“Possible.” He thought about it. “But the Basin’s been gone longer than a couple of days.”
“And what about the DiSangue magic you found at the scene? If not Emilia, then who? One of the priests?”
“One of her sons?” Nico countered, tipping his head to the side before he flicked more snow off the end of my nose. “Gabriel’s been positioning himself to take Marcello’s spot for decades. Why not Vincenzo or Paulo? Their mother’s been in power for a long time.”
“It would be Vincenzo,” I decided, perking up as the next patrol of soldiers emerged from the fortress. “He’s the ambitious one.”
And he’s the one who's been acting out of character these past few months. Drinking too much. Running his mouth. Acting like he’s already in charge.
The new patrol mingled with the old, all eight of them lighting up cigarettes.Maybe not so disciplined after all.
We used the opportunity to move, slipping from shadow to shadow until we reached the wall. The climb wasn’t easy,but after a lifetime spent on rooftops, it was easy enough—plenty of rough stone edges and narrow footholds, enough to pull myself up without making noise.
I hauled myself over the top and dropped silently onto the other side.
Nico landed beside me a second later.
“Gods, you’re slow.” I grinned. “I’ve been waitingforever.”
“Because I’m not a fucking lizard.” He grinned back. “What do you have, suction cups for fingers?” I waggled my definitely not-suction-cup fingers at him.
“You’re just salty because you’re bad at climbing. Like…reallybad.” He just chuckled, shaking his head. Clearly, he didn’t have a good comeback, and I’d won this round.
The guards broke apart and headed in different directions. Nico and I used the cipher to slip in a side door, Rocco’s impenetrable wards crumbling like rotten ice. The interior was dark, cavernous, and cold.
A pang of jealousy flashed through me as I pictured Valeria in her gold dress draped over my husband like a boa constrictor. I shook off the memories and followed Nico down the main hall, his shadows wrapping around us.
“We should start in his office. It would be just like him to display the thing right out in the open.”
The office was stuffy from being closed up, ash left in the fireplace, a stale smell soaked into the books and papers spread out over every flat surface.
“If Giovanni swayed Vincenzo, then Emilia could be in danger.”
His jaw tightened slightly. “Yeah. Good luck warning her, now that we’re dead to her.”
“We fucked that one up, didn’t we?” I crouched down, peered under the enormous table, then headed over to thebookshelves and started looking for a hidden latch. Rocco would definitely have a secret room.
“We did. Though, to be fair, she seemed like a good suspect at the time.” He rifled through a stack of papers on the desk, frowned, folded one in half, and stuffed it into his pocket.
“We’re looking for the Basin, remember?”
“I never miss an opportunity to get dirt on Rocco Demente. He’s a slippery fish, and it never hurts to have something incriminating on the old bastard. Ask your husband; I’ll bet he’d agree.”
While I doubted Dante would agree with him on anything right now, I couldn’t argue with that logic. Our search turned up nothing. We worked our way through the first floor, then the upstairs, every opulent bedroom glaringly empty.
“Where does Rocco even live?” I looked around the tenth bedroom we’d found, perfectly appointed, fit for a king, yet there were no vampire scents, no indication they’d ever been used, just the bland smell of fabric and wood.
“Rumor has it he has a house in the city and an island, but no one knows where, exactly.”
I glanced at him. “You really think he’s infiltrated the Brotherhood?”
Nico didn’t hesitate. “Rocco has people everywhere. Spies in every household. Be glad you were there the night he met with Luca, or your brother could be facing a very different future.”
“Let’s say he had a Draconi soldier… or two, on his payroll. He gets Vincenzo to drop the wards, plant the illusion of the Basin in its place. Then he… brings the Basin here for safekeeping,” I talked my way through the scenario. “Except that doesn’t sound right. Rocco pulls strings. He doesn’t get directly involved.”
“He does like to keep his hands clean.” Nico stared around the hermetically sealed room.
“This place is like the set of a play,” I said. “All for show. There’s nothing of substance here.”
