Chapter 5
I stepped out of the elevator, reaching for the knife hidden in my cassock. Lorenzo took two steps back.
"Excuse me, gentlemen." The receptionist appeared. "Violence is forbidden on Acropolis grounds. You'll need to take your business elsewhere."
Lorenzo smiled as I released the handle of my knife and straightened my jacket. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a situation.”
My fingers curled briefly into fists until the holes in my palms hurt. “You can’t hide in here forever.”
“You’re right about that.” He checked his watch. “I’ve got an hour to get out of town. I’d rather spend it dancing than fighting. You?”
"I'm not here to dance. I’m here to kill you."
Lorenzo's eyes lit up like I'd offered him a gift. "You're welcome to try, Father. But it’s like the lady said. Violence is out of the question as long as we’re down here. Might as well make the most of the situation." He stepped back, giving me space I didn't want anymore.
He turned and started to walk down the corridor, pausing after a few steps to look back. “Coming, Father?”
I clenched my jaw and glanced back at the elevator. I should go back up, wait for him to leave. But if I did, he might find a secondary exit and I could miss him. I wasn’t willing to let the bastard out of my sight until he was dead.
I adjusted my jacket and smoothed my hands over the sleeves. “Lead the way.”
His eyes widened, but his only other response was a victorious grin.
Azevedo's body was growing cold on Vatican stone.
The man who'd found me when I was seventeen, still drowning six years after Gabriel's death, who'd given me purpose when I thought God and faith and meaning were lost forever.
The man who'd taught me that sometimes love meant picking up a sword instead of turning the other cheek.
We reached an escalator and both stepped on. For a minute, I thought he was going to run. My hand shot out and I grabbed him, shoving him against the side. "Don't mistake neutral ground for safety."
"Don't make the mistake of thinking I’m easy prey, Father."
I ground my teeth until my molars ached. I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze until that smug expression disappeared. But there was still a part of me that wanted to kiss him until neither of us could breathe.
Where had that thought come from?
I did neither. Just held him there until we had to step off the escalator together.
The floor stretched out before us looking more like a mall than an underground assassins’ hideout. Storefronts were tucked all around behind fake trees and fountains. And there, straight ahead, was an ivory archway. Scrawled across it in script was the name of a club: Eden.
Lorenzo smirked and took me by the hand, dragging me toward it.
Eden. The name alone was blasphemy. Metal trees twisted toward a ceiling painted black as sin. Neon lights pulsed in time with music that throbbed through the floor, trying to reset my heartbeat. Bodies pressed together on the dance floor in ways I'd trained myself not to notice.
Lorenzo moved into the crowd and I lost sight of him for a moment.
My chest tightened, breath catching before I spotted him again, weaving through the writhing mass like he'd been born to it.
He belonged here in a way I never could.
Or maybe he was just so far gone that the darkness couldn't make him any worse.
Lorenzo led me to the bar at the edge of the dance floor. He ordered for both of us without asking what I wanted. Whiskey, neat, two glasses. The amber liquid looked like old blood under the neon lights.
We drank in silence, me glaring at him and him smirking at me.
"Tell me about Azevedo." Lorenzo set his glass down. "Were you close?"
My hand tightened around my glass. The bandages were soaked through with blood now, leaving dark smears on the crystal. "Don't."
"He was a good man, I'm sure." Lorenzo tilted his head, studying me. "Pity about all those children."
The glass cracked in my grip. "What children?"
"Oh, you know." His smile was slow and cruel. "Just the ones he trafficked to the Pantheon’s child assassin training program. The ones YOU helped him traffick."
I slammed my glass down. "You're lying. Azevedo devoted his life to helping children. Building shelters, schools, saving them from—"
"From what?" Lorenzo leaned closer. "From men like him?"
"He was a GOOD man. A holy man. Whatever you think you found, you're wrong."
"Then why did he have encrypted files about facilities in Romania and Thailand?" Lorenzo's eyes glittered in the neon light. "What kind of charity work requires that level of security?"
"Stop." I can’t breathe. Why can’t I breathe? "You murdered him and now you're trying to justify—"
"I'm not justifying anything, Father." Lorenzo's voice softened, became almost kind. That was worse than the cruelty. "I'm telling you the truth. And you'll see it soon enough." Lorenzo slid off his stool. "Dance with me."
