Lorna Tedder Read online

  “What now?”

  I nodded at the mirror and the image of a young man in his twenties crossing the garage behind us. “We wait for that valet and follow him out the security gate.”

  “I mean…what about me?”

  “You’re going with me. I’ll take you someplace safe. There’s a church in L.A. where I have a contact.”

  “A contact in a church?”

  “I have contacts all over the world.” I tried not to let my life sound so glamorous. It wasn’t. Most of my contacts had come through criminal activity, and very few could be trusted beyond whatever they were paid to do.

  “Who’s your contact?”

  “Just someone who helped me out a few times.” I caught the wide-eyed expression on her face and decided to nix it while I had the chance. “Nothing glamorous at all. A nun who’s hidden me from the cops on several occasions. One of the few contacts I truly trust.”

  Her upper lip curled. “You’re leaving me with a nun?”

  “Temporarily. In three days or a week or whenever you want, you can leave. I can arrange a new identity for you if you want. I have…connections who can do that.” A contact named George who I didn’t entirely trust for my own work, but he was in L.A. and his work was credible. I’d used him on a couple of Adriano jobs in Southern California. He made a damned good fake ID package and he could give Nicole whatever papers she needed.

  The girl smiled the first genuine smile I’d seen on her face. She watched me expectantly. “So you’re certain my stepfather won’t be able to find me? He’d…he’d hurt me if he could find me.”

  I stopped cold. Anyone hurts you while you’re under my protection and I will kill them. Just as I would if you were Lilah.

  “There are no victims, sweetie, only choices.” Me, I’d made bad choices, but like most adults, I won’t admit them to a teenager. “And tonight you’re making a choice for a fresh start. If you want it.”

  She moved her head in a single slow nod. “More than anything. I just want to leave my past behind.” She bowed her head.

  I knew just how she felt. Except I didn’t want to leave my past behind, I wanted it back.

  “I’ve had to start over a few times myself, Nicole.” When Matthew vanished. When I left Lilah for six weeks to find the Joan of Arc relic. When I met the Adrianos. But had I ever really started over? I seemed to be going in circles and I was dead tired of it. Nicole wasn’t mine, not by any means, but talking to her sent an ache through my heart to step up my plans to leave the Adrianos and change my life completely. I’d have to leave my old life behind to live again and I was so damned unsure about whether I could do it. “Maybe tonight will be a fresh start for both of us,” I told Nicole.

  She nodded enthusiastically as I cranked the Mercedes and backed out of the parking spot, quickly falling in line behind the valet and the emerald-green Jaguar he drove. We waited patiently for the yellow-and-black-striped bar at the security gate to rise for the Jag, and then I pushed forward until I was almost touching his bumper. I glanced up at the bar, half expecting it to come down at any second and hold us in place.

  “Hey!” A security guard at the gate frowned at me. Then he realized that the Mercedes wasn’t mine and that I was trying to tailgate my way out of the secured garage. “Hey!” He ran toward me, drawing his gun as a threat but more bark than bite.

  A petty criminal would have stopped rather than risk a bullet whizzing past. Not me. I floored the accelerator, pushing hard against the Jag’s bumper, shoving the automobile directly into the side street in front of us. Other vehicles honked as he landed in their path. I shot between them, fishtailing into the street and stomping the accelerator as I straightened out the automobile’s trajectory.

  “Wow,” Nicole breathed. “Can you teach me to do that? I’ll be your daughter any day!” Her words sliced through me.

  “No!”

  “But—”

  “No.”

  I glanced in the mirror and concentrated on growing the distance between the hotel and us. “Nicole?” I tried not to let her hear the tremor in my voice. No one could ever take Lilah’s place. Even if I managed to leave my life of crime, I could never have Lilah back. Ever. To have what I wanted most would mean putting my daughter in danger, and I wouldn’t do that. To see her happy, I’d gladly sacrifice my fondest wish to have her back in my life, and if she were branded as my daughter, she’d never be free to have the life she was meant to live.

  “Nicole, do me a big favor, okay?”

