Forbidden Kiss

by Shannon Leigh

  “It’s a trap, Rom,” she said.

  Then everything went black.

  …

  The line went dead. Rom mashed the END button on his cell phone and examined his call history. An unavailable number.

  “Shit!”

  “Shall I drive even faster?” Orti asked.

  “Hell, yes,” Rom told him.

  “Jule is in danger?”

  “Yeah,” Rom said, staring at the blacktop disappearing under the Mercedes front end as they sped back to Verona.

  “This man, Pio Mascaro, what do you know about him?” Orti asked.

  “That he’s a dead son of a bitch when I see him.”

  “He is Jule’s betrothed?”

  Rom looked across at Orti. “So?”

  “It makes it more difficult to go storming into the man’s private residence and kidnap his intended.”

  “What are you telling me? That you’re going drop me off outside his front door and disappear into the night? Because that’s fine.” Rom turned his head back to the road ahead.

  Orti smiled. “No, my friend. I meant you might need my assistance.”

  Rom smiled for the first time all night.

  “Mascaro has hired a local security force to guard his house and, I am assuming, your woman. Do you have a plan for getting inside?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Fill me in,” Orti said.

  …

  Pio’s ever-present smile vanished. In fact, he scowled, hard. At Jule.

  “You betrayed me,” he said, pacing the small room where she sat on a bare floor. “I give you everything a woman could want and what do you do when my back is turned? Call that bastard. I thought it would be different this time. I wouldn’t have to punish you, but I see now it’s no different than all the other times. You go too far.”

  Pio stopped pacing and Jule saw one of the two men at the door step away and answer his cell phone.

  God, had she gone too far? Was he going to kill her? How much time did she have? She tried to distance herself emotionally from the scene and study the room, the men at the door, Pio’s fragile mental state.

  What were her chances?

  Slim to none came the answer in her head. She couldn’t overpower Pio and two guards. She’d do the only thing she could do. Talk.

  “I’m sorry, Pio. I don’t understand the rules. Maybe if you explained them, I wouldn’t step out of line.”

  He watched her through squinted eyes, displeasure emanating from his body in waves. The paternal nut-job fled in the wake of this newer, angry man on a mission.

  “Please. I don’t know the history you’re talking about. Tell me.”

  Suspicion ruled every gesture. And for good reason. If she had a weapon, she’d strike him over the head and run for the hills.

  “I am growing tired of replaying the same scene over and over with you, Juliet.”

  Whoa. He just called her Juliet.

  The hairs on Jule’s arms rose.

  “If you would be reasonable and consider what is best for everyone, we wouldn’t have to go through this pain each and every time.”

  “Please, Pio. Really, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The guard at the door who’d been talking on the phone stepped in and caught Pio’s attention. Pio listened for a minute and then nodded. The guard left, disappearing outside the door.

  Jule didn’t like all the whispering.

  “I think you understand perfectly well, Juliet. You always have. You simply play the game differently. But this time, I’m changing the rules.”

  Jule heard a scuffle outside the door and then the guard reappeared carrying a man over his shoulder. He threw him on the floor near Pio’s loafered feet.

  For a fleeting second, Jule’s heart descended to her feet. Rom had been captured.

  But the man rolled over and Jule recognized Rossi’s face. One of his eyes puffed out like a swollen egg and crusted blood from a cut above his brow streaked his face.

  “God, Pio! What have you done to him?” she asked, crawling to Rossi’s inert form.

  “Made him earn his keep,” Pio said, nudging Rossi’s leg away from his shiny shoes.

  “Sit up, man, and tell me what I want to know.”

  Rossi tried to rise up on his elbows, but pain lanced across his face and his head dropped back to the marble floor. Jule leveraged an arm under his shoulder, helping him gain an upright position with most of his weight on her.

  His good eye opened and looked at her. Jule winced at the bloodshot white tissue and semi-dilated pupil.

  “Jule? Is that truly you?”

