Page 27 of Fastest Kill

Frederica ran a hand over her face. "It's just hard… seeing him upset. He's always seemed to have it under control when our paths have crossed. He only lost his cool once when he thought Rodrigo was dead. He's…"

"I know," Despina said and reached up to smooth down Frederica's flyaways. "Giving a shit about someone sucks at times. Come on, he'll need that water."

Frederica gave in and followed her back into the sitting room. The files were still spread across the table, the two columns side by side, evidence of a mystery that now seemed small against everything else.

Dario no longer looked like he was about to throw up, which was probably a good thing. He was staring at the middle distance, like he had been given information too large to hold all at once and was mentally trying to find places to put it.

She set the glass of water on the table in front of him, pulled her chair out, and sat down. He didn't look at her. That was all right. She didn't need him to.

"Ask," Dario said finally.

Serapis tilted his head. "Which question?"

"You came to me because you want something you think I'll give you that they won't. So, ask me, Zio."

"Rodrigo is a stone wall," Serapis replied, relenting at last. "He responds to everything from a position of strength, and a man who only negotiates from strength can't hear a conversation. He would have had a knife at my throat within thirty seconds of opening the door. I might have respected that once, but not anymore."

Dario's mouth pulled at the corner, but it wasn't anything like a smile. "What about Leo?"

"Leo would have tried to kill me. He wouldn't have succeeded, but the attempt would have damaged the relationship before we had built one, and I need that relationship." Serapis paused, turning something over. "Leo doesn't have your father's heart."

"His heart. Do enlighten me," Dario deadpanned.

"Leo looks like Niccolò," Serapis replied. "He has his face, his coloring, his relationship with magic. He has a mind like a blade. I would trust Leo with a problem that needed to be solved with precision, because he would solve it without sentiment or error."

He stopped. "Leo has Gabriella's soul, though. The ruthlessness. The capacity to cut ties and move forward without looking back. Your mother told him that herself, didn't she? That he looked like Niccolò but had her soul?"

Frederica had no idea what Dario's expression was because she kept her gaze purposely ahead, but she saw his hands. He had both of them flat on the table, one on either side of the water glass he hadn't touched. His right hand made a small movement, barely perceptible—his fingers curling slightly against the wood, then releasing.

He clearly had heard that story. She could tell from the way he didn't react that it was something he had already known and never examined.

"You," Serapis continued, quieter now, "are the one who has Niccolò's heart. The one who slows down before he acts. The one capable of holding two contradictory truths at the same time and finding the path between them. Your father could walk into a room full of enemies and find the thing they all needed in order to become something other than enemies. That isn't a lesser inheritance, nipote. That's the harder one."

Dario didn't say anything, but his hands had curled into fists. Frederica kicked his foot under the table, warning him not to show that Serapis was getting to him, and he released his hands.

Serapis went on, not noticing the exchange. "Your charm isn't the mask, Dario. Your father had the same gift. The mask is what Gabriella made it into. She took Niccolò's ability to bring people together and turned it into a weapon, and then she handed it to you and called it your one useful function."

Frederica glanced sideways at Dario. The Charmer was gone. Not shattered but absent, the way a coat is absent when you set it down. What was underneath was not what she had expected.

She had assumed, in the armored way she made most of her assumptions, that underneath Dario's effortless grin and the relentless banter, there would be something hard. Something manipulative that knew what it was doing and had made peace with it.

There was no peace on Dario's face. There was something much younger, rawer, and more real. He had spent his entire adult life believing he was the least significant version of something important and was only now being told he had been looking at it from the wrong angle.

Frederica didn't know why that made her chest ache. She kept her face neutral and said nothing, because this wasn't the moment to speak, and she knew it. She would probably say the wrong thing anyway, and then they would be fighting again. It was better she kept her mouth shut.

Dario looked at the files scattered across the table, then back at Serapis, before his gaze finally settled on her. She stared back, trying to be calm and steady. Dario held her gaze for three seconds. He blinked first and looked back at Serapis.

"All right," Dario said, the rawness still in his voice, but he seemed resigned to whatever would happen next. "Then I'll help you with Agrippa, but on my terms. Firstly, Rodrigo and Leo know everything as soon as possible. Not pieces, not what you or anyone else decides they can handle—everything. The files, the history, what you told me about our father, Agrippa, the missing tomb, all of it."

Serapis frowned. "That may not go as smoothly as⁠—"

"I know how it will go," Dario interrupted. "Rodrigo will want to throw you off another cliff, and Leo will try to put a bullet in you. I'm asking you to sit in the same room with them and let me handle the conversation. Which is apparently what I'm good for."

It was said without bitterness, but it was blunt.

At least his survival instincts are still intact, Frederica thought, and sipped her water. That was a good sign.

Serapis was quiet for a long moment, then something worn down and relieved crossed his face.