When the Shadows Fall: A Romantic Thriller (Blackwood Security Book 14)

by Elise Noble

Upstairs, I might have had a brief snoop around Rafael’s bedroom when I went to use the only functioning bathroom, which happened to be his en suite. His style could best be described as utilitarian. No pictures, no knick-knacks, not a hint of untidiness anywhere. Just an enormous bed with a black-and-grey duvet cover, two nightstands, and a walk-in closet bigger than my last bedroom in London. And his shower did have room for a water slide.

  Presumably, he was upstairs in his bed now. Either that or he’d gone on some sort of moonlit commando run, which knowing Rafael, was a definite possibility. I wasn’t about to sneak into his lair to check, nor did I fancy traipsing back to Little Riverley in the middle of the night. So what did I do? I smiled to myself in the darkness, climbed back onto the sofa, and closed my eyes again.

  CHAPTER 9 - ALARIC

  “SO… THE TEAM?” Alaric said.

  Monday morning, and planning was well underway. This afternoon, he’d fly to the UK with Bethany and Rune to pick up the Picasso and spend an hour or two with Chaucer, Beth’s beloved horse. Perhaps it was overkill for all three of them to travel, but after the events of last month, Alaric didn’t want either of his girls out of his sight for long. Time would heal—he had to believe that—but at this moment… Yeah, they’d be making the trip together.

  In the meantime, Emmy and Black would carry on with the planning stateside as well as doing their regular jobs. Emmy had been sending out emails at one a.m. last night, and Alaric knew she’d got up to run at five. Black? He seemed kind of haggard too. Due to the workload? Or was something else eating at him? Maybe the humdinger of an argument he’d had with Emmy last month? In the fifteen years Alaric had known Black, he’d never looked anything less than put-together, but right now as he sipped his coffee? Rough.

  “Me and Black will be on the team,” Emmy said, stating the obvious. “Plus Mack and her legs. She’ll need a date, and I was thinking Xav. He’s sneaky as fuck, and he knows art.”

  “Agreed.”

  Emmy had let Alaric in on Xavier’s secret after the meeting yesterday. That he’d adopted an alter ego to work as a relatively well-known artist for a few years until he’d conveniently died and been resurrected as Xavier Gray. Alaric had been wondering about the change of surname—the last time he’d seen the man was a decade ago, and he’d been Xavier Roth back then, also known as Smoke in the shadowy world of professional assassination. Now he was shacked up with a senator’s daughter and they had a little girl. How things changed.

  “And Ravi. He’s good at stealing stuff, yes?”

  An understatement. Ravi had grown up in the circus, but his parents’ primary source of income had been cat burglary. They’d begun teaching Ravi the tricks of the trade as soon as he could walk, but his ethics had never jibed with theirs. When they went to prison, he’d quit that game and started hanging out on the same Thai beach as Alaric. Secretly, Alaric had always wondered whether the capture of Mr. and Mrs. Wells was quite the fluke it appeared to be. Certainly Ravi had never seemed too upset by their sentences.

  “Yes, Ravi’s good at stealing stuff.”

  “So Ravi with Dan.”

  “I figured she’d be in the mix somewhere.”

  “But of course.”

  “Who will I go with? Ana?”

  Emmy shook her head. “Oh, no, no, no. Ana’s with Quinn. You’re not going.”

  Was she kidding? “Yes, I am. And don’t give me some bullshit about being recognised by somebody from the Master’s team. I was wearing a disguise for the operation on the boat.” Coloured contact lenses. Fake teeth. A ridiculous moustache. “The only person who saw me up close was Marshall. And don’t forget, you were there too.”

  Still Emmy shook her head. “I was window dressing in a bikini. Trust me, nobody was paying attention to my face. And that’s not why you’re staying here. Emerald’s put you through enough shit already. If anything goes wrong and the place ends up crawling with cops, I want your name kept out of it. Don’t jeopardise your future with Beth and Rune. This is non-negotiable, Prince.”

  Oh, now she was playing hardball with his old nickname.

  “Cinders, I’m used to taking risks.”

  Although she did have a point. That cursed fucking painting had almost ruined his life twice now.

