The Fallen Read Online Free

playing with the red rings of hair that hung on her shoulder.
    The Priest’s eyes widened and he swallowed again, clamping and unclamping his hands together, fighting with his private demons. A small red tongue ran across his lips before he swallowed yet again, looking away to the river like a doomed man waiting to be thrown in, perhaps thinking he could cast himself in and have his sins washed away. Salvation, he knew, lay away from here, away from the allure of this woman, but he recognised the salvation of a sweeter kind stood next to him. He looked back at her and started to speak, but stopped, rubbing his sweating hands on his cassock, his eyes once more on the river.
    He remembered the words of St Augustine, feeling like Adam caught within the Garden of Eden. But here, in the shadow of the Ponte Sisto bridge, he looked at Isabella and found himself ensnared by an even greater temptation.
    â€œFather Morritez,” Isabella soothed, running her hand over her right breast so that the nipple hardened through her blouse, “do I not fascinate you? Do I not intrigue and tantalise?”
    â€œYou do,” he muttered, trembling slightly. His hands shook and he knotted them in front of himself. “You do.”
    Isabella smiled softly and raised her delicately sculpted chin to reveal the soft pale white of her neck, the hint of pink on her chest.
    â€œMercy me, you do,” Morritez mumbled, reaching forward and taking her fingers gently with a sweaty hand, no longer able to resist touching her. “You do,” he repeated, squeezing her hand. “I have seen you often, in the corridors, in the squares about the city. You’re a thing of beauty, surely in God’s own image? I’ve never looked on anything so lovely.”
    The Sister’s eyes widened and she levelled them at the man. “You blasphemous hound, Father Morritez!” she teased gently. “A woman in God’s own image?” She tutted quietly and placed a hand over his, encouraging him to move closer. He did, with no more resistance.
    â€œForgive me!” he muttered, as much to his Lord as to Isabella, before leaning forward to kiss her. He was only a few inches away when a gunshot cracked from the bridge above them and a body tumbled from it, falling into the river. It hit the Tiber with a splash, and before the waves reached the river’s edge Isabella was at the quayside steps leading down to the water.
    â€œGiovanni!” she cried to the shadows beyond where Father Morritez stood, both terrified and bemused. Another Priest was already hurrying out from the hideout where he had been crouched, watching and waiting for the Father’s indiscretion to be drawn out by the Sister. A sash of vivid blues and greens, colours of the Chaste, was tied round his middle. Isabella was in the cool water and wading towards the body floating past, when she ordered him to seize the errant Priest.
    â€œWhat are you doing, Isabella?” Giovanni cried, one hand clutched firm to the flummoxed Father’s arm, his other held out to her beseechingly. But instantly his eyes were drawn back to the bridge and the figures hurrying down the stone steps alongside it. “Isabella!” Giovanni called, but a shot rang out and he went down with a grunt.
    Father Morritez leapt and recoiled in horror, dropping to his haunches, his hands held tight to his ears like a soldier manning an artillery post. A second shot caught him in the back of the neck and he slumped twitching to the flagstones of the walkway beside Giovanni, blood pouring from the wound.
    Isabella dived beneath the dark waters, grabbing hold of the body from the bridge as she went. The side of the man’s face had been blasted open, his wide staring eyes tracing a route upwards towards the stars. Bullets zipped and fizzed through the water around her as she kicked for the far bank. Isabella knew this was no Sicilian mafia. They were drilled, armed,