"Cato?" Atia frowned. "The man is a despicable, overbearing ass, but a traitor? No. And he's too much of a coward to kill anyone. Whoever killed Sandro was highly skilled. Cato hasn't used a sword in years."

"Then who else could it be?" There was a darker note underlining Marcus's voice that made her flinch as she felt the blood drain from her face, leaving her skin cold.

"No. Not Ignacio." She shook her head sharply. "It has to be someone else. I can't believe he'd betray the Order like this."

Or me. Although she didn't say the words, they hung in the air like bells ringing loudly in a church. Marcus's features hardened as though they were set in stone. It was evident to her that he believed her defense of her onetime Celeris was rooted in emotions she didn't really feel for Ignacio. Was he still so uncertain of her? She quickly stepped forward and grabbed his hand. He didn't reject her, but the rigid tension in his body didn't ease.

"Marcus, please. He's been my friend for more than twenty-five years. Would you have thought the worst of Placido after all this time? Of Maximus when you lived in ancient Rome?"

He uttered a soft oath and pulled her into his arms. "No. I would find it impossible to believe either of them capable of any traitorous act. But I don't like Firmani. I should have been the one you relied on all these years. Not him."

"Wasn't it you who said we can't erase the past?" she said quietly. "You're here now, and that's all that matters. My heart has never belonged to anyone except you."

"I love you, Atia." His thoughts stroked hers as he crushed her against him. "I can't lose you again."

"You won't."

Marcus held her for a long moment then bent his head to kiss her tenderly. "I need to go. The car will be ready by now."

"I'm going with you."

"No. You're not," he said in a tight voice. "It's too dangerous."

"I know it's dangerous, but you need me. I know Ignacio well. I know how he thinks." Atia met his harsh look steadily. "And he's my responsibility. If he's betrayed the Order, I want to hear it for myself."

The forbidding look on his face said how much he wanted to refuse her. With a vicious shake of his head, he released a soft growl of frustration.

"Christus, if I refuse you, you'll just follow me, won't you?"

"Yes."

"Very well, but it's against my better judgment," he bit out. "Go pack an overnight bag. I'll notify Lysander that his duties as the new Celeris just started."

"If Ignacio really is working for the Praetorians . . ." Her voice trailed off.

"If he is, we'll find him." Marcus touched her cheek before jerking his head toward the door. "Now go. We need to move quickly."

With a nod, she hurried out of the lab and headed toward her room to gather some fresh clothes. It couldn't be Ignacio. It couldn't. There had to be some explanation. Perhaps Cato was capable of more than she realized. But what if she was wrong? She flinched. Ignacio knew practically everything about the Order. Defenses, security codes, all of it. He could destroy them all. And if that happened, it would be her fault for trusting him.

Chapter 21.

CLEO stepped through the door of the Rome installation and drew in a sharp breath. The slaughter was horrifying. The Praetorians were easily identifiable by the insignia on their shirtsleeves, but they were few and far between. The majority of the dead were Sicari and Vigilavi. It was obvious no one had been spared.

Dante and several other members of the Absconditus had moved deeper into the facility to secure the installation. Just before he'd disappeared through one of the doorways, he'd looked at first her and then Cornelia. It was obvious that he'd used telepathy to instruct his Praefect that she was to watch over Cleo, because she saw Cornelia dart a quick look in her direction as she nodded her head. Dante's eyes met hers briefly, but she turned away. The sting of his words still cut deep.

Gingerly, Cornelia knelt beside a fallen Sicari to check the man's pulse. Cleo followed her lead and moved to check on a warrior close to her. The man was dead, so Cleo gently closed his eyes and crossed his arms across his chest in the traditional ceremonial position. When she'd finished, she moved to the next body, hoping and praying she would find someone with a faint heartbeat whom they could still save.

With each dead warrior or Vigilavi, her heart grew heavier. Then she heard it. A faint rasp. Her gaze darted toward the sound, and she saw a face she recognized covered in blood. At his side in less than a second, she gently touched Salvatore's forehead.

"Cornelia, I need a healer. Now," Cleo said as she glanced over her shoulder at the Praefect. The other woman nodded and hurried off. Cleo turned her attention back to her friend.

