Falcon's Angel

by Danita Minnis

“I am fine,” she felt obligated to say during the examination, and then couldn’t stop herself from asking Armand, “Are you all right?” She touched his arm.

  “I am. I’m fine,” he said, winking at her.

  “Unharmed.” Angelina took his arm and drew him closer. There were no burns, just warm, irresistible skin as always. “Unscarred. Perfect.”

  The doctor had stopped writing in the chart. Both the doctor and Armand were staring at her.

  She dropped Armand’s arm.

  Two days in the devil’s cavern with no food, a trek through the death tunnels and the terrible destruction Gavin’s explosives had brought on the town of Forlì. Maybe her old nightmares of the burning mansion had morphed into the fire dragon eating Armand.

  The doctor confirmed her health save for being dehydrated from her ordeal, and left them.

  Armand sat on the edge of the hospital bed and stared at her.

  “I am fine, Armand.”

  “You are, cara. You are.” She wanted to believe him. “Angel, do you remember … anything?”

  “You mean the fire?” Dragon?

  His green eyes bored into hers.

  She wanted to go home today. She would not have him think her a loon. Angelina lowered her head. “It was a terrible blaze.”

  Armand gave a slow nod. Disappointment? Why? He pushed her bangs out of her face. “Yes, it was.”

  In the silence that followed, she fingered the wristband on her arm, which read Angelina Natale.

  So many lies.

  He caught her hand. “What happened in there?”

  She didn’t want to relive Luciano Biagi’s attack, but if she didn’t talk to Armand about it the wall of lies between them would thicken. She covered his hand with hers. What if she’d told too many lies already and he couldn’t forgive her? “Talk to me,” he said as if he read her thoughts.

  Searching for a way out of her lies, she looked around the hospital room. She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

  Armand zeroed in, as always. “You didn’t want me to touch you.”

  She remembered their kisses in the tunnels and shook her head. “Not you,”

  “Then, who?”

  “The detective.”

  Armand’s eyes darkened. “Luciano Biagi. Tell me.”

  The name brought back the face, and the sights and sounds of the cavern. “He didn’t…”

  “I know. But he did something,”

  She nodded, and he cursed.

  “He said you were dead. He said he would protect me if I…”

  Armand pulled her onto his lap. “Cara,”

  “He was so heavy, I could not breathe. I tried to stop him, Armand, but there was only the nightgown, and his hands were everywhere.” She turned her face into his neck. “He pulled my nightgown up. He touched me. I tried to stop him.”

  Armand cupped her cheeks and held her face close to his. “I know you did, Angel. I know you did.”

  “I couldn’t get to the knife until Jacopo came for him. I was going to kill him.”

  “It’s over now.” Armand carried her down with him to the pillows and tucked her into his chest. “Go to sleep now.”

  * * * *

  “Leave us alone, will you?” Falcon said to the guard at headquarters.

  “Have you come for answers, Marchese Falco?” Alfonso Ruggiero chuckled.

  The guard, who had just vacated his chair by the door, paused.

  Falcon glanced at the guard over his shoulder. “I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  The guard nodded and shut the door behind him.

  Falcon took a seat on the opposite side of the table, across from Ruggiero and Luciano Biagi.

  Luciano was smirking.

  “You haven’t changed at all,” Falcon murmured.

  Luciano’s smirk disappeared. He looked at Ruggiero. “He remembers.”

  “I remember you went down in flames, begging me to save your wretched life.”

  Luciano shot up from the chair, but with his ankle shackled to it, he could go no further. “How can he remember? He is not il Dragone.”

  For the first time since Falcon had seen Ruggiero, the man seemed surprised. Grudging admiration nearly cracked the confidence of his features, but he remained silent.

  Falcon came around to Luciano’s side of the table and leaned his hip against it. “And I remember you can’t get a woman of your own, so you have to borrow. How does it feel to know that you are still not enough?”

  Luciano’s handcuffed fist came up. Armand grabbed it and twisted it at an angle. Luciano wailed in pain.

