Page 173 of Rise of the Queen

“You’re still going to be able to leave once this is over. I can’t tell you how long it will take though. Ricardo is a different sort of monster. It’s as much for your safety that I’m keeping you here as it is anything else,” Adrik said.

“I can get information from Sal, if you need it. He’ll think he’s going to get my area of the city if he helps me. I can tell him Igot away from Trino and have been in hiding. I’m happy to help speed this process along as much as I can,” Dario said.

“He really does want to help, not just because he wants to disappear. He wants payback from Sal. I’m not entirely sure why yet though,”Andrei said silently.

I started to fish further in Dario’s head, looking for the answer to that question.

What I found in Dario’s head was not wholly unexpected, but it was surprising that it came from Sal and not Massimo. The reason he was so willing to help us get information from Sal was because Sal had been the one to tell Dario’s family about his family dying when he was younger. Sal is the one that told them Massimo killed Dario’s parents, but Sal also framed it like Dario knew about the plan and was in on it.

“Bubba, you’re seeing this too, right?”I asked, Andrei.

“Yeah, I knew Sal was evil, but this is past even what I thought he was capable of. Why would he do this?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but I want to ask him about it.”

I quickly shared what we’d found with Adrik, who was equally as shocked as Andrei and me.“That’s a good reason to want revenge on a person,”he said.

“I agree. I want to ask him about it and see his reaction. Just ask him why he wants to help us take down Sal. It can’t be just because he wants to go free,”I told Adrik.

Adrik looked at Dario. “Is there another reason you’re offering to help take down Sal, Dario?” Adrik’s gaze was intense enough that nine times out of ten, when he would ask a direct question like that, the person would always give a truthful answer. There was something about Adrik that usually compelled people to tell him the truth. That attribute had only grown stronger lately. His intimidation factor was ever-present, even when he didn’t meanto. Most people got the feeling that he was looking at their soul when he stared at them. It made many people uncomfortable.

Dario adjusted his position in the chair he was in, contemplating his answer. He decided the truth was the best option. “Sal is the one that told my family about Massimo killing my parents when I was young. That wouldn’t have been the end of the world, except he made it seem like I knew about the plan and went along with it. My family was so disgusted with me that they left. Massimo is to blame for a lot of things, and he’s partially to blame for that too, but Sal is the real reason my family left me and won’t speak to me.”

“Why would he do such a thing?” Misha asked, completely appalled at Sal’s behavior.

Dario shrugged his shoulders. “Evil doesn’t need a reason.”

“Dario, you keep talking about Massimo and Sal and referring to them as evil. Granted, they’ve done many evil acts. That’s not being argued here. I’m just curious if you’ve ever seen anything else that makes you think of them as evil?” I asked.

He looked slightly uncomfortable at my question; he didn’t answer right away. Everyone picked up on his unease.

I could feel Andrei looking further through Dario’s mind as well as feel Misha’s nausea as Dario thought about Massimo and Sal. Ivan still felt normal and Stephen still felt normal, so it wasn’t anything to do with Dario himself, but he knew more about Massimo and Sal than he was saying.

He opened his mouth to speak, but then stopped himself, trying to find the words to say.

“Dario, do you know if either of them made any deals? Like say, for their souls?” I asked, just to see what would happen.

His eyes went wide as he looked at me. “How did you know about that?” he asked.

“There’s a lot of things I know that I shouldn’t,” I said. “Which one was it? Sal or Massimo?”

“Sal. Massimo never knew about it, from what I know. He would’ve wanted his own deal had he known.”

We all breathed a sigh of relief to know that Massimo hadn’t made a deal with a powerful enough demon that he would reincarnate into roughly the same person each time. Now that we all knew what we knew, I was slightly disappointed that we’d let Trino kill Massimo. It would’ve been better had Stephen broken him, the same as Armando.

“Do you know the details of that deal?” Adrik asked.

He shook his head no, as he said, “No, not specifically. Sal just told me that he made a deal with something very powerful. He tried to talk me into doing the same. Said he could get my family back. He also promised I could have exponentially more power if I did it.”

“So why did you say no?” Ivan asked.

“Something didn’t feel right. It wasn’t that long ago that Sal told me about it. After that night at the restaurant when Ghost came back, for sure. I think it was when he found out that Sephie knew everything about Massimo. He said then he was going to use her to get to Ghost so he could kill him and that he had enough power to do so now,” Dario said. “It was shortly after that when Massimo and I went to Colombia, so I never heard any more about it.”

Adrik laughed. “His demon also oversold and underdelivered.” A few of us snickered at Sal thinking he would be successful in overthrowing Adrik.

“What do you mean? His demon?” Dario asked.

“That’s what he made a deal with. Basically, he literally sold his soul,” Adrik said.

---