Chapter 24 #4
In that moment, his entire demeanor shifts: his eyes narrow into slits and a slight, wicked smile pulls at the corners of his dry lips.
“Can’t it?”
A lump forms in my throat and my grip on the armchair tightens. I barely register Bes placing his hand completely on my shoulder, his warmth pressing through the linen of my shirt. The Amulet of Amun, tucked away inside, feels as if it’s burning a hole through my chest.
I barely hear Cec speak over the dull roar in my ears. “What are you saying, father?”
Ansaldo goes on as if Cec didn’t say a word, his tone cold and emotionless in a way it wasn’t before.
“Your mother abandoned the order, breaking several rules and murdering her own people in the process. So, when Lucia phoned about you needing assistance in retrieving the very same amulet the God Men have been searching for, I saw an opportunity. Not only to protect the Amulet of Amun from falling into the hands of what promises to be the worst evil this world has ever seen, but to once again have a Fiore take part in the organization they helped create.”
Some part of me knew Ansaldo was pulling my strings like a puppet. I never realized just how many strings—along with Bes and Cec’s strings—until this moment.
“All while giving me no choice in the matter,” I bite out. “How magnanimous of you.”
Ignoring me, he holds out his hand. “That reminds me: I’ll take the amulet now.”
I pause for a beat, my heart in my throat. “I don’t have it.”
Ansaldo glares at Cec. “I was told you keep it on you at all times.”
Cec swallows audibly. I want to pat him on the hand to reassure him; it’s not his fault his father uses information as a weapon, no matter where the information originates from.
Knowledge is power indeed.
Bile stirs inside my empty stomach at the thought of parting with the amulet, knowing I have no choice as I pull the chain over my head and hand it over to Ansaldo.
I was bound to lose it at some point, but I hoped it would be on my own terms. I also hoped to learn if it could be activated or not beforehand.
I should’ve never called this damn meeting.
Ansaldo glances at it disinterestedly, stands, and places it in an empty green-velvet box I’m only just now noticing. I’ve had the relic on me for so long now, I already miss the weight of it around my neck. The way the bloodstone warms against me at odd times.
He leans forward on his desk. “We are not the evil in the world, Miss Hawkins. We are the only good equipped to fight it, whatever the cost. This is what our oath dictates; this is what the gods demand of us in order to maintain balance in the world.”
My blood swiftly boils over, though I’m not sure icy fear won’t win out in the end. “What you mean to say is you’re the lesser of two evils. But that doesn’t absolve you from the evil itself.”
Ansaldo seems to consider this. “If so, then we are a necessary one. Think about it however you like. As Machiavelli said, ‘let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it.’”
I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. I want to say that I’ve learned Machiavelli was likely a satirist, that he didn’t actually believe in the one-man rule, and that every man hungry for power since then has used ‘The Prince’ to give reason to the ends justifying the means.
No matter how terrible those means might be.
In the end, it all comes down to power and what someone is willing to do to keep it.
Ansaldo may not be a fascist, but he sure as hell sounds like one.
I manage to speak past the dryness in my throat. “So, I suppose it’s still join the order or die in this place, is it?”
Ansaldo eyes me with condescension. “I will not make you choose today, Miss Hawkins. However, multiple members came up to me after your… entrance yesterday to express their concerns. And they were right: you know our secrets now, and I can’t allow you to leave this place until you take the blood oath and pledge yourself to the Order of Cavendi. ”
He continues before I can argue. “And with your mother no longer around to fulfill her oath, the gods will allow one of her own blood to carry it out. I’m certain of it.”
I force myself to my feet in defiance, steadying my trembling knees. “And what if I don’t want to? What if I choose not to?”
He slams his hand on his desk. “But think of all the good you could do!”
I back away from his unexpected excitement and the back of my calves hit the chair.
“You could do what you love: head to far-off places, recover priceless artifacts, all while keeping them out of the hands of the people who want to use them for their own dark purpose.”
Because that’s so different from your purpose, whatever that might be.
“I don’t love doing it,” I argue. “It’s what I’m good at.”
“You’re more than good,” he commends me.
I cross my arms over my chest. Trying to butter me up now, I see.
“It’s in your blood, and it shows. You opened the Osireion at the Temple of Seti the First when no one else could, and managed to escape with the amulet even when the temple tried to trap you inside. With one of the God Men chasing you, no less.”