  “Unfortunately, we need you alive, otherwise you know I would have killed you by now. But I want you to know that when this is over, when you are forgotten in some pisshole prison camp in the desert, I will come for you.” Falcon dropped Luciano’s wrist and walked back to his chair.

  “Did you hear that? He said he’s going to kill me,” Luciano shouted to no one in particular, holding his wrist against his chest.

  “Shut up,” Ruggiero said. “They can’t hear you. Do not worry. il Dragone never forgets.” Ruggiero turned a slow smile on Falcon. “You were shot dead. A bullet through the heart. Did you know that?”

  Falcon did not show his shock. At least he thought he had not.

  Ruggiero chuckled. “Oh, not by one of us, you see. She protected you from us. The farmhands, they were so poor. They would do anything for money. They did.”

  “You bastard.” How can I not remember that? Was I young or old when I was murdered on my own land?

  “You can die.” Ruggiero nodded. “And you will, again. The Stradivarius goes to the victorious.”

  Ruggiero’s words in the cavern came back to him. ’The Colossus is mine, I have earned it. It belongs here with il Dragone.’

  A reward for having me killed over two hundred years ago?

  “Did you know that La Verità’s foundation crumbled into the catacombs below, leaving only one wall erect?” Falcon asked. “The explosion buried your brown robes under tons of limestone, to rest forever among the displaced bones of their ancestors.”

  Ruggiero’s face paled.

  Luciano tried to lunge at him. “You think this is over. It will never be over!”

  “For you, it is over.” Falcon glanced at Luciano and then returned his gaze to Ruggiero. “But your long memory will serve you well, Ruggiero. Live in the past. Where you are going, that’s all the living you’ll be able to do.”

  Ruggiero folded his shaking, handcuffed hands on the table. It took a moment before those hands stilled. His arrogance no less evident in the plain prison uniform he wore.

  “I will leave you something to consider as well, Marchese Falco. You have taken from us. Now il Dragone will not stop until they have taken what is most dear to you.”

  * * * *

  Angelina smiled in her sleep, stretching luxuriously under the satin comforter. Flexing her toes, she ran her hands along the cool sheets. The bed was so comfortable that she’d slept through the morning. She was a little disoriented from the deep slumber of one who is mentally and physically exhausted. She sighed, feeling so much better now that she’d slept like the dead.

  On that thought, her eyes flew open.

  Red, fiery eyes stared down at her.

  She felt the fire. She was the fire.

  Angelina sat up on the bed, looking anxiously up at the ceiling. The Florentine curlicues were not red eyes. They were artful depictions of Italian history. Even the walls told a story in this master suite.

  She wasn’t in Forlì in the devil’s boudoir anymore with its catacombs and cadavers.

  The fire dragon is no more. Armand and his team had seen to that.

  Angelina relaxed back onto the pillows with a sigh. She was in the heart of Rome in a historic hotel on the Via Veneto.

  Armand had never mentioned having an apartment in Rome, and one this lavish was worth mentioning. But he had not mentioned many things.

  Armand was treati
ng her like a newborn. He had bathed her in a huge sunken tub in a bathroom of ceramic tile and gold-veined marble. He’d checked her for bruises and any other signs of mistreatment by the hands of the brown robes.

  There was magic in his strong hands that had deftly loosened her tightened calf muscles. He had wrapped her in a thick terry cloth robe off the towel warmer and brushed out her hair, soothing her with gentle strokes.

  He’d fed her every morsel of the chicken al fresco from the restaurant on the Via Veneto. By the time he’d removed the trays to the kitchen, she was fast asleep.

  Angelina didn’t know anything else until she woke the next afternoon. There was a note from Armand attached to a catalog from a boutique on the Piazza Barberini. She was to order whatever she needed in the way of clothing and charge it to his account.

  He left specific instructions to order lunch, and eat it. She would eat for him, but she had no appetite. Her nerves were frazzled. She had too many things on her mind, ranging from why he had an account with the women’s pricey designer store to what was happening at headquarters.