  Black weighed in, and of course he agreed with his wife. “Emmy’s right. This time, the risk is Blackwood’s. You can listen on a live link.”

  “Ravi doesn’t work for Blackwood.”

  “Dude, stop splitting hairs,” Emmy said. “I’ll put you in the holding cell with Marshall if I have to.”

  The holding cell in the basement was surprisingly comfortable now. They couldn’t risk releasing Marshall until after they found Emerald, but he wasn’t a typical prisoner either. They’d let him call his horses’ groom—who also happened to be a neighbour—to say he’d taken an impromptu vacation, and Bradley had jazzed up his temporary accommodation with a rug and beanbag chairs. Every few hours, someone took him for a walk, like a dog on a leash. But even though Marshall had a TV and plenty of books, Alaric still didn’t want to become his new roommate.

  “Fine. But I want two-way comms.”

  Emmy nodded. “That we can do. And speaking of comms, if Mack’s with us, we’ll need Nate and Luke on the wider team. One in the hotel and another here.”

  Accommodation at the hotel had been scarce so close to the event, but they’d managed to book the honeymoon suite plus two more doubles for the weekend, plus a variety of rooms in the run-up. Cade, one of Emmy’s guys, was already there with his fiancée and their kid, checking the layout under the guise of a family vacation.

  “How many for the wider team?” Black asked. “We’ll want a handful of people outside, plus more in the suite.”

  “A dozen should do it. Possibly a couple more depending on whether Marshall’s bid for the job is accepted. If there’s a rival team there, we’ll need to intercept them.”

  “When will we know? Is the ad in place?”

  “Mack submitted it online yesterday, and it showed up this morning,” Alaric confirmed. He’d been checking every thirty minutes since dawn.

  Dyson’s House Clearance Services.

  No job too big or too small.

  Over 600 satisfied customers.

  Call to arrange a quote.

  Of course, the number in the ad was out of service, but it didn’t matter. The key was the number of customers. Six hundred thousand bucks was Marshall’s bid. Spirit might have sold for eighteen million dollars at auction, but she wouldn’t achieve that on the black market. Hot paintings went for seven to ten percent of their worth, sometimes a little more if a private buyer was already lined up. Marshall had explained that he usually bid five percent, so the Master would be getting a discount.

  “Let’s just hope the postal service doesn’t fuck up,” Black grumbled. “What next? Drug dealers using carrier pigeons?”

  Said the man who still insisted on writing his notes with a pen and paper when everyone else in the room used a tablet.

  “We still have two spaces left at the table,” Alaric reminded him.

  “Rafael will take one of them. Emmy? Who do you want for the other?”

  “Rafael’s date needs to be on the younger side, but at the moment, I’m undecided between Sky and Hallie.”

  “Hallie’s steadier. Sky looked uneasy on Saturday night.”

  “Any idea why?” Emmy questioned.

  “I asked Rafael, and he said the setting intimidated her. I’m not sure taking her to another dinner is the best idea right now.”

  “She got through it, didn’t she? And she has to learn. Plus she’s working nicely with Rafael. Did you know she stayed at his house last night?”

  “She did?”

  “He called me at eleven to say she’d fallen asleep on the sofa and he was leaving her there. At least she seems comfortable with him now.”

  “She didn’t before?”

  Emmy rolled her eyes. “You haven’t noticed that
she’s twitchy around men?”

  Clearly not, and neither had Alaric. Sky Malone didn’t seem the type to get intimidated, not by a man and certainly not by a banquet. Then again, Emmy had plucked her off the streets of London and transplanted her into another world, so was it any surprise if she was out of sorts?

  “Hallie, then?”

  “I don’t have to decide yet. Let’s see how Sky performs over the next two weeks.”

  Two weeks. A ripple of apprehension ran through Alaric. In two weeks, they’d be either a step closer to Emerald or a step closer to yet another disaster. Sometimes—most of the time—he really hated that green-ringed bitch.

