Perfiditas (31 page)

His lips turned almost white in a mouth pulled into a tight line. Pink blotches gathered in his cheeks. I’d never seen him so angry. I was pleased to hurt him: it eased my own hurt. I knew I was going to die now. And he would kill me himself.

‘Why didn’t you terminate us when Flavius and I came back after the operation?’

‘I don’t know. I had you in my hand.’ He sighed. ‘I should have known you would work it out eventually. You are so persistent.’

‘Did none of the good work we did mean anything to you?’

‘Yes. My bitterest regret was betraying your friendship.’ His eyes drilled into mine. The lines at the corners of his mouth pulled down. ‘You’re so single-minded, Carina, so sure of yourself, aren’t you?’

‘Never believe that. I’ve had my struggles, but I know the difference between right and wrong.’

Justus broke the silence. ‘What happens next?’ He spoke directly to Apollodorus. ‘You can’t let them go.’

Apollodorus put his hand in his inner pocket, drew out a mother of pearl box. He flicked open the lid, extracted a tablet and swallowed before anybody had time to react. He drained his glass and replaced it on the table.

I stared at him, not believing what he had done. I pulled at the plastic binding round my wrists, to get to him, but I couldn’t move. ‘Apollo, you— No!’

‘I will not face the public humiliation of a trial. I am satisfied I have chosen the time and circumstances of my own death.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. Truly.’ A spasm rode through his body and he was gone.

‘No!’ Justus moved forward, bent over Apollo. He swung around, his face contorted. He brought his semi-automatic point-blank to my head. As his finger went to squeeze the trigger, a crack sounded, his eyes bulged, a red jet exploded from his forehead. His legs folded and he fell.

I rocked my chair off balance and threw myself to the ground in the same split second Philippus dived for the floor.

XLI

Livius had made the shot that killed Justus. It seemed obvious now but, at the time, all I took in was Justus’s blood and brains everywhere; warm on my face, a spreading pool of blood on the tile floor.

Philippus was crawling towards me when something thumped heavily on the door. The lock exploded away from the wood. I screwed my eyes closed and turned my head away from the flying debris. The door was smashed back on its hinges. I opened my eyes to see Paula and Flavius burst in, semi-automatics in their hands. Conrad on their heels. From the floor, I heard more than saw Paula and Flavius run toward the kitchen and hallway doors. Half a second later, they shouted, ‘Secure.’

Conrad pushed Philippus out of the way and dropped to his knees by my side. We stared at each other. My heart was still thudding hard from the fall but seemed to speed up. He closed his eyes for a second, then shook his head like he was rebooting his brain. He leaned over my body and slashed the plastic tie around my wrists.

The pulse rocketed through my wrists, swiftly followed by pain as blood started freely circulating through my flesh.

‘Ah, ah, Juno.’ I bit my lip. Pain shot through my arm that had gone numb from taking my weight when I crashed to the ground. Conrad shoved the fallen chair away. Although he carried out the standard vitals check swiftly and surely, I felt his fingers tremble as he touched my wrist for my pulse. He was silent as he focused on my arm.

‘Nothing’s broken, thank the gods,’ he rasped after a few moments, then wrapped his arms around me. He bent his head down onto my chest, and I brought my good hand up to touch his hair.

‘Conrad, I’m so—’

‘Shush, relax. It’s over.’ He glanced up at Flavius who was standing over Apollodorus’s body. ‘And?’

‘Dead.’

Conrad grunted. ‘Get the first-aid kit.’

Ever practical, Flavius raised my head and wedged a cushion under it. He strapped a cold pack onto my bruised arm and gave me a shot. The cold liquid curled through the flesh of my arm. Conrad gently wiped my face clear of Justus’s blood and flesh with a stericloth. His smile faded as he packed it in a plastic waste baggie. When he’d finished, he took my hand in his, stroked it, then cupped it in both of his.

‘There are so many charges I could bring that you’d be immobilised in prison for years, safe where you couldn’t get up to anything remotely dangerous.’

I studied his face. It wasn’t anger but anxiety.

‘No, too tempting to start a riot,’ I whispered back.

His grip on my hand became more intense. ‘Gods, woman, don’t ever do this again to me.’

I gave him a little smile. ‘No guarantee of that.’

But he smiled back, bent over and kissed my lips.

I didn’t remember much of the ride to hospital, but I felt his hand on my face and the warm pressure of the other one holding mine.

They’d been the noisy group arriving that morning. Conrad had asked Aurelia for permission to track me, but they took a little while to realise exactly where I was on the estate. Livius had followed me up to the cottage with Conrad, Paula and Flavius behind. They’d gotten every word on a distance mic.

