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Footsteps thudded down the left-most tunnel toward the grotto. Not time enough to think. Only to act.
And so Enzo withdrew his blade from Arlotto’s throat and slipped into the shadows of another identical passage.
Arlotto shot him a fearful glance which became a wide-eyed stare as Enzo left him behind. Enzo didn’t fear his betrayal even without his dagger against his carotid artery. Four-to-one odds—even a fool such as Arlotto could perform so simple a calculation and conclude it best to aid in Fiore’s retrieval rather than attempt his own escape.
Besides, Canello had kept his crossbow trained between Arlotto’s shoulder blades.
As Enzo went, he gestured for the sandolo to withdraw as well. Canello shot him a look of frank disbelief. Zanetta and Ferruzzi, however, put their oars into action, pushing off just far enough to take the sandolo out of sight. Vittorio flattened his ears against his skull but made no sound.
All this passed within a few beats of Enzo’s thundering pulse.
Then, as he peered out of his own sepulchral alcove, he glimpsed a hulking figure emerging from the left-most tunnel. An enormous brute of a man with a nose that had been flattened and poorly pulled out again came just far enough into the hooded lantern’s faint flickering glow to address Arlotto.
“Where is Zuan?” asked the broken-nosed brute.
Arlotto hesitated.
And glanced back to Enzo’s hiding place for the answer.
If rage alone could’ve killed the fool, Enzo would have him dead at his feet.
“What’re you looking at?” the broken-nosed brute demanded at once—because of course he noticed this exchange of glances; only an idiot would miss it.
“I—” Arlotto began, stumbling back on his heels, to no avail.
Enzo slipped further into the shadows. But not far enough.
A knife glinted in the broken-nosed brute’s hand. “You set us up.”
And without further ado, he leapt forward with all the grace and silence of a panther and plunged the blade beneath Arlotto’s flailing left arm.
Arlotto’s shrill cry of pain echoed throughout the cavern of bone like the aria of a castrato resounding off the opera house’s gilded walls.
Enzo drew his sword. The shriek became a hideous gurgle in the two strides it took to bring Enzo to the comrades-turned-combatants. Arlotto was beyond saving, but the brute knew where Fiore had fled, and if Enzo could subdue him—
The brute whirled toward Enzo at his first step. The snap of a crossbow firing seemed to come at the very same moment the bolt itself appeared in the brute’s thigh. This did nothing to halt his advance. Enzo parried the first stab with ease. The brute drew back for another.
A slight splash was all the warning Enzo received before an enormous black shadow leapt between them. A cry of mingled agony and outrage erupted from the brute. The dagger clattered to the ground—for the arm holding it was dragged down by Vittorio’s mighty jaws.
And before Enzo could call him off, Vittorio released his hold on the arm and went for the brute’s throat.
“Vittorio!” Enzo commanded. “Yield!”
Vittorio withdrew at once. His fangs gleamed crimson as he turned to regard his master. He looked as though he would bound to him to reassure himself that he’d done well and Enzo was all right. But Enzo waved his hand and closed his fist, and Vittorio backed off and sat down to await with perfect patience for the next order.
Gurgling gasps wheezed from the broken-nosed brute’s torn throat. No chirurgeon could save him now. Even if Enzo had felt so inclined.
Enzo knelt beside his head. “Tell me where Fiore is, and I’ll give you a quicker end than this.”
The eyes rolled to fix him with a cold stare. The words emerged in a choking hiss. “Where is my brother?”
Enzo took in the frame and the features and realized, perhaps too late, the great resemblance between this monster and the corpse he’d rolled into the canal not two hours past. He found he couldn’t summon a lie. “Your brother is dead.”
The gaze hardened. A grim sort of smile twitched at the corners of the twisted mouth. He drew in a sucking breath and gasped out, “Your musico is in the walls.”
And before Enzo could do more than stare down at the brute in disbelief, a final rattling gasp shuddered through his frame and he lay still, his cold gaze fixed on forever.
“Your grace,” said Canello.
