My God.
That was exactly it. That was why it felt like Balthazar was always ahead. It felt like that because he was, he absolutely fucking was.
Ethan was the Joker Giovanni referred to when he tortured me. Giovanni, that asshole. He knew too that it had to be someone like Ethan that had sent me. That was why he asked the questions. I was such an idiot. I was such a fucking fool.
Fucking hell.
“How can you think this was all okay? We all trusted you. Me, Claire, Paul, Lucas, John. The Shadow unit, we trusted you.” That was the name given to the unit because of me, because I moved like a shadow. “You formed the unit to hunt the Ra.” That was the fucking irony in it.
“I did but only as a request from the ministry of defense. That wasn’t me. It came about as a response to The Ra becoming more dangerous. I just positioned myself so I’d be in charge of you. I knew if I had control over a unit like yours then I’d know who’d be hunting my people and where they’d be. Then you guys got good. Better than good. We had to find a way to eradicate you. But you got away, Xander Cage. You got away. And just when I thought you might be useful to me, you proved me wrong. You were useless. We should have just gone for the girl in the first place. Well, we have her now.”
My chest tightened up with fury and all the angst from the last five years. I was the one who wanted answers and vengeance. Right now I didn’t know if I could handle hearing the confession of what really took place. I couldn’t believe I’d allowed this man to fool me.
“You’ll pay for this Ethan. You evil piece of shit, you’ll pay. Mark my word.” I turned to see Jack, who’d been looking on at me and listening in. He nodded his agreement at my words.
“Your threats mean nothing to me. It falls on deaf ears. Water on a ducks back. Anyhow, like I said, this is a courtesy call. Something in the way of wrapping things up.”
“Bastard…” I could have breathed fire. I squeezed the phone so hard I thought I might possibly break it. I couldn’t believe the treachery.
Fuck, what an asshole. He was working both sides all along and none of us could see it. Even Jack had known him from way back when.
“Yes, I am exactly that Xander. I’m a fucking bastard. Anyway, much as I’d love to chat, I have to go. This is really goodbye. My advice to you is to let sleeping dogs lie. You weren’t supposed to get involved. Maybe you should back away now.”
“Back away, are you kidding me?”
“Goodbye old friend.” He hung up.
Just like that, he hung up.
He fucking hung up and there was no damn number to call or trace. That was it, a bid of farewell to tell me shit about giving up.
I looked to Jack again but then I spotted a black Sedan approaching the driveway.
Jack ran inside and grabbed two guns. One for him, one for me.
Whoever this motherfucker was, they certainly had a death wish.
They seriously thought they could park up on the drive and come for us again?
No fucking way.
Jack and I walked down the steps guns ready to fire.
The Sedan stopped and I pulled the trigger back.
Who I saw step out of the car shocked me to shit.
Giovanni.
He’d driven.
He was driving the car and there was no one else with him. He looked like hell. Like he’d been on a bender.
He reached into the car and from the passenger seat he pulled out the all too familiar to me tube that contained the blueprints.
The fucking blueprints.
The thing this whole saga was about.
He held them up in the air, pulled his gun from his back pocket and tossed it on the ground.
The man shocked me further by walking up to us and holding out the prints for me to take.
The last time I was this close to him he’d been torturing me. He’d dropped a queen of hearts playing card on the floor before me and told me it was Jia.
Yes, he was right. She was the queen of both our hearts.
Now he was staring me down, and looked me deep in the eye.
“They have my little girl.” He spoke and his eyes clouded. “They want the prints in exchange for her, but I know how this works. I won’t get her back alive. I need you to help me get her back because you’re the only person in this world who loves her as much as me.”
A tear ran down his cheek and the Vegas king pulled the queen of hearts from his jacket pocket and held it before me.
I lowered my gun.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Jia
My head…
Why the hell did it feel like it was going to explode?
Fall off, and explode.
I had the distinct memory of being back at college at that frat party. Maybe I was still there.
Billy Taylor put something in my drink. I was sure of it. We were playing poker at the frat house and he’d been trying to get me to go out with him for weeks, but I was more interested in Jake Harvey, the Sigma Kappa vice president. I’d had my eye on him for weeks, but he didn’t know that.
He also didn’t know that I was only at that party to check him out.
My plan backfired though when I’d started feeling sick and the room started spinning. Billy took me to his room and started taking my clothes off. Then Jake came and stopped him.
I remembered it, and remembered it happen. I also remembered that I ended up in hospital because whatever the fuck he’d given me made me so sick I was down for weeks.
When I got back to college I was told he’d just disappeared. No one had seen or heard of him again.
That was the workings of Pa…
My eyes fluttered open and the bright light pierced into them like the bright rays of the sun, far too bright and it wasn’t sunlight.
Where was I?
Where the hell was I?
This wasn’t college. That already happened, and Pa had told me I wouldn’t have to worry about Billy anymore.
