Curse of the Fallen by Eve Archer

Chapter Three

Dominick

“Tell me again,” I said, pacing in front of Dan as he sat on one of the curved couches in the yacht’s main lounge. His brown hair was a mess, and his clothes were dirty and ripped.

He pressed an ice pack to the knot on the back of his head. “Like I said, I don’t remember much. I was in the market with your…with Ella. Gad left when we heard of the demon attack.”

Gadriel rasped a hand across the stubble shading his dark cheeks and peered up at me from where he sat next to Dan. “I thought you needed reinforcements.”

I stopped my pacing and held his gaze for a beat. “Do not blame yourself. The attack was genuine. It just wasn’t the only one.”

Gad scowled at himself, shaking his head roughly. “I never should have left my post.”

As much as the fallen angel loved levity and indulgences of the flesh, he was a dedicated warrior who’d been by my side through it all. He felt this failure keenly.

“Let us keep our focus on the real target of our revenge—the demons who moved against us.”

He pressed his lips together with a sharp nod. I swiveled my head back to Dan. “Then what?”

Dan readjusted the ice pack, drops of water trailing down the back of his neck and onto his black suit jacket. “I’d received the text message from Ram that you’d been killed in the attack—”

“Which I didn’t send you,” Rami added from where he half stood, half leaned against the built-in sideboard.

Dan gave a half shrug. “I’m telling you what happened. I don’t know how they did it, but someone made it look like a text from you.”

I waved a hand impatiently. “Go on.”

“Ella was upset when I told her you were dead. She wouldn’t listen to me telling her I needed to get her somewhere safe. She ran from the shop.” He snapped his fingers. “Lavender. That’s the awful smell I keep remembering. We’d ducked into a lavender shop.” He grimaced. “Anyway, she was outside the shop when I felt a sharp pain on the back of my head. I think I screamed. That’s all I remember.”

Hearing how upset Ella had been hearing of my fictional death made me clench my fists in fury. It also touched something deep within me—a part of me I thought I’d shut off long ago. My heart squeezed at the thought of Ella in pain over the idea of losing me, but warmth also tingled along the surface of my skin. If she cared enough to be upset over my death, then her feelings weren’t fleeting or fueled only by physical desire. She cared.

The squeeze in my chest morphed into an ache. It had been a long time since I’d experienced the affection of a female that wasn’t fueled by booze, drugs, or the alluring powers of my angelic form. I’d been no stranger to female pleasures—especially when I’d first been banished from heaven—but lust was not love, and I’d grown bored of the emptiness of carnal desires.

What I felt for Ella, however, was an entirely different sensation. One I would move heaven and Earth to get back.

Fresh rage pulsed through my veins, and I scraped a hand through my hair. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the abduction and piece together what I knew. The demon attack on the dons had been a ruse to draw at least one guard away from Ella. The demons knew they might be able to take out one fallen angel, but they might not have liked their chances with two, especially in a public place. So, they’d attacked the meeting on the rooftop of my hotel, drawn Gadriel into the fight, told Dan that I was dead, then knocked him out and snatched Ella.

“Then what?” Gadriel asked. “You weren’t in the market when we came looking for you.”

I opened my eyes, waiting for Dan’s response.

His cheeks reddened. “I was in the church. Somehow, they dragged me into a confession booth in the church near the market. I scared a priest half to death when he opened the door, and I fell out. I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but by the time I found my way back to the spot where I’d last seen Ella, she was gone. I came here as fast as I could.” He gave me a sheepish look. “Without flying.”

“Demons,” Gad muttered. “They love the irony of us in churches.”

“Of course, it was demons,” Rami said. “Who else?”

I considered whether Mateo Solano could have been involved, glancing quickly at Rami. “Still no indication that the Solano punk left Venice?”

“He’s not here,” my second in command assured me. “We’ve had him closely watched since the day he appeared at the headquarters.”

Something tickled the back of my brain. “What about the other son?”

“The one from the party?” Rami asked, the lift of his brow indicating his skepticism.

I nodded. “I asked you to check him out, right?”

