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“In his room.”

“He has a room?”

“Yeah. What did you expect, he should move in with me? He’s in no fit state to go anywhere, and he’s guarded. He hasn’t even asked to go back to the Roma court yet. Think he wants to get his strength up first. Maybe grow his hair back or whatever.”

I shake my head. My life is made up of too many moving parts, and I only give a shit about one of them. The one who is on the other side of the world, getting attacked without me around to protect her. She doesn’t need that, I remind myself. She’s strong, tough. A survivor. She said she was fine and I have to believe her.

I didn’t tell her anything about what was going on here, because she needs to stay that way. Worrying about shit she can’t control could get her killed.

“She find more?” I ask.

Aidan checks his phone, nods grimly. Yvonne has been given access to newspapers and websites. It’s a risk, but I’m convinced she’s genuine about wanting to join us. My instincts tell me she won’t run, she won’t tell, and I’ve got to trust them. She’d devoured all the sources of information she could lay her hands on, a complete news addict. After eight years imprisoned, the world has taken a few strange turns, but it doesn’t take her long to get a handle on what’s real, what’s bullshit, and what’s somewhere in between.

It’s in the last one where she finds the most interesting stuff. Stuff that tells us Tomasso’s app has built up a head of steam, spread through the supernatural world like a powerful new drug. All those creatures, all those monsters, addicted to a game they don’t know the rules of. They have no clue they’re being manipulated, and maybe they wouldn’t care even if they did. They’re having fun, and for some of those monsters, that’s all that matters.

She compiled a list of stories that she thought might be relevant—some from official sources, others from social media, the rest from conspiracy theory websites. Every now and then, a conspiracy theorist might just be right. Animal attacks, gas leaks, mysterious disappearances in national parks. A bus going missing. A care facility for old folk going up in flames. An underground tunnel used by the homeless collapsing. Some were probably just shit luck, but others? They had the feel of something real. Something covered up or so out there that nobody would ever believe it. The human death count is rising into the thousands now, as vamps, shifters, maybe even wolves and the occasional witch get sucked in.

“Yeah. Place called Ronda in Spain. Group of hikers set off on a trail, never came back. Three days later, a leg was found much further south in Malaga in a dumpster. Teeth marks, looks like animal. Though why the fuck they think an animal would put it in a dumpster, I don’t know. Cops haven’t put it all together yet, but Yvonne has.”

“She’s good.”

He nods reluctantly. “She is. Wolves?”

“Sounds like it.” There are large colonies of weres in Spain, as well as all the usual suspects. I know Rosa would be devastated by the way this is spreading, the rate of this sick contagion. She’d see it all in the human cost, as well as the risk of exposure. Me? I see it in the Rosa cost. This will cause her pain, all done under the name of the sister she lost. All created by her own grandfather. It feels out of control, like a runaway train.

Add to that, the fact that I have now persuaded all the Cosca Dons to attend a summit meeting here in New York, and the train feels like it’s about to smash into me.

I’ve got a headache again. I never used to get headaches.

“I’m taking a break,” I tell Aidan. “If you need me, fuck off.”

He nods, salutes me. “Understood, boss.”

I make my way back to my room, going through everything in my mind as I walk. The Cosca families and their annoying-as-fuck leaders. My flashbacks. Rosa’s mission. The deaths that are stacking the bodies high, with or without legs. There’s too damn much, and I’m drowning in shit.

At least one thing seems to be progressing, one thing that might give us an inside edge—a way to end Tomasso Capelli. Matteo and Donna are riding the wave in the stupid-ass human-slaying game and now know that the next big surge is planned for the following week. The Bastard Brigade have been invited to take part and given a club to target. Paladin. A Firenze-owned place in Manhattan. There’s no doubt in my mind now that although the chaos is widespread, the Coscas are being specifically targeted. The Grand Ball Sack wants to rule the fucking world, and if he weakens us or brings us down, he’s in with a chance. We’re the nearest thing to law that the vamps have, outside the Seers themselves. Take us out; it’s the fucking Wild West. That blood and fire and death that Minnie saw? It will be everywhere, and it’ll be too much for the Seers, too much for anyone to control. Apart from the man who spilled the blood, set the fires, caused the death. The puppet master.

I’ve warned the other Dons to expect trouble, to have teams on standby, but at the moment, I don’t have more specific information for them. “Waiting for your magical Seers to tell you your next bedtime story?” Luigi had said, mocking me. I’d wanted to tear his head off, but I couldn’t reach as far as Mexico City. The asshole. I hope we don’t have to rely on Donna and Rosa getting Called, because that gives us very little time to mount a response. Pietro, also an asshole—my life is full of them—is positive he can find the information we need before that happens. Something to do with crap I don’t understand, with words like “malware” and “keyloggers” spewing from his lips. I don’t give a fuck how, but he thinks the extra contact, the messages being shared, will allow him to hack into Tomasso’s own devices and steal his plans. The kid is clever, but I won’t believe it till I see it.

He also suggested he could possibly find a way to shut the damn thing down altogether, a fatal virus that could destroy the app’s network. On the surface that sounds like a solution, but it’s not. It could save a few lives short-term, but ultimately, he’ll just come up with a new plan, a new version. A new game. No, we’re better off using it to find him. That way we can unplug him for good. The people who might die before we do that? Collateral damage. I can accept that and hope Rosa can too. It’s easier if I don’t give her the choice, and Pietro agrees. He earned a few points with that attitude. Is it the right call? No fucking clue.

Nothing feels straightforward or clear right now. Things were definitely simpler when I was just a soldier, obeying orders and living my life based on a fucked-up code of loyalty to Vincenzo and Firenze. But simpler doesn’t mean better, and I wouldn’t change a thing. This world has Rosa in it, and everything else can go to hell.

Still, no escaping a few fun facts. I’m in charge of protecting not only Firenze, but the other Coscas, the humans, the whole damn universe it feels like. All at a time I’m more uncertain of what and who I am than ever.

Finding Vincenzo’s secret chamber literally left me feeling like the world had fallen out from beneath my feet, and the whole bullshit with the Bargain document, the close encounter with my mother, or at least a version of her? It’s all left me off-balance. I feel this sense of constant tension, like there’s something building both inside me and all around me. A change in the fucking air pressure, whatever. Something is coming, and I didn’t need Minnie’s premonitions to tell me that. I was already feeling it myself. A sense of impending change that I can’t quite shake and can’t quite see. It’s hard to kill something you can’t even see.

I get challenged twice before I make it back to my rooms. One male, one female, both now dead and dusted. This is getting old, but at least it gives me something to take my frustration out on.

I strip off my clothes as soon as I’m in the room. Shower and then lock the door and turn off my phone. It’s about three in the morning in Italy, and I need some quality time with my girl. Because some things are more certain than others, and my love for Rosa is one of them. She might technically be away, but that doesn’t mean I can’t reach her. At least I hope it doesn’t.

Since that first time in the hotel in Chicago, where I communicated with her mentally and she both came to me and stayed in her own bed, we’ve never really been apart. We’ve never needed to try and do that again.

Back then, neither of us knew what was happening. Now? We still don’t. But we know what’s possible. She might be thousands of miles away, but I need to be inside her, in every possible way. I need to feel her all around me.

“Bella,” I say, as I sprawl on the bed. “Are you there?”

There’s a little snort, a mumble. She was asleep, which is a good sign. Things must have calmed down.