigating this mess. Nobody is even following any rules. There are rules, voi stronzi,” he shouted, shaking his fist as a passing boater flipped him off.

“Just up ahead,” Gabriel said quietly, pulling the cipher out from beneath his shirt. The disc contained magic that would override any warding on the building without setting off an alarm.

“The dock is located in the building to the right. We used it as storage for cargo overflow. At least, we used to.”

Our craft inched forward as oncoming boats maneuvered around us, and I took one last look at the sliver of sky, lit by cold, flickering stars.

5

EMBERLINE

We idled past the farthest edge of La Sala, past cracked mortar and old, crumbling brick marked by white waterlines to the building beyond, an old warehouse.

None of us spoke as we drifted alongside roughened pale stone, the gleaming mahogany hull only a few inches away from scratching that hand-polished finish.

Holding the cipher between two fingers, Gabriel murmured a spell beneath his breath, and an outline appeared on the side of the warehouse, a network of glowing lines following the mortar, spreading outward. Then a dark, square hole appeared, big enough for at least five boats. We drifted straight through into that darkness, into a place where water dripped, and the sound of waves sloshing against the hull was louder than it should have been.

Behind us, the spell resealed into a brick wall.

My grip on Dante’s hand tightened.

This was exactly like…

“Easy, tesoro, I’m right here. I won’t let anything happen to you. There’s a dock just up ahead, see?”