Page 130 of Devoted

“You were clumsy and fell in.”

“You pushed me, you fucking bastard, and you know it.”

“To be fair, I figured I was helping you learn to swim.”

“Right, because you’re always so helpful.” But I was smiling now, a godsdamned miracle, given tonight’s clusterfuck. “That water was fucking freezing. And there were leeches.”

“Gods, how you screamed when you got out and found them.” His lips twitched. “I had to pick them all off you before mother saw because she’d scold me.”

Dante was quiet for a moment. “I miss her. I wonder what would have happened if she’d lived. If Marcello would have been different. If everything would have been different.”

“Too bad we’ll never know, will we?” I paused, peering down at the garden. Now Demarco was in Gio’s face, gesturing wildly, face red enough, I wondered if he was stroking out.

“This doesn’t seem to be going the way he… Well, fuck me.” Dante let out a low whistle as two of the guards stepped forward and, without missing a beat, swept Demarco’s head off his shoulders with a single strike of their blades.

“Bad luck. I guess he won’t be sitting in one of the golden chairs,” my brother muttered as the other family heads fell to their knees in front of Giovanni. I couldn’t hear them, but I suspected begging for their lives was at the top of their agenda.

The guards in the garden closed in around them, and I watched Giovanni’s face as four vampires, all of them powerful and ruthless enough to rule their own smaller empires, pleaded for mercy from a false, dough-faced monk with no discernible power other than his ability to manipulate and lie.

In any other scenario, I might have found this amusing.

Tonight, all I wanted to do was fly down there and twist the bastard’s head off his shoulders.

“We need to move. The new rotation changes in a few minutes, and they’ll have eyes on this roof. I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to lead those guards—or their little spiders—on a chase through the city tonight.”

Two guards dragged away the headless torso, while another dipped a bucket into the fountain and tried to splash away the bloodstains. It didn’t work.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Dante groaned, “at least pick up his head. At this point, there’s so godsdamned much blood, they’ll have to get a cleaning crew in there.”

For a minute, we watched the guards struggle, Giovanni looking on with a pinched expression, the other family heads bowing their way out of the garden, most likely to skitter back to the safety of their warded estate—though a lot of good that would do them.

“We have to convince Emberline to send Luca to the fortress,” my brother said finally.

“She’ll never agree.” My voice came out rougher than I intended, anticipating that impossible conversation. “Even knowing Blackwood is inside Luca’s head, she’d still rather be with him when he wakes up than safely on the other side of a locked door.” I paused. “Which isn’t logical.”

“No,” Dante agreed. “But that’s siblings for you.”

“And sibling bonds,”—I looked at my brother—“aren’t rational.”

“No. They are not.” Dante’s tone was soft in a way I hadn’t heard in a long, long time. “If that was you lying in that bed,”—I looked over to find him staring at me—“nothing could drag me away from you, Gabriel. Not a godsdamned thing. And I sure as shit wouldn’t let anyone lock you behind bars in a cold, stone cell.”

Silence stretched between us as I fumbled for something to say.

“Even so, she can’t be alone with him.” I shifted position, the rooftop grit grinding under my knees. “If Luca is Blackwood’s conduit, his pawn… whatever the fuck he is, keeping him close puts her in too much danger. Especially when she’s alone.”

“Then she won’t be alone.” Dante shrugged. “One of us stays with her and Luca at all times.”

“Me, Nico, or you. That way, she’s always watched over.” I met his eyes. “I don’t care if she argues. I don’t care if she hates it. I’m not putting her in danger.”

“That bastard…” My brother’s jaw flexed. “Fuck knows what he’s doing inside that kid’s head. The ideas he’s planting, the things he’s….” His teeth snapped together. “Fucking hell. Fucking hell.”

“Now what?” I rubbed my aching temples. “I swear to the gods, Dante, I cannot take another fucking setback tonight, I just…”

“Luca helped me hide the godsdamned thing.” His eyes were unfocused, every movement messy. “After we stole it from the mausoleum, Luca was with me that night. Motherfucker. He helped me… we have to go now.” Dante burst to his feet, in spite of the twenty or so guards posted below. In spite of the fact that the bounties on our heads were astronomical enough, everyone in Venice was searching for us.

“Get down, you fucking idiot, before they see you.”

But Dante was already gone. I gathered my magic, turning myself to an array of atoms and followed, ghosting myself past the DiRavello garden and over the city, toward the lagoon, stretching like a black plate of glass before us.