Val slid his mask to the top of his head. His eyes flashed rage and hurt and betrayal, his brow dripped sweat. He pointed his sword at Les. “This is why you wouldn’t come with me?”
Les thrashed against Grape Leaves, and Diamond Mask kneed him in the stomach. His breath escaped in a whoosh. He tried to double over but Grape Leaves held him too tightly. Diamond Mask wrapped his long hair around her fist. She jerked his head back and exposed his neck. The bruising he’d acquired from the rope stood stark and plain, even in the dark. His throat bobbed as he swallowed.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Val,” I said.
“I saw you together on that roof, Lea. Kissing. I saw you! He doesn’t even have a mask! He’s a nothing! A fraud!”
“Let him go. He doesn’t have anything to do with this. You’re right. He’s nothing. Only a fake clipper, living in Yvain.”
Val scowled and shook his head. “You’ve always been a shit liar, Lea. Even now.”
“What do you want, Val?” I asked. “I will give it to you. You want my pride? You can have it.” Warm tears rolled down my cheeks to my lips. They tasted of blood. “Please let him go. Please. I’m begging you.”
He blinked. “Yeah, that’s clear,” he said, his voice empty. “It’s not very attractive.”
His mockery pierced me like a needle to the heart, and I inhaled sharply. Nik leaned closer to me, his mask pressed against my ear.
“Watch this now, Lea Saldana,” he whispered. “Because you’ll be next, just as I promised before.” He tapped my spine with the edge of a knife.
Val stepped before Les, sword in hand. His fingers tightened around the hilt until his leather gloves creaked.
Les twisted his head toward me. I stared at him, and grief and terror and loneliness and every dark emotion I was capable of feeling filled my chest until it seemed I would burst from it all.
Les winked at me.
Val drove his sword through Les’s chest. He buried it to the cross guard, until the Da Vias restraining Les had to move aside or face the end of Val’s sword.
Anguish erupted through me. I bit my tongue until it bled to stop the screams welling up from inside. I turned away, but Nik grabbed my skull and forced my head toward the scene, his fingers digging into my scalp.
Les coughed out a mouthful of blood. It spattered across Val’s face. Val pulled out his sword. Les crumpled to the ground. His head moved once, and then he lay still.
My fault, my fault, my fault.
Only Nik’s powerful grip on my arms kept me on my feet. “Very nice,” Nik whispered to me. “Now it’s your turn.”
A sharp stab to the center of my back sank below my shoulder blades. I gasped as the cold metal slid into my body, shrouding me in agony, until my body arced against it.
Nik released my arms. I fell to my side on the ground, the cobblestones beneath my face damp from the canal.
“No!” Val screamed. Rapid footsteps closed the gap between us. I tried to reach the knife in my body, to pull it out, but my fingers scrabbled against my leathers, pain ripping through me with every twitch of muscle. I dropped my arms.
Val struck Nik, a loud crack bouncing over us. Val’s fist crashed so hard into Nik’s mask that it broke in half at the bridge of his nose. Nik’s mouth gushed blood. He brought his gloved hand to his face and groaned. Blood Spatter took a step toward Val, but Diamond Mask pushed her mask to the top of her head, standing between Val and the others. It was Val’s sister, Claudia, no longer pregnant.
“Nik had an agreement with Val,” Claudia said. “Nik went against it, and Val was in the right to strike him.”
Blood Spatter glanced between them, then shrugged and stepped away.
Nik yanked my pouch of poisons from my hip and walked off.
Val dropped beside me. I tried to push him away, but my arms bent like reeds in the wind. He wrenched the knife from me, ignoring my cry of pain, and threw it away. A dull ache spread across my body, replacing the sharp pain of the invading knife. Each breath became more difficult until I felt like I was drowning, as if the cold grasp of an angry ghost pulled me beneath the canals.
“Lea!” Val pulled me into his arms, tears running down his face. I turned to look at Les, lying on the bridge.
“I’m sorry!” He held me tight. “This wasn’t supposed to happen, I swear it.”
I wanted to tell him to leave me alone, to flee so I wouldn’t have to look upon him any longer, but I couldn’t find the words. The salty taste of blood coated my lips, and I closed my eyes. I was so tired.
“I found the entrance,” a voice said from the end of the bridge. The man in the hat.
“Leave her, Val,” Claudia said. “The sooner we can be done with this, the sooner I can return to Matteo and Allegra.”
My eyes snapped open at that. Claudia caught me looking at her and grinned. “What?” she asked me. “You thought you were the only Saldana with a secret lover?”
Matteo. My brother Matteo was alive. Marcello and I were not the last of our Family. And Claudia’s baby . . . Matteo was the father, had been her secret all along. But he was a Da Via now. He’d turned his back on us.
It was too late, anyway. It didn’t matter.