Synarchy Book 2: The Ascension (11 page)

“
Sir, he’s home,” one of the
Senior SVT Agents said.

Marcello snapped his gaze up. Right
now, he didn’t care if he ever saw the light again. Leaving the
file open on the desk, he came out of the office. His Agents were
positioned in the kitchen, on either side of the garage door, where
the doctor and his wife would come into the house.

“
Stop being silly, dear.
Mrs. Kesiers just had a bad week, that’s all.” They were speaking
in German. Mengele’s wife walked in first. The Agent on the other
side of the door grabbed her by the arm and slapped his hand over
her mouth, muffling her scream.

“
I don’t care. She’s snotty,
and condescending and—” Mengele stepped though the doorway, then
immediately halted. His eyes widened when they came to rest on
Marcello, and he whispered in a strongly accented voice: “You… How
did you….?”

Marcello’s answer was to ram his
knuckles into the older man’s jaw. He grabbed Mengele by the front
of his shirt and dragged him over to the stove. “Your cologne is
interesting.” Marcello’s tone was dangerously quiet. “Now, I
understand why Kayla called you the man with the funny
smell.”

Mengele’s eyes widened in shock at that
revelation, but quickly narrowed with indignation. Blood stained
the corner of his mouth. “What do you want?” he
demanded.

Marcello turned the electric burner to
high. He put his hand against the back of the doctor’s head and
bent him over, holding Mengele’s face mere inches away from the
heat. Mrs. Mengele began to cry. “Is Kayla my daughter? Is it
true?”

At first, Mengele said nothing, but
once the heat began blistering his skin, he shouted: “Yes! Yes!
She’s yours!”

The rage that coursed through Marcello
made his body tremble. He leaned close and whispered in Mengele’s
ear: “You want to know what I want? I want you to
scream.”

§

July 4, 1974 - 4:11 PM

Washington, D.C.

Home of the Vice President of the
U.S.

Fury rode every step Julian Terenzio
took. His nephew, Dominiceo—Dom Jr., one of Liliana’s twin
children—followed alongside of him. Two Secret Service agents
escorted them into the office of the Vice President of the United
States.

“
What have you done?” Julian
demanded without preamble. The door clicked shut behind them. Dom
Jr. stood behind his uncle. His eyes were as sharp and angry as
Julian’s tone.

Three men sat in the room. Two had full
heads of white hair. The other had a dramatically receding
hairline. They all shared aristocratic features. They were
bluebloods. Men who could trace their ancestry back centuries to
the Pharaohs of Egypt and the kings of Greece. Well, two of them
could. The third wore his humanity as a disguise. If one was
looking an Anunnaki could be identified by the cold, piercing depth
of their black eyes; the kind found on the Vice President of the
United States, who stood from his arm chair and focused those eyes
on Julian.

“
Those are harsh words
coming from a slave,” the Vice President said.

Julian snapped his gaze to the
Anunnaki. He didn’t back down. Instead, he stepped forward. The tip
of his brother’s walking cane struck the wooden floor. “It wasn’t a
statement. It was a question, and a fair one. What have you done to
my nephew? I cannot fulfill my end of our arrangement if you’re
sidestepping me.”

The Vice President turned from Julian
and looked at the two men sitting behind him. The man with the
receding hairline was the president of the RAND Corporation, the
Illuminati’s eastern hemisphere think tank. The other man was a
member of the British royal family. He currently gave orders to the
Black Nobility, the European Union’s small, personal army and
collection of assassins. “Would you excuse us, please?” The men
nodded, setting their glasses down, and left.

Only the secret service agents, who
were Grey aliens in disguise, remained. They stood motionless by
the door. The Vice President looked back at Julian. “We haven’t
done anything to Marcello. Yet.”

Julian frowned. “It’s a simple fucking
question. Answer it.”

The Vice President smiled. What it
lacked in warmth it made up for with its mocking edge. He reached
up and straightened Julian’s tie. “I don’t think you’ve been so
loyal all these years. And I don’t think your brother was,
either.”