  “Anything.”

  “Don’t try to be like me. Ever.”

  “Why not?” She sat up tall in her seat and tugged at her buckled seat belt. “You afraid you might get caught?”

  “No.” In the mirror, the last gleam of the hotel marquee faded in the distance, and I let the night hide my face as we headed south. My throat filled up with unshed tears for the daughter I’d lost, and I could say no more.

  Chapter 3

  Autumn

  Outside the Adriano palazzo, Italy

  I had no idea why the compound where the Adriano family hides itself away always seemed to crackle with energy. I had felt the same surge of restlessness and power in a few other places—at Stonehenge and again on the misty Glastonbury Tor in Britain; near the legendary Temple of Delphi; at an archaeological site in Peru; and later at an underwater Greek temple that no one will ever know about. Maybe it’s because the Adriano home base is built on the tower ruins of an old castle close to such a famous volcano, old Mount Vesuvius, and the fact that modern technology has little effect on acts of God and Mother Nature. Storms, hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes—men are powerless in such conflicts, resorting to far-flung prayers in moments of crisis.

  Then again, I thought as I waited at the main gate to the compound shortly after sunset, maybe it’s the fact that the Adrianos are always on alert, the air thrumming with dozens of unseen henchmen straining to distinguish any movement in the acres of darkness.

  Careful not to let my cleavage fall too far out of my velvet dress—which was normal attire for me—I leaned out the window of my rented Mercedes, thrusting my identification at the pimply faced guard who didn’t look a day over sixteen. He barked at me in Italian to leave my automobile outside the gate and enter on foot. An older guard with a scar across his lips and large nose stood behind him, one hand on a low-slung holster. Neither seemed to have a sense of humor. They motioned for me to get out of the automobile, so I obeyed, taking the briefcase with me.

  Hmm. Strange. I’d been to the compound thirty-eight times—thirty-five on official business—and I’d always been allowed to drive to the main building. Of course, I always had to exit my automobile while the guards scooted an X-ray machine on a slender trailer beneath the body of the vehicle, jabbed underneath with mirrors to look for bombs and then brought out the bomb-detecting dogs to sniff inside the automobile, under the hood, around the wheel wells and in the trunk. What had happened to ratchet up security several notches since my last visit a few months before?

  “What’s in package?” the older guard asked me in stilted English, his head bobbing at the briefcase. His tone was as harsh as his apprentice’s, and they both seemed impervious to my usual feminine charms. Contrary to the allure of other Italian men, these thugs didn’t warrant a second look.

  “What’s in package?” he barked again, knitting his thick eyebrows into one.

  “I don’t know.” Why were they giving me such a hard time? I’d always been treated as an honored guest in Simon’s home. Or at least a very valuable employee. Had something changed?

  “Explosives? Guns?” the guard asked.

  I shrugged. These guys weren’t very creative. If I had plans to assassinate anyone in the Adriano family, it would have been Caleb and it would have been with something a lot slower than a suitcase bomb or a bullet. Hell, a little biological or radiological something would have been more in line with what the bastard deserved for what he’d done to me. That or a grenade
up his ass.

  Then it occurred to me that I really didn’t know what was in the briefcase I’d been sleeping with for the past six weeks.

  The guard drew his gun. “Give me package.”

  I shook my head. My grip tightened on the briefcase and its precious contents. “No one touches this package but Duke Adriano.”

  “Fine. We shoot you. Then we give him package.” The older guard laughed at his own joke. Without warning, he grinned. “Meanwhile, we feel corpse for weapons. Maybe have to look everywhere.”

  His leer made my skin crawl. Why did men always make me do this?

  Before the younger guard could move, I kicked the gun out of the older man’s hand and left the heel print of my boot on his forehead. I caught the gun midair and swung it in the direction of the adolescent guard, who backed up against the wall with his palms facing me. Neutralizing him, I turned the gun on the older one on the ground.

  “Please tell Duke Adriano that Dr. Moon is here to see him.”

