Page 4 of Reign
“Who signed off?” I ask.
Kai points to the signatures. “Helena Byrne, Kieran King, Stefano Reyes, and Alonso Conti before he was killed last week. But the final endorsement came from Vincenzo Vieri himself.”
I lower the papers without really seeing them now. “Vincenzo Vieri.”
“Yes,” Kai answers, although my statement wasn’t really a question.
Vieri.
My enemy since birth.
That much has always remained. Even walking half-dead years ago, with my head split open and my memories burned out, that truth sat intact beneath my skin.
Vieri is the enemy. Vieri blood is poison. Vieri men smile while their hands are already around your throat. I remember enough around the edges of the war to know what shape came after.
I healed. I hunted the Dragna down to extinction for what they did to me. I finished the mission I was sent to Vintermoor for—although the bullet went into his mirror, Silvano. It should’ve felt like failure, but Vieri blood looked the same when it hit the floor.
I’ve crossed paths with the Vieri empire only through shipments, rumors, retaliations, and the occasional gunfight. Never face-to-face.
“Where are they proposing we meet?” I ask.
“Bucharest.”
I hum. “That’s convenient.”
I set the folder down and move to stand by the window. Outside, dusk has begun to creep across the grounds, turning the pines black at the edges. Soldiers move below in disciplined lines, headlights cutting over gravel.
Saint Helena looks serene from up here—that’s the beauty of fortresses. They’re the prettiest from the angle that hides the corpses.
I rest one hand on the cold stone of the windowsill and let the silence stretch.
My father would tell me to ignore the summons and make them come here instead, since Ruslan has zero trust in anything when it comes to the Italians. He would say to go armed to the teeth and assume treachery even before the plane takes off.
I will always take advice from the man who single-handedly saved our family from ruin. We may not see eye-to-eye a lot of the time, but his advice is gold whenever he decides to bestow it on me.
“Your father heard about the invitation,” Kai says behind me, and I offer a humorless laugh. “He thinks Vieri wants to size you up.”
I turn from the window and shake my head. “No, he already knows what I am.”
Kai meets my gaze evenly. “Then he wants something else.”
That possibility sits ugly in my mouth. Men like Vincenzo Vieri never move pieces without purpose. From everything I’ve had reported over the years, he rules the exact way I expected a Vieri heir would if you gave him enough corpses to climb over.
Efficient and ruthless. Elegant in public, filth underneath. Married for politics. Cold enough to make his own men nervous.
He’s the kind of king who understands that brutality is more effective when delivered with clean cuffs and expensive whiskey. I should respect that; maybe I do. But respect doesn’t keep a man from becoming a target.
Kai shifts his weight slightly, and I know he’s studying me as carefully as he ever does when the room goes quiet. “You’ll go.”
I glance down at the folder again, then out at the darkening grounds and feel that strange internal drag I always seem to get when I think of the Vieri name.
Memory? Irritation? As if my body knows something my mind can’t be bothered to retrieve.
I smile without warmth. “Of course I’ll fucking go.”
That gets me the faintest exhale from him. I move back to the desk and flip the folder shut.
“We don’t ignore invitations from men who think they’re our equals. We attend, we let them look, and then we remind them why their predecessors exiled our bloodline in the first place.”
