Assassin's Heart (Assassin's Heart, #1)(68)

“Then I can’t leave Yvain. Not without the location of the Da Vias’ home. And they’re already coming for me. It’s only a matter of time before they find me here. If you give me the location, I can get ahead of them, I can plan an attack instead of simply waiting to defend myself. If you give me the location, I will leave, and you and Alessio will be safe.”

“You could flee. Give up on this ludicrous plan of yours. Revenge will not bring you peace. Revenge will not bring your Family back. I know this firsthand.”

Marcello had succeeded at his revenge, had killed those who had killed Savio, his lover. So he had no right to try and convince me of another path.

“This is what I must do,” I said. “There is no other way out for me. I do not seek peace. My peace died with my Family. I seek vengeance and I will have it, or die trying.”

Marcello’s shoulders slumped, and I could see his mind working. He knew the Da Vias coming to Yvain would be just as dangerous to him, and by association, Les. And the only way to be rid of them was to lure them away with me.

He walked into a back room. A moment later he returned with a key similar to my own. He handed it to me. “This is the key they used years ago. I don’t know if it will still work, but it’s all I have to give you.”

“How do I find them? Where is their home?”

“There’s an entrance in the north part of the city, at a restaurant. It’s been too long and I don’t recall the name.”

A restaurant. The Da Vias owned two restaurants in the north part of Ravenna: Fabricio’s and Luca. I had a hard time believing Val would bring me to dine at a restaurant that housed the entrance to his Family’s home, but he was also cocky and self-assured. Either way, I would check them both and see what I could find.

I clenched the key in my fist. “Thank you, Uncle.”

“Do not thank me. I take no joy in sending the last of my family to her death. But what’s a little more shame heaped onto an old man who’s spent his life drowning in it?”

“I go to end my own shame, Uncle.” I pulled my mask over my face and left him in his home beneath the streets.

I climbed to the roofs of the city, my body complaining with every inch.

The night was quiet as I jumped and scaled my way toward my safe house. The moon had crossed most of the sky. It wouldn’t be long before morning. I could leave Yvain with the sunrise.

Three things I’d needed before I could leave: the location of the Da Vias’ home, the working firebomb, and help from Marcello. I had all but the last.

It had to be enough. I couldn’t wait anymore, and Les was right, I hadn’t persuaded Marcello. And I could no longer fool my conscience by saying I didn’t care if I brought Les with me and he died. Because I did care. Somehow he had worked his way under my skin. Seeing him injured made me realize how much it would matter to me if I got him killed for my vengeance. He had helped me for no other reason than that it was the right thing to do. And now it was my turn to do the right thing and keep him out of my plan, keep him safe and alive here in Yvain with my uncle.

The only deaths I wanted on my hands now were the Da Vias’.

On my roof I collected and stored the weapons we’d abandoned. I placed Les’s cutter and other tools in a corner under some burlap to keep them safe and easy for him to find later. I stared at the hole leading down to my little home in Yvain.

It was better this way. It would be easier to forget about Les, to go home and finish what I’d started. What the Da Vias had started. Even if he’d secretly been calling me beautiful.

I couldn’t go inside yet. I needed more air.

I raced across the roofs of the city, the Yvain skyline lovely and still in the darkness of the early morning hours. I needed to move, feel my muscles stretch and burn in pain. I needed to focus on that so I wouldn’t think about anything else. So I wouldn’t think about anyone else. So I wouldn’t think.

But I couldn’t outrun my thoughts forever. When I was forced to slow, clutching my hand to my ribs to ease the stitch that had grown there, my thoughts appeared right where I’d left them.

I balanced on the edge of a roof, gazing at a canal that lazily swirled below me, a boat moored to the building, and a stone bridge connecting one side of the canal to the other.

Below, a man approached the canal. It was early for a commoner to be out. Maybe he didn’t fear the ghosts.

He stopped at the edge of the water. He clutched something in his hand. A wooden staff. I blinked and peered closer. A tall, cylindrical hat rested on his head.

It couldn’t be possible, and yet this was the same man I’d seen at Fabricio’s with Val the night of the fire. He stood here, in Yvain, in the night.

Behind me, something crunched on the dirt of the roof. I turned.

Two men, both in leathers, their masks hidden in the shadow of the chimney they stood beside.

They glanced at each other, then stepped closer. Their masks came into view. One had swirls and the other grape leaves. Both patterns were the color of blood.

The Da Vias had found me.





twenty-nine


I DIDN’T RECOGNIZE THEIR INDIVIDUAL MASKS. RAFEO would have. He would have known instantly who stood before me, but there were over fifty Da Via clippers and I’d never been able to memorize every mask. These were probably some of Val’s cousins, sent here to look for me. Maybe they were the only ones. Or maybe there were more.