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The customers parted as Dolph’s assassin stalked toward the back of the barroom to the table where James sat, her dark skirts swishing around her legs and her violet eyes burning with fury. Werner, who’d been behind the bar, started to move, but James stayed him by lifting a hand.
“She’s the girl from the gala,” Logan said, his voice low and urgent. “The one who was going after the ring. I thought the beast crushed her.”
“Such a shame it didn’t,” James told him, his words dripping with disdain.
He’d known all along that Viola was loyal to Dolph, but her little performance on the bridge a few weeks before had changed things. When she’d attacked James in defense of Esta, she’d made herself his enemy. He’d just as soon see her dead, except every instinct he had screamed that he couldn’t take her out of the equation. Not yet. Now that she’d appeared in the Strega, the Aether was rearranging itself, suggesting a new way forward that he had not previously considered.
James himself didn’t stand to greet the intruder. He simply leaned forward a little in his seat, as Dolph might have done, and tightened his grip on the gorgon-shaped topper of the cane he held. He could almost sense the power trapped within the silver. It was a reminder that everything that surrounded him—the bar, the people, and the power that came with them—was his now. Not Dolph Saunders’.
Without slowing her steps, Viola took her knife from her skirts and launched it at him. The air seemed to drain from the room as the blade sailed toward him and landed at the edge of the table, right in the center of the ring he’d been tracing earlier. But James didn’t so much as flinch. Viola hadn’t come to kill.
Not this time, at least. Not any other, if he had his way.
“Bastardo,” Viola growled when she finally stood in front of him. She leaned down, her hands gripping the edge of the table until her knuckles flashed white. The stiletto knife was sunk into the table between them. “What have you done to my blade?”
“Hello, Viola,” James said easily. “How delightful to see you’ve finally returned to us. You’ve made quite the entrance.”
“I’ll make more than that in a minute.” She bared her teeth at him.
“You seem to be upset,” James said, pretending surprise. “Strange, considering that you’re the one who attacked me on the bridge.” His gaze was steady, and he spoke only to her, but he made sure that his voice was loud enough for anyone nearby who happened to be listening to hear. “You remember the bridge, don’t you? The day that you allowed Harte Darrigan to escape after he betrayed us all.”
“You would have killed Esta,” Viola reminded him through clenched teeth.
James leaned forward. “Esta would have deserved it.” He did not stop the ice from flowing through his words. “She chose that traitor of a magician over us.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.” Viola’s eyes narrowed. “Esta is gone and Darrigan is dead, Nibsy. As you will be if you don’t tell me what you’ve done to my knife.”
“Dead?” James let his mouth curve. “Certainly you’ve heard the reports by now, Viola. It’s been in all the papers—Darrigan and Esta were seen outside the city. Alive and well. They betrayed us, and then she left with him and the treasures Dolph wanted so badly and you risked so much for.” He watched the slight widening of her eyes, the way her breath caught. He enjoyed it, that moment of her distress. “Ah… So you hadn’t heard.”
Viola only stared, but James could see the indecision flickering in her expression. “I don’t care about Esta or the damned magician. I want to know what you did to my knife.”
“I kept it safe, and then I returned it to you,” James said. “After I pulled it from my own leg, of course.”
“No,” Viola said, shaking her head. “You gave me Libitina after you let Mooch be taken by my brother, and like a fool I accepted it without looking for the trick. As though we were friends.”
“We were friends once,” he reminded her, ignoring the rustling unease that had gone through the Strega at her announcement about Mooch. There had been questions about what had happened to the boy ever since he’d helped James by setting one of Tammany’s fire stations ablaze. James had pretended as much confusion—and dismay—as anyone, but now he barely cared if the whole barroom knew the truth. Now he cared only for the direction the Aether pushed him… toward Viola.
“I see exactly what your friendship is worth,” Viola sneered. “Tell me, Nibsy, have you even tried to free Mooch from the Tombs?”
James only stared at her, feeling the world around him rearrange itself. Trying to discern the correct path, the correct words. “You can’t really believe I would leave one of our own? I’m doing all I can. Mooch is a friend.”
The barroom eased back into its rhythm, apparently pleased enough with that answer.
“You were a friend to Dolph as well,” Viola charged. “Now here you sit, in his seat, presiding over his home. Tell me, Nibsy, what have you done to avenge his murder?”
“What would you have me do?” he asked, pretending innocence. “You know the position we’re all in now. You know how dangerous everything is because of your failure to retrieve the Book. You were the one who handed it to Darrigan, along with the artifacts, if I remember correctly. Not me.”
Viola laughed, an ugly, hollow sound that had the people closest to them shuffling nervously back. “You were always slippery as a snake,” she told him, her voice dangerous now. “Dolph trusted you, and this is how you repay him?”
“At least I’m here.” James didn’t so much as blink. “When the Bowery went mad, when Tammany’s patrols started burning the homes of the innocent, what did you do? You disappeared.” He paused then, because he knew that those around him were listening. “How is your brother doing, Viola? There are plenty here who’ve been marked by Kelly’s men. I’m sure they’d like to know what it’s like living under his protection.”
“Perhaps you should tell them yourself,” she huffed. “After all, you dined with him earlier, didn’t you?”
“Business,” James said with a cold smile. “I keep my friends close and my enemies closer, the same as Dolph did. All for the Devil’s Own, Viola. All for the Devil’s Own—”
He felt the sharpness of pain in his chest, but it was light enough that he knew she was only toying with him. If she’d wanted him dead, she could have killed him three times over by now. But then, if she’d wanted him dead, he would have known.
“Careful, Viola. My boys have orders should anything happen to me.” The pain intensified so that his voice became strained. Good. Let her dig her own grave. “It would be a shame if something happened to your dear mother. Pasqualina, I believe her name is? She came by your brother’s cafe after you left today. A lovely woman.”