  But she did not disturb him. They were still questioning Ruggiero and Luciano Biagi. She was relieved that she didn’t have to be there. Armand had insisted headquarters would have to wait to question her. He’d been almost as quiet as she was the last few days, and she knew he was thinking of her in the catacombs.

  She’d been thinking about him as well. The Organization was still a mystery to her. It seemed to be some type of enforcement agency, but that is all she could make of what little information she had been given.

  Armand was being very selective in what he told her about his work. He still had some explaining to do about the aliases she’d found in his apartment.

  Last night, he’d told her only that Giovanni Natale had been a wanted man, and that the Organization had been looking for the Stradivarius for years. After that, she had curled up on him in bed, wanting him to make sweet, soothing love to her. He’d just held her, the ordeal with Luciano Biagi lying between them.

  Now, Angelina realized it had been for the best. Armand always knew what she needed. She had slept like a baby, and missed him again this morning.

  Armand had promised to tell her everything soon and she vowed to get the story from him. Today it was her turn to be questioned at headquarters.

  Angelina took a quick shower. Delivery brought up lunch, which she ate in front of the big picture window in the living room. She was enjoying the view of the busy piazza six stories below with a magnificent fountain in the square when Granger arrived.

  “Did you eat?”

  “Only just.” She smiled. “You can report back to Armand that I had a delicious spinach pie.”

  “Great. Let’s be on our way.”

  “I’ll just grab my bag.” She was suddenly apprehensive, wondering how far the investigation would probe into her life, a life Armand knew nothing about. “Granger, what exactly is the Organization?” She closed the apartment door.

  Granger held the elevator doors open. “Oh, don’t get nervous, this’ll be a piece of cake for you. We’re just putting the bad guys away, remember?”

  Granger was uncharacteristically reserved in speech and probably didn’t want to get in the middle of things. His behavior only enforced the nagging suspicion that there were things between herself and Armand that needed clarification.

  The Organization’s headquarters on the Piazza del Quirinale was somewhat of a surprise. She had envisioned an agency’s smoke-filled, cramped quarters with uncomfortable straight-back chairs facing each other across a metal table, interrogation style.

  The foyer Granger led her into looked more like the reception hall of her father’s private club. There were tasteful mahogany furnishings and a huge aquarium on one wall was filled with colorful fish she never knew existed. She and Granger moved across a plush carpet to an intricately carved walnut door.

  She put a hand on Granger’s arm before he could turn the brass doorknob. “Granger, what … what happened out there?”

  Granger let go of the doorknob and held her shoulders. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” He opened the door and walked down a hall into darkness, leaving her to wonder if the fire dragon existed only in her mind.

  Armand took her hand and led her into the room. He kissed her before pulling out a leather-padded chair. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine.” Her gaze was on the man standing in a corner by a large bay window overlooking the Piazza del Quirinale. He was slight of build and pale, as if he never went out in the sun. The man was dressed in casual slacks but his manner suggested he would be more at home in a suit. He looked like a barrister summoned to trial on his day off.

  Armand leaned back in the chair next to hers, his long legs stretched out in front of him. “Angelina, this is Darien Verdi.”

  “Angelina Natale?” The man queried. He did not shake her hand but held it briefly until she answered. She almost told him the truth.

  “Yes.”

  “It is a pleasure to meet you.” His tone of quiet confidence was reassuring.

  She realized she had been sitting with her shoulders hunched, ready to ward off a blow. But his warm, brown eyes put her at ease. She sat back in the chair.

  Darien took the chair on her other side. They sat together sipping cappuccinos like three companions, with a recorder before her.

  “Angelina, what do you know of Alfonso Ruggiero?” Darien asked.

  “I don’t know anything about him other than he had me kidnapped. He thinks my violin belongs to him.”

  “Have you any idea why he would be after the Stradivarius?”

  “I don’t know.” She was baffled by the question that flickered briefly in Darien’s eyes when he glanced at Armand.