I choose not to mention the bit that I never would’ve known how to open the Osireion in the first place without the riddle inside the assistant’s journal. A journal I’m now certain Nonna placed there knowing what was inside. My heart aches once more at her betrayal.
I sniff. “As you may recall, I was supposed to be monetarily compensated for that job, a penny of which I have yet to see.”
Ansaldo’s eye twitches. “Isn’t the pride of solving the riddle of the Osireion and keeping the Amulet of Amun out of the hands of the German Third Reich payment enough for your soul?”
I shake my head. “Unfortunately, my soul needs a little more than good favor. Preferably in the form of gold, but I’ll accept precious gems.”
He waves his hand petulantly. “Take it up with the museum.”
I watch him carefully, his impatience emboldening me. I’m getting under his skin again.
“Ah yes, the museum full of people who betrayed us. I’ll get right on that. Should I put this place down as my forwarding address?”
Ansaldo grips his jaw. “I grow tired of this; you will be a part of the Order of Cavendi. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
I bite my tongue at the finality of his words. I know when an argument is lost, but I’ll never stop fighting, nor will I allow the idea of being trapped in this place destroy me.
Despite Nonna’s general dislike for the Irish because of my father, she did enjoy quoting Oliver Goldsmith to me: “He who fights and runs away, May live to fight another day; But he who is battle slain, Can never rise to fight again.”
The Order of Cavendi won’t be the end of me—not if I have anything to say about it.
I meet Ansaldo’s gaze straight-on. “I’ll consider joining your twisted boy scouts club.” I lean on his desk too now, putting us on even ground. “But you’ve made an enemy of the Fiore’s, and we never forgive, and we never forget.”
With that, I turn on my heels and throw open the door of his office, not waiting to see if Bes and Cec follow as my pulse pounds loudly in my ears.
Hurried steps echo behind me.
“Did you know?” I ask, breathless as Bes and Cec settle on either side of me. “Did you know about my mother, that my nonna was part of the order?”
“We didn’t. I swear we didn’t,” Bes assures me, desperation saturating his words.
“We never would’ve followed my father’s orders to lie to you if we knew, Hawkins,” Cec claims at my other side.
Bes’s fingers brush against the back of my hand.
“And we certainly would’ve never brought you here.
I was under the assumption that you’d be safer here than anywhere else.
None of our enemies have found us in this place, including the God Men, and I thought if I could get you here, then you’d be safe.
If I’d known Ansaldo would force you to join, I would’ve found another way. And I’m sorry for it.”
I stop in the middle of the hall, trying to catch my breath. “I believe you, truly. But I need one moment to myself. To sift through all this.”
Cec bows his head and leaves without another word. Bes lingers, brow furrowed, until he does the same.
Once they’re gone, I head straight to my room. Slamming the door closed, I lay on my back on top of the covers, staring up the ceiling. I try to sift through my emotions. After all I just heard, I don’t even know where to begin.
Well, you wanted answers to your questions, I remind myself. I couldn’t have predicted most of what Ansaldo told me. My mother? My ancestors? My nonna? All fully initiated members of the order, a group I had no idea existed until yesterday evening.
I swallow hard. I never knew my mother, have not one single memory of her.
But the pain and suffering she endured at the hands of the order, the reason she defied them and started a new life without their knowledge, has been branded into my mind now.
There’s a reason she tried to defect, a reason she ran.
Whether Ansaldo manages to force me into the order or not, I won’t let what happened to her happen to me.
My nonna… All my life, she’s lied to me. Logically, I understand there were certain things she literally couldn’t tell me. On the other hand, some of the lies she told me weren’t protected under the blood oath. Did she not want me asking questions? Who is she to make that decision for me?
I close my eyes, tears leaking out the sides and falling down my temples.
Yes, nonna should’ve been more honest with me, and I hope I live long enough to yell at her for it the next time I see her.
The only reason she involved Ansaldo in the first place, though, is because she was worried for me.
She knew that the order not only had the resources to protect me, but also had a moral obligation to do so.
What she didn’t know is that the order had other plans.
And Bes and Cec have shown me time and time again that they care about my safety, and not just because they were ordered to.
The moment I got in the car with Bes outside the temple, he could’ve bound and gagged me and forced me to come here.
Instead, he treated me like an equal, someone with choices.
No one in league with Ansaldo’s true purpose would’ve allowed that.
The true villain here is Ansaldo Giudice.
The only thing I know for certain is that I will have to take that blood oath if I ever want to see the sun again.