Islammed my fist down on the table so hard, coffee cups bounced.
By that morning, my face, hair, and voice had returned to their usual appearance, and I was back in my t-shirt and pants, back to being told to sit down and stay here, as ifIwas the one who needed protecting.
“I’m going with you, and that is the end of this discussion.”
Gabriel flinched, but Nico didn’t. He stared stoically down at the map of North Africa covered in hastily scrawled notes, arrows, and circles, all of them stark against the desert rendered as a flat, endless wash of tan pigment stretching the breadth of a continent. At the very top of the Sahara Desert in Tunisia, someone had circled a name in red.
Tazroum.
“For about a thousand different reasons, you’renotgoing.” Gabriel’s voice was clipped, controlled, the same tone he used when he was trying to order me around, but it wasn’t going to work this time.
I lifted my chin. “Oh, trust me, I am.”
“No.” He leaned forward, palms braced on the table, dark hair falling into his eyes. “Emberline, you have no idea…”
“Don’t you fucking dare.” I jabbed my finger inGabriel’s smug, handsome face. “Don’t you dare tell me I don’t know what to expect when you don’t either. Nico has been there, and neither of us has, so don’t presume to think you’re any better prepared than me for what’s down there.”
But I eyed that red circle, panic crawling up my throat in great, choking waves.
Nico looked between us, mouth set in an unflinching line. Arms crossed, shoulders tense, the sharp planes of his face set in that stern expression he wore when he’d already made a decision and was waiting for the two of us to catch up.
“Neither of you should go,” Nico said unapologetically. “This isn’t the kind of rescue mission where the good guys automatically win because they have good intentions. This is a suicide mission, at best. Let me talk to some of my old Draconi buddies and put together a proper team.”
“Wearea proper team,” I snapped. “Dante has been there for a month.” I rubbed my chest, trying to ease that nagging knot of fear. “He’s running out of time. I feel it.”
“The Fossa isn’t like traipsing across the rooftops of Venice.” Gabriel’s jaw clenched as he and Nico traded one of their stupid superior looks. “It’s a black site. A hellhole no one ever returns from. Like Nico said, this is a suicide mission,bella.”
“And?”
“AndTunisia is dangerous,” he shot back, as if I were a child throwing a godsdamned tantrum. “It’s unknown territory. We don’t know who controls the Fossa, and we don’t know the layout. Who is waiting for us, or how many guards there are. We’re going in blind.”
My laugh was short and humorless. “Nico knows the layout. How many guards there will reasonably be. And wedo know who controls the Fossa—Giovanni and his endless piles of money.”
Gabriel went still, the muscles in his throat shifting. Nico’s gaze sharpened, a flicker of rage illuminating his pale eyes. I forced myself to calm down, trying to convince my heart to stop flipping over itself and focus on the only thing that mattered.
Freeing my husband and not dying in the process.
“Thanks to Nico, we know more than most about where we’re going.” I tapped that red circle. “We know where it is located, we know about the Overseer, and we know how much money my uncle has spent keeping Dante there. Let’s find some way to leverage all this information.”
Gabriel exhaled slowly, running his tongue over his teeth, formulating his argument forbidding me from going altogether. “Information won’t protect us once we’re there. Tell her, Nico. Tell her what the Fossa is really like.”
I stepped close enough to smell him—cold night air, leather, the metallic tang of pent-up rage. Even sitting down, Gabriel was so much bigger than me, had so much morepresence, that infuriating mix of protectiveness and arrogant superiority that worked under my skin.
My throat tightened at the impossible idea I’d been grappling with ever since last night. The things Gabriel had said. The way he’d looked at that painting of me. The way I was reading more into his comment than I should.
Because there was no possible way Gabriel Dominico…loved me?
Except every time I entertained the thought, my pitter-pattering heart threatened to break through my ribs and claw its way out of my chest.
“This place is a deathtrap,princessa. This is the closest town.” Nico jabbed his finger down on the coastline. “And from there, we’ll have to slog through miles of sand to get there because you can’t dematerialize in or out. By the time we arrive, you’ll be too drained to fight. There is a minimum of fifty guards, all of them bigger and meaner than any Vendetarri.”
His eyes narrowed. “You haven’t fed properly in weeks. You’re weak, your endurance is low, and you are a liability right now.Argue with us until you’re blue in the face, but don’t lie to yourself.”
Nico’s calm, matter-of-fact tone forced me to take a breath and reevaluate. “Fine. I’ll admit I’m not at full strength, but why,” I asked, looking between them, “do you get to decide my fate? Why don’t I even get a vote?”
Emotion flashed in Gabriel’s eyes. “Because I’ve already lost my brother. I’m not losing you, too.”
The words, thick with meaning, hung between us, my heart doing that stupid little dance in my chest as I told myself I was an idiot for thinking Gabriel Dominico had any designs on me other than as his brother’s wife; there wasn’t any room in his heart for anything but his precious Dynasty.
