Chapter 6
The blood trail led me through a door marked PRIVATE. A service corridor descended into darkness on the other side. That passage opened into the catacombs. The pale beam of my phone’s flashlight illuminated blood drops gleaming black on ancient stone.
Footsteps echoed somewhere ahead. I smiled when I realized he was running.
You can run, but you can’t hide.
I rounded a corner, and the beam found him maybe forty yards down the passage. Lorenzo had one hand pressed to his side, the other braced against the wall. He glanced back, cursed, and took off running again.
I followed, saving my strength. Let him wear himself out. There was nowhere for him to go, and I’d catch up to him, eventually.
He jumped over a pile of bones, and I followed. The ceiling dropped low enough that I had to hunch. Stone scraped across my shoulders through the cassock. Ahead, Lorenzo wedged himself through a narrow section, and I closed the distance between us. I reached out and got a fistful of his jacket.
He spun before I could drag him back, and his blade came at my face. I jerked away, but not in time to avoid a graze on the cheek. I touched my hand to my face, and it came away bloody.
Damn him.
Gritting my teeth, I pushed through the narrow corridor until I stumbled into a large burial chamber at the other end.
A half-rotten sarcophagus scraped over the floor toward me.
I barely got out of the way in time to avoid being hit.
A skull came hurling through the air and smashed into the wall beside my head.
Bone dust rained down and got in my eyes, and I lost too much time blinking to clear them.
But he didn’t get far. I caught up to him again in a circular chamber with only one way out, and that corridor was behind me. He was leaning against the far wall, pale and panting.
"Nowhere left to run," I said and drew my blade.
“Who said I was running?” He pushed off the wall and came at me.
He lunged at me with a strike aimed at my heart.
Fast, but not Lorenzo-fast. I slipped inside his guard and used his momentum to slam him back into the catacomb wall.
Stone scraped my knuckles raw, and bone fragments rained down on both of us.
His free hand shot up and wrapped around my throat, but the squeeze was weak.
Pressure built in my temples as he tried to strangle me. Blood pounded in my ears. I drove forward and pinned his knife hand against stone. We ended up inches apart, him staring up at me, panting.
"You can’t kill me," he whispered.
I gritted my teeth and leaned in. “Who says?”
“Me,” he managed, and I flinched as his hand cupped between my legs. “You want me too much.”
My grip on his wrist loosened, and he twisted free before I could tighten my hold again. His boot came around in a kick, and I blocked it, but the impact sent pain shooting up my forearm. He stumbled on the follow-through and winced.
Then he was moving again, stumbling toward the far wall. His fist came down on a raised square, and another door opened up. Dammit, he was going to get away.
I followed him up the stairs on the other side of the secret doorway, gaining on him with every step. By the time we reached moonlight his breathing came in ragged gasps. His left arm hung tight against his side.
The passage opened onto a small courtyard, and ancient walls enclosed us. Lorenzo braced himself against the weathered stone and turned to face me. His chest heaved, but his blade still gleamed in the moonlight.
"End of the line," I said.
"Is it?" He pushed off the wall, and his knife spun through his fingers, but he winced halfway through the rotation. "I'm just getting warmed up."
I sliced at his ribs. He tried to flow around the strike, but he wasn’t fast enough. The knife passed through the fabric, barely missing skin. He grabbed my wrist and tried to spin me into the wall, but his grip slipped and we crashed together on the ground. His knife pressed against my throat.
“Did you even read the checks you were signing?” he asked. “Or did you just do whatever you were told like a good little priest?”
I drove my knee up hard. He twisted and took it on his hip, stumbling back far enough that I could break free. My elbow connected with his ribs where I'd stabbed him, and he gasped.
"What checks?" I demanded.
"The ones signed by your precious cardinal." Lorenzo straightened carefully, and the pain showed in every movement. "The Foundation for Children's Welfare. Your names are all over those manifests and the funding papers. You’re as complicit as he was in child trafficking."
My stomach dropped. The Foundation. I'd signed those funding requests myself. Dozens of them. "We were helping orphans."
"You helped him buy children and ship them to Pantheon training facilities.
" Lorenzo's eyes never left my face, and I hated that he was watching me process this.
"Bangkok, Manila, Eastern Europe, Alaska.
