Chapter 8
I stormed through the doors of the sacred chamber. Five cardinals in scarlet robes jerked upright from their positions around the table, midnight prayers interrupted.
"Tell me Lorenzo Vasquez was lying," I demanded. "Tell me Cardinal Azevedo wasn't trafficking children to the Pantheon."
The cardinals stared at each other, and then at me.
I took another step further into the chamber. "Tell me the Vatican wasn't supplying children to an underground crime syndicate. Tell me we were helping orphans, not breeding killers for the Pantheon."
"That's quite an accusation, Father." Torretti said, setting down his rosary beads. "Where exactly did you hear this?"
"Lorenzo Vasquez told me. The assassin." My hands clenched at my sides.
Cardinal Sanguinetti rose slowly from the head of the table. "You would believe the word of a murderer?"
“The man’s a professional liar,” Torretti agreed.
“And yet you refuse to refute his claims.” I stomped further into the chamber until I was standing at the edge of the table.
“If it’s not true, then tell me it isn’t.
Better yet, prove it. Bring out all the receipts, the copies of checks I signed my name to.
Prove to me that I had no part in what he says I did! That Azevedo was innocent!”
The chamber doors closed with a bang, and I spun around to see Constantine standing there.
He smiled and lowered his hand from the door, folding his hands behind his back.
“‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.’” He said and paced forward.
“The words of a man who became known as Doubting Thomas.”
"Your Eminent Highness," Sanguinetti said, scrambling to bow.
Constantine held up a hand, halting Sanguinetti and the others without fully acknowledging them. His attention remained fixed on me. “Our religion is one of faith, Father Oliviera. Not proof. We believe in things unseen, unheard, and unknown. That is the very nature of Catholicism, is it not?”
“Of Catholicism, yes,” I replied. “But Cardinal Azevedo—”
“Is dead,” he said firmly, stopping in front of me. “And you were tasked with avenging him. Tell me, where is the assassin, Lorenzo Vasquez?”
I swallowed and dropped my head. “I don’t know.”
“And yet here you stand.” He smiled almost pleasantly, but it sent a shiver down my spine. “Have you abandoned your charge, Father Oliviera?”
“No, I—”
“Then why are you here?”
The chamber went silent. Even the cardinals seemed to hold their breath.
I clenched my jaw and met Constantine’s ice-cold gaze. “I need to know the truth.”
“The truth is,” Constantine continued, his voice perfectly calm, "you were sent to kill Lorenzo Vasquez. Instead, you met with him. You danced with him, and then you fought with him at the Palazzo Farnese. And then you let him go."
I flinched. How could he know about that? It’d only been hours since that happened, and none of the Vatican’s people had been there. I hadn’t told anyone. Had the Pantheon contacted him somehow?
"I—"
"And now you come before the circle, repeating the very accusations Mr. Vasquez likely whispered in your ear.
Conspiracies about child trafficking. Claims that the Church collaborates with organized crime.
" Constantine's voice dropped lower, colder.
"You were sent to eliminate a threat to the Church.
Instead, it appears the threat has corrupted you. "
"That's not—"
"You have been compromised, Father Oliveira. Whether through seduction, manipulation, or simple weakness, Lorenzo Vasquez has turned you against the institution you swore to serve."
"No,” I said, backing away. "I came here for answers. That’s all. My loyalty is still to the order. Still to God. To you."
"Your Eminent Highness," Torretti said carefully. "Perhaps we should discuss this in counsel. The boy has served faithfully for years."
"Has he? He met privately with the assassin who murdered Cardinal Azevedo. On neutral ground. He now parrots that assassin's accusations. You call this faithful service?"
Torretti went silent. No one else spoke.
"There is nothing to discuss." Constantine said with finality. "This man has failed his mission, and he has failed the Church. He has broken his covenant with God and the order." He looked at me. "Guards."
The doors opened. Four men in black entered, their faces hidden behind silver masks. The Sacra Custodia.
"Take him to the lower levels," Constantine said. "The circle will deliberate on his fate."
The guards moved toward me. I backed away, hands raised. "Wait. Please. Just let me—"
"You had your chance, Father Oliveira." Constantine turned away, adjusting his cuffs. "You chose poorly."
The guards grabbed my arms. I struggled, but it was pointless. They dragged me from the chamber. Constantine's back disappeared through the doorway, deaf to my pleas.
