Page 17 of Fastest Kill
"I might," Dario interrupted.
"Old? That job was two months ago."
Dario whistled. "Nice one."
"See? He doesn't care because he's not a prude like you," Despina said with an approving grin at him before she disappeared back out the door again.
"Thank you for the coffee," Dario called after her.
"What did I say about flirting with my mother?" Frederica growled.
"I can't remember, and I wasn't flirting with her. If I were, I'm sure Tore would shoot me faster than she would." He picked up the coffee. It was strong enough to strip his stomach lining, and when he mixed it with a super sweet bite of the baklava, he groaned with happiness.
"I would flirt with her if she were single. Your mother is incredible," he said, licking the sticky sweetness off his fingers.
"No shit. You're not the first to notice," she replied, opening another file from her stack. "Get her talking about her and my father's sex stories, and I swear, I will kill you."
"Don't worry, I'll do it when you aren't around." Dario wagged his brows at her. "You know, in case they are ever up for a third."
"They have better taste," Frederica replied, turning back to her ledgers.
They worked in silence for another hour. Outside the dining room window, the afternoon had turned gold and flat, the harbor in the distance a stripe of deep blue.
Dario was dimly aware of sounds from elsewhere in the house—Tore's study door opening and closing, something on the radio in the kitchen—and the awareness of it was strange. Not unpleasant. Just unfamiliar.
Dario cleared his throat, and Frederica looked up from her reading.
"Find something?" she asked.
"Maybe. Nine of the acquisitions Serapis bought under his Foscari alias are known to be some kind of binding or containment object. Tablets, knot-work relics, three separate items described as 'sealed vessels of unknown origin.' One Byzantine reliquary that, Tore noted, Foscari was very excited about and insisted had to be intact, no cracks, the seal unbroken," he mused out loud and tapped the relevant pages. "He's not collecting history that takes his fancy. There is a plan to this. I just can't see what it is beyond the similarities."
Frederica put down her pen. "Maybe cross-reference with dates?"
Dario pulled the timeline he had started mapping. She came around the table to look at it over his shoulder.
"There." She pointed. "2019, 2021, 2023. The binding acquisitions cluster every eighteen months to two years. Then a gap, and another cluster."
"Maybe whatever magic these objects have loses its charge after a while?" Dario guessed.
Frederica straightened. "He's not planning on building something. He's holding something together."
"Or keeping it locked up. Like that djinn that was in the fire opal ring. That was a prison. Maybe he's trying to bind another one?"
The room was quiet for a long moment. Tore came through the door and pulled out a chair without being invited. He sat with his reading glasses on and picked up the ledger from 2018. "You found the pattern with the lead tablets, huh?"
"You knew about it?" Frederica asked.
"I noticed it. I didn't ask questions. Foscari was a good client, reliable, prompt payment, and no trouble. He told me once the objects were for ongoing research into ancient necromancy practices." Tore set the ledger down. "I assumed it was an academic thing. Old families have strange hobbies and too much money."
"Did he ever tell you what else he was researching?" Dario asked.
"Not directly. He once mentioned a 'problem of great age'. He said it the way people say things they don't expect you to follow up on, so I didn't." Tore shrugged. "He always seemed…tired. On the inside."
Dario looked at the timeline. A 'problem of great age,' held together with binding tablets and sealed vessels, requiring reinforcement every two years.
"What about this other client?" Frederica said. "Morosini. He seems to be after similar things. How many acquisitions?"
Tore's expression shifted. "Fewer. Eleven, over nine years. Why do you care? I thought you were only interested in Foscari?"