No one ever saw or heard from him again. The thought twisted my insides because I didn’t know what happened to him. Was he dead or alive? Pa never told me. He wouldn’t.
It tore at my insides for years.
It tore at me even as I thought about it now.
Pa did something to him.
It wasn’t, however, something I could worry about now or any other time, that was eight years ago. And I was here, wherever this place was and the memories of what had happened to me were starting to filter into my mind.
Balthazar Kane had captured me. I’d tried to save myself. I remembered all the horrible things he said to me and tried to save myself, then someone grabbed me from behind and covered my mouth with a cloth that contained something strong and pungent. Some kind of knock out solution like chloroform.
It felt like I’d been out cold for days.
I squinted against the light and pried my eyes open again. I lifted my head and looked around me at the four white walls that greeted me. The place looked like one of those cells you’d see in a psychiatric hospital minus the bed. Instead of the bed was the chair I was sitting on, with my hands tied to my back.
That was as much as I knew.
The door creaked and the round handle turned.
I shuffled up straight so I could see who was coming in and tried not to look so helpless.
The sight of the man who came in made me gasp.
That was… his name was Ethan. He wore a black patch over his eye. I remembered him from the warehouse back in Vegas where I’d seen Xander. That was when I first found out who Xander was. This man was talking to him, giving him orders. He’d told him he might have to kill me.
What was going on?
I thought the Ra guys had taken me. Balthazar…
So why was he here?
“You look like you know me.” He observed, looking me over.
“I don’t know you. We’ve never met. Let me go now!” I demanded.
He laughed. He looked at me and laughed like
I’d actually said something funny.
“That’s not how this works, Miss Marchesi. You see, my people need you. Your father has something we need and you’re the way we’ll be getting it.”
I saw it now.
I understood.
He wasn’t who people thought he was. So many players in this game wearing masks. He’d double crossed Xander. I was sure of it.
“You’re part of the Ra and part of the team Xander works for. Didn’t think you could do both.”
He smiled. “Thought you didn’t know me. I wonder when it was you found out about a mission that should have been secret. He told you, didn’t he?”
“He didn’t tell me anything. I saw for myself and kept the secret. How could you do this? Those prints are for nukes. The Ra are terrorists.”
“You say that like you think I’m under some kind of spell. As one of the Ra leaders I’m very aware of what they represent.”
My mouth fell open. He was one of The Ra leaders. Jesus. We were all doomed from the beginning.
He laughed when he saw my reaction, moved closer and resumed his speech. “Terrorist is such a strong word, watch how you use it. Put simply, we go where the money is. We enable. We make the unimaginable possible and force leaders to bend to our will. It’s not always by the gun that you get people to listen to you. Science. That is power.” He tapped the side of his head. “Science and knowledge are formidable when combined. You have the key, you can open the door then anything can happen. Anything you want if you make it possible. That is what we do, we’re just ruthless bastards.”
“What do you want with the blueprints?” It was a question that was irrelevant to my situation but I needed to know what it was all for. The why of it.
I just wanted to know what had led me here.
“War. It’s on the horizon. Countries get antsy and start slipping when there is unrest and they can’t come to an agreement on what to do, and who to side with. That’s when the most powerful countries start making back up plans. They contact people like us to get hold of something that gives them the upper hand. This time we did the choosing based on previous clientele who offered us a billion dollars. That is how much the blueprints are worth to them.”
I’d only heard of such things in the movies or the news. Wild and bizarre. As he’d spoken I had the sensation of hearing him but not quite believing he was talking to me or believing what he was saying.
I thought Pa was evil…
What about a man who worked for the government? Xander was under the impression that he was doing this mission to prevent the prints from getting into the wrong hands.
I couldn’t imagine what would have happened if he’d actually been successful and handed them over.
It didn’t matter now because look at me.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” I spat. It sounded stupid to say. It was the sort of thing my great aunt Layla would say and everyone would laugh because she sounded so ridiculous trying to tell off a bunch of mafia guys.
Ethan laughed now. I guess I sounded the same, trying to point shame on an anarchist.
Fuck him for laughing. I didn’t care, he was getting my opinion whether he liked it or not, and whether it meant anything to him or not. He could go fuck himself.
“Asshole, you’ll get yours and I hope you fucking die a painful death.”
“Wow, looks like she has balls.”
“Yeah? Guess what, you may think you can lure my father here and he’ll do whatever you say because you have me, but you messed with the wrong people. We’re the Marchesis, you prick. My father may give you what you want but you might not be alive to enjoy it or see that fucking plan of yours come to be.”
He didn’t like me saying that.
“We will see about that. We really will, Miss Marchesi, for your sake I hope Daddy dearest will comply and come willingly. We have our ways here. If he doesn’t then I’m sure you’ll be useful in some other way.”
