Inferno's Kiss (18 page)

“It was an admirable goal, but it’s in the past, Placido. I made my choice, and it was the right one. I did what was best for the guild,” Dante said in a firm voice.

“You’ve always done what’s best for the
Absconditus
. What about what’s best for you?” the Sicari Lord muttered with a grunt of fierce exasperation.

“You’re beginning to sound like Cornelia. Isn’t this conversation coming a bit late?”

“It’s never too late to change the mistakes of the past. And I’ve made many. But allowing you to take that vow was the worst. I let you put others in front of your own needs—me, Marcus, everyone, and even the
Absconditus
itself.”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

“Is it?” Placido’s expression was fierce as he challenged Dante.

He studied the older man’s features with a frown. Was it possible the ancient warrior was right? Dante had always strived to make his mentors proud of him, but he couldn’t believe he always put the needs of others in front of his own. It simply appeared that way because his needs were the same as those of the
Absconditus
. He shook his head in disagreement.

“It’s my duty to care for those in guild. It’s what the reigning Sicari Lord does, and as Tribune it’s what I’ve been training for most of my life. I knew that when I made my vow.”

“
Jupiter’s Stone
. Becoming Sicari Lord is a commitment,
not
a bloody sacrifice.” Placido exploded with anger and glared at him with a savage look on his face. His mentor’s reaction surprised Dante once again.

“And Marcus?” He arched his eyebrows at the elderly man. “What of the sacrifices he’s made?”

“His situation is different.”

“I don’t see how. He’s sacrificed everything for the sake of the guild.”

“
No
.” The ancient warrior spat out the word in violent protest. “Marcus didn’t sacrifice himself willingly. But you—you gave your heart and soul to the
Absconditus
before you had a chance to discover what else life had to offer. And now . . . now . . .”

“Now
what
?” he asked gently.

Dante stepped forward and squatted in front of the old man. Despite his age, Placido’s blue-eyed gaze was vividly bright. The penetrating look the Sicari Lord sent Dante made him feel as though the man had pinned him like a butterfly to a display board.

“You will have to make a choice.”

“A choice?” Dante shook his head with concern. As one of the few Sicari Lords blessed with the gift of sight, Placido’s predictions were legendary for their accuracy. “What kind of choice?”

“A choice that involves our guest,” Placido said with a weary sigh of frustration.

“That’s pretty damn vague. First you come in saying you sense Cleopatra’s presence here upsets me, then you start questioning me about my—”

Dante sprang to his feet and stepped back from his friend as he battled the anger threatening to swallow him whole. It took him at least a minute to harness the fury tightening his limbs as he stared down at the old warrior. Placido didn’t avoid his gaze. Instead, the elderly man’s eyes were narrowed with assessment. It was almost as if the Sicari Lord were looking for something. Dante schooled his features into a dispassionate expression.

“If you’re suggesting I’d choose a woman over my commitment to the
Absconditus
, you’re wrong.”

“The only thing I’m suggesting is that no one would judge you if you were to break your oath,” Placido said quietly. “I’m saying you will have to make a choice, and it will involve Signorina Vorenus.”

“This choice, who else does it affect?”

“Every choice is a ripple in a pond. It affects everyone in its path directly or indirectly.”

“
That
is really helpful,” Dante bit out with a ferocity that declared his temper was getting the best of him, but he’d suddenly stopped caring. “If you can’t tell me who, then tell me
what
the choice is I have to make.”

“Do not confuse an ordinary choice with one of destiny, Dante.”

“
Deus
, I hate it when you do this.” Dante scowled at the man. “The least you could do is give me some guidance here. Is she in danger?”

“You already know the answer. The future remains unwritten until it happens.”

“That’s the answer you always give when you want me to figure something out on my own,” he snarled as he began to prowl the room. “And here you were just a few minutes ago lamenting the fact that you and Marcus hadn’t stopped me from taking my oath.”

“And I already regret telling you what I’ve told you,” Placido said with a weary sigh. “But it was a choice I made, and as I said, a choice is a ripple that can have far-reaching consequences.”