  Damn it. I’d twisted my knee again. I seriously needed some downtime to recuperate. Months’ worth of downtime.

  The younger guard pressed the intercom button and mumbled something in Italian. Simon’s face appeared on the black-and-white screen. The video camera at the corner of the gate swiveled in my direction. Simon’s blank stare shifted to recognition.

  “Dr. Moon! How delightful to see you,” he said in perfect English with a smooth-flowing Italian accent sprinkled with the slightest hint of British brogue from his long stays in London. I was well traveled enough to have noticed it where others may not have. He narrowed his eyes at me through the camera. “What’s that in your arms? Besides the firearm, of course. Have you been taunting my guards again?” He laughed. “Do you have something for me?”

  “The question is, do you have something for me?” Like half a million American dollars, plus expenses. And hopefully a promise to release me from his employ. I’d trade the cash any day for an early retirement. The Adrianos thought my motivation was money, and I fed their assumption wherever possible. They knew that the money allowed me to keep up my international contacts and my expertise and still be on call whenever they demanded my services. I wasn’t some poor schmuck they forced into servitude with threats and no extra pay, and that made my status far more prestigious than that of most employees.

  “Ah, yes. Cara mia. My dear, sweet mercenary, Dr. Moon. Have one of the boys drive you up to the house.”

  I glanced at the eat-shit expressions on the guards’ faces and considered my throbbing knee. “Thanks, Simon, but I think I’ll walk.”

  I didn’t mind the walk, but it had always bothered me how they’d overplanted trees and gardens along the driveway to the main house, mostly to hide the grounds from satellite coverage. In the dark, the walk seemed more like a nicely paved trail in the jungle, with small footpath lamps placed at intervals, so that I could see the toes of my boots in their glow.

  The palazzo was far more impressive in daylight, especially with the four towers from the original castle standing like sentinels over the property. A series of earthquakes over the past year had damaged the towers, and on every visit this year scaffolding had tainted the picturesque view of the old stone architecture and its intricate crosswalks between the towers. Almost as soon as they completed the refurbishment, another tremor would rock the whole region.

  Odd, I thought. So many earthquakes here in such a short time.

  Not that Naples was immune to earthquakes. Besides the famous earthquake and volcanic destruction of nearby Pompeii in the first century, the area had been hit in the late 1600s, killing ninety-three thousand people, and as recently as 1980, injuring over sixty thousand. These small shakers within the past year were not a good sign of things to come, but the locals seemed more concerned with recent sudden rainstorms.

  The walk along the driveway took almost twenty minutes. I didn’t let my knee injury slow me down, but I needed every second of the way to cool down and mentally prepare myself. I slid the borrowed revolver into my bra between my breasts and ignored the feeling that I was being watched by silent mouth-breathing security guards hiding in the shrubbery and behind the olive trees along the driveway. I was far more worried about the unseen video cameras photographing every step I took.

  Caleb would be watching.

  Biting my lip against the pain in my knee, I bounded up the stone steps to the main house and reached for the knocker on the door. I just wanted to get this over with, collect my fee, get Simon’s agreement to let me resign or retire and quietly disappear to some quiet little university town in Florida where the Adrianos would never find me. If that was possible. With any luck, tonight’s visit to the compound would be my last. That was my plan, anyway.

  Cold steel brushed across my cheek. I held my breath and didn’t move. I kept my eyes straight ahead. The gun barrel caught the fall of hair above my eyes—the trendy style I’d chosen to hide the crinkles at the corners that some idiot had nicknamed crow’s-feet—and lifted my hair away from my face. I didn’t move as the metal traced my hairline to my forehead and examined my face with an intimacy that made me tremble. I felt naked. Worse—vulnerable. I had my props, my clothes and hair and makeup, to hide my flaws, and yet when your enemy inspects the lines of your face and knows how often you’ve smiled into the sun or frowned at your pain, there is nowhere to hide.

  “Your weapon.” His voice was low, quiet, but sounded vaguely familiar. “Don’t move.” He reached into the open neckline of my brown velvet dress and withdrew the revolver, barely touching my skin between my breasts as he did, but it was still enough to make my breath catch. “Sorry,” he whispered in a Parisian accent that sounded like home to me. “We don’t allow guns in the house.”

