Inferno's Kiss (43 page)

If anything, he seemed to tighten his grip, and as Cleopatra shifted slightly, a speck of blood appeared on her throat. She didn’t even flinch at the scratch, which only intensified the fear twisting Dante’s gut into knots.
Christus
, if he lost her—no, he wasn’t going to let that happen.

“You say that like a proud father, and yet you’re holding a blade to her neck,” Dante said quietly.

“It’s necessary.” Firmani shrugged his shoulders.

“Like stealing the
Tyet of Isis
document and ensuring the Order’s annihilation is necessary?” Cleopatra snapped. At her accusation, Dante’s throat closed. If Firmani had the document, they had to get it back.

“The document will ensure the survival of the Collegium. It’s already being reviewed as we speak.”

Firmani’s matter-of-fact statement made Dante clench his fists and bite down on the inside of his cheek in an effort to remain still. If the man hadn’t been holding Cleopatra’s life in his hands, Dante would have torn him to bits by now. Behind him he heard the sound of running feet, and the traitor arched his eyebrows.

“So you’ve summoned help.”

“Release Cleopatra and I’ll see to it that you’re allowed to leave unharmed.”

“We both know you won’t do that.” Firmani shook his head, and Dante sent the man an icy glare.

“I’m a man of my word,” he said coldly. “If I say you’ll go free, then you will.”

“
No!
You can’t do this,” Cleopatra cried out sharply as she tried to twist free of Firmani’s grasp.

Her action only caused the sword at her throat to bite into her skin deeper, and Dante’s heart slammed to a halt inside his chest. As a thin stream of blood trickled down her neck, Dante reached out with his thoughts to grip her shoulders and hold her still. Across the short space between them, her gaze locked with his, and a wisp of a thought drifted its way through his head, making him latch on to it like a ship seeking an anchor.

“Don’t do this, Dante. You’ll never forgive yourself . . . or me.”
There was a bleakness to her thought that made Dante shake his head slightly as he met her anguished gaze.

“I’m doing this because I love you.”

“Then if you love me, let me go.”

He ignored her unspoken plea and turned his attention back to Firmani. The
Celeris
eyed him carefully for a long moment before he nodded his head.

“Very well. Once I’m through the door, I’ll let her go.”

“
No
.” Cornelia’s voice was cold with bitterness as she entered the entryway from a door on the left. Her appearance startled both Dante and Firmani. “He cannot go free. The dead deserve justice.”

“I gave my word,” Dante growled.

“But I didn’t,” his
Praefect
replied.

Without any other warning, Cornelia hurled herself toward Firmani, her sword swinging horizontally toward his head. His sole thought being for Cleopatra’s safety, Dante mentally yanked Cornelia to a halt less than a foot away from Firmani. About to order his
Praefect
to stand down, the
Celeris
’s sword fell away from Cleopatra’s neck in a blinding flash of speed and plunged into Cornelia’s chest.

Stunned, Dante watched Cornelia sag against the blade before Firmani withdrew his sword from the
Praefect
’s body. The next few seconds took place in slow motion. Dante lunged forward to catch his friend as she crumpled to the floor. Blood spurted between his fingers as he pressed his hand over her wound and called out for Noemi. His eyes met Cornelia’s as she moved her lips and tried to speak.

“Don’t talk. Noemi is here.” He looked up at the healer who’d reached Cornelia’s side. The look on her face was grim, and he rejected the idea that nothing could be done.

“It’s too late.”
The
Praefect
’s words whispered faintly through his head.

“No. Noemi’s here.”
Dante refused to accept that she was dying. Dying because of him. In his attempt to save Cleopatra, he’d made Cornelia vulnerable by preventing her from protecting herself.

“Don’t let him leave.”
Cornelia’s thoughts made him jerk his head toward Firmani and Cleopatra.

The
Celeris
was already more than halfway through the door, dragging Cleopatra with him. A raw, primitive fury blasted through Dante, and he was on his feet in an instant. He charged toward the door, only to slam into an unseen wall. He stumbled backward then leaped forward again, applying his own abilities as an opposing force against the invisible barrier.