  “Yes, Rossi. It’s me.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Jule. I swear.” He pleaded for her to understand.

  “Shhh. I know you didn’t. It’s okay.”

  “Touching. But not the reason I brought you here, Rossi. I want to know about the chalice.”

  The chalice. The cup from the painting.

  “I’ve told you, Mr. Mascaro, I don’t know—”

  Pio kicked him hard in the hip, making Rossi jerk back, straight into her nose. Seconds later, both she and Rossi were groaning in unison.

  “You know more about the paintings than you’ve let on, Rossi. Stop lying and tell me what I want to know.”

  Jule tested her sore nose with her fingertips. Yep. It was bleeding. She almost missed the exchange between Pio and Rossi as she tore a strip from her white gown to staunch the flow of blood.

  “Whoa. Wait a minute. Rossi has been working on the paintings, too?”

  Pio met her eyes over the top of Rossi’s head. “Jule, sometimes you can be so painfully naïve, love. Of course he has. The museum group went into bankruptcy trying to reacquire the missing three panels from a private group and Rossi here was the lead art historian on the case. He’s been studying the series for the last six months.”

  He’d been lying to them? Crap. Rom had been right. And she’d called Rossi behind his back. Set up the meeting that led to their capture outside his office.

  Jule pushed free of Rossi and let his dead weight carry him back to the floor where he landed painfully.

  “You asshole!” She shouted. “You lied to me. Set me up.”

  Rossi’s lips quivered.

  “Yes,” Pio said, drawing her attention back to him. “Funny what money will make people do.”

  Jule wouldn’t take Pio’s side if her dress went up in flames and he had a bucket of water, but she wanted to hear what Rossi had to tell him about the series and the chalice.

  “What did you find out?” she prodded Rossi.

  He pleaded with his single good eye for her to understand. “I did do it for the money, Jule. But not for the reason you think. Nonprofits and public groups don’t do half the preservation measures private money can. They’re too under-funded. I wanted the altar reconstituted, the paintings returned to their rightful place. That’s all.”

  The explanation cost him a lot. She could tell by his shallow breathing and erratic pulse beating in his neck.

  She could forgive his intentions, but never his means.

  “What you did was wrong, Rossi. You turned to the dark side and once there, you can’t return. Your reputation is ruined.”

  He nodded helplessly. “Rom knew.”

  What?

  “Rom knew you were double crossing me behind my back?”

  Rossi could only blink his eye, but Jule took it as a yes.

  “Sweet discussion of principles and morality, but not what I’m interested in. Tell me what I want to know. Now,” he motioned the guards forward, who in unison raised the butts of their guns at Rossi’s prone body on the floor.

  “The roses,” he coughed and a terrible wheeze came bubbling up from deep inside. A punctured lung?

  “What about them?” Pio demanded. But Rossi couldn’t respond until the coughing stopped and he breathed shallowly through his mouth.

  “I think the chalice is buried at the monaste
ry.”

  “Where?” Jule and Pio exclaimed at the same time.

  “The garden. Under Lawrence’s rose bush.”

  Rossi fell silent and didn’t say anymore.

  Jule crawled back to him and felt for a pulse. He lived, but would probably be unconscious for a while. Probably better considering what she’d heard rattling around in his chest. He may have betrayed her with Rom, but the man didn’t deserve to lose his life over it. Better he be branded the opportunist he was and blackballed from the art world forever.

  “He needs to get to a hospital, Pio,” she said, looking up at him.

  “No. He needs to tell me which goddamn bush to dig under,” Pio said, anger thinning his lips.

  Oh. OH! Pio didn’t know where to start digging. Which meant she still had a chance if she found Rom and beat Pio to the monastery.

  She had to get to a phone, call Rom back and tell him to head for the monastery instead of here. He could beat Pio if he hurried.

  Pio motioned one of the guards in to pick up Rossi. Jule watched as they carried him away. “I’m serious Pio. He needs to get to a hospital right now. He may not live to tell you where to dig.”