"Sal, it's Cleo. You're going to be fine." She could only hope it wasn't a lie.

She winced as his hand caught her arm in a vicious grip, but she didn't try to pry his fingers away. Instead, she quickly assessed his injuries. His wounds were deep, and he'd lost a great deal of blood, but there was still a chance he might make it if the healer arrived soon. Salvatore's mouth moved, and Cleo leaned forward.

"Shh . . . It's going to be all right. A healer will be here any moment."

She offered up a quick prayer that she was right then drew in a sharp breath as his grip on her arm tightened further. His eyes opened wide with a stare that frightened her. His look said he knew it was too late for him. Deus, where was that healer?

"Hang on, Sal, please. Just a moment longer," she pleaded. His lips moved again. It was less than a whisper, and she had to put her ear close to his mouth in order to hear him.

"Don't . . . trust . . ."

An instant later, air rattled in his lungs before he sighed his last breath. The pressure on her arm eased as Sal's grip grew limp in death. Head bowed, she squeezed her eyes shut against the sorrow washing over her. Sal had been a gentle giant. Always looking out for everyone like a big brother might.

Drawing in a deep breath, she fought to regain control of her emotions. Sal had always been fatalistic about death. He wouldn't want her to spend more than a minute grieving for him, because he'd always been of the opinion that the fallen meet again in the Elysium Fields. Gently removing his hand from her arm, she laid it across his chest before crossing his other arm over it.

As she lifted his arm, his fingers uncurled and something gold slipped from his hand to hit the marble floor with a soft sound of metal against stone. She finished tending to her friend then reached for the piece of jewelry lying next to him. The ring looked familiar, and she stared at it for a few seconds before her heart became a roaring thunder in her ears.

Ignacio. It was his ring.

She snatched the ring up in her hand then sprang to her feet to search through the carnage to find the man who'd been her surrogate father since childhood. Frantic, she moved from one still figure to another, hoping against hope that Ignacio wasn't among the bodies on the installation's main entryway floor. When she didn't find him, she stood in the middle of the room with panic rising inside her. Where was he? A scraping sound behind her made her draw her sword from the sheath on her back as she whirled around to face the unknown. The sight of Ignacio leaning against the installation's front interior doorway covered in blood made her gasp with a mixture of fear and relief. She leaped forward to assist him, but he waved off her assistance.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he asked fiercely, an odd look on his face.

"I've been staying at the Absconditus." She bit down on her lip with worry as she saw the blood seeping through his fingers where his hand pressed into his side. She pulled him deeper into the house and secured the door behind him.

"I'll be fine, just a few cuts," he growled with a shake of his head. "I arrived too late. I . . . chased two of the bastardi as they came out of the house. I left one of them dead in an alley a couple of blocks away."

"When I found your ring, I feared the worst," she exclaimed as she ignored his protest and bent over to examine his injury. Her touch gentle, she pulled his hand away from the wound. It was deep, but in a spot where none of the major organs might be damaged.

"You found my ring?" There was a strangled note in his voice that barely registered with her as she quickly examined the remainder of his wounds.

"Yes." She straightened upright and opened her hand to stare at the ring in her palm. "I thought for certain you were dead."

The gold jewelry was covered with blood, and for the first time it struck her as odd that Sal would have been holding it in his hand. The moment she'd seen it, she'd been so afraid for Ignacio's safety that the question as to why her friend had the ring hadn't even occurred to her. Cleo's gaze slowly shifted from the ring to Ignacio's face. Something in his expression struck a chord of horror deep inside her.

Tension sped through her body with the speed of a poisonous snake preparing to strike. The idea slithering into her consciousness was too unbelievable, and she immediately rejected the thought. It was ludicrous. Ignacio could never betray the Order. He stretched out his hand to her, and instinct made her take a quick step backward.

"I can explain, carissima." The pleading note in his voice made Cleo flinch.

"I'm listening," she said quietly, praying he had a solid explanation for why his ring had been in Sal's hand.

"Salvatore has been working for the Praetorians."

