The Immortal Greek (22 page)

Alexander gingerly took one of the chairs opposite the bench, a round, wrought iron table between them. “What do you want from us?”

“I’m making sure this time everything goes as I planned it.” With the back of the hand holding the gun, Giudici gave Ravenna a small caress on her right cheek before pressing it against her flesh again.

She flinched. Alexander felt bile rising to his throat. “Let her go.”

“I can’t.” Giudici angled his body on the bench so he was facing Ravenna, who hadn’t yet said a word. “Don’t be afraid, child.” With his free hand, he reached inside a pocket and retrieved a syringe.

Ravenna’s eyes widened, but she kept her mouth closed.

“You’ll inject yourself with it or I’ll shoot her.” Giudici offered the syringe to Alexander, who took it as Ravenna finally reacted.

“Don’t!” She leaned over the table, her hands stretched toward Alexander. “He won’t shoot me.”

The immortal’s fingers tightened around the gun’s trigger. “Care to test it?”

Alexander plunged the needle in his throat as Ravenna screamed.

Giudici held her back as she tried to reach Alexander. “Now, listen to me, Ravenna.” He switched the gun in his other hand and pointed it at Alexander. Then he retrieved a second gun and laid it in front of her on the table. “Last time, my plans for you were foiled by his actions. This time, it seems only fair to use him to convince you to obey me.” Despite his words, the man sounded as if he were talking to a child in need of a time out.

Alexander was already feeling the effects of the Immortal Death working its way through his system, but his thoughts were focused on how to free Ravenna from the madman.

Mascara lines running down her face and splatting the front of her dress, she turned to Giudici. “Please, Alberto, I’ll do whatever you want me to do, but if you really care for me, don’t hurt him.”

Giudici smiled at her. “I told you already. I need you to take your life. The only way you can enter Tartaros and be with me and Tommaso is for you to take your own life.” Without a moment of hesitation, and while he was still looking at Ravenna, he pressed the trigger and shot Alexander.

Alexander looked at the red flower blossoming on his silk shirt, a few centimeters south of his heart.

****

Ravenna felt as if Alberto had shot her. Alexander’s face paled before her eyes and he slumped on his seat.

“Take the gun and aim at your temple or I will shoot to kill.” The immortal she had once considered a father looked at her with cold eyes, his gun never wavering from Alexander.

She couldn’t understand how she had never realized the man was insane. He had always looked after her and her brother. She had never, even once, imagined the depth of Alberto’s depravity. “I need reassurance you’ll let him live.”

Alberto produced a second syringe from the same pocket he had retrieved the first. “You still don’t believe what I’m doing is for you? I could’ve ended my life hours ago, when I poisoned the food for the gala. Instead, I stayed behind, risking apprehension, to ensure you would be with me in the afterlife. Tommaso has been waiting for us long enough, don’t you think?” His gun still aimed at Alexander, he injected himself single-handedly, pushing the syringe in his thigh. “I’ll pull the trigger on myself a moment after you do.”

“No!” Alexander, his hands pressing on his wound, leaned over the table, attempting to stand.

Alberto raised his aim toward Alexander’s head. “He’s not coming back from this one.”

Her whole body shaking with rage, Ravenna took the gun from the table and raised it to her temple. Behind a curtain of tears, she looked at Alexander, then steadied her resolve. “I love you.”

****

Alexander jumped across the table to slap the gun out of Ravenna’s hand. He heard the shot as his chest slammed against the cold, metal surface. His arm finished the intended trajectory and connected with Ravenna’s elbow. The gun slid to the floor. The sound of people screaming rang inside his skull in a loud cacophony that left him dazzled. Or maybe it was the blood loss. The moment he had stopped pressing his wound, blood had gushed out. Ravenna was screaming too.

She was alive. He had stopped her from killing herself. For a moment, happiness flooded his mind. Then he remembered about Giudici. He tried to move, but he couldn’t. His limbs were made of lead. His eyelids were made of lead too. He couldn’t faint now and leave her to face that monster by herself.

“Stay down, idiot.”

Alexander moved his head toward the direction Marcus’s voice had come from, but he couldn’t see anything.

