Page 100 of Fastest Kill

Tore had left fresh flowers and a small cup of wine at the base. Any trace of his blood from the night Despina had been taken was long gone.

Dario reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small San Expedito statue. It wasn't the one from his room in Venice. That one lived in his bag and went everywhere with him.

This one he had found at a market stall near the Ponte Vecchio. The saint was in his Roman armor, with one foot flat on the crow, the same flag in his hand, reading HODIE. The vendor had said it was an antique from Rome, and Dario had chosen to believe him.

He set it down beside Tore's offering. He lit the spare tea candle he had also been carrying and cupped his hands around the flame until it steadied. He looked at the god's carved face.

"Thank you," he said, quietly. "For the luck. For getting me into trouble and out of it again. Especially thank you for her."

Dario thought about his father. Niccolò would have been in the kitchen with Tore or deep in conversation with Julian, and he would have been genuinely interested in every single person at that table. Not as contacts or assets or pieces on a board, but as people, and they would have told him stories and secrets for hours.

Dario had that same quality, and he had spent his whole life trying to understand it. It wasn't only charm, as he had always been told. It was attention. It was caring about the answer when you asked how someone was doing.

Rodrigo had grown into his ruthlessness, but also into his capacity for love, the two finally finding a balance that let him be both. He may have been talking business on Christmas before dinner, but he had his hand wrapped in Giana's the entire time.

Leo had burned hard and nearly consumed himself, the way Niccolò had feared, but in the end, he had found Dante and himself, and the fire in him now illuminated rather than destroyed.

And Zio Lucius was in there somewhere, the old monster who had loved their family and made terrible choices and carried the consequences across five centuries. He was now sitting at a table with the people who had the most reason to hate him and learning, cautiously, that forgiveness was a thing that existed.

Every single person in that house was a mess. They had been raised by violence or created from it or shaped by loss and cruelty and the damage that came from being loved badly or not at all. They had all found their way to this house and this table and this chaotic, loud, overfull Christmas.

Niccolò had wanted this for them. To have people, some kind of family, and normality around them. A full table. Lots of noise. The comfort of being somewhere you didn't have to perform anything for anyone.

"You would have loved it, Papa," he said to the darkness around him. "And every single person in there. You would have been in the middle of it all night, making terrible jokes at dinner and charming Despina into giving you that damn recipe, probably." He watched the candle flicker. "I think you would have liked Frederica especially."

There was a familiar footstep on the gravel behind him, and Frederica's arms came around him from behind, her chin finding his shoulder. She was warm from the house, wine-flushed and smelling good enough to eat.

"Talking to the god of thieves?" she asked and kissed his cheek.

"Thanking him, actually." Dario stood, turned in her arms, and pulled her in close. She came without resistance, which was something he was still getting used to.

"What for?" she asked.

"Luck and trouble." He looked down at her. "Mostly, for you."

Frederica rose up on her toes and kissed him."You are so sappy," she said against his mouth.

"You love it."

"I love you," she corrected.

"Same thing."

"Thank you for my knight," she said, her hand rising to touch it. "I'm actually kind of glad it wasn't something to embarrass me in front of my parents like a butt plug to tick off your sex list."

Dario chuckled and nibbled on her lips. "That is more of a New Year's present."

"Is that so? You're making plans already, are you, Colleoni?" she asked, putting her arms around his neck.

"I sure am," he teased. "And we won't be having New Year's with any family, that's for sure."

"In that case, I'll pick out a strap-on to bring with me wherever we go," she replied, licking the curve of his jaw. "Fair play, lover. If you get to play with my butt, I get to play with yours and make you into my good boy."

"Don't tell me things like that, or I am going to fuck you in your childhood bedroom in front of all your knights."

Frederica laughed softly and purposely rubbed herself up against him, just to make him harder. "Maybe I would like that."

"Okay, okay, enough, I don't want to be sporting an erection in front of your mother if I can help it," Dario said and smacked her on the ass in warning.