  Pio turned to look at her, his face full of a dark menace she hadn’t seen before. He could care less about Rossi or her at this point. He wanted to beat Rom.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll simply dig up the entire place.”

  He walked out the door leaving Jule and one guard.

  One guard.

  That she could handle. Right?

  She waited several minutes to make sure Pio or the other guard wouldn’t return. Then, testing the guard, she threw the scrap of bloody dress she’d been using for her nose on the floor. The guard followed it with his eyes.

  Raising her arms above her head, Jule stretched and sure enough, the guard’s attention followed the action, mostly lingering on her breasts. As she folded her arms behind her head, she unfastened the closure holding the halter up.

  It sprang free and folded down around her breasts.

  “Shoot!” she said and the guard’s attention fixed firmly on the tops of her exposed breasts.

  She made a show of wiggling around, flashing more skin as she tried to pull the halter back together and close it around her neck.

  After several failed attempts, she motioned to the guard as she stood, clutching the dress to her breasts.

  “Can you…?” she said, holding the two straps out and giving him an eyeful.

  He looked from her back down the hall. And then stepped inside the room.

  …

  Rom knew he and Orti would be at the palazzo in minutes. Navigating the narrow streets of Verona after dark could prove perilous and required a steady hand on the wheel.

  But Rom wanted Orti to drive faster.

  His cell phone rang again.

  “Rom! Where are you?”

  “Jule. Jesus. What the hell happened earlier?” He’d almost grabbed the wheel when the call he’d been on with Jule suddenly terminated.

  He’d thought the worst.

  “I’ll tell you later. Right now you need to get to the monastery and beat Pio to the chalice. Rossi told him where to find it and he’s left to go there now.”

  Shit. And leave Jule? No way.

  “I’m almost to you now. After you’re safe, we’ll go for the cup.”

  Her voice sounded strained, like she held something back. Had she been…?

  “Are you all right? Has anyone…?”

  “I’m fine. But if you don’t go for the chalice right now, Pio will get it and this whole thing will be over.”

  “Jule I don’t even know where the chalice is.”

  “In the garden, buried under Lawrence’s rose bush.”

  “Under the rose—” An image rose in Rom’s mind of Lawrence tending his roses. The garden overflowed with them, but Lawrence had a favorite on the sunniest spot of the rectangular bed.

  “I know which one.”

  “Good. Hurry. Get to it before Pio. And be careful, Rom. He’s really flipped out.”

  He wanted to take the time and find out how she’d figured all of it out, but another plan formed in his mind, pushing his question and answer session on the back burner.

  “All right. I’m going for it. You sit tight. I’m sending someone to get you.”

  “Rom, you don’t have time—”

  “I’m not debating this with you, Jule. A man named Luigi Orti will be there in five minutes.”

  Rom looked across at Orti, who’d been following the conversation. He nodded at Rom.

  “He’ll walk you out.”

  “Okay. God, Rom hurry.”

  Rom hung up. He looked at Orti. Thought about Jule at Mascaro’s and what could happen if either Orti failed to get her out of there or if Rom failed getting to the chalice before Mascaro.

  Either way, it ended tonight.

  Rom took Juliet’s sheathed dagger from his back and held it out to Orti.

  “What is this?” Orti said.

  “Insurance for Jule. I gave it to her once, a long time ago, and she may have need of it again before the night is over. Just tell her it’s not for the same purpose.”

  Orti’s eyebrows narrowed over his large blue eyes in the dim light of the Mercedes. “That’s the message?”

  “She’ll find the answer. She’s a smart girl. That’s one of the reasons I love her.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The open-air museum at the Capuchin monastery was closed, the entrance through the bookstore locked tight. Rom scaled the wall and moved silently through the courtyard leading to Juliet’s tomb. The garden he sought lay further back behind the cloister and from the looks of it, segregated from the rest of the exhibits.

  The perfect place for someone to break in—or dig up a garden.