“Alexander, please, don’t move.”

Ravenna’s smell reached his nostrils. Warm lips left a kiss on his mouth.

He gathered all his strength to talk to her. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, my love, I’m fine.”

Alexander wanted to ask her where Giudici was, but he had depleted all his energy, and slipped into unconsciousness.

****

When he came to, his first thought was of Ravenna. He opened his eyes to blinding light, and for a moment, he couldn’t see anything but his fingers shielding his eyes from the glare. His body awakened a moment later, pain gripping it from the inside out, starting from his chest. By the clean smell and the amplified sunlight for the heliotherapy, he knew he was in the hospital. “Ravenna?”

He heard sudden movement to his right side and the sound of something light hitting the floor.

“My love.” Ravenna’s scent enveloped him as her warm body joined him on the bed. She sought his mouth and kissed him slowly.

When he reemerged for air, her black eyes were the first thing he saw. “You’re really okay.” He’d had nightmares of being too slow and her dying. “What happened to Giudici?”

She leaned back and rested her head on her bent arm. “I wounded him and he’s now in jail where he will spend the rest of eternity.”

Alexander’s memory was sketchy at the moment, but before he intervened, the last image he had of her she was pointing a gun to her temple.

She leaned forward to nudge his nose with hers, then leaned back to give him one of her smiles. “I gambled.”

“You gambled.” He thought he had misunderstood her.

Her smile widened. “Yes.”

He wanted nothing more than to kiss that infuriating mouth of hers. “Care to elaborate?”

“I knew the moment I aimed the gun at myself you would do something. I counted on that something to create enough of a diversion for me to shoot Alberto instead. It worked.”

He stared at her, unable to decide if he wanted to strangle her or make love to her.

“Alexander?” She poked his arm. “Are you angry with me?”

“I should be.” He wasn’t sure he could ever put in words what he thought of her stunt, and decided kissing her would suffice to calm his nerves.

He needed to be reassured she was fine, and hooked his hands at her nape to open the button keeping her dress together. “You’ll never, ever, wear this damned gown again.”

She moaned, and moved closer to him, then suddenly stopped him. “Almost forgot we’re at the hospital.”

“Nothing they haven’t seen before.” Alexander almost succeeded in opening the collar, but she removed his hands from her neck.

He was about to protest, but Ravenna’s face had become serious.

She lowered her hands on her lap. “We must talk.”

Alexander’s eyes went to the glossy magazine laying open on the floor. “Not again. Please.” He groaned and slid back down, eyes closed, two fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m not feeling well. Could you call the nurse?” He dared a peek.

“No nurse for you, mister.” She left the bed to pick up the magazine. She opened it to a page in the middle. “Who’s this Lena Chiosi and why has she announced to all and sundry that you’ll give her a private tour of your playroom?” Her eyes threw daggers at him and she even stomped her foot down.

She was adorable. And they were arguing about nothing. “I’ll kill Marcus. I swear, I’ll hunt him down, and I’ll kill him. And I will feel great pleasure in it.”

“What does Marcus have anything to do with this?” She pointed at the incriminated page.

“Marcus is the bane of my existence. I knew he would take his revenge some day for the horse accident. I knew it.”

“The horse accident? What are you talking about? You aren’t making any sense.” Ravenna checked his forehead. “Maybe you’re right. I should call the nurse.” She leaned over the headboard to push the call button.

He sat on the bed and pulled her on his lap before she could call anyone. “The playroom is closed. Forever.”

She relaxed in his arms. “Hmmm. Forever?”

“And ever.” His hands shoot around her neck and started playing with the button holding the collar of her dress once again.

She angled her head so that her hair slid to the side and gave him better access. “Well, that’s an awful long time to have that room closed, don’t you think?”

By the gods, but he loved that woman. “I think you’re right.”

She pushed herself out of the bed and walked toward the door.

He was about to complain when she blew him a kiss, then turned to face the wall, giving him the most beautiful side of her dress, and locked the door. The resounding click put a big smile on his face.

Alexander immediately forgot all about killing Marcus.