Chapter 2
The air in Rome tasted like espresso and sin.
Tourists in their sensible shoes shuffled past me, photographing monuments while pickpockets worked the crowds. I'd parked three blocks from Vatican City because riding straight up to the Pope's front door seemed tactless, even for me.
The Brunello Cucinelli suit earned approving nods from locals who knew quality when they saw it. Good. Nobody questioned a man in two thousand euros' worth of tailored wool carrying a leather portfolio. Blending in was about looking so right that nobody thought to look twice.
The portfolio held everything I needed: Cardinal Azevedo's schedule, blueprints of his private study, a knife that would do the job without screaming "murder" to the forensics team.
I’d spent three days tracking Azevedo from Rio to Rome, which was a pity. If he’d stayed in Rio, I could’ve caught up with Dionysus.
Focus, Lorenzo. One job at a time. Kill the cardinal, get the information about the facilities, get out. The job seemed simple, but nothing involving the Catholic Church was ever simple. They'd been complicating things since someone nailed a guy to some wood and called it salvation.
The service corridors were quiet this time of day, all echoing stone and the ghost-smell of incense.
I'd timed it perfectly: staff rotation, shift change, that magic fifteen minutes when the hallways belonged to ghosts and assassins and nobody else.
The lock on Azevedo's private study took me thirty seconds to pick, and then I was inside.
Cardinal Azevedo sat behind his mahogany desk, reading glasses perched on his nose as he reviewed documents. He didn't look up when I entered.
"You're late," he said, still focused on his papers. "I expected you ten minutes ago."
"Traffic," I said, closing the door behind me.
That got his attention. His eyes flicked to the lock, then to me, and he slowly slipped off his glasses. "Ah, so it's finally come to this."
He reached inside his scarlet robes, and I crossed the distance between us in three strides. My hand closed around his wrist before he could draw whatever he'd been reaching for.
"I wouldn't," I said quietly.
The knife was already in my other hand. Had been since I walked through the door. Azevedo gasped as steel slid between his ribs, his body going rigid with the shock of it.
"Smart of you to avoid the heart entirely," he wheezed, fingers twitching toward the weapon like he might pull it out himself. Blood seeped around the steel, dark and wet and very final. "Who sent you?"
"Does it matter?" I asked. “You’re dead either way, which means the Icarus Program in South America dies with you.”
His private study reeked of expensive incense and old leather, the kind of smell that said power and secrets in equal measure. Give it a few minutes and we'd add eau de corpse to the mix.
He laughed, blood flecking his lips like obscene lipstick. "Tell me, Lorenzo, do you believe in divine justice?"
“I believe in what I can see, hear, and feel,” I replied. “I’m not exactly the religious sort.”
Azevedo withdrew a velvet pouch from his robes with trembling fingers, setting it on the desk between us. A single coin rolled out onto the desk. It was silver, ancient, and completely unlike any I’d ever seen before, but I still knew exactly what I was looking at.
Every Ferryman had heard a legend or two about the Judas Coins. I’d chalked them up to exactly that: a myth. I’d certainly never seen one in person.
Until now.
"You absolute bastard."
He smirked. “God works in mysterious ways. I might be dead, but at least I know I won’t be burning in Hell alone.” He closed his eyes. The cardinal’s chest rose and fell one final time before going still.
Footsteps approached in the corridor along with multiple voices speaking Italian. Shit.
I scooped up the coin and moved toward the service door, but voices echoed from that direction too. The main door's handle turned.
I dropped behind the massive oak desk as the door opened, pressing myself against the carved wood. Through the gap beneath, I watched polished black shoes enter the study.
"Padre?" A male voice called softly, and something about it made my skin prickle. "I brought the files you requested."
The shoes moved closer to Azevedo's chair. Then stopped dead.
"Oh, God."
The whisper carried such raw anguish that it made my chest ache. The shoes stumbled backward, then rushed forward. I heard the soft thud of knees hitting marble, the rustle of fabric.
"No, no, no. Padre, please."
