Any residual sympathy I had been harboring for my sire evaporated.
“You murdered your own brother to steal the throne, then you killed your own sire.”
“Yes. And after that,” he whispered, paper-thin voice weakening again, “the Dynasty was… mine. Fear is a useful thing, Gabriel. It makes weaker vampires obedient. Loyal. Remember that when I’m gone.”
How could I forget when he’d drilled that nugget of wisdom into me since the time I could walk? I glanced at the door, footsteps drumming past. I had some place I had to be. Questions to ask. A chef to interrogate, but I had the source at my fingertips right now, spilling his secrets like cheap wine.
“What about Giovanni?” I asked quietly. “How did he fit into your plan to become Don?”
Marcello’s face twisted into something ugly, nothing but wrinkles and malice. “He knew all my secrets. He betrayed me, then blackmailed me.Me.I had everything in place. Lorenzo dead. Salvatore dead. The golden chair was mine. But heknew.”
“You made a deal.” My pulse pounded. “What did you give Giovanni to keep your secret for six hundred years?”
“Everything,” Marcello wheezed. “His silence cost me everything.” He coughed, a harsh, wet sound that shook the entire bed. I reached for the water out of instinct, tipped the glass to his lips, but he caught my wrist in bony, strong fingers.
“Before I’m gone, before you take over… I must tell you about the Basin.” His grip tightened, his eyes clearer than before, and I froze at that sudden clarity, that glimpse of the father I’d once known. Even respected, once.
“Everyone knows about the Basin.”
“No,” he rasped. “Not the story told to children. If you are to become Don, you must protect the Basin. That is yourrealduty. Youronlyduty. One passed down from Dominico to Dominico, since the beginning of time.”
He closed his eyes, voice slipping into something distant, almost reverent.
“The first Don of Venice was a nobody,” Marcello said. “A warlord with ambition but no divine right. The tribes refused to bow to him, but they were tired of war. They were at a stalemate when a high priestess arrived from the north.”
My skin prickled.
“A witch, older than our bloodlines. Her coven was driven south by their enemies, and she needed a strong alliance.A strong ally. She gifted him the Basin—not as a blessing or an offering of peace, but as a weapon against his own people.”
“What kind of weapon?” I asked softly, setting the glass of water back on the table.
“A weapon where the victims are complicit in their own demise. They took the Basin to every tribe, promising peace, asking for only a blood tithe in return. A single drop of their blood in honor of creating a truce, and most complied. Then he and the witch used the magic in the Basin to enslave them.”
The temperature in the room plummeted.
“The Basin’s ability to judge worth is a secondary magic,” he went on. “That rock is dangerous. In the wrong hands, itbinds and enslaves. And that dark stone remembers every drop it has been fed. I could have been a tyrant, but I was benevolent. Kind, even.”
My blood chilled when I thought of the Compact. Of all that blood sinking into ancient stone and disappearing
“And now this responsibility falls to you,” Marcello husked. “You must do what I did. Never allow that terriblemagic to be used against our people. I don’t need slaves. I earned my position, Gabriel. You have earned yours, too.”
I raked my hands through my hair. This…monster—this male so corrupt and so morally bankrupt, I wanted him dead—had done one good thing. Something I respected, even admired.
Something I could scarcely believe, given how power hungry he was.
I supposed everyone had their hard limits, and apparently, my father’s was enslaving his own people. Good to know he drew the linesomewhere.
Marcello picked at the edge of his blanket. “Whatever happens, you cannot allow Giovanni to become Don. He knows what the Basin can do, and he has yearned to wield that power for six hundred years.” He licked his cracked lips, his lids starting to close.
“All this time, I kept my people safe. My only victory, keeping him from the Basin. My… only… victory.” With those final words, my father fell asleep.
The truth slammed into me with brutal clarity.
Giovanni didn’t want the throne at all.
He wanted the Basin, and with it, he planned to hold our leash. For the first time, I was seeing the true shape of this war we were fighting.
Not a contest for power, but for survival.
