Watching Bruno park the table in place, I didn’t doubt that for a second.
50
DANTE
Death was inside the house.
Stalking the halls. I felt her in my bones, a cold, creeping presence waiting with infinite patience to claim another soul.If my father even had a soul.
Water glass in hand, I paused to look at Marcello one last time.
The Don’s body lay stretched across the bed like a king laid out for burial, the heavy drapes drawn tight to keep out the weak gray light creeping over Dominico Island. The air was thick with the stench of rot barely held at bay by sage and myrrh, something bitter and medicinal that coated the back of my throat.
The poison had been insidious, etching blackened veins along his throat and face, his hands twisted, as if he was still suffering, even in death. An ignoble ending for a truly evil male, and all I could manage was to feel cheated.
Across from me, Gabriel stood rigid and silent, his gaze fixed on the male who had made us both. Ruined us both, in his own way—me in the Fossa and my brother through decades of cruelty and control.
Always control.
I should have felt relief.Satisfaction.
Instead, there was just… a dull sort of disgust, as if his death wasn’t quite gruesome enough, yet worse than anything I would have ever wished on anyone.
Servants were already preparing him for the pyre, arranging his robe to hide his hollow, sunken chest. His hair had turned wholly gray in the space of a few weeks, a halo of white around his gaunt, skeletal face. With a respectful murmur, the entire room moved around Marcello, orbiting him like he still held power here.
He didn’t.
Not anymore.
His heavy gold signet ring was on my brother’s finger. In the next hour, Gabriel would use that to seal formal death notices to every family and claim the title of Don. And our war with Giovanni would be out in the open.
Good. I was fucking tired of sneaking around and hiding. I wasn’t made for the shadows. I was made for the battlefield, and I was ready to fight.
Out of nowhere, my hand trembled.
Water sloshed over the edge of the glass.
I went still, my body searching for something that wasn’t there.
For a second, I told myself it was nothing. That the noise of the room, the press of bodies, the wards woven into the castle walls were interfering with my ability to sense Emberline, but…
Where was my wife?
The glass crashed to the floor.
Servants scurried to clean up the mess.
Gabriel scanned my face, his steady gaze narrowed.
“We need to secure the island. Right now.” I hissed, already feeling the fire rise inside me, heat coating my skin. “There’s something wrong.” I reached outward, through the castle, across the island, out over the water. Nothing. There was nothing. “Lock this entire place down,” I shouted, tearing out of the room, past stunnedservants and soldiers watching with their mouths hanging open.
The hallway blurred as I tore through it, boots striking stone hard enough to echo. Guards stepped aside without being told, something in my expression warning them off before I could open my mouth.
I burst through the bedroom door hard enough that it slammed against the wall.
Empty.
The mattress was half on the floor, sheets twisted from where she’d fought. Two male scents in the room. The cutting, chemical smell of chloroform saturated the air, strong enough to knock out a horse. My wife’s faint scent lingered beneath that—citrus and lavender. I bent over and roared, screaming out all my rage and frustration.