“You did, but from what our preliminary research shows, he isn’t involved in the Solano empire.”

“Don’t call it an empire.” Don Solano might want to play in the big leagues, but the fact remained that he was still not much more than a low-level player who didn’t mind dealing in street drugs and sex trafficking. I might be considered one of the leaders of the criminal underworld, but my operations were less criminal and more forbidden, and I refused to sully my hands with anything that wasn’t fully consensual.

Rami allowed himself a faint quirk of his lips. “Family, then. Anthony Solano seems to have been kept from the business, going to university in New York and only recently returning to Italy. He’s clean.”

I stifled a laugh. He might be clean for now, but sons from crime families rarely stayed that way. I’d seen it too many times over too many centuries. Legitimate business wouldn’t bring him what he was used to, and he’d slip into his family’s business. “What did he study at university?”

“Business.”

It was usually either business or law—two degrees crime families could put to good use. I thought back to the clean-cut man talking with Ella. He’d appeared to be the opposite of his father and brother—charming, polished, intelligent. Anthony Solano was no thug, and that made him dangerous. “And he flew out before our meeting?”

All evidence pointed to Anthony Solano being inconsequential, but my gut told me there was more to him than he wanted to let on. His charming, easy-going veneer was just that—an act. When I’d met him, I’d sensed something deeper in the man—and darker. And I was an expert in darkness hidden behind attractive facades.

“Where did he go?” I asked Rami before he could answer my first question. “Back to Italy?”

Rami pulled out his phone, swiping the screen a few times. “Private jet. They didn’t file a flight plan.”

I spun to face him, my interest piqued even more. “He took the Solano plane but didn’t file a flight plan?”

“This was before the attack, and before Ella was taken,” Rami said. “He couldn’t have been involved in either of those. At least, not directly.”

“And he couldn’t have taken Ella if he was already gone,” Gadriel added.

Both of these were valid points, but I didn’t care. Anthony Solano had sought out Ella at the party. Why? Because she was the only other person there with connections to New York? Maybe, but he wouldn’t have known that by looking at her, although it was evident at a glance that she wasn’t Italian. It was possible he’d approached her because she was a beautiful, young woman sitting alone, and he was also young and without a companion.

All of this made sense. But it didn’t explain the flash of satisfaction I’d seen when I’d approached him talking with Ella. Not only had he not been shocked to see me, but he’d known who I was, and he’d been secretly pleased by my reaction. It had been only a momentary lapse in his otherwise innocent expression, but he’d enjoyed my anger at seeing him with Ella.

I strode to the bar, pouring myself two fingers of my best single-malt whiskey. I swirled the amber liquid in the cut-crystal rocks glass then tossed it back in a single gulp, welcoming the searing heat as it scorched my throat and fired my belly.

“Find Anthony Solano,” I said, putting the glass down on the ivory marble bar top and turning to my fellow Fallen. “I want to know where that plane went with him, and where it went after him.”

Rami straightened. “On it.”

“And assemble the Fallen.”

“All of us?” Rami asked, flicking his gaze around the room and no doubt remembering how crowded it had been with only a fraction of our two hundred.

I shook my head. “Only our brothers who are in Europe. They’ll welcome the visit to the island.”

Rami’s mouth twitched into a smile. It had been almost a year since we’d returned to our private Greek island and visited the castle fortress that had been our first headquarters after our fall.

“We’re setting sail for the island now?” Gadriel glanced at Dan then back at me.

“There’s nothing to be gained by staying here. The demons have gone and taken Ella with them. There’s little for us to learn by lingering.”

“The battlefield has been cleared, and the hotel will be repaired swiftly,” Rami said. “I have our publicity team working to keep the damage minimal.”

I didn’t care about the PR nightmare as much as I should have. I only cared about Ella. “It’s the demons who should be worried about damage and retribution. We’re going to reclaim what is mine and punish them for taking it.”

Gadriel punched a fist into his palm. “I think I speak for all the army of the Fallen when I say we’ll gladly punish the wayward demons.”

“The one we need to find is Jaya.” I locked eyes with Rami. “Which means you and I need to pay a visit to Rome.”