Assassin's Heart Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  PRAISE FOR MONICA BURNS AND HER NOVELS

  OF “CUTTING EDGE ROM ANCE”

  “This sizzling hot historical and its compelling characters will leave you panting for

  more! Monica Burns writes with sensitivity and panache. Don’t miss this one!”

  —Sabrina Jeffries, New York Times bestselling author

  “[Monica Burns’s] excellent love scenes and bold romance will have readers clamoring

  for more.”

  —Romantic Times

  “A cinematic, compelling, and highly recommended treat!” —Sylvia Day, national bestselling author

  “The love scenes are emotion-filled and wonderfully erotic … Enough to make your toes

  curl.”

  —TwoLips Reviews

  “Elegant prose, believable dialogue, and a suspenseful plot that will hold you

  spellbound.”

  —Emma Wildes

  “Historical romance with unending passion.”

  —The Romance Studio

  “Wow. Just wow.” —Fallen Angel Reviews

  “A satisfying read, complete with intrigue, mystery, and the kind of potent sensuality that

  fogs up the mirrors.”

  —*A Romance Review

  “Monica Burns is a new author I must add to my ‘required reading’ category …

  Everything I look for in a top-notch romance novel.”

  —Romance Reader at Heart

  “Blazing passion.” —Romance Junkies

  Berkley Sensation titles by Monica Burns

  KISMET

  Order of the Sicari Novels

  ASSASSIN’S HONOR ASSASSIN’S HEART

  For Beverly Castellano

  You loved the concept of my Sicari heroes.

  I only wish you could have seen them come to life on the page.

  You are greatly missed.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  With gratitude to Kati Dancy for her meticulous attention to detail and her demand for excellence. A special thanks to Ida Plassay for continuing to tutor me in Italian, and Maria Rosa Contardi for answering questions about Rome’s current landscape, as well as her expertise in Italian and Latin. And a nod of gratitude to Billi J. Jones-DiMatteo, Nicole Burnham, Joyce Tenney, Lynne Connolly, and Binnie Syril (a network connection goddess). I couldn’t have made the climax scene in the Pantheon realistic without each of your observations about this incredible monument.

  Chapter 1

  CHICAGO A YEAR AGO

  LYSANDER woke to screams. Pain was the next signal he was still alive. The cut on his thigh ached with the force of a charging bull ramming a horn into him. The screams intensified. They sounded like an animal’s high-pitched squeals of terror and pain. His gut twisted. Dominic? Or Peter? He instantly reached out with his mind, and tried to figure out how many Praetorians were in the other room. Not a single emotion or thought.

  Christus, how long had he been out? His telepathic ability had never been that strong, but at least he should have been able to know how many of the bastardi were out there. A salty taste on his tongue said his mouth was full of blood. He spit it out onto the floor and opened his eyes. The darkened room was not much bigger than a storage room. Nylon rope bound his wrists, pulling his arms up over his head in a painful stretch. He tugged on his restraints gently.

  Merda, he hurt. How long had he been hanging here? The screams on the other side of his prison’s door rose on a wild crescendo until they died down to low piteous cries. Praetorians had refined their torture skills during the Inquisition. Technology had just updated those skills. A cold, vicious bite of unfamiliar emotion tried to surge through him. He suppressed it.

  No one survived Praetorian torture sessions, and the remains of the Sicari he’d seen said they’d died agonizing deaths. He closed his eyes in a desperate attempt to shut out those gruesome images. Think about something else. Phaedra. The ugly emotion building inside him eased slightly. Deus, she had a gorgeous mouth. And her hair. Soft as silk. Threading his fingers through that dark silk last night … last night. He winced as grief lashed at him. Maybe the Elysium Fields would let him re-create those incredible moments with her as often as he wanted.

  Beside him, a soft whimper of fear forced him to turn his head. Marta. A few feet away, he saw his healer tied to the wall. Praise Jupiter, at least she was still alive. In the next breath, he remembered what happened to healers. Guilt gnawed at him with savage glee.

  “Marta?”

  “I’m scared, Lysander.” The terror in her voice almost made him give in to his own fear.

  “I know, cara.”

  “They took Peter first.”

  It was a simple statement, meant only to inform, but it sent more guilt slicing through him. This was his fault. He should have known something was wrong the minute they entered the warehouse.

  “Marta—”

  “Let it go, Lysander. You’re not to blame.” Her forgiveness ate away at him, but he ignored it.

  “We’re getting out of here.” His fingers explored the knot of nylon holding his wrists together in a painful grip. Sailor’s knot. Immediately, he visualized the rope slipping apart in opposite directions until it released him. Nothing happened. In the near darkness, he saw Marta turn her head toward him.