The resistance he met was minor, but the effort to break through cost him precious seconds as Firmani pulled Cleopatra out of the house. When Dante charged out of the Sicari installation, he saw Cleopatra being dragged into the backseat of a black SUV.

Before he could reach the vehicle, the door slammed shut and the car squealed loudly as it roared away from the curb, barely missing an oncoming vehicle. Desperately, he stretched out his thoughts before the distance between them made it impossible to reach her.

“I’ll find you,
carissima
. I promise.”
In the back of his head he heard the faintest whisper of her saying his name, and then she was gone.

Chapter 23

THE late-afternoon sun warmed one of the main rooms in the
Absconditus
complex as Atia passed through the door. Seated in a chair across the room, Placido rose slowly to greet her. Gnarled hands clasping hers as she halted in front of him, she kissed him on both cheeks. Although his features were roughly hewn with age, his smile was as mischievous as it had always been.

“You’re glowing just like you did the first time Marcus introduced me to you.”

“Always the flatterer,” she said with a smile.

Placido held a special place in her heart because he’d tried desperately to reunite her and Marcus after Gabriel had been taken. He’d aged drastically since the last time she’d seen him, but his eyes were still as bright and sharp as an eagle’s. Behind her, the muffled sounds of Marcus’s angry voice startled her, and she turned toward the door. Even from here, his anger made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. The last time he’d been this angry was the day Gabriel was taken. Her heart slammed to a halt in her chest as Marcus strode into the sitting room followed closely by Lysander.

“Why in Jupiter’s name wasn’t I told about the attack the minute I got off the plane?” His words were a low, rumbling thunder of anger, but Placido seemed unconcerned.

“Was there anything you could have done between the airport and here?”

“Don’t play games with me, old man,” Marcus snarled. “I should have been told.”

It was the first time Atia had ever heard him lose his temper with the ancient Sicari Lord, and it frightened her. Beneath his anger, Atia sensed something darker stirring inside her husband. Something terrible had happened, and he was deeply worried.

“What’s happened?” she asked quietly. He kept his eyes pinned on Placido as he released a low growl of anger.

“Nicostratus has declared war on the
Absconditus
and the Order. The Praetorians gained access to the city’s main installation and slaughtered everyone inside this morning.”

“Everyone?” she gasped in disbelief.

“No one was spared,” Marcus’s words cracked sharply like ice giving way on a frozen lake. “Not even the
Vigilavi
. And the only possible way the
bastardo
could have done what he did was if he had help on the inside.”

He shifted his gaze to her, and she knew exactly what he was thinking. Ignacio. Her heart sank as she struggled to accept the everincreasing likelihood that her old friend was responsible for stealing the
Tyet of Isis
document and for the barbaric atrocity in the Rome installation. She could only hope that Cleo hadn’t—her lungs tightened until it was impossible to breathe. Suddenly feeling lightheaded, Atia swayed on her feet as fear made her skin grow cold.

“
Cleo
. Where is she?”

“She and Dante went to the installation after we received word of the massacre.” Placido, despite his age, moved quickly to take her arm and guide her to a nearby chair.

“I want to see her.”

At her demand, a grim look settled over Placido’s worn features. The old Sicari Lord looked at Marcus, and a brief second later, Marcus went white. Certain Placido had communicated something to Marcus with his telepathic abilities, she started to stand up, but a powerful force held her in place.

The minute Marcus stepped toward her, she shook her head. It wasn’t possible. Their daughter couldn’t be dead. She’d gone to the facility
after
the massacre. Marcus squatted in front of her and grabbed her hands in a tight hold.

“Firmani has her,” Marcus said in a grim voice.

A rush of relief eased the tightness in Atia’s muscles. Cleo was alive. Ignacio had taken care of her just as he had when she was a child. Her relief evaporated as she saw a familiar torment in Marcus’s eyes.

“
Mea amor
, he took her to Nicostratus.”

The words didn’t register for a moment as Atia stared at her husband’s harsh, anguished features. No. Marcus was wrong. It wasn’t possible. Ignacio would never do something that cruel. He knew how devastating Gabriel’s kidnapping had been for her. Family didn’t do things like that, and he was family, not by blood, but family nonetheless. She’d relied on him. Cherished their friendship. And Cleo adored him.