I risked lifting my head above the desk's edge because I'm an idiot who can't resist a mystery.
A young priest knelt beside Azevedo's chair, hands hovering over the cardinal's body like he wanted to help but didn't know how.
Dark hair fell across his face as he leaned forward, and when he looked up to check for signs of life.
Beautiful. That was the only word for him. Certainly too good-looking to be a priest. God really said, "Let there be light," and used all of it on this one man. What a waste of good genetics on celibacy.
Something about his profile nagged at me. Familiar, though I couldn't place what.
The priest's hand moved to Azevedo's face, closing the cardinal's eyes gently. "I'm sorry," he whispered, voice cracking. "I'm so sorry I was late."
The grief in his voice was real. Raw. The kind that came from actual love, or at least something close enough to fool a professional liar like me. Then his spine straightened, and the grief disappeared behind a mask of professional calm so smooth it was almost beautiful to watch.
The man had impressive self-control.
The priest pulled out his phone, but his eyes never stopped scanning the room. This wasn't a soft parish priest who spent his days hearing confessions and blessing rosaries. He was dangerous. Maybe in the same way I was.
This was about to get interesting.
His gaze caught on something, and my stomach dropped. There was a drop of blood on the marble right by my hiding place.
"Security?" he said into the phone. "Cardinal Azevedo has been murdered. His study. Send everyone." He hung up and spoke to the apparently empty room, and I swear to God there was the ghost of a smile on his lips. "I know you're still in here."
Fuck.
I stood slowly, hands up. "You got me."
His jaw clenched. “Come out from behind the desk.”
The command made my dick twitch. Not the time, Lorenzo. Absolutely not the fucking time.
I stayed where I was, with the desk between us. “Just so you know, he had it coming.”
He gritted his teeth and launched forward with a punch aimed right at my nose, followed by a left hook that would have shattered ribs if it had landed.
I swayed back, letting the punches cut air inches from my face, then dropped into a low sweep. My leg caught his ankle, but he rolled with it, stumbling but staying upright.
"You're not leaving here alive," he said, resetting his stance.
"Watch me."
I flowed into a spinning kick aimed at his head. He ducked under it like he'd known it was coming and lunged forward, trying to tackle me into the heavy wooden desk. I twisted away, but his shoulder caught my hip, and we both went crashing into Azevedo's chair.
The impact rattled my teeth. The priest rolled with it and came up swinging, a vicious uppercut that I barely slipped. It grazed my jaw hard enough to sting. His follow-up cross caught my cheek, and pain bloomed on one side of my face.
Christ, that was close. And absolutely exhilarating in ways I'd examine later when I wasn't fighting for my freedom.
The man hit like a truck with anger issues and a point to prove.
I grabbed the chair's armrest and swung it between us, forcing him back, then vaulted over it with a cartwheel that turned into a heel kick. My foot connected with his shoulder, and the impact shot up my leg. He spun into the bookshelf, and I waited for him to go down.
He didn't even grunt, just absorbed the impact like it was nothing and kept moving.
Books cascaded down as the priest grabbed a heavy leather tome and hurled it at my head.
I ducked, and the book shattered a picture frame behind me.
He was already moving, using the distraction to close the distance.
Clever bastard. I was starting to like him, which was a problem for about seventeen different reasons.
We crashed together near the desk. The priest tried to pin my arms, but I twisted free. I drove my elbow toward his temple. He blocked with his forearm and countered with a short hook to my kidney that sent fire shooting up my spine.
Fuck, that hurt. When was the last time someone had hurt me in a fight? Not just landed a hit, but actually made me feel it?
I wrapped my leg around his, using capoeira's ground game to trip him backward. We went down hard. I tried to follow up, but he rolled away and kicked up at my knee.
The impact sent me stumbling into the desk. Azevedo's blood had made the surface slippery, and my hand skidded through it. I used the slide to my advantage, spinning around the desk's edge as the priest pursued.
He grabbed my jacket and yanked me back.
We grappled close, his boxing training making him dangerous at this range.