“Remind me to thank you later for that thought-provoking wisdom,” Dante said with more than a hint of sarcasm. The inner peace and control he’d barely managed to salvage while showering had disappeared again. Was there such a thing as an ordinary choice?

The ninth
Tabulati
of the
Novem Conformavi
taught that everything in the universe was interconnected. That teaching alone meant that every choice one made was tied to one’s destiny. He suppressed a groan. Cleopatra Vorenus was becoming a major problem. He wanted to put her on the first plane back to Chicago where she belonged. He rejected the notion. He wanted her where he could keep an eye on her. Keep her out of trouble. The realization made his stomach lurch.

Was that the choice? Was he supposed to send her back? Was that his destiny? Sending her away before he lost control? Even if he tried that, she wasn’t likely to go willingly and would probably find a way to return. Then he’d be right back where he started. This time he couldn’t contain his groan. Things had been bad enough already, but now Placido had managed to muddy the Tiber River that much more.

Chapter 9

MARCUS clicked on the END CALL button, and Dante’s visage dissolved into the background of the flat-screen monitor. Jupiter’s Stone. How was he supposed to explain to Atia that he’d agreed to let their daughter remain in the heart of Praetorian territory? The woman was going to rip his heart out when she learned he’d not ordered Cleo to come back to the States.

The fact that Cleo was unwilling to leave Rome showed how much of a rift existed between mother and daughter. Worse, she’d convinced Ignacio Firmani to give her the Angotti assignment. If he’d known that ahead of time, he would have tried to stop her.
Tried
being the operative word. Cleo got just as much of her stubbornness from him as she did from Atia.

But even if he’d known ahead of time, it was doubtful he would have been able to convince her to do nothing, short of ordering her not to assassinate Angotti. And that would only have put more distance between them, something he was trying to avoid. As much as he might want to use his authority to keep her safe, he was certain his efforts in that direction would only alienate her.
That
he didn’t want. He’d missed too many years with her as it was.

He wanted to get to know his daughter. Although how in Juno’s name he could do that if she remained in Rome, he didn’t know. It didn’t please him that Firmani had allowed her to go after Angotti. The decision made him question the man’s judgment. Atia put great faith in her
Celeris
, but there was something about him Marcus didn’t trust, even if Firmani had been guarding Atia for years. Marcus snorted softly.

He was jealous. Clear and simple. He was jealous of Firmani. The man was in love with Atia, even if she didn’t realize it. Marcus shoved the chair away from his desk and glanced at the mantel clock over the fireplace. Almost six fifteen. Atia might already be in the research lab.

The woman still liked to rise at the crack of dawn, while he preferred a more reasonable hour. He rose from his chair and crossed the bedroom floor to where a small fire blazed in the fireplace. White Cloud had all the modern conveniences, but he’d always preferred to sleep and wake to a wood fire. Probably a habit left over from his past life as the ancient Roman soldier Tevy.

He pressed the heels of his palms against the mantelpiece and stared down at the fire. Images from the distant past danced in the flames. One of these visions was of the Milvian Bridge and the fireballs raining down from the sky to kill his friends and many of his men. Octavian was to blame for that day of carnage. Even in his present incarnation as the Nicostratus, Patriarch of the Collegium, the man hadn’t changed in almost two thousand years. Whether he was Octavian or Nicostratus, he was still a murderous
bastardo
.

Marcus violently pushed himself away from the mantel with a dark sound of fury. Whatever it took, he would see the man dead. As Octavian, the man had betrayed his brothers in the Guard. But as Nicostratus, the
bastardo
had done something much worse. The man had taken an innocent boy and turned him into a monster. Marcus closed his eyes as the pain of that terrible moment in the Pantheon washed over him again.

Marcus had killed Gabriel—his own son.

The memory sliced into him as viciously as Gabriel’s sword had pierced his side. Marcus parted his robe and bent his head to see the spot on his thigh where his son’s weapon had nicked a major artery. There was still a small scar. He’d not allowed anyone to touch him after Phaedra’s healing ritual. He would have died if not for her. And now she lay unconscious in the Sicari medical facility in Genova. She’d given everything to save Lysander. It was the same type of sacrifice he would willingly make for Atia.