“You’re wrong. He wouldn’t hurt Cleo.” She barely recognized her own voice from the way it vibrated with fear and denial.

Marcus tried to speak but clearly couldn’t. Instead, he pulled her forward into his arms and held her tight. She trembled violently in his embrace but didn’t cry. A numbness crawled through her limbs until she couldn’t feel anything. It was Gabriel’s kidnapping all over again. Their child was in the hands of Praetorians, and the odds of rescuing her were slim.

“I’m afraid there’s more bad news, my friend.” Placido’s quiet words made Marcus pull away from her and look up at the old Sicari Lord. “Cornelia is dead.”

Marcus slowly stood up, a stunned expression on his face. Although Atia had only met the woman once, she knew how well liked she’d been in the
Absconditus.

“
Dead?
How?”

“I’m responsible for her death.” Dante’s voice was quiet and devoid of emotion as he entered the room and strode forward.

Still struggling with her fear for Cleo, Atia stared blankly at the man who’d just arrived. It took her a moment to realize who he was. The last time she’d seen Dante, he’d been much younger. What struck her was his strong resemblance to his brother. It wasn’t so much their physical features that were so remarkably similar as the way they carried themselves. Their stoic manner. Her gaze flitted to Lysander, who was standing rigid just inside the doorway. His expression revealed nothing, but a slight tic in his scarred cheek indicated he was finally convinced he had a brother.

“Explain,” Marcus commanded harshly.

“I gave Firmani my word he could go free. Cornelia disagreed with me. When she tried to kill Firmani, I stopped her, and he killed her.”

“You told that
bastardo
he could go
free
?” Marcus took a step toward Dante as if he were going to strike his apprentice, but Placido’s gnarled hand held him back.

“The prick had a sword at Cleopatra’s throat. Dante was trying to save your daughter’s life,” the old man snapped. “She’d discovered Firmani was a traitor, and the
bastardo
was using her to escape.”

Stunned, Atia stared at Placido as her mind struggled to cope with the reality of the ancient warrior’s words. Slowly her numbness gave way to a fierce anger as she accepted the truth about Ignacio. He’d betrayed not only the Order, but her as well. How could she have been so blind?

Marcus stiffened at Placido’s chastising tone, and his gaze jerked from his old mentor back to Dante. The conflicting emotions at war inside Marcus stretched across the distance between them like an electric shock. His emotions dueled with her feelings of anger, pain, and fear. No Sicari was so important as to be saved if doing so threatened the existence of the entire Order. Dante had ignored that fact by agreeing to let Ignacio go free in order to save Cleo’s life.

She had never been so grateful to anyone in her entire life. Her daughter was still alive thanks to Dante. A tendril of relief slipped its way into her head as Marcus’s thoughts mixed with hers. Intertwined with his relief was the same fear that they would never see their daughter again.

“I don’t know whether to thank you or have you run the gauntlet,” Marcus snapped as he glared at Dante. The stoic expression didn’t leave Dante’s face as he bowed slightly.

“Whatever punishment you choose, Eminence, will not be as harsh as the burden I carry for Cornelia’s death and my failure to save your daughter.”

There was something in Dante’s voice that made Atia take a closer look at him. His mouth was a thin line of tension that reflected he was hiding something from them. Whatever it was, his ability to conceal his emotions made it impossible to determine what he might be thinking. Marcus frowned before his expression softened slightly.

“You’ve never given me or Placido any reason to doubt your decision making before, and I’m sure you did what you thought was the right thing to do. I know how close you were to Cornelia. Her death is a blow to all of us.”

Dante flinched at Marcus’s words, and Atia noted how rigid his stance was. He had the look of a man weighed down with guilt. Dante didn’t answer but simply jerked his head in acknowledgment. Marcus studied the younger man for a moment longer before he drew in a deep breath and exhaled it.

“I want the complex on full alert, and double the security teams. If Nicostratus was bold enough to attack the Rome installation, it’s possible he might consider launching an assault on us here. Dante, I want you to—”