  “It won’t work.” The words were a quiet sigh of defeat. “They gave the three of you some type of drug to suppress your telekinetics. Dominic tried to free himself all the way up to the last minute, but he couldn’t. We’re going to die here.”

  No. The Praetorians wouldn’t let her die. She was breeding stock.

  He buried the thought and returned his attention to the rope holding him hostage. Closing his eyes, his fingers helped him memorize the way the rope was tied. The screams in the other room gained momentum again, and almost as if they came from a distance, he heard Dominic’s thoughts. A whisper more than anything else. Nothing clear. The drug had to be wearing off. But would it wear off in time to get him and Marta out of here?

  The thought heightened his desperation to free himself. There wasn’t anything he could do for his friend, but maybe he could get Marta out of here. Save her from a fate worse than what he would end up enduring. Even knowing that didn’t make it easy to shut out the screams.

  Almost as if she could read his thoughts, her fear vibrated through the room like an instrument being played with a wild fury. It reinforced his belief that his abilities were returning. He focused his attention on the knot, concentrating hard on mentally undoing the twisted fibers.

  Dominic’s screams grew louder—bouncing off the walls of the room at a frightening level. A sickening dread clawed at him. Concentrate. His friend was as good as dead. He had to focus on getting Marta out of this torture chamber. Overhead, he felt a slight movement in the rope.

  Triumph rolled through him. He wanted to tell Marta, but he didn’t. It would be cruel to raise her hop
es only to see them crushed if he didn’t succeed in time. The thought made him work harder. The rope nudged its way free a tiny bit more. In the back of his mind, he heard Phaedra’s voice whispering encouragement.

  He was certain it was a figment of his imagination, but it bolstered his courage in a way nothing else could. He’d be damned if he was going to lose her, just when he’d found her. He turned his attention back to the rope, only to sense what seemed to be Phaedra’s fears for him. Impossible. He knew full well it was simply his mind compensating for the pressure he was under right now. The mind did strange things when it was under stress.

  Once more, he focused on the rope, blocking out everything but the nylon knot. After several minutes, the mental drain made him ease up on his concentration. Christus, this was almost as hard as when he’d taken Cleo’s dare as a kid to unlock the cabinet holding the Order’s sacred Assent of Office parchments. This time his failure wouldn’t be the Indictio. And right now, he’d willingly take on that hard labor. He visualized the rope’s knot unraveling when a sudden shift in emotions echoed in the back of his head. Dominic’s shrill screams swelled even louder in the small prison then abruptly went silent. A dark emotion slithered through his veins.

  “Lysander.”

  The minute Marta said his name, he turned his head toward her. The resignation on her face filled him with rage, guilt, and fear. He’d failed. He was going to die, and Marta—he shut down the images of what she was going to endure.

  “I’m still here, cara.”

  “They’re coming.”

  “I know,” he said hoarsely.

  He frantically pictured the knot above his head falling open, releasing him from its hold. When that didn’t work, base animal instinct took over, and he sawed at the nylon with his wrists in a hopeless effort to free himself.

  “Lysander? I won’t let them breed me,” she whispered, almost as if consoling herself. “I’ll find a way to keep that from happening.”

  “Fotte,” he roared as the door to their prison flew open.

  Blinded by the sudden light streaming into the room, he stretched out with his thoughts to determine how many Praetorians there were. Two. Fear and rage swelled inside him as he continued to saw at the rope with his wrists. Someone rushed at him, and his last thought was of Phaedra before the light in the room blinked out.

  He awoke to find himself in restraints on a hard surface, his head locked into place by a leather strap. The rafters directly above him said he was still in the warehouse. The soft clink of metal tools hitting against each other made him want to turn toward the sound, but he couldn’t. A quiet chuckle echoed in his mind, and he instinctively threw up a shield against the mental probe.

  “Do you have a name, Unmentionable?”

  The pleasant tone of the man’s voice didn’t ease the sudden fear crawling across his skin. It increased it. He closed his eyes and tried to stem the emotion that threatened to drown him. No. He couldn’t give in to the terror. It would drain his ability to keep this bastardo out of his head. He swallowed hard and tried to focus on something pleasant. Something the Praetorian couldn’t use against him.

  Flowers. When was the last time he’d bought flowers for someone? The thought was idiotic, but he could sense the Praetorian’s irritation as his mental barrier kept the man from probing deeper.

  “Come now, Unmentionable. Tell me your name.”

  “Why? It doesn’t really matter, does it?” An image of Phaedra slipped past the shield.