The bald-faced lie made Cleo's stomach churn as though she were physically ill. Sal would never have worked for the Praetorians. He hated the Praetorians more than any Sicari she'd ever met. The bastardi had left him an orphan when he was thirteen, forcing him to watch as they'd raped and murdered his mother and sister before they'd left him for dead.

He'd only mentioned it to her one time, but the manner in which he told his story would be forever seared in her memory. Even Ares didn't hate the Praetorians as deeply as Sal did. Now Ignacio was trying to convince her that Sal was the one who'd betrayed the Order? She knew better, and it left only one alternative.

Denial scraped at every one of her senses as the word traitor whirled its way through her head. It wasn't possible. She would have known. Fuck, her mother would have known. The man had been a part of their family since she was old enough to walk. It just wasn't possible. But everything pointed to it. The ring, his injuries that were superficial at best, his appearance here in Rome without her mother. None of it made sense.

As she stared at Ignacio in horrified silence, her chest hurt as if someone had ripped her heart out. In the back of her mind, Dante's thoughts brushed against hers. It was clear he sensed something was terribly wrong, but she pushed him out of her thoughts and blocked him from probing deeper. If what she feared was true, she would be the one to take Ignacio's life. No one else.

"Didn't you hear what I said?" Ignacio's voice was harsh as he took a step toward her. Cleo recoiled from him, and Ignacio's eyes narrowed.

"You're a liar," she rasped. "A liar and a traitor."

Unfazed by her words, he studied her in silence with a cold, stony expression on his face. "A traitor is someone who betrays his own people. I've not done that."

"What the fuck do you call this?" She spat out the words as she gestured angrily at the carnage surrounding them.

"Necessary."

"Necessary?" she whispered as bile rose in her throat.

The denial she'd been struggling with evaporated as she absorbed his brutal, matter-of-fact response. How could he admit his guilt so calmly and without any evidence of remorse? He'd betrayed the Order. Her mother. Her. A knot developed in Cleo's throat, making it difficult to breathe as she struggled with the scope and depth of Ignacio's treachery.

"Yes. Necessary," he snarled. "The Tyet of Isis document was a threat to the Collegium. I couldn't let it remain in Sicari hands. I never condoned this slaughter. This was Nicostratus's doing." The last part of his statement barely registered with her.

"The Collegium? You stole the document just so you could give it to those fucking Praetorians? Why?" Her throat scratchy from unshed tears, she stared at him in horror. He'd betrayed them. Betrayed her.

"Because I'm not Sicari." The grimly spoken words only served to add to the turbulent emotions stampeding their way through her. "For more than thirty years I've pretended to be one."

"How in the hell can you pretend to be a Sicari?"

"It was quite easy." His words pierced her thoughts easily.

"But your telekinetic abil-" A light pressure encircled her throat to choke off her words, and for the first time fear spiraled through her.

"I'm not anywhere near as strong as Vorenus or others of my kind, but it was enough to deceive members of the Order."

She clawed at the invisible grip around her throat as Ignacio's cold words filled her head. Her fear made her vulnerable and allowed Dante to break through her mental block, his thoughts a reassuring caress.

"It will be all right, carissima. I'm coming."

Dante's promise drifted into the background as Cleo struggled with a new torment. The man she'd revered as a father wasn't even a Sicari. The realization reemphasized her sense of being an outsider. Everything Ignacio had said and done from the time she was a child had been built on a lie. It was all lies. It was as if someone had come along and ripped her entire childhood away from her. For the first time, regret crossed his face as he shook his head.

"That is the one thing that wasn't a lie," he said quietly. "You are the daughter I never had, and if your mother had loved me, I would have willingly betrayed my vow to the Collegium for her. For both of you."

"You sorry son of a bitch."

She leaped forward and delivered a hard blow to his solar plexus. He grunted before his fist connected with her jaw. Stunned, she stumbled backward, the salty taste of blood filling her mouth.

"Don't make me hurt you, Cleopatra." He drew his sword as regret darkened his face once more.

"Why did you come back?" She spat blood from her mouth as she glared at him, her hate smothering the pain of his betrayal.

"For my ring. You might not believe me, but it means something to me."

"You're right. I don't believe you," she said in an icy voice.

