Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Mercy
Tawny grabs Dom’s left wrist and shoulder. I take the right. If this doesn’t hasten the truth-telling, then I don’t know what will. I doubt he’d be affected by creative verbal maneuvering, which leaves torture. I don’t want to hurt him.
Unease squirms in my belly. Since when did interrogating the enemy get so complicated?
Panic flitters in Dom’s eyes, and he mumbles in Italian something I don’t catch.
“Last chance, Saint,” Raven says in fluent Italian, scraping the tip of her dagger down his hips to tug at the waistband of his boxers. “Tell us what you’re hiding, or we’ll go looking for it.”
His buttocks clench. His head bows in silent resignation.
Raven leans in close, pressing her body against his and whispers in his ear, “Relax, Saint. I promise I’ll be gentle .
.. unless you want rough.” She sheaths the dagger and then runs her hands down the corded muscle beside his spine, slow and deliberate.
She pauses at his waist, fingers hooking into his stretchy waistband.
Her voice drops to a husky murmur, “Do you trust me?”
Dominic is barely breathing. “Sì. More than I should.”
I see the moment Raven almost changes her mind and gives up the charade, but then she yanks his boxers down to his ankles. I can’t look. For me to say that means this definitely feels wrong.
Still, Dominic endures.
And when she widens his stance, he allows it. I have the sense he’ll allow anything as long as she’s the one doing it … which means this isn’t going to work.
Raven’s hand hovers over his ass. She grins at us and asks, “Should I check for Vatican decoder rings or just skip to the good part?”
“What the fuck is a decoder ring?” Tawny mouths to me.
I shrug.
Dominic’s fingers ball into fists against the wall, and his muscles tremble with restraint. But he doesn’t resist mine and Tawny’s hold. He just says to Raven, “If this is necessary … do it.”
Her frustration is a living thing. She starts pacing behind us, eyes wild.
“Does he even have a soul?” she blurts out, chopping her hand in his direction. “Any sane person would be shitting bricks right now, but he’s just—grr.”
I ease off him. Tawny does too.
“Pull your pants up,” I tell him.
“Is over?”
“It never really began, buddy.”
He’s still frowning, unsure when Tawny drops to a crouch and yanks his boxers up, cheeks going bright red when he bends down and takes over.
“Sorry,” she mutters. “You’re genuinely nice. Sorry.”
“No. Fuck that.” Raven whirls on Dom, all steel and teeth.
He barely has his boxers up when she’s pushing him spine to the wall, blade to his carotid.
“You’re not a Saint,” she spits. “You’re a weapon.
And you hate it. Admit it.” She presses harder until a thin sliver of blood oozes from the wound.
“When I tripped you, you fell like a pro. Your hands went out like springs. You’re just like us.
Admit it. You’re the one they send to massacre innocents. You don’t save them.”
His fingers graze her hips, gently. They stare into each other’s eyes for so long and so deeply that I almost excuse myself and Tawny.
“Blink twice, Dom,” I whisper, “If you want us to stop her.”
He never breaks eye contact with Raven. It’s like we don’t exist.
“Tell me about the brand,” she demands.
“Is mark of my voto,” he answers. “My promise to Most High. It is … sacrificio.”
“But what does it mean?” she presses. “What is your sacrifice?”
His brows draw together. “As you say, same as you.”
“We are not the same.”
“I think maybe … yes.”
“You wouldn’t last a single hour in Hell.”
“I have lasted longer.”
She scoffs. “Three days?”
My gaze is ping-ponging between them, trying to catch up. Tawny looks as lost as me. I think Raven’s alluding to the three days Dominic was declared dead after rescuing the orphans from a fire in Romania.
Ghosts of pain echo in his eyes, and he finally looks away.
Oh shit.
Tawny and I glance at each other.
Was Dom in Hell?
No.
Surely not.
“So that’s the lie.” Raven steps back, disgusted. “You didn’t save children. You murdered them.”
“No,” he growls, eyes flashing. “I would never hurt bambini.”
“Then how do you explain ending up in Hell?” She cants her head. “Or is that a lie, too?”
Exasperated, he throws his hands up in the air. “I don’t know.” He makes the sign of the cross. “I tell the truth.” He falls into Italian. “But I came back, and I will do everything in my power to prove worthy of being saved.”
Raven flips her dagger. Once. And then goes still.
Sinner still.
Alarm bells go off in my head. I barely have time to launch across the space and grapple the weapon from her hand. She releases it easily. Too easily.
Because while I’m securing my grip on the hilt, she’s already using another weapon—her fist. A left hook strikes Dominic in the nose. Blood spurts onto Tawny, and she startles.
“Fight me!” Raven shrieks at Dom, slamming her knee into his groin.
He winces, eyes watering, but doesn’t retaliate. By the third hit, I take control of her. “Enough, Raven.”
She tries to wrestle from my grip, snarling and accidentally catching Tawny’s face in her crossfire.
“Enough!” I shout, but it’s too late.