Your signature's on half the wire transfer authorizations.
You personally approved sending over three million dollars to child traffickers. "
"No! That can’t be right!” Because if he was telling the truth, then I had… I was…
The stone wall against my back was the only thing keeping me upright. My knees wanted to buckle, so I locked them to stay standing.
"Stop," I choked out. "Just stop. You're lying. You have to be lying. This is what you do. Break people down—"
"The North American Director ordered every training facility in his territory to shut down last year." Lorenzo kept going and wouldn't let me escape this. "But Azevedo went behind his back. There’s still one going in Alaska right now, and dozens more around the world."
How many children? How many small faces had looked up at me with trust while I signed their death sentences?
"He was a good man," I whispered, and the words tasted like ash.
"Your mentor was feeding children into a meat grinder," Lorenzo said. "And you were his accountant."
"Fuck you." I pushed off the wall and launched a flurry of blind attacks. "Fuck you and your lies."
I drove him back against the courtyard wall, where he smashed his knee up into my solar plexus. Pain exploded as all the air rushed out of my lungs. I stumbled back, giving him a clear shot.
A shot he didn’t take.
Then, red laser dots bloomed on both our chests, and I froze.
"Drop your weapons." An unseen male voice demanded. "Now."
Lorenzo stepped slightly in front of me before I could react, as if he were protecting me. The movement made my face heat even more.
Six figures in black tactical gear emerged from the shadows all around us, assault rifles trained on our positions. Shit. Pantheon enforcers.
My blade clattered to the cobblestones and Lorenzo's follow a heartbeat later. He pressed one hand to his bleeding side and raised the other.
I raised my hands slowly.
The team leader stepped forward. "Father Rafael Oliviera. You're being detained for violation of sanctuary rules."
The Acropolis. I'd stabbed Lorenzo inside Eden. It was supposed to be neutral ground, and I’d violated it. Dammit.
“Wait a minute,” Lorenzo said, stepping in front of me again. “It’s not what you think.”
The team leader ignored him and grabbed me by the arm, twisting one hand behind my back.
“It was consensual!” Lorenzo exclaimed, and everyone in the courtyard froze.
"We were…flirting," Lorenzo said.
“Flirting?” someone repeated, the tone doubtful.
“Well, it was a little more hot and heavy than that. He’s into knife play. I mean, I am. We both are.”
"Knife play," the team leader repeated.
"He wanted to try it." Lorenzo gestured at me, and the movement looked loose despite his injury. "Who was I to say no to a man of God with a kink?"
“What the hell—”
Lorenzo elbowed me, and I grunted. “I’m trying to save your life, you idiot. Play along.
The team leader turned to me, and every muscle in his body radiated skepticism. "Father Oliviera? Is this true?"
My face burned, but I nodded. “It’s as he says.”
The sound of spurs on stone echoed through the courtyard before a man in a bolo tie and a black Stetson appeared. The team leader immediately turned to him. “What do you make of this, Judge Rhadamanthys?”
“It does seem suspicious,” the Judge named Rhadamanthys said.
“The rules of neutral ground must be enforced. But…” He rubbed his chin and pulled out his phone.
“Allow me to consult with my colleagues.” He pressed a button.
The phone rang once, twice before a woman picked up on the other end.
“Aeacus, my dear, it’s Rhadamanthys. We’re on a three-way call. ”
As Rhadamanthys explained the situation over the phone, I glared at Lorenzo and reconsidered my options. Maybe death at the hands of a Pantheon judge was better than letting them all believe I’d broken my vows. I hadn’t…had I?
In Eden there was a moment where I’d wanted to. I didn’t know what madness had overtaken me, but having Lorenzo pressed against me in that sinful place had felt…right. More right than any prayer or liturgy ever had.
I shook the thought away and turned back to Rhadamanthys.
"Mr. Vasquez claims it was consensual activity," Rhadamanthys said. "Knife play that became too rough. An accident, not business."
"How wonderfully creative."
I frowned at the third voice. It sounded familiar somehow, but I couldn’t place it.
"I do admire a good story,” the third voice continued. “Though I must point out that the blood patterns, the positioning when Cerberus arrived, the weapons themselves, they all tell a rather different tale, don't they?"