He had me there. But I had rights as a member of the accused’s family. “I want to see him.”
My father huffed and pushed away from the desk.
“By the laws of our House, I can demand to see him, and you know that.”
“It will do you no good. He refuses to see anyone.”
I didn’t buy that for a second. I was sure the only person who’d demanded to see him was Ariana, and my father would never let her witness any evidence of his evildoings. He kept her blind and stupid. That was how he liked all his women.
“Either approve my visitation or not. But if you don’t, I’ll take the story to the tabloids. I’m sure there are plenty of reporters who’d love to run with a Salvatici scandal like this. They wouldn’t even have to verify the facts, just let word spread to the leaders of the other Houses.”
My father’s eyes grew darker and more infuriated. “You would bring them into our family business?” he asked quietly.
“To save my brother? You bet your ass I would.”
My father’s jaw clenched so hard, I thought it would snap in two. “Fine.” He dropped into his seat. “Visit him. But it’ll do you no good. He refuses to speak.”
We’d see about that.
I turned for the door. Marco shot me a holy fuck look, then turned out of the room.
“Luciano.”
My feet paused seconds to freedom. I glanced over my shoulder toward my father.
“I will be meeting with the Grande Cavaliere to discuss your marriage.”
That was not going to go over well. While I was confident they couldn’t touch Natalie now that she was my wife, they could come up with all kinds of punishments for me because I’d broken a House rule by marrying her without permission.
I nodded once, letting him know I heard, but I kept my mouth shut. I’d already antagonized my father enough for one day.
I took another step toward the hall.
“There’s a masquerade at the Favero villa tomorrow night,” he called out. “You will attend, end of argument.”
My stomach twisted into a hard knot, but I nodded again in acquiescence and moved out into the hall.
“Cazzo,” Marco muttered as we hustled down the curved stairs toward the lobby. “I thought I was going to have to break up a bloody fistfight in there.”
I didn’t answer. Just pushed the doors open and moved out into the sunlight. But the fresh air didn’t help me breathe any easier. My lungs were squeezed tight as shit with the knowledge I had to attend another one of those fucking parties.
A party Natalie was never going to forgive me for attending without her, and one I would never take her to even if my life depended on it.
The Tomb where Dante was being held was housed in the catacombs of the ancient chapel that sat on my parents’ property. As I followed Marco into the small sanctuary, I tried to keep the sickness at bay.
I’d been here before. It had been twelve years, but the images suddenly flashing behind my eyes were as fresh as the day I’d awoken chained to a chair in that cold dark space, surrounded by screams I couldn’t help.
I averted my eyes from the altar as Marco led me through a door to our right and down a narrow set of curved stone stairs.
Irony struck me hard. I was sure my father took great pleasure knowing the Tomb was here, hidden beneath the church where my mother prayed daily for their sins to be forgiven. He was fucked in the head like that. And she was just as fucked for enabling him all these years. If there was a hell, I hoped those two suffered in it for all eternity for the things they’d done.
Two guards met us at the bottom of the staircase. I shivered beneath my jacket as Marco spoke to them in the dim light, the air down here cold and damp.
The walls were made of stone, the floor dirt, and eerie orange lights were spaced unevenly across the ceiling of the corridor, making the place look even creepier. As one guard turned to lead the way to Dante’s cell, I noticed a thin river of liquid running down the center of the uneven floor. Liquid I hoped was water and not fresh blood.
Nausea swirled in my stomach. I breathed through my mouth, trying not to smell the dirt and mold and suffering. But the closer we drew to the room where Vittoria had been murdered, my breaths grew faster, and I had trouble putting one foot in front of the other.
I held my breath as we eased closer, but to my relief, the guard moved past that vile room without so much as a glance. He finally came to a stop at the last steel door on the right and pulled out an ancient set of iron keys.
The lock turned with a clank, and the old hinges creaked as he pushed the door open. Stepping back, he said, “Bang on the door when you’re done.”
I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being locked in that cell, and if I was alone, I’d never agree, but I knew there was no way they’d lock Marco in this place. Marco’s uncle—as depraved as the man was—would never stand by while his blood was punished because of me.
I followed Marco into the cell. One lone orange light shone down from above, casting a cone of illumination over the central part of the room. The place smelled like death and misery. But it was the figure on a shadowed pile of blankets in the corner that drew my attention. The figure shivering in the cold in nothing but jeans and a filthy thin blue T-shirt.
“Porca puttana.” I crossed the floor in three steps and whipped off my jacket. “Marco, help me.”
“Mio Dio.” Marco dropped to his knees on the blankets near Dante’s head and lifted my brother’s torso from the ground so I could wrap my jacket around him. “What the hell did they do to him?”
“I don’t know.”
One whole side of his face was swollen and black and blue. His eyes were only half-open, his pupils dilated in a way that told me he was drugged, and his arms were clutched to his waist, protecting what I suspected were more bruises to his ribs.
He mumbled something under his breath that was incoherent and sounded like gibberish.
“Fucking monsters.” I wrapped my coat around him as best I could, then helped Marco lay him back on the thin blanket.
My suit jacket wasn’t going to keep him warm. Reading my mind, Marco shimmied out of his own coat and laid it over the top of Dante as my brother closed his eyes and tossed his head, continuing to mumble in that incoherent voice that sounded nothing like him.
“Cazzo.” On my knees, my palms on my thighs, I stared down at my brother, disbelief roaring inside me.
My father had ordered this. To his own flesh and blood. All because Dante had dared to fall in love with someone my father disapproved of.
“You gotta keep it together, man,” Marco said in a low voice beside me. “He let you come down here because he wants you to react to this. The second you go after him, he’ll throw your ass in one of these cells and do the same thing to you. That won’t help Dante. And it sure as hell won’t help your woman.”
I knew that. But my jaw clenched so hard with a need to retaliate that I feared I nearly cracked the bone. “He did this as a warning to me.”
“Damn right he did.” Marco looked down at my brother. “Which is why you can’t let him win now. Too much is riding on you.”
I heard the hidden meaning in Marco’s words, but I refused to be swayed by them. It was the same damn argument he’d used on me for years, only he didn’t realize it would never work. I didn’t give a fuck about this House or where it was heading. All I cared about was getting my brother out of this hellhole. And keeping Natalie safe.