  I turned only my head to face him. I wasn’t sure if it was safe to move. He lowered both guns and exhaled audibly.

  We stood there for a minute longer than necessary, sizing up each other. He was tall, very un-Italian, with brown hair that curled a little long on the collar of the sleek black leather jacket he wore. He had classic features and, for a man in his early thirties, nary a sign of a smile line or a frown crease. A good poker player, probably. His face held no expression at all, but I lost myself in his pale blue eyes.

  It’s a man’s eyes that I’m always most attracted to, and in a split second I’d planned out the rest of our lives in my head. How we’d slip away from here and spend our days on the run, changing our identities and seeing the world together. Never able to slow down or become bores but always intense and exciting and thankful for one more day of life together. This man had what it took to keep the fire in my belly—and elsewhere—and I knew it in an instant. I could feel alive again with this man, at least for a little while.

  I blinked away the illusion and promised myself I’d fantasize about him later. He was one of the Adriano henchmen and therefore off-limits to me in reality, but I knew without a doubt that I’d lust after him in my dreams. At least until I could find Matthew again.

  The door opened inward, and I looked down at a little boy who stood between the door and the threshold using all his strength to keep the heavy door from pushing him out onto the steps with me. He nervously dug the toes of his sneakered feet into the stone floor and peered up at me with the biggest pair of puppy-dog eyes I’d ever seen on a child. Then he reached for the hem of the henchman’s jacket and tugged three times.

  “Eh-wic?”

  Eric? Eric Cabordes? The man whose shoddy information had nearly gotten me captured in San Francisco?

  “Go back inside.” Eric’s voice stayed low and gentle even while the heat of anger rose in my temples. He hid both guns behind his back. I could still see them, but the boy couldn’t.

  Of course. Guns weren’t allowed inside the house because of the child. Was that it? Or was it that I wasn’t supposed to have my own weapon while in the house? Guns had certainly been allowed in the house when a child wasn’t present. I’d seen Adriano Security on the
job a number of times, though I’d never seen this man. Either he was new or he spent most of his time off-site. A courier, perhaps. Yet why would they trust someone new to help me on a crucial heist?

  “Eh-wic?” The boy tugged again. “Would you play hide-in-seek wid me?” He stared up adoringly at the man, and I assumed the boy was his son.

  “Not now, Benny.”

  Benny. Ah. Little Benedict Adriano. He spoke English, so I assumed his multilingual training had already begun for the day when he would be the international businessman of consequence that his grandfather was. I hadn’t seen Benny since his crawling days. The boy was the son of the youngest Adriano brother, Joshua, and his sniveling wife.

  Pauline was a waiflike creature with a big temper and even bigger ambitions, and I’d personally borne the brunt of both. I’d made the mistake once of commenting on the lavender-colored alexandrite in her necklace and actually reaching toward it, even though I hadn’t planned to touch it. She’d accused me of wanting to steal it. Simon had admonished her gently, but I’d been livid at having my integrity questioned. Maybe that’s a strange thing for a thief to feel, but I have my own sense of honor, even if I can’t wear it in an obvious way.

  And Pauline rankled my sense of honor just by breathing. One of my connections had sworn to me that Pauline had once been Simon’s favorite mistress and that the two of them had worked together to install her as the wife of the youngest Adriano brother, who was somewhat gentler on the eyes and spirit than Caleb. Once Pauline had borne a male heir to the family dynasty, she’d been able to relax, and I’d not seen her again on my brief visits to the compound. Usually she was away at a spa, I was told. Which was fine by me. She’d performed the greatest service a woman could perform for the Adriano family—a legitimate heir—and as long as her son lived, she was safe.

  But the kid…Benny…My heart broke for him. Had Joshua and Caleb once been the same? Or their brother Aaron, who’d died before I’d had the opportunity to meet him? Had Simon himself been an innocent boy?