The words were barely out of her mouth when she sensed Dante. A calculating look crossed Ignacio's face before an unseen hand grabbed her braided hair and yanked her toward him. Pain ripped at her scalp as she instinctively fought to twist free of Ignacio's invisible grasp, but her futile attempts only made her head hurt worse.

A strong hand combined with the unseen force twisted her around until her back pressed into Ignacio's chest. With his arm locked around her, he pressed the sharp edge of his sword into her throat. The moment Dante charged into the room, Cleo's senses reeled with the strength of his emotions. His anger, fear for her safety, and a helpless indecision she knew was unfamiliar to him crested over her. The moment her gaze locked with his, her heart ached, because she realized she'd caused this to happen. She'd taken away the one thing he'd fought to preserve. His ability to distance himself from his emotions in a crisis situation was in jeopardy because of her.

Chapter 22.

DANTE straightened from checking yet another lifeless body on the floor, this time a young Vigilavi. The girl couldn't have been much more than sixteen, her life ended by a slit throat. He was beyond fury. Every part of him longed to find the nearest Praetorian and slowly carve the bastardo up for the atrocity he'd found here in the Order's Rome facility.

Although the installation was only a quarter of the size of the Absconditus, the silence was a tangible sensation on the skin. It cried out murder in a way that was only surpassed by the deaths of the innocents at the convent. But this time there were no miracles to be had. A sudden sharpening of his senses made him grow still as Cleopatra's fear swept through his head. He immediately strode out of the room and down one of the facility's many hallways. A couple of quick turns later, he saw Cornelia hurrying toward him.

"Where's Cleopatra?" He didn't even try to hide his concern. His Praefect's eyes were reassuring and sympathetic as she raised her hand in a placating gesture.

"She's fine. I wouldn't have left her if the main entrance wasn't secure. She found a warrior who's still alive, and I'm looking for Noemi. You know my telepathy skills aren't the strongest."

Dante nodded and concentrated his thoughts on reaching the healer in the building. He had barely brushed Noemi's mind to summon her when he sensed a change in Cleopatra's emotions. Fury, disappointment, pain, and other feelings clamored like a warning bell inside his head. He tried to enter her thoughts, but she pushed back, shutting him out. He jerked his head toward Cornelia.

"Something's wrong," he snarled. "Are you certain the front door was secured?"

"Yes, Mario was the last one through the door, and I made sure the alarm was set." Cornelia's expression was one of confusion as she met his gaze. "The only person who can get in here is either a member of the installation or one of the Prima Consul's senior officers."

For a moment, Dante considered that possibility. Again Cleopatra's emotions crashed through his head. This time her fear was so strong that he was able to see what she saw. Although he didn't recognize the man she was confronting, he could tell the man was someone she knew and trusted. No. She no longer trusted him. Christus, the son of a bitch had her in a telekinetic choke hold.

"Bring Noemi to the front hall. Now."

Dante didn't bother to explain his command as he darted past Cornelia and raced toward the main entrance. His heart pounding with fear, he reached out with his thoughts to touch Cleopatra's mind.

"It will be all right, carissima. I'm coming."

Her thoughts were chaotic and incoherent, and it was impossible to tell if she'd heard him. It was even more difficult to understand what he was seeing in his head. The fact made him run even faster. In the back of his mind, he remembered his responsibility to protect his people equally and without favoritism. But his fear shoved the thought aside. All he knew was that the woman he loved was in trouble, and he wasn't about to let anything happen to her.

As he pounded his way down the hall that led to the entryway, Cleopatra's fear became an anguish that terrified him. Deus, if someone were hurting her . . . He flew through the open doorway of the entryway, his boots slipping on the blood-soaked marble floor. Effortlessly, he regained his balance and came to a halt just inside the room to see Cleopatra held hostage with a sword at her neck.

His initial reaction was to reach out with his thoughts and yank the blade away from her throat. Nothing happened. Stunned, he stretched out his hand and gestured at the deadly weapon to fly out of the man's hand. Again, nothing happened, and unfamiliar threads of panic twisted their way through his body. The stranger smiled pleasantly at him.

"No need to worry. You've not lost your powers. I happen to possess some abilities such as yours as well."