Page 32 of Skotos (Of Shadows & Secrets #6)

Thomas

O ur cab ride across Rome was slow. The streets were choked with traffic and tourists. Will kept an eye on the rear window the entire time, his fingers drumming nervously on his thigh.

“They’re still behind us,” he muttered.

I didn’t need to look to know he was right.

The same black sedan had trailed us since we left the Vatican gates, keeping a respectful but deliberate distance. Tails weren’t supposed to be obvious . . . unless they wanted to be seen.

And that made it worse.

“Don’t react. We’ll lose them later,” I said.

We passed over the Tiber, the dome of St. Peter’s shrinking behind us. The cab rolled up to a modest, cream-colored building tucked into a shaded courtyard—Santa Marta dell’Angelo.

Inside, we stepped into the kind of quiet that only exists around the very old or very devout.

The air was thick with antiseptic and something fainter, something more intimate—like favorite old books and comfy slippers.

A low murmur of voices drifted from down the hall, broken only by the soft squeak of shoes on polished linoleum.

At the front desk, a middle-aged nun looked up as we approached.

A white coif framed her face, tight at the chin.

Her veil fell in sleek folds down her back, like a shadow clinging to her movements.

Her gaze was kind but firm—the look of a woman used to quiet order, discipline, and answering to a higher power rather than bureaucracy.

As we approached, the sister fixed us with a gaze meant to cow willful teenage boys. It was a glare that could frighten even the most hardened veteran of the grisliest war.

Thankfully, her iron gaze softened when I said, “We’ve come to visit Signora Marini.”

“On behalf of her son,” Will added quickly.

“Father Marini?” The woman’s eyes brightened. Her English was stilted but understandable. “Such a wonderful man. Is he with you?”

“No,” I said. “We are friends of his.”

She frowned and glanced at the clock on the wall. “I did not know the Father had friends outside of the clergy, certainly not young American friends.”

The CIA—and its predecessor, the OSS—had put us through more rounds of interrogation training than I cared to ever relive.

They were brutal, thorough, and wholly determined to find the breaking point in each of their operatives.

This nun’s gaze felt more invasive than any form of questioning we ever endured at Camp X. 1

“We met him while working at the Vatican.” I leaned forward and whispered, “On a very special project for the Holy Father himself.”

The nun’s eyes narrowed. When Will nodded, confirming the veracity of my statement, surprise replaced suspicion.

“Well, now. The Holy Father, indeed.” She straightened, then gripped her rosary. “And you need to see Signora Marini?”

Will nodded. “Only as a favor to Father Marini. He felt terribly guilty for not having visited himself. He said he is her only visitor.”

The nun nodded slowly and released a long sigh. “That is true for too many of our residents.”

“When did Father Marini last visit his mother?” I asked, pulling another thread that had bothered me all morning.

The nun sat back and folded her hands in her lap. “He has not been in to see her in days. I was beginning to worry.”

Will cocked his head. “Is that unusual?”

“Very. He comes every day, like clockwork. He is always here in the morning, right after mass. He reads to her sometimes, or just holds her hand. Even when she is . . . not quite present.”

“We understand,” I said. “We were hoping to see her for a few minutes, just to check in, to ease the good Father’s conscience, if you will.”

She hesitated, clearly uncertain. “ Signora Marini is not well. Most days she barely remembers her own name.”

“We won’t upset her,” Will promised. “Father Marini simply asked us to be sure she is all right.”

Guilt flared through me at Will’s words.

Yet there we stood, lying to a nun while putting false words in the mouth of a priest. If there was a special circle of hell for such sins, we’d just punched our ticket.

Then again, after everything we’d been through—and done—we’d likely bought that ticket long ago.

She studied us for another beat, then nodded and picked up her desk phone. A few moments later, we were led down a hushed hallway that felt even more sterile and empty than those of the Vatican’s underbelly.

Gianna Marini’s room was near the end .

The nun who escorted us knocked once before opening the door.

The room was small but sunlit, with lace curtains and a neatly made bed.

A brass crucifix gleamed above the headboard, and a dusty vase of silk roses sat forgotten on the windowsill.

Sitting in a rocking chair near the window was a woman so frail it was hard to believe she was still alive.

Her skin was parchment-thin, her hair barely wisps of its earlier fullness.

She sat with her hands folded in her lap like a delicate relic, but her eyes, when they lifted to us, were a soft blue that still held a flicker of light.

She squinted. “Luigi?”

I glanced at Will.

“ Luigi, il mio dolce ragazzo .” She smiled and extended her arms, trembling. “ Sei tornato da me. ”

The sister who’d led us to her room leaned close and whispered in heavily accented English, “She believes you are her husband who died almost thirty years ago. It would be best if you simply played along or she may become agitated.”

Will hesitated, then asked the nun, “Would you stay and translate for us? I didn’t think about her only speaking Italian.”

The nun nodded, sympathy filling her eyes as she motioned us forward.

