by Monica Burns
Chapter 5
BEYOND the glass of the living room window, Dante could see nothing but the black night. It engulfed the peristylium centered inside the Absconditus’s stronghold like a shroud. During the day, the inner courtyard was a pleasant combination of open spaces and flower beds, but at the moment, darkness cloaked its beauty.
Dante turned his head away from the window to pour a splash of Hennessy into his snifter. He lifted the glass to study the amber liquid inside and breathed in the liquor’s aroma. The cognac’s familiar scent of vanilla and oak tickled his nose. It washed away the memory of the rank smell in the alleyway where he’d found Cleopatra.
Her image flashed in front of his face, and his fingers tightened around the glass in his hand. The woman was an unexpected development. Unexpected really wasn’t a good description of Cleopatra. The woman was more like a ticking time bomb. She’d made an impact on him that still had him reeling.
It had taken every bit of mental acuity he possessed to keep the woman’s thoughts and emotions out of his head. The result had been his inability to suppress his physical reaction to the woman. No, not just a physical reaction. He’d experienced a connection between them that he’d never had with anyone before. It ran deep, and the knowledge made his stomach bunch into knots.
Dante took a drink of the expensive liquor and turned back toward the window. The smooth, almost nutty flavor of the cognac on his tongue was a good first step in easing the tension holding his body hostage at the moment. The pane of glass in front of him mirrored the interior of the massive complex’s smallest living room.
Of the three salons in the house, this one was his favorite. He’d always found this room to be the most comfortable of the Absconditus’s location in Rome. Over a hundred and fifty years ago, a wealthy Rome merchant had built the house using an ancient Roman floor plan. The guild had purchased the house at the turn of the century in order to establish an observation post to monitor Praetorian activities.
Situated in the heart of their enemy’s territory, the property had grown over the years to become one of the Absconditus’s major strongholds. The guild had surrounded and fortified the complex with a high wall of stone including limited access points. When combined with the continuous updates of new security features, the compound was a virtual fortress.
The main building was capable of housing twenty to thirty guild members, but the Absconditus had purchased adjoining properties over the last sixty years to expand the complex. The installation now encompassed three city blocks of fortified living quarters. More than a hundred members of the guild lived in the stronghold, along with more than fifty direct descendants of the first Sicari Lord’s Vigilavi.
Of all the properties the Sicari Lord’s guild owned, Dante liked this one the best. He wasn’t sure why. There were other Absconditus compounds that were far more beautiful. Perhaps it was because this was where he’d grown up, and it was the only real home he’d ever really known. There was little he remembered of his life prior to the day his mother had left him here in Marcus’s care. Even that memory consisted of nothing but bits and pieces.
His jaw tightened at the thought of the mother he barely remembered and the father he’d never known. If his father had lived, would things have been different? Would his mother still have given him up so easily to the Absconditus? Without thinking twice, he blocked out all thoughts of his mother and the past. He couldn’t change it, and he wasn’t ever going to learn his mother’s reasons for leaving him with Marcus.
Dante finished his cognac then set the empty snifter on the cabinet. He didn’t drink on a regular basis, but after the last three hours, he’d needed something to help ease the tightness in his muscles. It had been a long time since he’d felt this uneasy. Cleopatra Vorenus had probably set his work back several months. He ignored the fact that she’d managed to test his knowledge of every level of the Novem Conformavi he’d ever completed.
The minute the Praetorians had taken Cornelia’s daughter almost a year ago, he’d started working on a way to rescue Beatrice from the Convent of the Sacred Mother. Cleopatra had thrown a major monkey wrench into those plans.
Angotti had been a key element to Beatrice’s rescue. The crime lord had to have known quite a bit about the convent’s operations, considering how many times the son of a bitch had visited the breeding facility. There was no doubt in Dante’s mind that the bastardo had enjoyed himself at the expense of the Sicari women held prisoner there.
Dante released a sound of disgust and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. He could only hope that Cleopatra had gotten some useful information before she’d killed the son of a bitch. Once more, a vivid image of Cleopatra’s face filled his head. Not only had her emotions and thoughts stormed the gates of his mental faculties, but he’d responded to her presence on a base level as well. There was something about her vulnerability that had aroused his protective instincts.
What really concerned him was the way he’d questioned his vow to the guild the second he got close to her. Concerned him? It scared the hell out of him. She’d managed to upset not only his plans, but his senses as well. Cleopatra was the first woman to ever appeal to his base emotions so strongly. Not even the test he’d undergone years ago had aroused such primitive, territorial sensations. His primal reaction to her presence had thrown him off balance.
Even if he hadn’t dedicated his life to the Absconditus, she’d be off limits simply because she was Marcus’s daughter. A quiet sound made him turn his head, and he saw Cornelia standing in one of the room’s two entrances. His Praefect crossed the oak parquet flooring and sank into the overstuffed couch a short distance from where he stood.
The neutral color of the soft leather furniture was a stark contrast to the standard outfit Sicari wore when out on a mission. The black turtleneck and pants emphasized Cornelia’s lithe body while the color of the couch highlighted her olive-toned complexion. With short, dark curls framing her face, his second-in-command appeared much younger than she was.
