Page 93 of Fastest Kill

Serapis looked around the room. At Leo, who carried Niccolò's face and magic. At Kon and Athena, who he had helped bring into existence and then stepped back and watched become people he couldn't have designed if he had tried. At Rodrigo and Dario, who were his nephews whom he had loved and mentored as they grew up, before glancing at all the others that made up their bloodthirsty, unique, and ragtag found family.

Serapis smiled."Your father always said that knowledge was the only real weapon apart from the strength of family. I think he would have wanted this."

"We can start small. You can be on probation for a while, and we will see if we can really trust you," Athena said, her chin lifting.

Kon's smile sharpened. "Besides, we can always kill you later if we need to."

"I would expect nothing less from children of mine," Serapis replied, his eyes flaring with a new kind of fire.

Rodrigo led the tired group as they made their way back through the tunnels. Dario took the rear with Frederica, Kon, and Athena.

Partway through, the tunnel filled with the roar of Athena's flamethrower.

"She's been waiting to use that thing again for a while," Kon said from behind them with an affectionate chuckle.

"I can hear you," Athena said cheerfully, from the back of the column. Another burst of flame. "You're welcome, by the way. No chance of reanimation now."

"Is she torching all of the weird zombie things?" Dario asked.

"Of course she is," Kon said. "It's the easiest way to get rid of a lot of bodies."

"Good," Frederica said. "They give me the fucking creeps even with their heads cut off."

"Some days I genuinely love my life," Athena announced to nobody in particular.

They went out the same way Dario and Frederica had come in, and by the time they poured out through the old tomb, the sky over Cologne was pale at the horizon.

After being stuck in the tunnels all night, Dario stood for a moment, doing nothing but breathing the fresh air.

"Finally, I'm going to smell that place in my nightmares," Frederica said from beside him.

Despina took a deep inhale before she turned to Frederica and took her face in her hands. "Now that we have a moment, I want you to know that I had no doubt you would come for me. My weapon. My heart. I'm so glad I had a chance to fight beside you." She kissed Frederica's cheek and held her close. Despina glanced over her daughter's shoulder at Dario. "You're not so bad either for a malakas gigolo."

"Thank you?" Dario said with an awkward laugh. Despina let go of Frederica and yanked him down into a hug. She kissed him on the cheek and whispered in his ear, "You hurt my daughter, and I will tie you to a rock and let crabs slowly eat you alive."

Dario grinned and hugged her tighter. "Sounds fair."

"I can't believe that I'm gone for five minutes, and men are already trying to steal you away from me. How typical! This is Shanghai in '98 all over again," Tore called out. He was limping badly, and he hadn't stayed in the van, but nobody who knew Tore Alesci would have expected him to.

"My love, how many times do I have to tell you that Shanghai was strategic flirting so I could get the hotel key from his pocket?" Despina countered, hands on her hips.

Tore reached them and put one arm around Despina and one around Frederica. "My girls. My fierce, impossible girls."

Despina said something in Greek, low and fierce, against Tore's neck. Tore kissed her and replied in Italian that he knew and that she was fine and that he had never doubted her for a second.

Frederica's eyes found Dario across the gravel path and softened in a way that sent his heart into overdrive. He had been in a lot of places in his life. He had stood in many rooms and surveyed many situations with a practiced eye, learning to read any space he walked into and understand what it wanted from him.

He had never been this content to simply stand somewhere and not want to be anywhere else. He winked flirtily at Frederica, and she rolled her eyes at him, which was the most Frederica thing she could have done, and Dario thought: Yes to this. All of it. With her. Always.

41

The Colleoni jet smelled of coffee, alcohol, and smoke, and was full of exhausted people who had decided being unconscious was the most reasonable response to the last twenty hours.

Rodrigo and Giana had the recliners at the front, Rodrigo's hand still loosely wrapped around hers, even in sleep. Leo was folded into the window seat with his head on Dante's shoulder, and Dante was the only person on the plane who looked fully comfortable, which tracked.

Silas had taken the couch on the port side with Iz and was snoring softly. Altun had her seat fully reclined next to Julian, wearing her eye mask and with one leg over his. Kon and Athena were tangled together in the two rear recliners with the easy intimacy of people who had long since stopped caring what anyone thought.

The private room at the tail of the plane had been claimed before wheels-up. Tore had announced, with a pained groan, that his injuries required the bed. Despina had agreed immediately, and Frederica had known before the door clicked shut that her father's injuries weren't going to stop them from making up for lost time.