“
Excuse me?” Julian batted
the alien’s hand from him. “Who killed Kennedy for you? Me. Who was
running the LSD and providing the hookers the CIA needed to conduct
operation Midnight Climax? Us." Midnight Climax had been a CIA
program to test the effects of LSD. Prostitutes lured their johns
to a specific hotel and slipped their clients an LSD Mickey. “If I
went down the whole list of the things we’ve done for you, we’d age
another fucking year, so don’t feed me bullshit.”

The Vice President left his hand in
mid-air as it was batted away. “Yes, you’ve done very well at doing
what we ask, but your loyalty is tainted by your ulterior motives,
so don’t play these games with me anymore.”

“
You got some proof of
this?” Dom Jr. asked. “Or did you suddenly decide to fuck with your
best bulldog?”

The Vice President pulled a folded
envelope out of the inside of his suit jacket. He flipped open the
lip and removed a letter soft with wrinkles. He read out loud:
“Julian. There’s something I’ve never shared with you, something
that you are not to share with Lil or Carissa. The burden of this
secret, for now, will be yours.”

As skilled as the rest of
his family in masking his emotions, Julian’s fingers tightened
imperceptibly on the handle of the cane. “
Where
did you get that?”

The Vice President lifted his eyes from
the letter and nodded at the Greys. One of them walked out of the
room. The Grey returned moments later with the Dominic, Carissa’s
youngest son. Dominic’s familiar gray gaze was hard, but a flicker
of remorse lived within its depths.

Julian blinked, and then his eyes
narrowed. “What have you done?”

“
He’s picked a side Julian.
Something you’re going to have to do,” the Vice President said with
a callous smile.

“
You idiot,” Dom Jr.
hissed.

“
Don’t lecture me,” Dominic
spat defensively. “How could you keep a secret like this from the
rest of us? How could you not allow us to all choose which way the
family should go? We should honor the deals made. You don’t bite
the hand that feeds you.”

“
I can forgive Stefano’s
ambition. And you’ve been a good lap dog in his place.” The Vice
President interjected calmly. “We’ve done our part to ensure that
the possible future that our Seers have predicted doesn’t come to
pass. Your job now, Julian, is to go home and reign in Marcello.
Make sure he drops any sort of quest against the Anunnaki or the
Roshaniya.”

Julian stared at Carissa’s son for a
long, impenetrable moment. Finally, he leveled his eyes on the
Anunnaki. “No.”

The Vice President’s brow subtly
arched. “Excuse me?”

“
You heard me. I won’t do
your dirty work anymore,” Julian said, simply.

The Vice President looked over at Dom
Jr. “And you?”

Dom pulled his furious gaze from his
cousin and looked at the Anunnaki. “I stand with my
uncle.”

“
Leave us, Dominic,” the
Vice President said.

Dominic’s eyes flicked back and forth
between his uncle and his cousin. “Don’t do this. It doesn’t have
to go down like th—”

“
You heard him, Dominic.”
Julian looked over at his nephew for the last time. “Get the fuck
outta here. And I pray to God your mother never knows that only one
of her sons had a life worthy of her maiden name.”

Dominic’s jaw trembled, and his fists
visibly shook. He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind
him.

He was standing in the hallway, trying
to let his Uncles words roll off his back, when the screaming
started.

§

July 6, 1974 - 9:11 AM

Alcyone Island

Dion Corporation
Headquarters

Not many people knew that a very
important office could be found on the 52nd floor of the Dion
Corporation building. Fewer still knew whose offices it was. That
made the box that had been delivered strange in and of itself, but
it took Marcello mere seconds to realize who would have sent it to
him.

Security had done their checks on it
and determined it was safe to open. Marcello pulled the letter
opener off his desk and cut the tape loose. When he pulled the lid
open, his eyes widened at the grotesque sight that greeted him.
“Oh, my God.”

§

“
Isabella, I am deeply,
deeply sorry.” Marcello squatted down in front of his younger
cousin’s chair. He covered her tightly clenched hands.