A short uppercut to my ribs drove the air from my lungs in an embarrassing wheeze.
I responded by slamming my forehead toward his nose.
He jerked back just in time, instinct saving him from a broken nose.
For a moment we were face to face, breathing hard, his hands gripping my jacket, mine clutching his cassock. Close enough to see the gold flecks in those whiskey eyes. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from his skin despite the violence, despite everything.
He was magnificent. Absolutely fucking magnificent, and I was definitely going to hell for noticing.
Swiss Guard radios crackled in the hallway, breaking the moment.
I drove my knee up toward his solar plexus. The priest twisted, taking the blow on his hip instead, but his grip loosened just enough. I spun away from him and vaulted over the desk in one smooth motion, scattering papers and sending Azevedo's fountain pen skittering across marble.
"Stop!" The priest's voice followed me as I hit the service door running. Behind me, he cursed as he struggled to his feet, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a little proud that I'd left him winded.
What a shame. I could have fought him all day. But the Swiss Guards didn't care about my newfound appreciation for violent priests, so I ran.
The Vatican's service corridors were a maze, but I'd memorized the route. Left at the first junction, straight through the maintenance area, right toward the exit that would put me near the tourist parking. Easy. I'd done this a hundred times in a hundred different buildings.
Shouts in Italian echoed behind me.
I took a sharp left down a narrower passage, one that would bypass their checkpoint if I timed it right. A flashlight beam swept the corridor ahead, searching. I pressed myself against the wall, controlling my breathing. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three.
The beam swung away, and I sprinted past, silent as I could manage.
The exit appeared ahead: a service door that led to the public areas.
Tourist chatter filtered through, the perfect crowd to disappear into.
I hit the door at full speed and emerged into late afternoon chaos.
St. Peter's Square spread out before me, and I slipped into the crowd, shedding my jacket and turning it inside out. I dusted off the ball cap I’d hidden in my pocket and slipped it onto my head.
The disposable camera in my other pocket completed the look.
I was just another tourist snapping pictures.
The Swiss Guard and the hot priest stumbled out of the Vatican together, drawing the attention of the crowd, but I was already power walking in the other direction toward the exit.
I reached where I’d parked my bike and fired it up, pulling into Rome's evening traffic.
Twenty minutes later, I pulled into a quiet side street near Campo de' Fiori and killed the engine.
Sudden silence crashed over me after the chase, after the violence, after everything.
My hands shook slightly as I pulled off my helmet, adrenaline finally bleeding out and leaving behind the cold reality of what had just happened.
My mouth tasted like blood, and I'd kill for something sweet. Sugar always helped after the bad jobs, and this one qualified as catastrophically bad on multiple levels. But I had more important things to worry about now.
I reached into my jacket and withdrew the Judas Coin.
The ancient silver caught the last rays of the afternoon sun.
I didn’t know much about the rules of the Judas Coin, but I knew the most important one.
Now that I’d accepted it, there was no backing out, not until I killed whoever had initiated Azevedo’s contract.
Information about the contract holder was need to know, and I generally didn’t need to know.
I just took the jobs assigned to me, carried them out, and got on with my life.
The only way to find out who I’d have to hunt to get rid of the damn thing would be to talk to Luka.
He’d know who initiated the Azevedo contract.
I pulled out my phone and dialed his number.
"Lorenzo." Luka's voice crackled through the speaker, sharp and alert despite the late hour. "Please tell me you're calling to confirm the cardinal is very dead and very gone."
"Dead as disco. The murder was the easy part. It’s what came after that’s the problem.”
There was a long pause before Luka asked, “What kind of problem? How big?”
"Biblical proportions," I said, because apparently I was committing to the theme.
"Shit. Lorenzo, listen to me. Rome's Acropolis has a bar called Ossario on the third floor. Can you make it there?"
"I'm twenty minutes away."
"I can meet you there in four hours. Don't do anything stupid before I get there."
"Define stupid."
"Lo."
"Fine. Four hours. Don't be late."
I hung up and pocketed the coin. I had a feeling that this wasn’t going to end so well.