“How is she?” he asked. The depth of his concern for Cleopatra’s welfare made his gut tighten into knots again, but he dismissed the emotion. She was Marcus’s daughter, and it was natural to worry about the woman’s well-being.
“She’ll be fine. She’s asleep now, but Noemi was able to heal her leg wound completely, as well as her other cuts. By tomorrow morning, she’ll be up and about without any problem.”
“Good.” He nodded his head sharply.
He didn’t like the strong surge of relief that sped through him. It was one thing to be thankful to the gods that Cleopatra was safe and well, but what he was feeling was beyond simple gratitude. The level of his response meant his awareness of her was even stronger than he’d feared.
The woman was beautiful enough to be one of Armani’s runway models in Milan, but it wasn’t her beauty that had sent that jolt of electricity through him. There had been something beneath the surface that had twisted his insides up in knots. The memory of how he’d wanted to kiss her made every muscle in his body grow taut.
And he sure as hell didn’t like the memory of how her shirt had been splayed open so he could see a lot more than the top of her breast. An image of dark red lace swam in front of his vision. Immediately, he tried to swallow the lump swelling his throat closed.
“Are you all right?” Cornelia narrowed her eyes at him. “You look worried.”
Worried? He was way beyond that point. He was shaken to the core. Cleopatra was the first woman to make him lose sight of his vow to the Absconditus. Not once since taking his oath at the age of fifteen had he ever regretted giving his vow to the guild. Not until tonight.
“No. I’m just angry that I didn’t reach Angotti before Cleopatra slit his throat,” he lied.
Deus, tonight he was recanting everything he’d learned in the first Tabulati of the Novem Conformavi. One of the tenets of the first level of the ancient philosophical teachings was honesty, and he’d been breaking that disci
pline left and right this evening. He clenched his teeth with frustration at his inability to remain true to his beliefs.
He looked away from his friend’s astute gaze. Cornelia was older than him by only sixteen years, but in many ways, she was like a mother to him. While he was growing up, her strong intuitive abilities had always told her when he needed to talk. That was something his mentors, Placido and Marcus, had never been able to do where he was concerned.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said quietly, but he heard the unspoken disappointment in her voice. “I’m sure the Order won’t be pleased to learn she performed the assassination alone. Did she say why she didn’t have a partner with her?”
“She said Angotti had some information she wanted.”
“She questioned him?” Cornelia’s surprise made him look back at her as she shook her head in puzzlement. “What for?”
“She asked him about the convent. I think she’s planning an assault on the facility.”
“By herself?” The amazement in his friend’s voice made him grimace. “Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know. She wasn’t very forthcoming about her motives. All she said was that Angotti had information about the convent she wanted.”
“And she didn’t tell you what he said?”
“She wouldn’t tell me,” he said through clenched teeth as he remembered Cleopatra’s stubborn refusal to talk. “She tried to blackmail me into letting her join the rescue team before she’d tell me anything.”
“You didn’t agree to that, did you?” The appalled note in Cornelia’s voice made him send her a look of annoyance.
“You know me better than that,” he said with disgust. Regret flashed across his Praefect’s features as her gaze met his.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that even if she is a Sicari, she’s still a stranger. The fact that she’s even here in the complex makes it dangerous for her and us. We should have taken her back to the Order’s safe house.”
“She’s not quite the stranger you think she is,” Dante said quietly as Cornelia eyed him with a questioning look.
“Of course she is. We know nothing about her.”
“She’s the daughter of Marcus and the Prima Consul.”
“Daughter?” Cornelia gasped and shook her head in disbelief. “I knew Marcus had blood bonded with the Prima Consul and their son was taken by the Praetorians years ago, but I didn’t know he had a daughter.”
“Neither did he until a few weeks ago. He didn’t fill me in on all the details, but I don’t think Cleopatra has adjusted to the news quite as well as Marcus has.”
“What do you mean?”
“She thought Marcus had sent me to keep tabs on her, and she wasn’t happy about it.”
“Marcus? I thought you’d found out about Angotti from the tribunal records. I didn’t realize it was Marcus who told . . .” Cornelia’s eyes widened with horror. “Sweet Vesta. He’s found out what we’re planning.”
“No. He’s monitored the Order’s tribunals for years.” Dante shook his head in a reassuring manner. “But Angotti’s sentencing was the first time he’s ever cited a specific case to me.”
“Then he doesn’t know what we’ve been planning?” His Praefect’s expression of panic dissolved into one of relief.
“If he does, it wasn’t because I told him anything. I had a hard enough time convincing you that my plan to rescue Beatrice had merit,” he said in a dry voice. “Do you really think Marcus would be any easier to convince?”
“I doubt it.” Cornelia made a face as she acknowledged that Dante was right. “So how do we explain her presence here?”
“Aside from Placido and me, you’re the only other person in the Absconditus who knows about her relationship to Marcus. So for the time being, we simply state what’s common knowledge. She’s the Prima Consul’s daughter. We’ll let Marcus decide when or if he tells the rest of the Absconditus of his relationship to Cleopatra.”