“Yes,” Will said softly, kneeling by her chair. “I’m here. ”

Oddly, Signora Marini didn’t bristle at the English, nor the female voice that offered a swift translation. Her eyes were fixed on Will, her heart filled with an endless age of emotion.

The signora reached for Will’s face with brittle fingers and cupped his cheek as though he was made of glass. “You always said you would take me dancing under the stars in Palermo.”

Will blinked but didn’t pull away. His eyes brimmed to fullness as he said, “And I will, my love.”

I stood a few paces back, my heart aching at the scene before me. There was something almost holy in the exchange, in the way the old woman smiled with her entire face and years melted off her like faded paint to reveal the girl beneath.

Will softened in ways I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen from my beloved man. His eyes glistened, nearly bursting, as he held her like she was the last piece of something good in the world.

She hummed a song under her breath, a slow waltz of memory, and rocked gently as though caught in a moment that never fully passed.

It was beautiful—and deeply moving. Her fingers, once resting gently atop Will’s, began to shake.

Then something shifted in her eyes, hardening into orbs of fear and . . . something darker.

“He said his neighbors were spies,” she muttered, her voice raspy and conspiratorial. “He buried the letters in the walls. They’re listening, you know, always listening.”

Will turned toward me, all color draining from his face.

I watched as her grip on his hand turned vice-like, her fingers twitching.

“There is blood on your collar,” she whispered. “It is not yours. It is his. It will never wash out.”

Her voice teetered between a sob and a laugh. I felt my own chest tighten.

She was slipping again—through memory or madness or both.

Her eyes darted around the room as though seeing shadows we couldn’t sense.

Then, as quickly as it had come, the storm passed.

Her eyes cleared.

She blinked rapidly, and her hands fell away from Will’s.

“Oh,” she said, voice small. “You are not him.”

“No, I’m Will,” Will said gently. “We are friends of your son, Lucien. We came to see how you were.”

Her brow furrowed. “Lucien?”

“Yes.” I stepped closer, fumbling for words that wouldn’t agitate the poor woman but might shed light on our path. “We . . . haven’t heard from him in a few days, and we’re trying to find him. Do you know where he might have gone? ”

She looked out the window, the sunlight catching in the thin strands of her hair. “He always worried too much, even as a boy. Wouldn’t go to sleep until all his books were in order.” She coughed out a cackle, then wiped her mouth. “Those darn books were everywhere.”

I struggled to steer us back to the question at hand. “Did he mention anything strange recently? Any visitors? Anything that made him nervous?”

She was quiet a long time, then: “He said there were old things buried too long. He said someone wanted to dig them up.”

Will and I exchanged a glance.

“Did he say who?”

She shook her head slowly. “No. Only that he’d found something he wasn’t meant to see.”

“What did he find?” I asked.

“The Chapel of . . . of Saint Malachai, such a beautiful chapel. I loved it so much. Did he tell you that? How much I loved the stones and windows, the quiet of the countryside. It has been so many years since it stood proud, since I worshiped beneath its roof. How I miss its beauty. Would you take me there again, Luigi?”

Will’s eyes squeezed closed.

Signora Marini’s eyes, suddenly cloudy again, turned back toward the window.

When several minutes of silence passed, Will turned back toward me and made to stand; but, like the snapping of a branch, something sharpened in the old woman’s gaze again, and she looked past Will and directly at me, pointing with a gnarled index finger.

“You have to find him,” she said, her voice suddenly lucid. “He is afraid, and he is alone. My boy has no one else. He is so alone. Please, help him. Help my boy.”

She gripped Will’s hand again, then reached for mine. “Promise me,” she whispered. “Promise you will find my Lucien and bring him home.”

“I promise,” I said, resting my other hand on Will’s shoulder, needing his touch, his strength, to weather the emotions of the moment.

The signora nodded, accepting our pledge, then leaned back in her chair. Her breathing was shallow but steady, her eyes drifting shut. As we turned to leave, her voice cut through the stillness again, but now it held a terrible, unmistakable clarity.

“There are men who wear crosses but serve the Devil,” she said. “If they find him first, I will never see him again. Never see my boy. Never again.”

Her sobs filled the tiny bedroom.

Will stood and stepped back, our shoulders brushing, neither of us caring if the sister or signora caught how intimate the simple brush was. I glanced out the window, down the street. The daylight had shifted. The shadows were longer, and the breeze no longer rustled leaves among the nearby trees.

The black sedan was still there.

Watching.

Waiting.

And something deep in my chest began to twist.

As we turned and stepped through the door, behind us, we heard the creak of wood.

Glancing back, we saw Signora Marini gently rocking, the chair whispering against the floor in time with a lullaby only she could hear, a woman lost in a tangle of memories, love, and warnings—her voice and presence fading like the last flickers of a dying candle.

1. Camp X was the unofficial name of the secret Special Training School No.

103, a Second World War British paramilitary installation for training covert agents in the methods required for success in clandestine operations.

This Canadian black site was the location for Will’s and Thomas’s initiation into the world of spycraft in https://books.authorcaseymorales.com/crimson , book one of this series.