Tawny stays hunched over, facing away, clutching her cheek. Chills skate up my spine when I see her free hand inch for her boot. It feels like I move through jelly as she brings her wild gaze back to Raven. I see the steel glint, but it’s not me who stops the dagger from entering Raven’s eyeball.
A big, powerful hand locks around Tawny’s wrist and halts her strike, the blade hovering millimeters from doing permanent damage.
Dominic holds her as effortlessly as a giant would hold a feather.
Normally, it takes hours of work to calm down a fight like this.
An abbey full of girls encouraged to fight has gifted us with some doozies.
But all Dom does is lean in and whisper something into Tawny’s ear, and she relaxes.
Blood-spattered blue eyes meet his.
“You are good, Tawny?” He nods. “Sì?”
“Sì.”
“Bene.”
She backs up. Dominic glances at me to check on my safety, I presume. But he’s the one who’s bleeding from his nose. He turns his attention to Raven and flattens his lips, nostrils flared. Two steps and he’s at his hanging Versace jacket, pulling out a white handkerchief, then offering it to Raven.
She glares at him.
He gestures with the handkerchief at her nose, but she whacks it away. “Get that out of my face.”
“Raven,” I say. “You’re bleeding, babe.”
Dominic calmly raises his hand—slowly—and swipes his thumb over her upper lip. It comes away red.
He holds it before her. “Now we bleed together.”
“Fuck this shit.” Raven snatches his handkerchief and stalks to the door. “I’m out.”
“Tawny,” I say, dusting myself off. “Go see if she’s okay.”
She tosses a disgruntled look my way but follows Raven.
I stare after them for a beat, but I don’t think they’ll keep fighting.
Tawny is like me when she snaps … maybe worse if I’m honest. At least with my violence, you can see it coming.
I’m normally a horny, dissatisfied monster irritating everyone around me in an obvious way, which is why I try to keep that beast fed.
I’m not sure what placates Tawny’s beast.
Sighing, I turn back to the Saint and find him back on his chair, still only in his boxer shorts, looking at his hands, at Raven’s blood mixed with his.
“You really believe that?” I switch to Italian so he’s comfortable. “That we’re the same? Sinners and Saints?”
He nods. “Now, yes.”
“But not when you arrived?”
“No.” A small smile touches his lips. “Then I thought the same as the others.”
“You believe the prophecy? That you’re fated to one of us?”
His smile drops. He sighs and rests his head back against the wall, looking down at me through long lashes. “Yes.”
“But you don’t like it.”
“It’s not that.” His jaw clenches, and his brows knit together. “Have you spoken with Cisco yet?”
Cisco. They don’t call him Father often. “Not yet.”
“Ah.”
“What does that mean?”
He levels a look at me. “You should trust him.”
I scoff. “Have you been talking to him?”
About me?
He grows serious in a way I don’t like to see on his face. It makes me nervous.
“What?” I prompt.
“Ask Cisco.”
I step toward the door, then stop. “Answer me this last question, and you’re free to go.”
“Okay.”
My chest constricts with the urge to hold back what I’m about to say. But call it divine, call it faith, or call it intuition … I feel as though he’s one of us.
“What do you think about Jasmine’s story?”
Steady, gray eyes meet mine. “I think she does not tell the truth.”
I exhale. “So, you don’t trust her either.”
A grim shake of his head as he reaches for his trousers.
“Sorry about that,” I mumble in English, pointing to his clothes, half hoping he doesn’t understand my apology.
“No, you are not.” His eyes crinkle.
“Suppose I’m not.” I give his incredible body one last appreciative look. He’s the only eligible bachelor at the abbey. A week ago, I propositioned him. He said no. “My offer still stands, Saint.”
His lips curve as he buttons up. “Answer is still no.”
“Shame.”
He chuckles. Nods in the direction of Cisco’s room. “Go to him.”
In the hallway outside Cisco’s closed door, I fluff my hair, pinch my cheeks, and strategically slip my slouchy hoody off one shoulder again. I’m tired, frazzled, and could really use a good fuck now more than ever, but that can’t be why it happens. If it happens.
Things have already veered sideways from logic this morning. I take a moment to center myself, to put on the persona, and steel my resolve … but for what, I’m not sure. Fuck him. Kill him. Those are my two options, because I know I’ll be unable to ignore him.
I’m on my own, in a nervous state, no cilices in sight.
Wesley comes up the staircase and makes a beeline for me. He pushes something into my hand, then darts a glance over his shoulder as if he’s afraid of being watched. He gives me an almost imperceptible nod and then continues to his room.
Okay.
That was … odd.
I lower my gaze and unfold the paper. It’s the new translation from Mary’s Gospel that I asked him to show Thea—now with her notes in the margins. My heart skips a beat as I read the lines.
He who denies his soul to starve the dark
shall find his own ribcage has become the monster’s mouth.
Only an archangel’s flame will cut the cords of spiritual deception.
To slay the starvation of the world, the Saint must devour the Sinner.
I calmly fold the paper and slip it into my hoodie pocket.