  “Not really, but it does personalize the experience.” There was a note of amusement in the man’s voice that said he’d seen Phaedra. It sent a bolt of rage through him.

  “I’m sure it does,” he snarled as he opened his eyes to meet the flat gaze of the Praetorian. He rolled saliva and blood around in his mouth and spat it at the man. “Lysander Condellaire, Primus Pilus of the Order of the Sicari, son of Aurelia and Massimo Condellaire.”

  “A Primus Pilus. I’m honored.” The man pretended to brush off a fleck of the spit that had not even come close to him. “It’s not often I have a First Spear to administer redemption to. I am Nicostratus. Your judge and jury. As a heretic, you may repent at any time.”

  He didn’t answer. Something said this bastardo liked to talk to his victims, and he wasn’t going to give the son of a bitch that satisfaction. In fact, he was going to fight hard not to give the man any kind of response, no matter how bad—a red-hot needle of pain scraped its way across his skin. He nearly bit his tongue off to keep from screaming out loud.

  Instead, he dug his fingers into his palms, and his body jerked violently against his restraints. It was impossible to escape the needle’s persistent fire or the excruciating pain. When it stopped, he found himself breathing raggedly with relief—ready to sob. A moment later, his body bucked hard against the straps holding him down.

  Ever so slowly, the skin on his face gave way to the man’s cruel touch. Nerve endings sent horrifying signals to his brain at their sudden exposure to the air. He almost wept from the pain, but swallowed the cries he wanted to let loose.

  “You’re a brave man, Condellaire. It’s not often I encounter an Unmentionable capable of holding back his cries when I strip his skin.”

  Lysander opened his eyes and he choked on a rush of bile as Nicostratus showed him a strip of flesh dangling from a pair of small forceps. He swallowed the bitter fluid in his throat, but not before a wave of helplessness crashed over him. The emotion sent him spiraling down into a dark place where he wanted to hide from what was happening to him. No sooner did he hit the bottom of that hellish pit than he fought back. He bucked his body against his restraints.

  “Fotte you, you Praetorian bastardo,” he mumbled, each word more agonizing than the last as the movement of his lips tugged at the exposed muscles on his cheek. In his mind, he visualized his fist driving itself into the man’s face.

  His effort was rewarded by Nicostratus’s head flying backward from the invisible punch. In less than two seconds, the man recovered and quickly reached for something on the tray next to the table. Needle in hand, the Praetorian pushed up Lysander’s sleeve and proceeded to inject him with something.

  “You’re stronger than I thought. But this should keep you in check,” Nicostratus said with just a hint of anger. The man started to push Lysander’s sleeve down but stopped. “Well now, what have we here? A birthmark?”

  The man’s voice was coaxing in a way that sent an icy sensation creeping over Lysander’s skin. An instant later, the exposed nerve endings on his cheek lit up in a bitter blast of fiery pain. Christus, the Praetorian was patting him on his exposed muscle. He fiercely bit down on the groan rising in his chest. When he didn’t answer, the man made a small noise that indicated curiosity.

  “Tell me, Condellaire, did your mother ever explain where this mark comes from?”

  “My father, you bastardo.”

  “Your father. I see.”

  A whisper of sound drifted through his head. The son of a bitch was trying to read his mind again. Desperately, he fought to fortify the shield around his thoughts and filled his head with nonsensical images. Anything to block the man’s probe. He would not let his mind betray the guild or the Order. The Praetorian’s thoughts strengthened in an effort to dig deeper.

  Lysander shored up the fragile wall he’d built inside his head with images of his mother. Determination and willpower helped him to pull every memory of his mother he could find inside him. The Praetorian chuckled. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. Rather it encouraged the helplessness that had taken root in his stomach and spread through every muscle in his body.

  The man’s mental probe withdrew and Lysander’s muscles shuddered into a limp state,

  his ability almost on the edge of failure. Christus, he couldn’t fail. He wouldn’t give this bastardo that satisfaction. The sound of metal against metal told him the carving was going to begin anew. Eyes closed and fists clenched tightly, he locked his jaw in preparation for the f
iery needle to carve its way into his skin again.

  “This is for not knowing me, boy.”

  Puzzled by the statement, the tension in his body eased just before the laser hit his skin. One thin stream of fire after another flew across his eye in an X pattern. Deep in the back of his mind, he started to sob from his inability to save his friends or himself from this hell. He was powerless, and the knowledge crushed him. Somewhere he heard the sound of screaming, and he realized it was him as the laser continued its terrible path across his cheek. He sank into the pit.