  Darien took something out of his pocket and placed it on the black-lacquered conference table. “Do you know what this symbol is?”

  The heavy gold ring bore the same design as the earring she had pulled out of the mute’s ear that night he had attacked her in Naples. The bejeweled dragon was smaller, but just as exquisite in detail.

  The red, fiery eyes made her head hurt and she looked away. “I don’t know. The men who brought me food in the cave wore rings like that and also these strange, long brown robes.”

  Just a forward lean of his head transformed a solemn Darien into the inquisitor, and she was on trial in a witch-hunt. “How long was Giovanni Natale involved with il Dragone?”

  “I-I…” They know his name … Angelina Natale … oh, my God … What have I done?

  “What is il Dragone?” She looked from Darien to Armand, who were staring at each other. “They were shouting it in the tunnels,” she said.

  Their expressions were inscrutable, yet they were communicating. When Darien sat back in his chair, Angelina knew they had made a decision and wondered what had been decided.

  Armand turned to her. “It is a religious cult that masks its secrets in the guise of the Catholic Church. Alfonso Ruggiero was their leader. His estates and vineyards provide employment for the residents of Forlì. For many, his holdings are the sole means of support for their families. There could be no greater incentive to serve in the ranks of il Dragone.” He picked up the ring. “This is an ancient symbol of paganism.”

  Darien was watching her and she refused to look in his direction. Instead, she kept her eyes on Armand. “But there were so many of them. Did you kill them all?”

  Armand’s grin soothed her. “One can only hope. Forces have already arrived in Forlì. Witnesses are coming forward in the wake of La Verità’s destruction and the ensuing publicity that has exposed Ruggiero’s hold over the town. Ruggiero’s reign is over.”

  She shook her head. The picturesque farming community of Forlì was now center stage in what must be the biggest crime investigation in its history. If she had not lived it, she would have thought it was some television drama.

  “Angelina, let’s go back to your meeting with Luciano Biagi,” Darien sai
d.

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s not here,” Armand quickly assured her.

  “He’s been hospitalized,” Darien added, glancing at Armand. “He had an accident.”

  “Let’s not do this right now,” Armand said to Darien, but he never took his beautiful eyes off her. He kept looking at her, holding her in that emerald circle of protection. “Angelina, you said he was waiting for you at the restaurant?”

  She told them of her meeting with the detective.

  Darien had many questions about her interactions with the brown robes in the cavern. Most of the brown robes had never uttered a word to her. They had made gestures when they expected something of her, so there wasn’t much to tell.

  “We’re done.” Armand stood, halting Darien’s inquiries.

  In Armand’s car, she leaned against the headrest and closed her eyes.

  The interview had only raised more questions. She knew very little about Armand’s work and his connection to all that had happened. But there was a connection, she was sure of it, because he had personal knowledge of this il Dragone Darien had mentioned.

  Armand’s cell phone rang when they entered his apartment, and he took it into the kitchen. Though his words were muted, she could tell that he was arguing with someone.

  Angelina didn’t want to hear anymore, her head ached. She went into the bedroom and closed the door.

  * * * *

  “You’ve been compromised,” Darien said on the cell phone.

  “He’ll live to stand trial, Darien.”

  “I’m not talking about what you did to Luciano Biagi. I’m talking about why you did it. This girl, she is affecting you, roaming free like this. We need to take her in.”

  “You sound like Granger. No, I take that back. He’s more reasonable; at least he is willing to let her stand trial.”

  “You were hospitalized during this so-called kidnapping. Have you forgotten how easily you could have been killed that night?”

  “Is that what this is about? I can take care of myself, you know.”

  “I am not amused, Falcon.”

  Falcon jerked a hand through his hair. “Yes, yes, I know, you want a conspirator. You think Angelina played a part in the violin’s history by aiding her elderly teacher in secreting the Stradivarius in England. She’s not that great an actress, believe me, she can barely control that temper of hers.”