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Chapter Fifty

LUNA

Alex intuited that we didn’t need to sit around a formal table or even a breakfast nook.

They led us to the kitchen, where Serafina, Mom, and I sat around the island, free to move about while we talked and they prepared little late-night sandwiches.

We clear the plates before Alex can get to them, laughing as they try to relieve us of the chore.

“Sit for a marinetto then!” they demand, placing apéritif glasses in the webs of their spindly fingers. “Please. You’re all making me anxious.”

We sit, and they pour us sludgy ginger-colored liquid from a crystal decanter.

“Americana’s going to want ice,” Serafina says slyly, and Alex chuckles. No ice is forthcoming.

We toast and drink. My mouth is immediately blasted with the flavor of every orange I’ve ever eaten in my life, all at once.

“Delicious,” I cough out. Apparently, this is hilarious. I slap down my glass. “More.”

“It’s not tequila,” Alex says, pouring. “It’s not meant for the frat house.”

I notice I’m the only one who slammed it.

“I want a chance to sip.” I slide the glass back to me.

“She can handle it,” Serafina says. “She’s vicious.” She leans toward Mom. “You should have seen the move she did when she knocked Carmine out.”

Mom leans back, regarding me. “Did you?”

“Got the jump on him twice,” Serafina adds proudly. “I didn’t see the time on her wedding night, in the Castle Ovo office, but I heard about it from Corrado.”

My cheeks tingle, likely turning pink as I remember the rest of that encounter. “I took self-defense classes.”

“No,” Alex says. “A five-hundred-year-old apex predator isn’t caught off guard. Not by a human with a black belt. Or heavyweight champion. Or MMA fighter.”

“He was in stasis. He’s not at a hundred percent.” I take a dainty sip of the apéritif, but my taste buds are shot.

“Still impressive,” Alex says. “Even for a Strega.”

“You’re embarrassing me,” I singsong.

“That makes me very happy.”

“So.” Serafina clicks her cup on the counter and addresses Mom. “Were you ‘in the fountain’ before or after he got staked? Did you see it all burn?”

“Serafina!” I cry. My objection is her tone. She wants the details of a salacious story. “She was a kid.”

Mom shrugs and sips, feeding into Serafina’s curiosity. I don’t want her to tell it all in front of Alex and Serafina. Not about his weakness. Not about Elisabella drinking from him when he was vulnerable. He has to stay handsome and powerful.

“You don’t have to, Ma.”

“I know.” She drinks the last of the marinetto .

“It was like a horror movie. His body was jerking all ways, every way, so fast it was like his arms and legs disappeared, and his chest was bulging like something was trying to get out… but the stake was longer by over a foot.” She shakes her head.

“Like, a little less than half a meter.”

“Through him.” Serafina says each thing separately, as if checking that she’s hearing it right. “Into the floor. Deep enough to hold him. With all that to spare?”

“So, Friday, they’re going in for the knife?” I make a sad attempt to change the subject.

“Your mother lived in a fountain and now you’re interrupting her story,” Serafina scolds. Mom has a look of bemused patience. “Wouldn’t you like to know who had the strength to drive a stake that long, that deep into a vampire?”

“Any fully trained Strega could have,” Mom says. “As long as they weren’t in thrall.”

Serafina, staring at my mother, whispers, “Were you in thrall?”

“No.”

“Did you see who did it?”

Mom shakes her head. “The house was burning. I saw three, maybe four of his kindred go up in flames. I heard more of them screaming. Vampires light like kindling, you know.” She pauses, remembering it.

“Of all of them, Laro was the most unpredictable. He came running, and when I told him where his father was, I figured it didn’t matter.

Flames were spilling out of the window. There was no way he was going in there to get him.

It was suicide. But he didn’t even hesitate.

Not for one second. He ran into the house to get his father. ”

“You admire him,” Serafina sneers.

“It was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.” Mom shrugs and lets Alex take her glass.

And I killed Laro, kind of, more or less, but more more than less.

Like a kid playacting being an electrician, I pulled the plug on the brave parts of him and jammed them into his fear, then put his fear where his joy was, and stuck the joy into anger and twisted the lines of connection into knots until he was a multicolored ball of gummi worms.

Whatever good in him there was, I destroyed it. Then I destroyed his relationship with his father.

“Laro Montefiore is not brave.” Serafina’s voice is a hot bullet and she’s going to keep shooting until she hits my mother. “He is a soulless, murdering animal.”

“Are you too stupid to keep two things in your head at the same time?” Mom has that contemptuous tone she used with me. Was there always affection in it? Is that new? Or did I get better at harmonizing the voice I hear and the emotions I see?

Serafina’s not offended. She’s too pissed off. “Stupid people make excuses for evil they admire.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Mom puts her hands flat on the counter so she can push herself up to standing. “Am I sleeping on the couch?”

“Never.” Alex stands like a shot. “Not while I’m here.”