Dom Jr., her brother, was dead. Inside
the box delivered to Marcello’s office just hours ago was his head.
So was Uncle Julian’s.

Matteo stood at the window, his eyes
slowly leaking silent tears. “Who did this Marcello?” he demanded
quietly.

Isabella’s eyes shone wetly. She
pressed trembling fingers against her mouth. A single tear came out
of the corner of her eye, before the veil and control was found. At
Matteo’s question, she brought those eyes to Marcello, silently
asking the same.

Marcello glanced over at Matteo, then
back at Isabella, coming to a decision. He stood up. “We’re a
family of secrets and we’ve been keeping them from each other. What
I’m going to share with you now cannot be shared with your
brothers.”

“
Tell us, Marcello.” Matteo
turned away from the glass, his eyes landing on his
cousin.

Isabella’s brow arched sharply. “What
kind of secrets?”

Marcello regarded the two of them in
brief silence before he spoke. “This started with my father and was
given to yours. Even we Terenzios have a master, but it’s one we’ve
already turned against.”

Chapter 6

“
Think you can handle it?
The day you look in the mirror and realize the evil that you’ll
do?”

- Stefano Vasco Terenzio

October 18, 1994 - 6:22 PM

Alcyone Island

Cleona’s Italian Restaurant

The kids have their first play tomorrow
night. Anne and I would love it if you could make it.” Nicholas
Terenzio-Fidelio looked over at his lover.

Mario smiled softly. “I’d love to. Man,
they grow up fast.”

“
Yes, they do.” Nicholas
leaned across the seat and kissed him. “Have a good
night.”

Mario squeezed Nicholas’ thigh. “Enjoy
your dinner meeting.”

“
Unlikely.” Nicholas kissed
him again, and climbed out of the car with his blazer in one hand.
When he entered Cleona’s, Alcyone’s finest Italian restaurant, he
put the jacket on. “Hello, Jimmy.”

“
Ah, Mr. Fidelio. Miss Kayla
is waiting for you.” Plucking up a menu, the maître d’ led Nicholas
to the Terenzio family’s private booth. Kayla was sitting there,
sipping a glass of white wine. She smiled politely at Nicholas and
tilted her head up to accept the proprietary kiss he placed on her
cheek.

“
Thank you for coming. How
are Anne and the kids?” Kayla asked.

“
They’re fine.” Nicholas
snapped open his menu. Once the maître d' had gone, he looked at
Kayla. “What do you want?”

Kayla’s mouth curved into a smile.
“Your Uncle Joey is always so polite. So is your mother. What
happened to you and your father, I’ll never guess.”

“
My Uncle doesn’t know when
to shut up, and my father is an idiot,” Nicholas said evenly.
“You’re right about Grandma Issa, though.”

“
How are you and your father
getting along these days?” Kayla watched him closely.

“
We’re not.”

“
Shame. And all over
Mario.”

Nicholas’s eyes narrowed. “What do you
want, Kayla?”

“
If you had a choice between
controlling the world or letting the world control itself, which
would you choose?” Kayla asked casually, bringing her wine glass to
her mouth.

A frown set on Nicholas’s face. “What
the hell kind of question is that?”

“
A very simple yes or no
one.” A hint of impatience exposed itself in her tone. “Answer
it.”

“
My mother may have gotten
married, but I am still a Terenzio, Kayla. That means we control
the world, not the other way around.”

She made a thoughtful noise. “You’d be
surprised.”

Nicholas arched a brow.
“Meaning?”

“
What if I told you, your
children’s future was at stake due to poor management choices?
Specifically made by your uncle and my father?”

Nicholas studied her face. At length,
he said, “I’d tell you to keep talking.”

“
Nicholas…” Kayla reached
across the short distance that separated them and touched his hand.
Inwardly, she flinched, but her distaste for the physical contact
was well hidden. “For the majority of your life, your father has
thought you a waste. I’d like to give you a chance to not only
prove him wrong, but help me move this family in the direction it
should be going.”