Page 108 of Bitter Burn
“Truly?”
“I don’t want mercy. Not—not after everything that’s happened. But I feel like I should bear witness to it.”
Mark turns his head to look at me. I’m lying next to him, our heads on the same pillow, and we are almost nose to nose now. “What about you?” he asks seriously. “Are you comfortable witnessing this?”
Comfortable watching a defenseless old man executed at his dental appointment? An old man who is supposed to speak with the authority of God here on earth?
“Yes,” I say with no hesitation at all. I couldn’t care less that he’s tried to kill me—he has that in common with thousands of militants in Carpathia after all—but trying to kill Isolde? After years of exploiting her faith as a weapon for his own ends?
No, even if he vowed never to hurt Isolde again, never to even think about her, it still wouldn’t be enough. The part of me that didn’t feel conflicted in the least about killing Jovian Nantes, that only felt strange about not feeling strange, that part doesn’t care about Mortimer’s age or his papal election or anything other than Isolde living the rest of her life free from his malice.
I think Mark must see all this in my face, because a knowing smile flickers across his lips. “Good.”
A knock sounds, and even though we aren’t indecent by typical standards, something about the last couple of hours feels too intimate to share. We are all out of bed and put together when Mark answers the door and we hear Ferguson say, “The call finally came through. Tomorrow afternoon, the pope is coming to Nemi.”
Thirty-Six
Tristan
The rest of the day passes in a bustle and blur of prep. The cards are put away, the gossip stops, and we watch digital walkthroughs of the dentist’s office, discuss contingency plans, rehearse over and over again the infiltration and the sweep. At some point, Mark gets a phone call from Lox and paces in the cobbled courtyard for over an hour while they talk. Isolde leaves too, not because she gets a call but for her own unknowable reasons, and I find her eventually on the terraced roof of the house, staring out over the lake. It’s still winter, but the sun makes the day gentle and kind, and our long sleeves are enough to keep us warm. I pull her back against my chest and wrap my arms around her anyway. Just because I want to.
“Mark still on the phone?” she asks. A breeze waves the sedate, eternal boughs of the pines between the sleeping oaks and beeches. The air is so clean up here, so new and fresh. It’s not Morois, but after the damp air of the church in Albany and the fetid Roman warehouse, this smells like heaven.
“Yes,” I say. “He’s agitated by whatever it is. You should see the state of his hair right now.”
She puffs a small laugh, which makes me swell a little with pride. She doesn’t give those easily.
“Do the Armorica people know you’re safe?”
“They do.”
“What—what happens after this?” she asks. She asks it quietly, like she doesn’t want to, like she’s dreading the answer, like she resents her own weakness. “Will you still work at Armorica?”
“If your safety no longer depends on my distance, then I will be at your feet with my heart held aloft in my hands for you,” I whisper into her ear. I feel her draw in a shivering breath, and I kiss her neck. “I love you, Isolde. I would only ever stay away to keep you safe.”
She nods and turns into me. “I promise I won’t always be this jealous of Isabella,” she mumbles into my chest.
“I like it,” I admit. “It makes me feel wanted.” Matches the sickness inside myself, the one that loves too quickly, that loves too much. It’s not healthy for us to feel and crave jealousy and possession like this, and yet…
It’s hard to sleep that night, and something’s shifted inside Mark since the countdown began. I don’t entirely know what it is—when we fuck, he is as wicked and enticing as ever, luring us into fresh depravity as we both use Isolde’s cunt at the same time, frotting slickly against each other while she shivers and pants between us—but there is a bruising yearning in his touch, something that feels like resignation, that feels…grim almost. Mark stares at both of us as he comes, eyes flicking between Isolde and me, and even his final grunt of pleasure has a bleak, bitten-off edge to it.
I fall asleep next to him with Isolde in my arms and a knot growing just under my rib cage, a knot that’s there in my dreams and there the moment I wake with a stretch of cold bedding at my back.
He’s already up.
It’s already time to go.
I can see why Mark goes to such trouble to collect favors as our paramilitary friends stage themselves around the dentist’s office and, with a quiet signal via our earpieces, begin to work their way into the building with oblique grace. They use the building next door to access the roof and the terraced street below to access the lowest level. They come in through the front door, Mark, Isolde, and myself with them.
Mortimer has security, as we knew he would, a layer of hired muscle and a handful of saints, but it’s not nearly enough for a team of the agency’s best plus the three of us. Within fifteen minutes, we have the building secured, the dentist, hygienist, and office manager escorted away. Bullet casings litter the floor, bodies are everywhere, and Isolde is flicking blood impatiently off the edge of her knife.
Palmer and Ferguson share a few quiet words with Mark, and then we take the stairs to the dentist’s actual office, where Mortimer Cashel has been brought. He’s sitting on a chair near a window overlooking the lake, blood spattering his white shirt and face. He’s not wearing ecclesiastical clothing today, perhaps trying to blend in, but I notice he’s still wearing the piscatory ring on his pinkie finger. His jaw does look a little swollen, and there’s a red splotch of fever at the corner near his ear. He’d waited too long to take care of that infected tooth, it would seem.
“Thirty minutes,” Palmer reminds us. The prearranged amount of time we have with Mortimer before we need to clear the scene. Murdering a pope and making it look like an accident is complicated business, even for a team like this, and they’ll need to get started as quickly as possible.
Mark thanks him, and Palmer shuts the door. It’s only the three of us and Mortimer now, and while the office is spacious, furnished with a slender minimalist desk and only two narrow armchairs, it abruptly feels like there’s no room at all in here.
Mortimer looks serene. Isolde is pale, entirely shuttered.
