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“You can buy more than that,” Fiore told him with another easy smile.
Most gentlemen took the hint at that point. Some took him up on the offer. Others declined and departed.
This fellow, however, seemed indecisive.
Which still wasn’t unusual in Fiore’s line of work. He’d assisted several gentlemen who felt ill-at-ease with their own desires, and only through patient and gentle coaxing could they be persuaded to ask for what they wanted, much less receive it. To this end, Fiore gave the fellow an encouraging smile.
The fellow did not return it. “Let’s start with a drink.”
Again, not the first of Fiore’s gentlemen to require liquid courage to seize their chance with him. Perhaps it was his first time with a courtesan. Or perhaps his first time with another man. Or perhaps even his first time with anyone. Nothing Fiore hadn’t dealt with before. And handily.
The fellow ordered two glasses of wine. Corelli poured them. The fellow took them from her and handed one to Fiore. Not a strictly necessary gesture—they sat at the bar side-by-side, and Corelli had put down the glasses between them both—but perhaps the fellow meant to play the gentleman. Fiore accepted it with his most graceful smile. Which only seemed to throw the fellow off further.
The fellow cleared his throat and raised his glass.
Fiore clinked the rims together and took a sip. It tasted a little off. Not Corelli’s best. Perhaps she meant to make the most of the barrel before it turned to vinegar.
Though vinegar ought to taste sour, not bitter.
Too late, Fiore realized his mistake.
He’d already swallowed. His eyes darted from his glass to the fellow. What incredible sleight-of-hand he’d possessed to dose the wine so quickly and without Fiore or Corelli noticing.
Any doubts as to guilt vanished as their eyes met and Fiore found all the fellow’s nerves had vanished. He now looked quite satisfied. A smile that otherwise might have appeared handsome grew beneath his moustache.
Corelli was at the opposite end of the bar engrossed in the needs of a half-dozen other customers. Even if Fiore shouted, which he wasn’t sure he could do just now with his tongue heavy as an anchor in his mouth, she’d never hear him over all the music and laughter and talk. He set his glass down—hard—far harder than he’d intended to. whatever was in the wine worked fast; he’d already lost a great deal of grace—and tried to raise his arm to alert her.
The fellow’s fingers encircled his wrist before he even saw his hand move. “Shall we dance?”
Fiore wanted nothing more than to tear that smile off his face with his teeth. He summoned what little strength remained to him and lurched to his feet. The deck tilted under him as if the ship had sailed out again to sea.
The fellow caught him with one arm about his waist and the other around his shoulders. “Steady, mate.”
Fiore despised the fellow’s laugh. He tried to tear himself away. All he accomplished was treading on another dancer’s toes.
“Forgive my friend,” the fellow told the stranger. “Rather deep in his cups. Come on, then,” he added to Fiore with that same false smile. “Let’s get you somewhere to sleep this off.”
The fellow strode into the crowd. Fiore, entangled in his arms and incapable of standing without his support, had no choice but to follow.
A particular figure emerged from the throng. Tall. Dark-garbed. Yet thrice-fold too broad to be his Enzo. The strange giant fell into step beside Fiore, opposite the mustachioed fellow, and clamped a massive hand on Fiore’s shoulder. For one fleeting instant he thought he might be rescued.
Then the mustachioed fellow exchanged a speaking, smiling glance with the strange giant.
And Fiore knew he was lost.
The strange giant’s great bulk more than sufficed to obscure Fiore from view altogether. Neither Serafina nor Corelli would witness his disappearance. A hundred strangers surged around him. None had noticed anything amiss. A wave of despair joined the rising tide of Fiore’s fear. Shadows crept into the corners of his eyes, growing in pulses that matched the throbbing in his skull.
His captors steered him towards the gang-plank leading off the ship. Where they took him from there, he knew not, as the shadows overcame him and he pitched headlong into darkness.
~
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“…enough for proof, at least.”
The voice echoed through Fiore’s muddled mind as if from underwater. He came up from it by degrees, each breath he drew stronger than the last, and every pulse of his heart cleared some of the fog from his vision, until he had a clear view of where he lay.
And beheld a field of bones.
