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Chapter Forty

CARMINE

Casa Somma is in one of the oldest buildings in New York, yet there are no leaks, no creaky floors, no hazardous fuse boxes. Taxes are paid. Permits are granted. Inspections are passed. Praise the blood of the goddess.

Where else could I sit across from Tommy and his nephew, Orlando Lugano, without painting the walls in blood? Where else could the presence of the old lawyer at the end of the table with his blond seraph behind him calm these impulsive creatures?

Wolves are manageable when they’re just dumb animals, but when they’re smart, as Tommy is, they’re infuriating.

And Nazario Corragio has agendas more ancient than the creature in my veins. He’s not one of us. He’s not one of them. He isn’t alive or dead. He’s not in between, as I am. Was. Before the stake made me mortal.

“Is it her?” Tommy Lugano asks Nazario, while looking at me as if I’m going to lose a staring contest. He’s the alpha of his pack, but I’m not in his little brood.

“I have verified she is a Moonchild and the missing Lugano,” Nazario answers.

“Bring her in,” Tommy says. “I want to see her.”

As if he’d break his gaze for half a second to look at his long-lost niece.

“No,” I say.

“No?”

“You heard me. You haven’t delivered on your side of the deal.”

His eyes narrow, but do not waver. It’s a tiresome game, but one I’ve committed to playing.

“You’re here, in my city, with your guts inside you,” he says.

“Even inside out, I could murder you and your entire pack, or whatever you call it.”

The growl from the younger Lugano is so deep in his throat only vampire ears could hear it.

“Can we skip this part?” Nazario says with a sigh.

“Then bring me my niece so we can get this over with,” Tommy says.

“I came alone,” I say, still not breaking his gaze. “You can’t deliver the access you promised.”

“You produce her or you start running.”

“Look at me,” Nazario says, and when we don’t, he slaps his hand on the table.

We all turn. “The two of you. My goddess, you are all too headstrong to enter into a cell phone contract.” He waves dismissively at me when he sees that I don’t know what kind of contract he’s talking about.

“Tommy Lugano, you called me here to verify and arbitrate. If you trusted him, I would be somewhere else. So you’re stuck with me. I’ve determined you misled him.”

“You always take their side.”

“This level of guilelessness is, shall we say, disheartening. You promised him access to an object that you had, but that you cannot transfer.”

“What are you implying?” Tommy stands and leans into the lawyer as if he can be intimidated. “You want us to go get it for him?”

“There’s the guile I was hoping for.”

“We don’t fetch .”

Tommy thinks that’s a choice he’s making, but it’s not, and it never was.

If I told him to fetch for Serafina, he’d come back with the knife in his teeth, wagging his tail.

But he can’t. And I need to maintain some kind of peace after he has her.

I don’t want a pack of dogs nipping at my heels all the way home.

Humiliating the Luganos gains me nothing but delay.

Luna waits. The coil of my heart sings her name.

The fact that she forced the song is irrelevant.

“Do I need to get it myself?” I say. “Do you even have access?”

Nazario lifts a bushy eyebrow. “You want to walk right into it?”

“You said there are others with Corvus blood in the city. My scent won’t be out of place.”

“Weak ones,” the old lawyer interjects. “But there are some.”

“You”—I turn to Tommy—“have to get me there.”

He addresses the lawyer. “We demand proof of life.”

I nod to Nazario, and he whispers something in Sam’s ear. She leaves through a side door.

“I’ll need entrance and safe exit,” I say.

A series of thuds comes from the parlor on the door opposite Sam’s exit. The staff cleaning, no doubt. The goddess probably has a hundred blond brooms named Sam.

“When we’re out,” I continue, “with the knife, you can take Serafina Orolio.”

“Her name is Sorenda Lugano.”

I scoff. This guy is in for it. Serafina’s going to wipe the floor with him. I feel just a little sorry for him. “She’ll let you know what she wants to be called, and good luck telling her otherwise.”

Tommy Lugano says something about kin knowing kin, but I barely hear it, because the scent of honey cakes and sweet almonds fills the air, and I know its source the moment before the parlor doors slap open.

“Carmine!”

The cry could be any word in any language, from anywhere in earshot, and I’d know it was her voice. It plucks at the coil in my heart, sending a note through my bones and brain.

Luna.

Impossible. Relief and dread. Gladness and panic. I want her near me and I want her safe. Both desires cannot be satisfied here.

When I turn, I find Nunzio frozen as he’s grabbing Luna’s arm. My perception of the room tightens around that one point of contact.

His hand. Her arm.

“Luna.” Her name is the moon, constant, changing, a reflection of light I am too old to use.

“Carmine.”

When she says my name, there are no lying wolves or ancient negotiators in this room. There are no threats from a two-ringed vampire. No danger of him taking her blood. There are no hidden motivations or guileless manipulations. There’s just my heartsong, held back by the hand of a man I made.

His hand. Her arm.

I ordered him to protect her, and now he’s protecting her from me.

“Nunzio.” I go to them. “Stand down.”

He lets go. She launches into me and, goddess help me, when I hold her, I am whole.