Forbidden Kiss (18 page)

“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.

Fate crying out?

Rom gathered her into his lap and tore the front of her dress wide open to see the wound. Blood went everywhere.

As gently as he could he felt her back, searching for the bullet’s exit.

Shit.
It hung up inside somewhere doing who knew what kind of internal damage. Rom looked up and found Orti at his back, a gun raised on Mascaro.

“I suggest you leave. Quietly. Back up will arrive shortly as will the police,” Orti said.

Mascaro didn’t move. Didn’t even blink.

“We’ve got to get her to the hospital. Now!”

“Rom, no,” Jule whispered. She was conscious. “We need to finish this. Break the curse. Might not have another opportunity.”

“Screw opportunity, Jule. If I don’t get you to an ER right now, we’re in serious trouble.”

She raised a shaky hand and touched his face. Her hands were cold. “Take me down to the tomb, Rom. We have to do this now, with Paris here.”

Rom turned to look at Mascaro, still holding his gun ready. Waiting.

“My job is only half complete. Let’s finish this Romeo. The way it was meant to be.” Mascaro raised his gun and fired a second time, past Orti. The bullet hit Rom in the shoulder as he heard another shot from close range. Orti?

Pain licked at the edges of his consciousness.

He heard Orti shout and a third shot echoed. Sounds of a struggle reached his ears, but danced just out of sight.

The way it was meant to be.

Rom didn’t know what fate had in store for him and what simply fell under the big bold heading of circumstance. Jule was dying. Rom was still immortal. Nothing had changed.

“Orti,” he rasped, refusing to relinquish Jule to the cold ground. “Luigi, are you all right?”

Orti emerged from the darkness, a hand pressed to a bloody wound in his side. He collapsed at Rom’s feet as Mascaro followed on his heels.

“The Prince doesn’t like to lose kinsmen, but it’s the terrible price of blood feuds, eh, Romeo?”

He’d completely reverted to the fifteenth century. Mascaro could no longer tell the difference between reality and the past.

This blood feud would end tonight.

Rom took off his shirt, ignoring the pain. He balled it into a pillow and rested Jule’s head off the cold gravel path.

“No, Rom. Don’t waste time. Take me down to the tomb,” she said, her words growing more faint. She fought to hang on to consciousness.

Rom knelt and rubbed his knuckles against her cheek. “I’ve already wasted so much time. You’re right. It’s time to end this.”

He recovered her dagger from where it had fallen next to her body.
Time for the blade to taste someone else’
s blood.

He stood, bare-chested in the chilly night air, the sting of cold serving to distract him from the pain of the gunshot wounds.

“Always the hero to the end,” Paris said.

“And you’re the fool who doesn’t know when he’s been bested,” Rom growled back.

They danced around each other. Paris with a gun and Rom with the dagger.

Sirens sounded in the distance. “Not much time now,” he told Paris.

“I’ll see you in hell,” Paris snarled and fired.

Rom dodged left, but he wasn’t fast enough. The bullet hit him below the first shoulder wound, close to his heart. The impact sent him reeling back, but by force of will he reversed the momentum and met Paris with an upward thrust of Jule’s dagger.

The blade found its target and sank under Paris’s ribcage, crossing under the sternum to pierce his heart. Rom pulled back and let him fall, first to his knees and then on his face.

Paris didn’t move. Rom watched his still form for several seconds, not believing it could be so easy.

He kicked Mascaro over onto his back. His eyes were open, unseeing. A ragged breath moved through his chest, but Rom knew it wouldn’t be long now.

Paris would die.

“And you’re not coming with us this time, you bastard,” Rom told him. “You’re dying here, outside, bereft of sanctuary. Hope you like hell.”

He dragged his feet back to Jule, falling to his knees. He used his one good arm to gather her close.

“Goddamnit, Jule. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. Lawrence said it would be different this time. I found you again. We are fated to be together.” Tears fell to his cheeks as he leaned over to press a kiss to her forehead.

Jule’s eyes opened. “Fill the chalice with water, Rom. Take me down to the tomb. Bring the dagger.”

Rom looked around for the cup. It lay where he’d dropped it, still tightly wrapped in the burlap.