"I don't—"
His hand closed around my wrist and he pulled me into the crowd. Bodies pressed in from all sides, and the bass throbbed so deep I could feel it in my chest.
Lorenzo started to move and my brain short-circuited. His hips rolled with the music, shoulders loose, and then he turned his back to me and pressed against my body like we'd done this a thousand times. His ass ground into my hips and my body responded.
I tried to shut it down, reaching for prayer and the certainty of my vows. None of it worked. Somewhere deep down, I was more than a priest. More than a servant of God. I was still a man.
A man who was suddenly so hard it hurt.
He reached back and fisted in my hair, yanking my head down until my mouth was at his neck. The pulse under his skin beat wild and fast. I opened my mouth to protest, but instead wound up grazing my teeth over his throat. He arched into it, a low purring sound vibrating through his chest.
I bit down. Not hard enough to break skin but enough to make him gasp.
He went still. I'd surprised him. Good.
God forgive me, I liked it.
He ground his ass back against me harder and my hands shot to his hips, fingers digging in through fabric. I yanked him against me, suddenly starved for more. Everywhere we touched burned.
I'd kept my vows for years without ever once being tempted to break them, and now I was dry humping a murderer on a dance floor in hell.
"Is this what you wanted?" He rolled his hips in a slow, deliberate motion. "When you followed me down here?"
His head fell back against my shoulder and I couldn’t stop staring at the column of his throat.
"Go on. Put your hands around my throat. Choke me."
My hand wrapped around his throat. I couldn't let go.
Blood from my stigmata soaked through the bandages, dripping between our bodies.
His pulse hammered against my palm and he pushed back into my grip, into my body, grinding against my cock with a rhythm that was going to either kill me or make me come.
I was so lost in the sensation I almost didn’t notice the way his hand crawled into his pocket.
I slammed him back against the column. His head cracked against the wood and he gasped, but his eyes stayed locked on mine.
"Azevedo was a good man," I said. Each word was broken glass in my throat. "He saved me when I was seventeen, pulled me back from the edge when I had nothing left."
"Then ask yourself why he had to die." Lorenzo's hand came up to cover mine on his throat. "Ask yourself what he was hiding."
"Stop lying."
"Why would I lie?" His thumb stroked across my knuckles. "I get paid either way. But someone thought Azevedo was enough of a bad guy that they went through all the trouble of hiring me to take him out. In my experience, good people are rarely targets for assassins."
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I growled, but my hands were shaking. What if he was right? There had to be a reason someone wanted Azevedo dead. People didn’t just pay assassins to murder cardinals for no reason.
I shook my head. No. He was just trying to distract me. I’d been charged with a holy mission to eliminate Lorenzo, to avenge Azevedo’s death. It didn’t matter why Azevedo had a contract on his life in the first place…did it?
He pulled away and turned his back on me like I was nothing, like this whole night had been a game and he'd already won.
My feet moved before my brain caught up. I grabbed his shoulder, spun him around. "You don't get to walk away."
"Don't I?" His smile was infuriating. "What are you going to do about it, Father? Kill me in front of witnesses? Or just follow me around Rome getting hard—"
I don't know why I kissed him. Maybe it was to shut him up or to wipe that smile off his face. Once I did, it didn't matter why.
Our teeth clashed. I forced my tongue into his mouth and tasted whiskey, tasted him.
He tried to pull away but I dragged him back by his throat and squeezed until I could feel his pulse hammering against my palm.
His lip split under my teeth and the taste of blood coated my tongue.
I swallowed it down like communion wine, like I could consume his sin and make it mine.
This is for you, Azevedo. I'll make him suffer.
Lorenzo fisted my cassock and groaned into my mouth, pulling me closer. We were devouring each other.
But it wasn’t enough. I needed to hurt him or else I was going to lose my will completely.
I yanked my blade free and broke the kiss. "This is for Azevedo," I said and plunged it into his side.
Lorenzo's eyes went wide. His mouth opened against mine, gasping.
I twisted the blade before pulling out and his whole body shuddered against mine. The sight of his blood made me harder and I hated myself for it.
We stood there, frozen, my blade dripping between us.
Then he shoved me. My back hit someone behind me and by the time I recovered my balance, he was already gone.
But it didn’t matter. My blade had done its job, and now Lorenzo couldn’t go anywhere without leaving a crimson trail behind him.