I lunged again, faster this time.
Too fast.
Nico slid aside with infuriating ease, pivoting inside my reach. His forearm snapped up, hooking mine, turning my own momentum against me. The world tilted as he wrenched, and I stumbled forward and slammed into the wall, barely stopping my face from meeting stone.
“See?” he said, calm as ever. “Rage makes you sloppy.”
Rage made me alive.
I tore free with a snarl and backed off, chest heaving, vision tunneling. Sweat dripped down my spine, stinging fresh wounds that had yet to close completely, my bad leg still weaker than it should be.
Gabriel had brought his best healer, and after hours of careful mending, every tendon, bone, and muscle was back in its rightful place, but my balance was still off.
Part of me yearned to be back in the pit, tearing my opponents apart until I collapsed from exhaustion. Because my inner monster was far too close to the surface, and I was far too close to Emberline.
She had no idea the dangerous edge I walked every hour of every day.
Kept insisting I’d never hurt her, that I just needed time, except time was the worst thing for me right now. Time had me cannibalizing my own fucking sanity, and I wanted to rip these brick walls down with my bare hands until the noise in my head finally stopped.
I shouldn’t be hiding like some coward.
Thattruth gnawed at me with every breath. Giovanni walked freely through the world, spinning his lies, weaving his web tighter and tighter, waiting for Marcello to die. We should be doingsomething to stop him, not sparring like a couple of out-of-practice teenagers.
At least she was chasing answers that might stop him.
He’d almost killed Emberline.
And she’d forgiven him so easily. I’d spent too much time replaying that scene—Nico, kneeling at her feet, my wife, touching his face. Like I’d been some fucking outsider, looking in.
As if there was something I was missing.
“Dante,” Nico watched me carefully, like I might detonate if he blinked. “You’ve got nothing to prove.”
I let out an ugly laugh. “You’re not the one who got dragged out of the Fossa by his arms like he was half-dead.” Of course, I had something to prove. I had fuckingeverythingto prove.
He snapped his mouth shut and dropped back into a crouch.
I went for him again, vicious this time, no finesse, no patience—just force. My fists drove him back step by step, blows ringing through the garden like a drumbeat. He blocked, parried, absorbed every blow, ancient flagstone cracking under our boots as we circled, breath rasping, sweat flying.
For a moment—just a moment—I almost hadhim.
Then my body betrayed me.
My bad leg tweaked, my knee bending the wrong way. Nico took advantage instantly, shoulder-checking me aside and knocking me back into that fucking wall. We broke apart, both breathing hard now, the air between us thick with heat.
Nico wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and smirked. “You know,” he said lightly, “for someone pretending to be under control, you look like you’re about to burst into flames.”
I didn’t answer. He didn’t know how close to the truth he was.
Nico tilted his head toward the open doors behind me, “Probably doesn’t help that Emberline’s been sitting inside all morning with her nose in a book.” He waggled his brows. “She looked like a painting, with that light hitting her beautiful… ”
I snapped.
Crossing the distance between us in a blink—nothing but raw instinct and fury. Nico barely got his guard up before I slammed into him, driving him back into the wall hard enough to shake mortar and brick loose from above.
My forearm pressed against his throat.
“Don’t,” I growled, every word vibrating with restraint I was seconds from losing, “talk about my wife like that ever again.”