  CHAPTER 10 - SKY

  WITH CARMEN IN Roanoke alongside Nate, Slater had taken over my sniping lessons. This sunny Tuesday morning found me lying in the grass behind Riverley Hall, focusing on a watermelon a thousand yards away. Until that point, we’d been shooting at paper targets, but Slater said watermelons were more fun. We had very different ideas of fun. Something was crawling under my T-shirt, and I was just waiting for it to bite me.

  “See the nose?” Slater asked. He’d drawn a face on the watermelon with a Sharpie. “Aim right below it, at the philtrum. That way, the bullet’s gonna go straight through and hit the apricot. Carmen told you about the apricot?”

  In my first lesson. The apricot was the sniper’s nickname for the medulla oblongata, the cone-shaped mass of neurons that connected the brain to the spinal cord. Sever that, and a person died instantly, and better still, they lost all motor function so there would be no residual twitches of a finger positioned over a trigger.

  “Yeah, she told me about the apricot.”

  “Good. And if a person’s side-on, aim for the bottom of the earlobe. Now take your shot.”

  I peered through my scope, remembering what I’d been taught. Apart from the distance, I needed to consider the wind—not just where I lay but at the target too—the temperature, the humidity. When I began tackling even longer distances, I’d have to think about the surface I was shooting over, the direction, and the rotation of the earth too. There was a ton of maths involved. I kind of wished I’d spent more time in school.

  Holding my breath so I didn’t accidentally move the barrel, I squeezed the trigger so, so slowly. The blast from the .50 calibre rifle hammered my eardrums, even with ear defenders on.

  I missed.

  Slater raised his head from his own scope. “Reload and try again.”

  Sniping was definitely not my favourite thing. Okay, so there was a modicum of satisfaction when I blasted the watermelon into smithereens, but it was basically just calculations, squinting, and a lot of scraping around in the dirt. Give me up close and personal any day.

  “What’s the longest shot you’ve made?” I asked Slater.

  “Two thousand four hundred metres. It took me twenty-five minutes to set up for that one.”

  Yawn.

  “Are we done yet?”

  Even criminals got time off for good behaviour.

  Slater checked his posh watch, which matched his posh clothes and his posh haircut, and stood. If he’d been British rather than American, we’d have called him a toff.

  “It’s about time we ate lunch.”

  Thank goodness. My stomach had been grumbling for the last hour. I packed up my rifle and headed back to Riverley Hall, hoping there was pasta on offer. I needed carbs. Comfort food. It had been a long two weeks.

  Tomorrow, I’d be heading to Roanoke too, with Rafael, and I wasn’t sure whether to be elated or terrified. Elated because I’d made the team for the actual job itself—Emmy had told me this morning. Terrified because firstly, I might screw something up, and secondly, I’d have to spend three days sharing a confined space with Rafael before the day of the dinner itself.

  On the bright side, at least I might get a lie-in. Waking up at five a.m. would only arouse suspicions in a ritzy hotel, wouldn’t it? And maybe I could watch a movie? I missed movies. I never watched TV or listened to the radio just in case Brock Keaton came on, but movies, I liked, and I hadn’t seen so much as a trailer since that night at Rafael’s. And room service… There’d be room service, right? I’d never ordered room service before, not once, but if Blackwood was footing the bill, perhaps I could get dinner delivered on a cart instead of walking to the restaurant.

  “Hey.” Hallie waved from her seat at the table when I walked into the kitchen. “How are you?”

  “I thought you were in Roanoke?”

  “Just got back this morning. You’re going tomorrow afternoon, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. “What’s it like?”

  “Busy. Everyone’s getting ready for the paintings to arrive in the morning. Otto and I snuck into the ballroom to take a look around, and they’re turning it into a fortress. Metal screens over the windows—for security and to control the light and heat—some of the doors sealed off, even a sniffer dog checking for explosives. The handler said it was just a precaution, but still… They’re taking the protection of the paintings seriously.”

  “Terrified” was definitely winning. Did Emmy feel this way before a job? I couldn’t imagine her being scared, ever.

  “What about the rest of the hotel?”

  “Quieter. We had the pool to ourselves, and the gym was almost empty too. There were a bunch of people on the golf course, but neither of us had a clue how to play golf, so we stayed away from there. Did you see the map Cade made with all the camera positions?”