“And how do you propose getting her to tell you what she knows about the convent?”
“I don’t know,” he grumbled with frustration. “In the span of just a few minutes, I learned she’s as stubborn as Marcus.”
“Well, you’d better figure something out, because he’s not going to be very happy if you take her with us.”
“An understatement, don’t you think?” He arched his eyebrow at Cornelia, who nodded unhappily.
His jaw tightened with determination. He’d get Cleopatra to talk. He didn’t have much choice. He’d raised Cornelia’s hopes where her daughter was concerned, and while she might not admit it to him or herself, she was counting on him to succeed. He studied his friend’s gloomy look as she turned her head to stare at one of the paintings on the wall. There was an air of hopelessness about her that illustrated just how upset his Praefect was.
Cornelia had always hidden her feelings well, but when Beatrice had been taken, she’d withdrawn even more. His friend had lost her husband to a heart attack two years ago, and her daughter was all Cornelia had left. Dante didn’t like seeing her this way. She’d never admit it, but she was terrified for Beatrice. She’d obviously sensed his concern, and she turned her head back to him.
“You’re doing the best you can, Dante. Even if we do get Beatrice out, you know as well as I do that most women either request the Nex Cassiopeia or find some other way to end their lives.” Cornelia’s eyes darkened with pain as she shook her head. “Living through that hell would challenge even the strongest Sicari woman.”
His friend averted her gaze once more, and Dante experienced a sense of helplessness. It was a sensation he didn’t like. He’d made a promise to himself that he’d get Beatrice out of that Praetorian hellhole, but Cornelia was right. Her daughter might actually ask her rescuer to end her life under the Order’s Nex Cassiopeia rite.
The thought of assisted suicide wasn’t an idea he relished, but Beatrice had a right to choose her own destiny. The Order’s law on that matter was clear. A swift, honorable death was the right of every Sicari. But the gods would be cruel to make Cornelia her daughter’s executioner. His stomach clenched at the thought.
While the Absconditus did its best to protect its members, there were times when it wasn’t possible. That had been the case with Beatrice. No one could have anticipated that an innocent visit to a small art gallery in Venice would result in her kidnapping. The Praetorian presence was almost nonexistent in the legendary city, and the gallery’s connection to their sworn enemy had gone unnoticed until Beatrice was taken.
Even then it had taken precious man-hours to link the gallery to Beatrice’s abduction. It was the only time Dante had ever seen his Praefect lose control. Cornelia had come close to torturing the gallery owner during the interrogation, and she’d assassinated him without Marcus’s approval. Fortunately, the reigning Sicari Lord had understood better than most the pain Cornelia was experiencing.
Dante’s second-in-command coughed, and he jerked his gaze up from the wood floor he’d been studying.
“I asked if you’d contacted Marcus to tell him that his daughter was here.”
“Yes,” he said with a quick nod. “I sent him a text message while you and Noemi were with her.”
“Did you tell him she’d been hurt?”
“There wasn’t any point. She was safe, and I knew Noemi would see to her wounds.”
“The name Cleopatra suits her. She’s quite beautiful.”
Cornelia’s statement brought to mind the first time he’d seen Cleopatra’s face in full detail. His brain had shut down to the point where he’d not been able to think straight. She’d affected every one of his senses, and a lightning strike couldn’t have knocked him off his feet any harder. Not even her namesake could have been more beautiful. He suddenly empathized with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
“And Jupiter’s Stone, she has a mouth like Placido,” Cornelia said with amusement, but he didn’t respond. A long moment passed before his Praefect released a soft snort
of laughter. “You didn’t hear a word I said.”
“What?” He shook his head slightly in an attempt to clear the images of Cleopatra’s lovely face from his head. “No, I heard you. Cleopatra has Placido’s colorful way with words.”
Now that his Praefect mentioned it, Cleopatra’s language was definitely saltier than even some of his most hardened fighters. It was distinctly at odds with her beautiful face, but he could see where she might believe it would make her fit in better with other fighters in her guild. It couldn’t be easy being the Prima Consul’s daughter. And now that she’d discovered her relationship to Marcus, it wouldn’t get any easier.
“If you keep frowning like that, your eyebrows are going to fall off.” Cornelia’s voice pierced his thoughts, and he jerked his gaze toward her. She’d often used the expression when he was younger to make him laugh.
“I didn’t realize I was frowning,” he said with a slight smile.
“Quite fiercely, I might add.” Cornelia cocked her head to one side as she studied him with a look of affection. “When you were a boy, I always knew something was troubling you deeply when you frowned like that.”
The observation immediately set him on edge. It had been a long time since his Praefect had been able to read him so easily. He shrugged and smiled with forced amusement.
“I’m concentrating on how to make Cleopatra share whatever information she has.”
“I know you better than that,” Cornelia said quietly. “You always were a serious child, never letting others see how badly you were hurting.”
“Hurting?” Suddenly uncomfortable with the direction in which the conversation was headed, he returned to the liquor cabinet and poured himself another drink. “You make it sound like I was miserable as a child. I had a happy childhood here in the Absconditus.”
