there was no longer enough money…” Luca took off his glasses, hooked them on the collar of his shirt, and pressed the heels of his hands to his eye sockets. “Do you know what it means to be a…I’m not sure of the precise term in English. A martyr soul? A victim soul?”
She and Oscar shook their heads.
“The leaders, they went to Piero’s parents and his sister. They said that they’d had a revelation, a vision of Saint Sebastian who said Greta had a victim soul. That she was put on this Earth to suffer as Christ did. Her suffering would save many, and make her a martyr, ensuring her place in the kingdom of Heaven.”
“Oh my God,” Selene breathed, seeing where this was going.
“Greta was a loyal numerary. A valuable member of the church.” Luca lifted his head, put his glasses back on. “They tortured her to death and made sure Piero was there to watch.”
Oscar’s whispered “fuck” was full of horror. Selene felt helpless just listening to Luca’s story. She couldn’t imagine how he felt. He had to design a horrific nuclear bomb because doing it himself was the only way he could ensure that there was a way to dismantle it, all while making sure that he outwardly seemed loyal so that he wouldn’t have to watch his sister be tortured to death.
“That is what I’m protecting my sister from.”
For a long time, none of them said anything.
Chapter Eight
Oscar sat silently, letting the implications of what was at stake for Luca, and what Selene might have discovered about the bomb, sink in. Now that he was over the whole secret military supercomputer situation, he could focus on the important part of what they’d just learned.
The bomb might not actually be the city-killer they’d feared, and Luca was undeniably being coerced. If the option was to kill some people or watch Sylvia be tortured to death, Oscar wouldn’t have hesitated long, even if taking another life went against everything he believed.
“Is your sister safe right now?”
“Yes. I told them before I left, I had to go no-contact for several weeks due to an assignment with Cohortes Praetorianae. I’ve done so in the past, so they won’t be looking for me.”
“What about the monitoring hardware and software they had?” Oscar asked.
“My phone. I have an app they made me that let me track my tablet, but they must have…” Luca frowned.
“There’s probably a way to backtrack, which is how the Croatians—”
“Serbian. They were speaking Serbian.”
“—Serbians tracked you.”
“But does that mean they’re on to him?” Selene asked anxiously.
“If it was the Bellator Dei, they would not have come to me like that. Why would they bother? They know I would do anything to protect Joli.”
“So the Serbians somehow followed you, maybe with your cult’s tracking software, to get a bomb plan that no one outside your cult knows about,” Oscar summed up.
Selene’s brows rose. “Sounds like the cult has a leak.”
“That’s what I was thinking too,” Oscar said.
Luca shook his head slowly. “I don’t know enough about the numeraries to know who, or why?”
“The who?”
“Those who live at the headquarters, devote themselves to the organization.”
There was a long silence before Selene said, in a brighter tone, “On the plus side, the bomb might not work.”
Luca smiled. “In this case, I am glad to be wrong.”
“Though I think with some of your ideas we could—”
“No.” Oscar folded his arms. “No more supervillain shit, you two.”
The quiet relief, mingled with amusement, that filled the cabin made it easy to sink into the silence while outside the snow began to fall again.
Luca was still on an ancient, overstuffed yellow-and-green plaid armchair. The entire cabin appeared to have been furnished by Yard Sales R Us.
“I wonder…” Luca began hesitantly.
He paused just long enough that Selene prompted him to continue with a quiet, “Yes?”
“I wonder if I might ask a few questions of my own.”
Oscar had expected this. Luca had been patient so far, answering their questions honestly. Or at least Oscar believed the answers had been the truth.
It wasn’t like him to trust someone quite so quickly, but his gut told him that Luca wasn’t a liar. He was a man with his back against the wall and a reluctant cult member, but not a liar.
“Of course,” Selene replied.
“I am curious about the Masters’ Admiralty. The only knowledge I have of the organization is what the Bellator Dei has told me. And I think it’s clear from last night’s discussion, they’ve shared some untruths.”
“Or