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 timeto 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 theChurch this time.
I stopped running andpressed my hand against the stone wall to catch my breath. The coolness bit through my palm, and sweat poured down my spine, soaking through my cassock until the fabric clung to my skin. Fire raked through my lungs with every breath. I held still and listened past my own gasping for footsteps or shouts or any sign I was being followed.
