Page 78 of Just for a Taste

It was crudely taken, with fingerprints on its edges indicating it had been roughly pulled from the camera far before the image set. The photo itself was shaky and slightly crooked, but what it showed was unmistakable: a man in a suit, lying in an uncomfortable position on the ground. But based on the fresh bullet holes in his head and chest, and the even fresher blood pooling at his throat, he probably didn’t care. The only brightness in the photo came from his eyes—downturned, baby blue, and horrifically empty.

Bile stung the back of my throat and my stomach lurched, but I swallowed it roughly and winced at the burn. I squinted through tears to discern anything other than a corpse. Part of the caption was scrawled across the photograph itself—some coordinates and a name I did not recognize.

On the back, in that same tight script, was only one word:First.

I’d had enough of the photographs. I couldn’t stomach them any longer, couldn’t bear to see whether the reminders showed corpses or memories.

Convincing myself I didn’t see the others, I shifted my focus to papers. I discovered doctored ledger papers, quickly scrawled maps of unknown purpose. And worst of all, stapled packets with names on them.

I was struck with the memory of the list I had seen on Zeno’s desk, as well as the realization that doing such a thing had come so easily to him.

I rifled through them, and one stuck out immediately:Noor Ntumba.

A trio of candid, stealthy portraits of her taken decades ago, per the date scrawled on the bottom of the photograph that had been taped above more recent photos. All of them had been clearly taken without her knowledge and were attached to pages of information on all of her children and distant relatives, and every address she had lived at. Every client she had worked with. Warrants for her arrest in various countries. Beneath it, several informal contracts.

My hands trembled so violently that the papers became a horrid blur, and my mouth grew painfully dry.

I squinted past the blur as best I could, picking out snippets.

Duca Zeno Giovanni de’ Medici is to be the exclusive patient of Noor Ntumba.

During employment, full international amnesty shall be granted, but upon dissolution . . .

Then, a sentence that made my heart stop.

Administering physician-assisted suicide to patient Zeno Giovanni de’ Medici is a mandatory action should 1. It be determined via a combination of physician examination, laboratory findings, and third-party pathologists that the patient’s condition is terminal, and 2. The patient request it.

Physician-assisted suicide. So that was her unusual specialty.

A pair of ambling footsteps neared, the unmistakable cadence of my other half, as light and casual as ever. I whipped around to face him.

“Hello,mia passerotta,” he said, smiling as warmly as usual. “What are you—”

“Zeno!” I cut in, gesturing to the mass of photos and documents. “What is all this?”

With a confused frown, Zeno knelt and examined the photos. He barely had to rifle through them to come to a conclusion. He met my eyes and spoke, evenly and slowly. “Where did you find these?”

Words eluded me. I gestured toward the box, which had been tossed aside, then pointed to the library.

He followed my motions, darkening by the second. “So that’s what that month here was for. My father was tying up some loose ends from afar. But what . . .” Zeno’s words petered out, for he discerned the answer from the trembling papers in my hand. He took them from me and flipped through them quickly, then shifted around the photos and documents on the floor. “Oh, how touching. So while he was arranging my death, Father did make me my own box,” he said bitterly. “I guess he does care after all.”

A horrified combination of a laugh and a “What?” escaped me. At my expression, Zeno softened and reached out to place a hand on my shoulder. I flinched—and he utterly unraveled at the gesture.

“Oh, Cora.” Zeno slowly rose to his feet and walked off. I raced after him and grabbed him by his wrist, but he pulled away. “You don’t understand,” he said through gritted teeth. “This is me. This is my blood.”

I grabbed his hand. How fragile it felt in my fingers, yet how powerfully it was clenching. “What makes you think you’re anything like your family? You’re nothing like—”

He looked up at me, gaze darkening more than I had ever seen before, his eyes shooting icy daggers into me. “Your ghosts are gone. They’ve been gone.”

Eyes wide, I took a step back, then another, until I had backed into the wall. For several seconds, all I could do was shake my head. The people Lucia had seen, that I had seen since ourritus sanguinous—they weren’t our ghosts at all, but flesh and blood.

“So what I saw around the abbey . . .” I whispered.

“Men. My men. I had them patrol around the abbey, at least two keeping watch of you at all times you were alone.”

“What?” My voice was weak, strength having vanished from my entire body. My legs gave out, and I slid down the wall. “Why would you do that?”

Zeno neared me slowly with his hands raised, as though I were some rabbit on the verge of flight. The way my heart was racing, he was likely not mistaken.

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