Page 163 of Devoted

Nico stayed quiet, taking a sip of his coffee, but his hand trembled enough that he spilled some.

“Rom is one of the most gifted vampires I’ve ever known, and no one in Blackwood’s inner circle has any reason to doubt his loyalty.” Her dark gaze roved around the table. “He will be our greatest advantage in the coming weeks, and his intel is impeccable.”

“What is his access? How deep does this intel go?” Gabriel asked.

“Rom knows everything Blackwood knows,” Lucien said quietly from the end of the table. “Romulus is his confidant, his right hand, his most trusted, loyal soldier. As such, Rom knows Blackwood’s every movement, his plans, even his fears.”

“And what is he afraid of?” Dante asked, eyeing Nico mopping up coffee with his napkin.

“Returning to Rome empty-handed,” Emilia said. “Blackwood rules the Bellamorte Dynasty, but he still answers to his council. He swore the Basin was in his possession, and if he goes back without it,”—she tilted her head slightly—“he goes back having failed.”

I turned my cup in my hands. “So, we use that against him.”

“We use that,” she agreed.

“Romulus has been spying on my father?” Nico’s voice was like ground glass. “All these years… I thought he was loyal to Blackwood. If you hadn’t said something, I don’t think I ever would have suspected.”

“Because he’s very good at what he does. He’s been my plant since before you were born, Nico,” Emilia’s eyes softened, as they always did, whenever they landed on Nico. “Now, where was I?”

“Getting Blackwood out of Venice,” I prompted. “So, this Romulus can help us by convincing Blackwood to leave?” This vampire must be damn good at what he did, for Emilia to put so much trust in him.

“That, and he will watch over your brother when he goes to Rome. Rom will keep Luca safe; there is no one better suited to protecting your brother, Emberline. I promise.”

“You mean… our enemies have a Basin,” Dante said out of nowhere, and the table went quiet.

He looked around at us with the exasperated expression of someone who had already figured out the answer to our problem. “They have a Basin. The real Basin, but they don’t know that. Not yet.” He paused expectantly, tipping his head to me.

“Giovanni was gloating at the villa,” I explained quickly, excitement rising. “My uncle was so sure he’d won, he told us all about how he had a mage working to unravel the magic inside the Basin. Which means he can’t even use the relic.”

“And we still have the fake.” Dante grinned. “If Giovanni can’t figure out how to use the real one, he can’t be sure it is the real one.”

Valeria rubbed her temples. “You’re confusing me. There are two Basins?”

“The real Basin and a decoy my uncle had made.” I tamped down my excitement, the way my skin prickled and every hair stood on end. It was too early to get overconfident, but the plan had promise.

“We can use the decoy as bait.” Dante was nodding, as if to himself. “Draw Giovanni somewhere isolated so we can kill him without human casualties.”

Gabriel closed his eyes briefly. “You have it all figured out, I see. There’s just one problem. The mage. If he’s already working to unlock the real Basin, surely he’s able to spot a fake.”

“Not if Emilia spells the decoy to look real. That hunk of rock fooled us, and we’ve bled into the Basin for decades. Chances are, this mage—whoever he is—isn’t a vampire. He surely isn’t from our Dynasty.”

“This could work.” Emilia tapped her nails on the table. “It took me fifty-three years to access the magic in the Basin,” she sniffed, “and I am considerably better than any run-of-the-mill mage.” She paused, thinking. “Your uncle is clever, but he doesn’t know magic, or he wouldn’t have involved an outsider. The decoy is an exact replica?”

No, Giovanni didn’t know magic.

His strengths lay in subterfuge and manipulation, and after our escape, he’d be desperate right now to access that magic, to maintain his advantage over Blackwood.

“They are identical,” my husband said. “Except for the weight, as we found out.”

“Then yes, I could place a temporary spell on a piece of rock so it would smell and weigh and behave like the Basin. I could even make the surface absorb a drop of blood, make the runes light up like carnival lights. Convince your uncle the magic is authentic.”

Gods… what if this could actually work?

There was a certain poetic justice in feeding my uncle’s own duplicity right back to him.

“We have to draw him out of Venice.” Gabriel was staring, his attention fixed somewhere over our heads. “That’s a nonnegotiable. There are too many humans, and as we saw with our own eyes, the Drax don’t discriminate; they kill everything in sight. Those guards, too. It has to be somewhere outside Venice. Somewhere isolated.”

“Remember when he had the entire city hunting for us,” I reminded everyone. “By putting bounties on our heads. We could do the same. Offer a bounty for the return of the real Basin? Make the prize big enough to turn Venice upside down.” I glanced at Valeria. “Your network. Is it still intact?”