  Rom remembered the monastery when it had been whole and full of men devoted to serving a higher purpose. Solemn and religious, but a warm and inviting place for meditation and reflection.

  The garden looked different than he remembered it, but after 600 years, everything couldn’t be the same. Rom got his bearings and searched for possible entrance points Mascaro might use. He would either scale the wall or break down the back door, which would create unwanted noise.

  Most of the roses he remembered were gone, and a wave of defeat washed over Rom before he saw the bush, or one very like it, growing in the same place.

  He dug deep beneath the rose, creating a wide trough around the circumference of the bush. Finally, he pulled the ball root of the rose to the surface and there, underneath, wrapped in soiled burlap, was a package the size of the chalice.

  Rom heard Pio approach as he pulled the chalice from the earth. He could sense the man’s malevolence from across the garden.

  “Seems we’re after the same thing lately, Mascaro.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. Unless you do really want to die. I took you as the survivor type, but I will happily be wrong.”

  Rom removed the wrapped chalice and stood, facing Mascaro.

  “I will say it has been an exciting chase. I didn’t expect Jule to follow you to Verona, but it turned out for the better,” Mascaro said. He looked around the dark garden, breathing deeply of the night air. “I belong here. And so does she.”

  “I don’t think the monks would accept a black heart like yours,” Rom said, purposely mistaking his meaning.

  “But they did take you in. To their great grief. You left Lawrence a broken and misguided man, didn’t you Romeo? He could no longer minister to his parishioners, he only had enough room in his heart for your cause.”

  The shock sliced through Rom like a cold knife.

  “As I recall, we met here once before. You have a habit of hanging around tragedy and dead bodies,” Mascaro said.

  “I killed you then, Paris, and I’ll do it again,” Rom said, calling him by his old name.

  “Yes, but felon that you were then and are again, I cursed you for all eternity
. And for that blessed time, Juliet has been mine. Over and over again. Never yours.”

  “Until now,” Rom said.

  Mascaro walked along the pebbled path, gravel crunching softly underfoot. “No, she is mine again.”

  “Never, Pio.”

  Rom watched as Jule appeared out of the shadows, Orti at her back. She wore a torn and dirty white dress that hugged every curve from knee to chest.

  She was the most beautiful and brave woman he’d ever seen. More beautiful than Juliet or the ghost he’d been harboring in his mind.

  “I’m not the desperate waif I was then, waiting for someone else to take action. I’m here to take back what’s mine.”

  She looked pointedly at Rom.

  He loved her. Jule Casale. Body and soul.

  “What do we need to do this Rom?” she said, ignoring Mascaro. She brought the dagger out from behind her back where she’d been hiding it. It shone in the dark, almost glowed with an inner heat.

  “No. No. No!” Mascaro leapt at Jule and some of the instinct Rom knew she possessed in spades surfaced. He watched as Jule crouched into a classic knife-fighting pose, ready to take on her would be fiancé.

  Mascaro smiled, backed off and raised a gun level with her head. “Weaponry has changed, my girl.”

  It was Rom’s turn to yell. “Don’t do it, Paris. It was never what you wanted.” But his call fell on deaf ears.

  Mascaro wasn’t available for discussion. His cause, much like a zealot of old, didn’t allow him to deviate from his path. He had to have Juliet or die trying.

  Rom would grant his wish.

  He ran for Jule, trying to shield her body with his own. He made it just as the bullet spun near, grazing the side of his abdomen before continuing its spiraled path backward.

  Rom didn’t hear another thing as he hit the ground, a searing pain blocking out all noise and light. He assumed he took the worst of the damage and labored to his knees as quick as his body would allow, searching for Jule in the night.

  She lay flat on the ground behind him, her hair spread out around her like a dark halo. A midnight black stain blossomed on the white dress under her breast. A stain Rom had seen before. He crawled to her, a howling echoing in the garden surrounding him. He didn’t know if it was his own voice, or that of someone else.