We went down, descending past the sacred chamber, past the archives, past levels I recognized from my years here. The guards said nothing as they dragged me six levels down, seven. Eight.
The stone changed, growing older and rougher. The Christian symbols faded from the walls until there were no more crosses, no more saints watching from alcoves, nothing but ancient stone and torchlight and the echo of our footsteps.
At the ninth level, they finally halted before a massive wooden door.
The door opened into a chamber that made the Sanctum look young.
The walls were bare stone, rough-hewn, stained dark.
A drain waited in the center of the floor.
Iron rings jutted from the ceiling, which I found strange until one of the guards produced a coil of rope.
My blood chilled when he tossed the rope through the loop and began fashioning a noose.
This couldn't be happening. I was a priest. I'd devoted my entire life to the Church, taken vows, served faithfully for years. And now they were going to hang me in a forgotten chamber beneath the Vatican like I was nothing.
"Wait." My voice came out desperate. "Please. I’m not compromised. I swear. I just need proof. Let me see the files. Let me—"
One of the guards shoved me forward. I stumbled and caught myself against the wall. The stone under my palms was cold and damp and smelled like old blood.
This wasn’t right. I knew that questioning God was a sin, but Constantine wasn’t God and neither was Azevedo. The order wasn’t God. It was an institution made up of men, and men were sinners. Questioning sinners wasn’t a sin.
So why were they about to hang me?
Because I know something I shouldn’t.
My stomach turned.
Because Lorenzo was right. Killing me silences the accusations. It buries them, letting them continue their work selling children to the Pantheon. If I’m silenced, they win.
I had no proof, though. No reason to believe the thoughts racing through my brain. None but the noose they were preparing to tighten around my neck.
They positioned me under the rope. Two guards held my arms while the third approached with the noose. The fourth started checking my pockets, searching for anything I might use to resist.
His hands closed around the small blade hidden in my sleeve.
For one second, he held it, examining it, trying to decide if this small knife was worth reporting or just tossing aside.
That second was all I had.
I yanked my arm free and struck his nose, the way the Order had taught me. Bone crunched. He staggered back, and I grabbed the blade from his hand, spun, and drove it into the throat of the guard behind me.
Hot blood sprayed across my face.
The guard crumpled. His blood was warm on my lips, copper-salt taste filling my mouth where I'd gasped in shock. There was no time to process what I’d done before the other two were on me.
I slashed at one without thinking, opening his throat.
The other reached for a weapon I couldn’t see.
I tackled him before he could pull it free and stabbed blindly.
He tried to get his hands up to protect his face, but it was no use.
The knife came down again and again and again until he stopped moving, until he was nothing but a bubbling pile of wet meat beneath me.
I stared down at the bloody mess that had once been a man, chest heaving. The knife trembled in my hand. It wasn’t the first time in my life I’d been covered in someone else’s blood, but it was the first time it’d felt wrong. I cast the knife aside in disgust and stood, stumbling backward.
What have I done?
The men at my feet had given their oaths—their lives—to their order, just as I had mine. We’d prayed together at Mass, taken communion together. Passed each other in hallways deep in the Holy See.
And then I’d murdered them.
My palms burned where Constantine had placed the marks, like they were rejecting what I'd become.
Everything before this moment could have been walked back.
Meeting with Lorenzo was reconnaissance.
Questioning the Cardinals was seeking truth.
Running could have been fear, confusion, a crisis of faith that confession and penance might heal.
But not this.
The rope creaked above me, and I understood with sudden, nauseating clarity that they'd been right to prepare it.
Not because I'd been compromised by Lorenzo, but because somewhere between the sacred chamber and this blood-soaked stone, I'd stopped being Father Rafael Oliveira of the Order of Saint Michael.
That man would have submitted to their judgment.
He would have trusted that God's will would prevail even through corrupt instruments.
That man was dead.
I need to go. The words were eerily clear in my mind. When the Sacra Custodia didn’t return to their posts, someone was going to come looking for them, and when they did, they’d see what I’d done. I was about to become the most wanted man in Rome.
I grabbed the knife from the floor. It was the only weapon I had against whatever was coming. Then I stumbled around the room until I found a second corridor that led into darkness. Going back the way I’d come wasn’t an option.
This was my only way out.
And if I wanted answers, I was going to have to look somewhere other than the Church this time.