Page 4 of Siege of Blood and Betrayal
Being an heir to a Fondatori King or Queen brings with it a unique perspective and pressures.
It works to bond you as—if not friends, then at least comrades-in-arms. To watch as first Heinrich, then Deiter, Fritz, Johann, and Greta are each beheaded and left to burn to ash is sickening.
Still, I don’t react.
Tapping into my training, I lock down my emotions. I stand unaffected as people I knew and held a genuine fondness for blow into the wind.
The scorch marks on the concrete rooftop are hard to stomach, but I remain visibly unmoved.
“Proof of death provided.” Miller’s arrogant smirk makes me want to launch across the table and rip his head off. I can’t imagine the restraint it’s costing my father to remain in his seat. “I assume that settles the matter?”
There’s a general grumbling, but little more is said.
“If a Fondatori King wasn’t strong enough to hold his position against my pathetic ‘outlier seethe’, the honor of ruling that city shouldn’t have been his to begin with,” Miller gloats.
“Complacency is not the same as weakness.” Father’s tone is tight, but even. “And rest assured that after realizing someone of your ilk would challenge someone of ours, this will not happen again.”
Miller shrugs. “Hindsight can really bite you in the jugular, can’t it? Doesn’t matter. My sights have only ever been on the Berlin operations. There will be no threat from me or mine to any of you.”
But he’s set a precedent, hasn’t he, Father?He’s shown the half-blood and made seethes that we can be overtaken.
He has. And yes, they will come, I’m sure.
Ashikaga gestures for everyone still standing to take their seats. “With that unfortunate business taken care of, does anyone else have something they wish to discuss?”
CHAPTER ONE
Scottie
The midday sounds of downtown Toronto are shockingly familiar at the same time they are the soundtrack of a dream that faded into distant memory. There’s the constant hum of traffic bouncing off skyscrapers, the occasional honk of a disgruntled driver tapping the horn, and the charming ding-ding-ding of the streetcars as they make their stops.
It’s a very different city than New York.
There’s nothing occasional or charming about the traffic sounds in Manhattan. The Big Apple has its own draws—many of them—not the least of which is living anonymously as an art history major rather than as part of the Vasari crime family.
Not that I don’t love Francesco Vasari—I do.
With my father bound as his Sacred Squire, I’ve grown up with him being a second father to me. He’s a firm but fair man and as long as you live within the principles of his code, you’re fine.
If not, you’re very muchnotfine.
Gripping the shoulder straps on my backpack, I duck into the side alley on the block behind the Vasari compound and close the distance to my childhood home.
To the outside world, it’s simply a city block in the Financial District of Toronto. Running from Richmond Street West to Adelaide, and from York Street to Sheppard, it encompasses several office towers that house Bell, Google, six restaurants, a parking garage, a walk-in medical clinic, a barbershop, and more.
Those are the foundation of the legal businesses of the Vasari empire.
But, like many things in business, it’s location, location, location, because the compound is connected to Toronto’s underground PATH tunnels and that makes it possible for vampires to get around during the day to run their illegal businesses.
Those include things like assassinations, the theft, smuggling, and brokering of magical objects, dealing in the blood trade, and filling feeding quotas for paranormal beings who can’t blend in with humanity the way vampires can.
From the outside, the family business ventures may seem morally reprehensible, but if Francesco Vasari wasn’t the man in charge, the vacuum of violence would be filled by someone with less integrity.
That would be even worse.
Many people don’t realize there is an underground city below the downtown core, or the advantage that system of tunnels and shops offers a ruling family of true-blood vampires.
Local humans think it’s about avoiding the cold, slush, and snow while navigating from Union Station to their office buildings during the winter.