Conrad hadn’t processed my resignation further than his in-tray. He knew I’d be back.

Apollo was identified at last: his mother had been a moderately successful businesswoman’s daughter from Castra Lucilla. His family history tied up with everything he’d told me. He’d leased the cottage for years. I left hospital in time for his funeral at the Castra Lucilla public burning ground. Philippus, Flavius, the public recorder and duty priest, and I were the only attendees.

Philippus threw his libation on last – a woven leather belt. ‘It was the first thing he gave me the day he scraped me off the street. He said none of his household, his family, would ever wear rope around their waist. I’d never owned anything so good. It doesn’t fit any longer, but I kept it to remind me of that moment.’ He tipped his head toward the burning body. ‘It’s right it should go back to him.’ And he threw it in an arc into the middle of the flames.

After a surprisingly short trial, the conspirators were given long sentences, all hard labour, except Superbus, who was sent to a state farm where he flourished. Leaner and fitter, he ended up managing it and making a profit for the state. He still had bad breath.

Aidan was tried for complicity but escaped with a public censure after we’d entered a plea citing his co-operation. But Aburia’s hearing was awkward and the tone terse. The senior legate giving judgement spoke like she was eating gravel. As Aburia was being taken away to the central military prison for the next five years, she shot a venomous look at me, the only sign of animation from her during the whole ninety minutes.

On the day she was released, Aidan was waiting for her outside the prison. I had no contact with them after that, but Mossia reported a year later that they were happy and had a young son.

I had the accommodation blocks for the casuals on the Mitela farm refurbished to include partitions and lockable cupboards in the dormitories, a games room and quiet common room. I caught some strange looks from the farm manager, who asked me why I was so concerned, but I turned her questions aside.

After I was passed fit for duty, I took a two-month secondment to the regular Praetorians. The disciplined routine was tough but predictable. I enjoyed my shifts on the palace guard. I saw Hallie recover her joy as well as her grit. The rest of my life had calmed with the regular hours. Julia Sella had been one hundred per cent correct about that. A good lesson to learn.

I went to Apollo’s house for the last time a week before I went back to the PGSF after my secondment. The dozen or so rows of chairs set out in the middle of the atrium were half-filled; scattered with neutral-faced professional dealers, excited private collectors and the curious. The public auctioneer rapped his gavel to stop the murmuring filling the atrium. A latecomer slid in the back row as it began. I bought several lamps and furniture, including the swan-legged table, but waited until the last lot. After a tussle, including with a phone bidder, I acquired the tall portrait. For its black eyes.

I left my under-steward to handle the paperwork and walked over to the glass doors leading to the veranda. The winter frost had persisted until this afternoon, making the grass look like plastic white turf, but pale sunshine struggled through. The river looked like skeins of white and grey silks.

A movement to one side. Nonna’s chauffeur put his arm out to block a figure approaching me.

‘It’s okay, Nic.’ I gave the blonde-haired woman a tight smile. ‘Hello, Hermina. So you couldn’t resist coming either?’

‘I thought I’d pick up some bits and pieces cheaply for the new office.’ Her casual tone didn’t fool me. The tense eyes gave her away. ‘Philippus told me what happened out at Castra Lucilla. Have you recovered?’

‘Oh yes. A boring week in hospital until I discharged myself.’ I grinned at her.

She gave me a slightly more relaxed smile.

‘Well, I’d better go,’ she said and nodded at me. ‘I have a Foundation to run.’

And I had a job to go back to. Whether I wanted it as much as before, I didn’t know.

Also by Alison Morton

INCEPTIO

Book I in the Roma Nova series

New York, present day. Karen Brown, angry and frightened after surviving a kidnap attempt, has a harsh choice – being eliminated by government enforcer Jeffery Renschman or fleeing to the mysterious Roma Nova, her dead mother’s homeland in Europe.

Founded sixteen centuries ago by Roman exiles and ruled by women, Roma Nova gives Karen safety and a ready-made family. But a shocking discovery about her new lover, the fascinating but arrogant special forces officer Conrad Tellus, who rescued her in America, isolates her.

Renschman reaches into her new home and nearly kills her. Recovering, she is desperate to find out why he is hunting her so viciously. Unable to rely on anybody else, she undergoes intensive training, develops fighting skills and becomes an undercover cop. But crazy with bitterness at his past failures, Renschman sets a trap for her, knowing she has no choice but to spring it...

Praise for
INCEPTIO

Book I in the Roma Nova series

“Terrific. Brilliantly plotted original story, grippingly told and cleverly combining the historical with the futuristic. It’s a real edge-of-the seat read, genuinely hard to put down.”

