“So you killed him, and I sired you. How long would you have waited to kill me?”

“I don’t know.”

“After I was dead, would that have been enough?”

The bitter smile spread. “No.”

“If Livia’s plan had worked? If you had ruled the world with her?”

“Not enough.”

“If you had forced Beatrice to take the elixir so she was your puppet. If you could have taken my lover as yours was taken from you… Enough?”

Lorenzo yelled, “It was never enough! Nothing could be enough!”

Giovanni shook his head. “Then you have been consumed by the fire just as Livia was.”

Lorenzo said, “I won’t tell you where the books are, Giovanni Vecchio. You figured out where I would be, you’ll be able to find them, too. Why—why did you keep this horrid place?”

“Why did you come back?”

“Because I want to die.”

Giovanni looked into Lorenzo’s vacant blue eyes, and his son spoke again. “Aren’t you going to kill me now?”

“No,” he whispered. “I am too much at fault for what you became.”

Lorenzo rolled his eyes. “So dramatic. I am a creature of my own making, Papà. Don’t overestimate your influence. Tell the truth, why aren’t you going to kill me?”

He took a deep breath and lifted his eyes over Lorenzo’s shoulder.

“Because she is.”

Giovanni had felt Beatrice enter the castle. She’d waited longer than he’d asked her to. Her elemental energy had filled the fortress, drawing the angry waves as he and his son had spoken. He knew Lorenzo had felt it, too. The amnis of an immortal as strong as his wife was unmistakable.

Lorenzo smirked, then tossed the book he’d held and darted down to grab his sword, which was tucked under the chair. He spun toward Beatrice and their blades clashed together.

His son was good with a blade, Giovanni thought as he watched them from the corner, trying not to intervene. But his wife was better.

Beatrice spun and twisted; the shuang gou she carried moved as if they were part of her own body. Sparks lit the dark room as they battled. Lorenzo ducked and darted around her, but Beatrice moved at a languid tempo as she parried with him. The room was utterly silent except for the sound of colliding metal. The two exchanged no useless chatter as they dueled.

She slid one blade down and swung it toward his legs, leaving a deep gash in his thigh. Lorenzo hissed and parried. He swung his blade up toward her face, but she only ducked away.

She was playing with him.

Her tempo slowly built, and he could see Lorenzo struggle to keep up. Even without the benefit of her element, she controlled the fight, forcing him around the room, pushing him into the corner.

“Because I want to die.”

Even if it was true, when faced with a mortal adversary, Lorenzo was battling as if he wanted to live. Giovanni wondered whether he had changed his mind.

It didn’t matter. Beatrice would have her revenge.

She looped one of the hooks of the shuang gou around his long hair and pulled, jerking him toward her and opening a gash on his neck as a chunk of his hair fell to the floor. The blood sprayed across the room, and Giovanni could detect the moment Lorenzo knew he was going to die.

A strange calm fell over his son’s angry face, even as his sword reached up to block Beatrice. Sparks scattered across the floor as she lifted her blade again. She brought it down against his, and the sword flew from Lorenzo’s hand.

He fell to his knees, weaponless, as Beatrice circled him. The tears streamed down her face as her blades ran around his neck, slowly deepening the bloody cut. She came to a halt in front of Lorenzo, and he lifted his brilliant blue eyes to hers. She crossed her swords at his neck, the hooks of the blade curling around the softest, most vulnerable part of his neck.

Giovanni could hear his son whisper as he looked into the face of his killer.

“Let it be enough,” Lorenzo said.

Beatrice pulled back her arms, and the curved blades caught his neck, slicing off Lorenzo’s head in one smooth stroke. Giovanni felt the sharp ache pierce his heart as the son of his blood fell to the ground, crumbled into a lifeless heap. He was frozen for a moment until he heard her sobs.

His mate dropped her swords and stared at the body of her enemy. At her father’s murderer. The vampire who had thrown her world into chaos. Then, Beatrice pulled her foot back and began to kick.

She sobbed as she struck him, screaming into the silent room and stomping on Lorenzo’s body over and over again, mashing it to a bloody pulp. Giovanni ran from the corner of the room and pulled her away, so she turned on him, striking his chest as she continued to scream.

“Let it be enough!” he whispered, pulling her close so that her fists could not strike. She sobbed into his neck until—finally—she wrapped her arms around her mate and let out a deep breath, exhausted by her rage.

He closed his eyes and whispered again, “Let it be enough, Beatrice.”

Her rasping breath echoed off the walls of the cold chamber. The waves still bashed against the rocks outside. But her racing heart slowed as her anger turned to grief, and she let him hold and comfort her as she wept.

Giovanni kept whispering as he stared at the broken body of the child he had sired five hundred years before. Lorenzo’s eyes stared from the corner, and a bitter smile was frozen on his face.

“Let it be enough, Tesoro. It has to be enough.”