As he said that I spotted someone at the door. Outside the door. I hadn’t noticed before that it was one of those with the little sliding window that allowed you to pull it across.
It was one of those and Balthazar Kane stood outside it just watching. Watching me.
Looking at me with those cold calculative eyes that made me want to run and hide forever.
I’d never met anyone who could instill the fear of God in me with just one look. It was that sort of wild, maddening, psychotic look of a person who’d done wrong. A lot of wrong and in the worst of ways.
The way he spoke to me when we first met. Telling me that he’d fuck me as many times as he could before he killed me.
Who said things like that?
Who thought it was okay to say things like that?
Men like him.
I wished for Xander. I wished with all my heart for Xander.
Chances were I’d never see him again.
This would be it for me.
This would be my end.
This would be my end whether Pa brought the prints and did as they said or not.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Xander
“What are you doing?” Giovanni asked. He looked to me with those sharp eyes assessing what I was doing.
“I’ll ask the questions here,” I answered, sharpening my gaze on him.
I’d already agreed to do whatever I had to, to get Jia back, even if I had to sign my damn life away to the devil, or work with him.
We’d gone inside the house. When Frankie saw him he nearly shit himself. Wes turned pale. Literally sheet pale.
Both men exhibited reactions that were understandable because this was the guy who’d sent us here.
I might have lowered my gun but Jack kept his pointed at my old boss while I laid out the blueprints on the dinner table to go over them.
I took them out of the tube to make sure everything was as it should be.
Everything in accordance with the way they were detailed in my mission brief.
I wouldn’t have put it past this son of a bitch to come with shit and try to trick me so he could get Jia and then try to steal her away from me.
I wouldn’t have put such a thing past him but these looked like the real deal. When I’d taken them out of the glass case in the secret chamber I never got the chance to look inside before he came and captured me.
Screwed me over more like.
I stopped pouring over them and looked at him.
We’d gathered in the dining room because of the table and the bigger space to bounce ideas.
In the room were Jack, Wes, Frankie, Giovanni, me, and Dorian. Dorian had come by a few minutes ago. Jack had called him earlier. He was probably expecting to come and help with something technical and happened upon our little standoff here, with Giovanni sitting in the armchair looking like he was getting ready to read the Sunday paper while Jack’s shotgun aimed at his head.
Badass. That’s what he was.
He knew, he knew no matter what stance I took or what I did or said, I’d do whatever he asked if it helped me save Jia.
He knew I was in love with his daughter and I supposed he knew too not to fuck with me.
So far he’d said he was waiting on the call from Balthazar with the details of where to make the exchange. He’d only made contact and offered Jia up for the prints. That was all that had happened so far.
It was a lot, but there were so many other questions swirling around in my mind.
“How were you able to bring these to us? I was under the impression that you’d handed them over to The Chameleon.”
“I was supposed to, then you took Jia and we never got the chance to meet for the exchange. With people after the prints they aren’t something you just hand over in the conventional sense.”
“So that’s it, he won’t come here with God knows who after you?”
“He is not my concern. I was very clear from the beginning when I got onboard this shit show that my family shouldn’t have been placed
in danger.”
I remembered that conversation with him.
“There was never any way to control that.” I threw back. It pissed me off to no end whenever I heard people got themselves into deep shit and it blew up in their faces, dragging their loved ones into it, then they’d say they didn’t know it would come to this or that their actions would end up causing any harm.
It was all bullshit. No matter which way it went, this started with him and what he agreed to do.
“Maybe so.”
That answer wasn’t good enough. “Giovanni, don’t fuck with me. Tell me now if you think The Chameleon or anybody else will follow your ass here.”
He grit his teeth. It was clear he hated the switch in power. “He will not. He thinks I’m still in Vegas. He has no idea what’s happened. I was to arrange to meet with him in the week to make the exchange. That is all.”
Good. Then the damn Chameleon wasn’t my concern either. If we got out of this, I’d hand the blueprints over to Jack and he could give them to the right people. That was what I’d decided.
“Fine.” I kept my gaze trained on Giovanni who was still staring at me.
“There’s still stuff you need to tell me too, Xander Cage. Did you ever work out who the joker was? I still can’t.” He gave me a wicked smirk. The menace behind it suggested he knew I knew by now that I’d been played.
“Ethan Ranger, the man who hired me. It was him,” I replied keeping my tone even to tamp down my rage.
Giovanni smiled and started clapping. “Sometimes I really love myself. I have a beautiful mind. You know, had you told me something I would have figured it out. I would have figured out that someone was playing us. And you’re an agent.”
“I am not. I was doing a job I thought was for the greater good. I didn’t realize I was just another piece in a game. A pawn.” I intensified my glare on him. Frankie mentioned the Russian government as the leads in charge of the whole operation. Now was a perfect time to get answers. “What about you? Who were you holding these for?” I waved my hand over the blueprints.
Game of Love : A Mafia Romance Page 46