Could he do this? By God, yes. If Jule wanted it so, he’d walk to the ends of the earth.

The sirens drew closer as he lifted Jule and cradled her to his chest, his good arm supporting most of her weight while his spent arm bore her knees.

The tomb was dark, cold, and empty, save for a single bulb in the antechamber. As he passed through and into the doorway of the barrel-vaulted tomb, he heard her breath catch and then nothing.

He laid her on the raised dais as careful as his injured body would allow, his insides screaming in pain.

“Jule? You still with me?”

“Yes,” she moaned, fainter now. “Chalice,” she whispered.

Rom turned to head for the stairs, but her voice stopped him. “Dagger?”

“That, too,” he said, running now for the stairs.

What was he doing? He should be racing for the hospital, not running around the crumbling ruins of the monastery.

Rom returned to the courtyard to find Orti swaying on his feet, awaiting the arrival of the police.

“How bad is it?” Rom asked him, nodding at Orti’s seeping wound.

“I’ll live. You have unfinished business, yes?” he raised his chin to the tomb entrance.

He nodded.

“I will await the police and keep them occupied for as long as I can. Go on my friend.”

Rom filled the chalice with water and headed back down the worn stairs.

Fear filled every corner of his being, making his hands tremble and sloshing water from the cup. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt real and true fear.

Maybe he never had.

But he did now. He recognized it by the way his hands shook, his breath came labored and shallow in his chest, spots danced in front of his eyes, and an overwhelming desire to grab Jule and run. Run until he couldn’t.

He was afraid of failing. Again. Of losing her. Again.

Of living. Forever forbidden to join Juliet.

Light from the tomb spilled out into the antechamber and Rom wondered suddenly if the cops had turned the lights on. Reaching the threshold he saw it wasn’t electricity making the room light up, it was Juliet’s sarcophagus.

The brick and stone rectangle glowed under her body. Glowed as if powered by some internal source. The room warmed, warding off the chill of the winter night.

Jule’s eyes were closed and her body still. Rom saw her breaths and the even rise and fall of her chest.

She lived yet.

He stepped up to the dais and set the dagger on the bricked floor. Taking her hand, Rom leaned over and kissed her lips.

“Wake, my love.”

Her eyes fluttered open and stared straight through him to his soul. Rom felt an internal pull, a warm and comforting invitation that started in his abdomen and spread outward to his limbs.

Jule smiled at him.

And he felt the heavens open up.

“Drink from the chalice, Romeo,” she whispered.

Rom didn’t want to pull away or sever the contact they shared. When she sensed his hesitation she closed her eyes and smiled brighter.

“It’s all right now, love.”

Rom leaned back and the heat followed him, spiraled up his shoulders, to his neck and his head. His scalp tingled and felt hot.

In the bright light of the tomb, Rom noticed the blood from their wounds had mixed. He wore hers and she his. Before taking the drink Jule demanded, he ran his fingers over them both, mixing their heart’s blood further and touching it to his lips and then hers.

He had no idea what he did, but it felt right. True.

Her lips shone scarlet with their blood.

Rom lifted the chalice and drank deeply, leaving some for Jule, too.

“Now, me,” she said when he lowered the cup from his mouth.

He helped her into a sitting position and held the cup to her lips as she drank. Water dribbled from the sides of the cup and down her chin, falling onto the wound in her chest.

Exhausted, Jule’s head fell back and Rom lowered the chalice. Her eyes closed and her breathing stopped.

“Jule! Juliet, don’t leave me now.”

Tears fell from his cheeks to her upturned face. Rom wiped them away as he held her body close. Footsteps descended the stairs.

“Juliet. Juliet. Come back to me,” his voice echoed in the chamber, but the light that had lit the tomb faded.

“God damn you, Lawrence. Bring her back!”

“She won’t come back unless you give her a reason to.”

Rom flinched, recoiling at the sound of another voice inside his misery.

“Get out,” he told Rossi.

“But it’s not done, yet. The cycle is not complete.”

Rom slid his eyes sideways, taking in Rossi leaning heavily against the arched entry. He looked like hell.

“What are you talking about?”

“She has done everything to save you. Return you to your mortal form. And I say she’s been successful.” Rossi nodded at Rom’s chest.