“Clearly, you should have been a detective. I’ll start calling you Signorina Marple,” Nico teased. “I heard there’s a basement. Want to check it out?”
I glared at him. “If we die, I’m haunting you forever and making sure you never get a good night’s sleep again.”
The fucker just winked. “Totally worth it for the look on your face right now.”
Rocco’s basement was…well, at least it wasn’t full of water.
“This is a waste of time,” I complained as we slipped into what looked like another storage room, concrete walls lined with flimsy metal shelves and plastic ledgers. “We should head back, cut our losses.”
Except Dante was going to go ballistic when we got home, and I was in no real hurry to have my head chewed off. I turned away from the door, scanning the storage room with new eyes.
Something about this was… messily real.
Not carefully staged like the rest of the house, but a room Rocco had actually used. One old, sturdy chair in the center. And to the right… scratch marks on the stone floor…like from a silver-tipped cane.
My gaze landed on stacks of sealed envelopes stuffedbetween the plastic binders, like someone had meant to shove them inside, but had been in too much of a hurry.
Or gotten sloppy.
I pulled them out, the hair on the back of my neck rising as I flipped one over and studied the broken seal. A single crown. An official Dynasty seal.Not one of ours.
“What’ve you got?” Nico asked from across the room.
“Probably nothing.” I ran my thumb over the mark I didn’t recognize, wax edges cracking and falling to the dusty floor. I looked down, and the floor was covered in the same red wax, an odd shade, like the color of dried blood. I scanned the first few lines, then I wished I hadn’t, my stomach dropping.
“Emberline?” Nico’s voice sharpened.
I handed it to him without a word and opened the next one.
He skimmed it—and went still. “Holy shit,” he breathed, and in the quiet, I heard the pounding of his heart.Andmine as we both skimmed through the letters, filled with detailed payment schedules. Instructions.
Timelines.
Everything my uncle was planning was laid out, plain as day.
“The Bellamorte Dynasty seal,” I said quietly. “These are from Lord Blackwood himself.” I checked the dates beneath the signatures. “They go back months.”
Nico’s eyes flew over the writing. “Rocco’s offering him full control. Over the entire D’Immortali Dynasty, once the council is disbanded. He’s selling us out.”
“This one seems to indicate Blackwood paid to have my father killed.” I swallowed down the taste of bile, the paper crushed between my trembling fingers. “So… they get Enzo out of the way. Stealing the Basin discredits Severin, so he can be removed. They’ll be targeting Emilia next. We have to warn her, Nico.”
“She won’t believe us.”
“But still, we…”
He caught my arms, a wild intensity burning in his eyes. “I know her. Shewon’t believe us.”
“Then we bring her these letters, we show her the proof, and then she’llhaveto believe us. I’ll tell her one of her sons is…”
“What?” Nico shook his head. “Her precious boys are plotting against her and have formed an alliance with Rocco and Lord Blackwood to assassinate her and take over the council? She willnotbelieve you. Notevenwith those letters.”
“She will.”
“We can’t take those.” He spun in a slow circle, narrowing his gaze on the walls, the doorway. “Everything in here has a tracking spell on it. We cross that threshold with so much as a single piece of paper, every guard outside will swoop down on us.” Nico blew out a low, almost maniacal laugh, “Blackwood is involved.Fucking Blackwood. I didn’t see that coming.”
He paced away, and I watched how badly his hands shook. I didn’t know what history there was between Nico and Blackwood, but there was something there. And while my uncle was mentioned throughout these letters, every negotiated term was between Rocco and Blackwood.
“Once the rest of the council is gone, they’ll take out Giovanni.AndLuca.” I looked from the letter in my hand to the door, weighing my chances of making it out. Nico stepped between me and a very bad decision, and I hated him a little bit.