With a grimace, he moved quickly back to the desk and opened up the webcam software to contact the Genova hospital. It took several minutes for the doctor to reach the computer, and when a woman finally appeared in front of the camera, Marcus knew from the doctor’s expression that Phaedra’s condition hadn’t changed.

After a brief update, he ended the conversation and sat staring at the blank monitor screen for several moments. Surely, Vesta wouldn’t be so cruel as to keep Lysander and Phaedra apart a second time. Shouts of panic and anger in the corridor abruptly interrupted his train of thought, and he immediately called for his clothes with the mere whisper of a thought.

In less than sixty seconds he was completely dressed. As he strode toward the door of his suite, he summoned his sword, and the weapon flew through the air into his hand almost at the same moment he flung his door wide open. The sound of chaos was louder in the hall. A young boy raced by, and Marcus reached out with his thoughts to drag the youngster to a halt. Terror filled the boy’s face as he cried out in fear.

“It’s all right, boy, I’m not going to hurt you,” Marcus said in a calm, quiet voice as he slid his sword into the sheath hanging at his side. “Tell me what’s happened.”

“It’s one of the researchers,
il mio signore
. They’ve been murdered.”

Murder. The boy had to be mistaken. Sicari resolved their differences in open combat before members of the Order. Murder was virtually unheard of among the Sicari. Atia’s face flashed before his eyes, and his heart sank into the pit of his stomach.

“Have you seen the
Prima Consul
, boy?”

“No,
il mio signore
.”

Fear churning in his stomach, he released his mental grip on the boy then raced down the hall toward the research lab. Juno help him if something had happened to her.
Deus
, he’d not been this frightened since the day the Praetorians had taken Gabriel. The closer he got to the lab, the more crowded the hall became.

Desperate to find Atia, he commanded people to stand aside. Some people moved the minute he ordered them to do so, while he had to shove others out of his way. Just outside the research lab, a short, rotund man with a balding head stood arguing with a fighter he recognized from Lysander’s temporary guild in Rome.

He frowned as he tried to remember the fighter’s name. Pasquale. That was his name. Luciano Pasquale. He didn’t know the other man. The minute the fighter looked up, Marcus caught his attention.

“The
Prima Consul
, is she—”

“She’s fine,
il mio signore
,” Pasquale said with a reassuring nod of his head. “She’s in the lab with the
Celeris
.”

Relief crashed through him before irritation took its place.
Firmani again
. Of course he’d be with Atia. It was the man’s job. He clenched his jaw. The sooner he put the
Celeris
out of work the better. But the only way that was going to happen was if he convinced Atia they were meant to be together.

As he pushed past the man Pasquale had been arguing with, pudgy fingers bit into his arm. He stiffened at the touch and turned his head to direct a cold look at the short, stocky man delaying him. The man immediately jerked his hand away but wilted only slightly under Marcus’s glare.

“Who in Juno’s name are you? If Pasquale won’t let me in the lab, what makes you think
you
can go in?” the man snapped in anger.

Suddenly, Marcus was sorry he’d given orders that no one was to divulge who he really was. Although Pasquale had been in Rome, the fighter didn’t know anything more about Marcus than anyone else here at White Cloud. Only a select few knew he was a Sicari Lord. To everyone else on the estate he was a
Legatus
from the Rome guild who was an expert authority on the
Tyet of Isis
.

The expert part was true, but the rest was merely to keep the Order from exploding with more tension than there already was in the organization. The revelation that Lysander was half-Praetorian with the skills of a Sicari Lord had created enough of a stir in the Order already. The only thing that made people’s eyebrows raise when they met him was his last name. He knew they were wondering about the connection between him and Atia, but no one had dared mention the obvious.

“Marcus Vorenus. Who are
you
?”

“Cato, member of the Sicari Council.” The man’s gaze narrowed as he looked at Marcus. “Where do I know you from?”