Page 33 of Fastest Kill

"I'm the one who set all of this up, and I still nearly lost my nerve getting him through that door."

"You didn't, though."

Frederica leaned on the railing, mirroring his posture without meaning to. The night was warm, the way Rhodes nights were, even heading into the winter months, and from down the hillside came the soothing crash of the sea.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked, and immediately wanted to take it back. It wasn't the kind of question she asked anyone because she usually didn't give a shit enough to want to know.

Dario turned to look at her, which meant now she was stuck with it.

"I've spent a long time being angry about the way my father died. The randomness of it, and that he was in the wrong place for the wrong reason." Dario looked back at the water. "But it wasn't random. He was there because of Gabriella and the Sorrentinos. He was also willing to do whatever that spell was with Serapis. It was something enormous and dangerous, and he didn't tell us. He chose the secret."

Frederica didn't say anything. She had a policy about other people's grief, which was to stay out of it unless invited. She had also found that the trick with Dario was that silence usually made him keep talking.

"My father wasn't a small man," he said eventually, voice softening. "He was enormous in the way that matters. Rodrigo got his ruthlessness. Leo got his face and his magic. I thought I got his…" He stopped and grimaced. "His talent for a room. That was what Gabriella always said. That I was 'useful' in the same way because I could trick people into liking me, where none of the others could."

"And Serapis told you that you had the same talent, but only phrased it better." Frederica leaned her arms against the railing. "So what's eating you up about it?"

"Serapis could be telling me what I want to hear."

"He could be, but he's not."

Dario looked at her. "How do you know?"

"Because he didn't say it like it was a gift. He said it like he was handing you work." She shrugged. "That's how my father talks about the parts of this life that are actually worth doing. Not like prizes. Like… responsibilities."

Something in Dario's face shifted, and she looked away and back at the house behind them. Through the lit windows, she could see the vague shapes of people moving, the warm yellow light spilling across the tiles.

"It's hard to think about how I got pieces of my father and Gabriella and somehow fell short of both of them. I could never measure up in Gabriella's eyes, and I really don't know what my father would think about the way I turned out either," Dario admitted after a long moment.

Frederica bumped her shoulder against his. "You know you aren't the only one who feels like that. When I was small, my father would walk into a room at a party or a job, something like that, and everyone in the room would just… reorganize around him. Not because he's loud. Tore is never loud. But because of some quality he has that I couldn't figure out. Still can't really," she said without planning to, which was becoming a habit around him that she needed to stop.

"It is presence," Dario replied, interrupting her gently.

"Yeah, that's it. Presence," she agreed. "I used to watch him do that and think: I need to learn how he does it. My mother has it too. She's beautiful in a way that is so interesting it draws the eye and holds it, because nothing about her is fake. She can get anything out of anyone, or kill them, with such style that they want to thank her for the privilege. Between the two of them, I thought I had to pick a version to become." She paused and cleared her throat. "I don't have the charm needed to be a good thief. I'm not a honeytrap. I'm not particularly soft or warm or the kind of person strangers trust immediately."

"No, you aren't," Dario said in a tone that made it sound like a compliment.

"I'm aware." She kept her eyes on the house. "What I am is very good at certain things that don't overlap much with either of my parents, which means I spent a long time feeling like the slightly less successful sequel."

"Frederica," he whispered.

"It's not a wound," she said preemptively. "It's just a fact."

"Didn't say it was, but you know what I do hear?" Dario asked, his voice still too soft.

Frederica screwed up her nose. "I'd rather you didn't say it."

"You decided on what you were before anyone else got the chance to try and compare you."

She glared at him. "That's not what I said at all."

"It's what you meant." Dario wasn't looking at her, which somehow made it worse than if he had been. "This 'not-enough' story? You wrote it yourself and handed it out before anyone asked you for it. Just so you know, it isn't how other people see you."

Frederica had the familiar urge to start a fight because fighting Dario was something she knew how to do. It had rules and an established rhythm she could navigate. It wasn't this sensation of someone reaching past her guard without her permission. Dario finally turned to look at her, and she squirmed on the inside.

"Stop it," she warned him, bracing herself.

"I'm not doing anything."