–
Sue Cook
, writer and broadcaster

“I loved it! Intriguing, unusual and thought-provoking. Karen develops from a girl anyone of us could know into one of the toughest heroines I’ve read for a while. Roma Nova was a world I really wanted to visit—and not just to meet Conrad—vivid and compelling. A pacey, suspenseful thriller with a truly dreadful villain, I can’t recommend
INCEPTIO
enough.”

–
Kate Johnson
, author of
The UnTied Kingdom

“Tense, fast-paced and deliciously inventive, Alison Morton’s
INCEPTIO
soon had me turning the pages. Very Dashiell Hammett.”

–
Victoria Lamb
, author of
The Queen’s Secret

“Gripping. Alison Morton creates a fully realised world of what could have been. Breathtaking action, suspense, political intrigue...
INCEPTIO
is a tour de force!”

–
Russell Whitfield
, author of
Gladiatrix
and
Roma Victrix

Coming Soon

SUCCESSIO

Book III in the Roma Nova series

Roma Nova – the last remnant of the Roman Empire that has survived into the 21st century – is at peace. But Carina Mitela, the heir of a leading family and an officer in the Praetorian Guard Special Forces, is not so sure.

She senses danger crawling towards her when she encounters a strangely self-possessed member of the unit hosting their exchange exercise in Britain. When a blackmailing letter arrives from a woman claiming to be her husband Conrad’s lost daughter, Carina knows the threat is real. Trying to resolve a young man’s indiscretion twenty-five years before turns into a nightmare that threatens to destroy all the Mitelae and attack the core of the imperial family itself.

Carina faces a terrifying opponent – one she is uncertain she can defeat. Her career and marriage in ruins, and physically broken after failing to capture her nemesis, she must not only draw on her deepest reserves but also accept help from the next generation. With her enemy holding a gun at the heir to the imperial throne, Carina has to make the hardest decision of her life…

Dramatis Personae

Family

Carina Mitela – Captain, Praetorian Guard Special Forces (PGSF), nicknamed ‘Bruna’

Conradus Mitelus – Legate, head of the PGSF, ‘Conrad’

Aurelia Mitela – Carina’s grandmother, head of the Mitela clan

Allegra Mitela – Carina and Conrad’s eldest daughter

Antonia and Gillius – Twins, (Tonia and Gil) Carina and Conrad’s younger children

Helena Mitela – Carina’s cousin

Superbus – An acquisitive member of the Mitelae who has delusions of grandeur

Lucilla Mitela – Student, with hidden talents

Household

Junia – Steward of Domus Mitelarum

Galienus – Under-steward/housekeeper

Macro – Junia’s teenage son

Marcella – Aurelia’s assistant

Military

Lucius Punellus – Adjutant, PGSF

Daniel Stern – Major, PGSF

Julia Sella – Colonel, PGSF, Training & Personnel

Galla – A PGSF guard

Drusus – PGSF strategy group

Fausta – PGSF strategy group

Aburia – Major, appointed head of Intelligence Directorate, nicknamed ‘Tacita’

Sepunia – Senior captain, Intelligence Directorate

Petronax – Head of Internal Security

Carina’s Active Response Team – Paula Servla, Flavius, Trebatia, Maelia, Novius, Livius, Atria

Somna – Head of Interrogation Service (IS)

Volusenia the Younger – Retired deputy legate

Rusonia – Legate’s executive officer

Sergius – Adjutant’s clerk

Porteus – Lieutenant, IS

Longina – Lieutenant, IS

Bad guys

Caeco – A heavy

Sextus – An ingénue

Trosius, Pisentius, Cyriacus – Conspirators

Palace

Silvia Apulia – Imperatrix

Stella Apulia – Silvia’s eldest child

Darius Apulius – Silvia’s second child

Hallienia Apulia – Silvia’s third child, ‘Hallie’

Caecilius – Silvia’s physician

Pulcheria Foundation

Apollodorus – A career criminal, turned mostly legitimate

Pollius – Doctor, ex-member of the Foundation

Hermina – Recruiter and organiser of people

Philippus – Master at arms and transport

Albinus – Technical genius

Cassia – Financials/accounts, ex-Censor’s investigator

Justus – Informer and intelligence gatherer

Other

Mossia Antonia – Owner of prestigious gym

Adianus Hirenses – ‘Aidan’, psychotherapist and part-time masseur

Cornelius Lurio – Commander, Department of Justice
Custodes
XI Station

Dania –
Caupona
(bar) owner, Carina’s protégée

Paulina Carca – Friend of Lucius Punellus

Claudia Vara – A lawyer