  “Yes.” And I’d already memorised it.

  “They added two more this week. One outside the ballroom and another above the first-floor fire exit. And if you need to sneak around, be careful—they’re fond of gravel.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I might see you there at the weekend—Nate’s hacked into the network so we can watch the camera feeds, and I’m meant to sneak back in and help to monitor things from the honeymoon suite. Bradley’s gonna give me a makeover so I look totally different.” Hallie gave a bright smile. “I love this job. What other career would give you free haircuts, a clothing allowance, and a gun?”

  “I could live without the bruises that come with it. Is there any pasta for lunch?”

  Hallie made a face. “Quinoa salad?”

  Not quite what I’d had in mind, but it’d have to do. “Delicious.”

  “If you eat in the restaurant at the Grove, try the vincisgrassi.”

  “The what?”

  “The pasta baked with Parma ham. It took me three tries to say the name, but the waiter helped me out.”

  “Pasta with Parma ham. Got it.”

  “If you like pasta, you should come to Il Tramonto with us when you come back. The lasagne’s to die for, and Emmy’s lawyer part-owns the restaurant so we get a discount.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Me, Cora, Mercy, and Izzy. We made a pact to have a girls’ night out at least once a month.”

  “I’d like that, but I don’t get much time off.”

  “You’re training with Rafael, aren’t you? He goes into Richmond in the evenings, so he can hardly criticise if you sneak out for a few hours.”

  “I can’t imagine Rafael chilling in a restaurant.”

  Not when he could be doing something really exciting like tiling a shower stall.

  “He goes to Black’s.”

  “As in Black’s, the nightclub? There’s one in Richmond?”

  Hallie nodded. “Emmy owns the chain. Can’t you guess from the name?”

  I’d always intended to apply to waitress at the London branch when I turned eighteen—not before because I’d heard they did worryingly thorough background checks. In all honesty, I never thought I’d land a job there, but at least I could have said I’d tried. How ironic that I’d ended up working for the head honcho.

  “I suppose I never thought about it.” Or my mentor’s social life. “Rafael dancing the night away? No, I can’t picture it.”

  “He doesn’t dance. He arrives
, picks out the girl he wants to take home with him, and leaves with her. Mercy calls him the panty-whisperer, and Cora sticks her fingers in her ears every time we discuss it.”

  Hallie’s words left me cold inside, and I felt just a little bit sick. I’d thought it was a big deal that Rafael took me to his half-finished house. His home. He said he didn’t like getting personal, and yet he picked up random girls to do the horizontal tango? I realised it wasn’t any of my business what he got up to in his spare time, but still… It was the hypocrisy of it all.

  So screw him. Metaphorically, of course.

  “Then sure, I’d love to go out with you guys.”

  “Great. We’ll arrange a date when we get back.”

  If I’d pulled up outside the Grove three months ago, I’d have felt like royalty. Then I’d have stuffed every single complimentary toiletry from the bathroom into my suitcase along with all the free cookies and probably the coffee capsules too. But having spent time at Riverley, the five-star hotel felt rather…ordinary.

  Rafael checked us in—as Rafael Sanchez and Sky Morley—and a uniformed bellhop wheeled our cases to the elevator. Rafael held my hand as we whooshed up to the second floor, which felt a bit odd considering that this morning, he’d had me in a headlock.

  “First stay at the Grove, sir?” the bellhop asked.

  “It is. But there are three of us in this elevator. My girlfriend hasn’t been here before either.”

  The bellhop turned bright red. “Sorry, sir. I mean, ma’am. Both of you.”

  Rafael didn’t say another word, although he did tip the man as he backed hurriedly out of our room.

  “Was that really necessary?” I asked.

  “Yes. Firstly, you deserve as much recognition as me, and secondly, I want the staff to give us a wide berth while we’re here. So I’ll be an asshole, but not too much of an asshole.”

  “I guess I can understand that.”

  “There are times when you want to get friendly with hotel employees, but this isn’t one of them.” He cracked open the door and hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the knob. “In this place, I don’t trust anyone but our own team.”