“To keep you safe,” he said.
“That’s all it takes? A gown? Maybe you should wear one.”
He put his fists together and flexed his massive chest. “I can never find one that fits,” he growled.
Oh yes. She enjoyed the display of rippling muscles. “You are so full of shit.”
“Maybe, but I’ll go with you while you shop.”
“That’s not necessary, Noah,” she told him.
“Sure it is. I love watching you try on hot dresses,” he said. “It does something to my parasympathetic nervous system. Chills me right out. But mostly it does something to my dick. Something truly wonderful.”
“Shut. Up.” She smacked him on the shoulder.
“It’s the truth,” he assured her. “You’re my eye candy. Give me some of that…then you get your eye candy of choice. The Cross of Orazio. Seems like an even trade.”
His grin was apparently relaxed and lazy, but she knew better. Nothing about Noah was ever relaxed or lazy.
“I could just dress up and drape myself in rubies and go without you.” She twisted her hair up into a loose, messy knot. Keenly aware of his interested eyes on her body as she did so. “We’re not both required to attend.”
“You and I both know that will never happen.”
She put her hands on her hips and gave him a heavy-lidded, sensual smile. “Sounds like a plan. And right now, I’m taking a shower.”
“I’ll help,” he said swiftly. “I’ll be your bath slave.”
She watched, unsurprised, as his cock thickened and rose at the suggestion. “Hmm,” she said. “That was predictable.”
“Your fault,” he said. “For being so damn beautiful.”
Oh, wow. His rare, gorgeous smiles just melted her.
She wondered uneasily why she wasn’t more pleased at Noah’s about-face. He’d switched gears so smoothly. But this was good, right? He seemed to be mellowing out. Or at least making a huge effort. Maybe they really eventually could live together in some state that didn’t resemble constant, extreme emergency.
Or else this would turn out to be the last straw.
Noah got up and held out his hand, eyes flicking toward the bathroom. He was oh, so ready for the bath slave game, with that dangerous sexual heat in his eyes and that magnificent erection. Add hot water and slippery suds to the equation, and it was going to be a long time before they ordered fresh coffee.
Noah wasn’t going to give her the mental space to worry about him.
It was all part of his plan.
Chapter 7
“Hey! Noah! You drove right past it. Wasn’t that the service road that leads to the overflow lot? I thought we’d decided to park there!”
“Change of plan,” Noah said. “I picked a better spot.”
“You mean, just now? In real time?” She shot him a disapproving look. “Are you data-diving?”
“I would be if you weren’t talking.”
“You’re always lecturing your people about that! It’s your standard rant. Don’t dive and drive. Remember?”
Noah declined to comment as he negotiated a turn that gave them yet another incredible view of the sun-drenched afternoon landscape. It was really pretty. Too bad he couldn’t really enjoy the rolling hills, vineyards, flowering orchards, and towering trees.
He was just too wound up. He could hold lucid conversation during a data-dive, but right now he had enough distractions to contend with.
Like Caro herself. She shone like a pearl in that dress. The plunging neckline, the gold and ruby jewelry. She’d left her hair swinging free in luxuriant dark ringlets, the way he liked it best. Smoky eyeliner. Red lipstick on her sensual mouth. So fine. He desperately wanted to taste her lips while running both hands over her—
A high-pitched horn blatted and he swerved out of the path of a Vespa that was hurtling his way, right smack in the middle of the road. The driver gestured rudely. Noah returned the compliment enthusiastically as the Vespa zipped past.
“Yikes,” Caro said. “Calm down. You know better than to challenge an enraged Vespa.”
“If you say so.”
Caro twisted around to look behind them. “Did Youssef see that you changed the route?”
“Yes, he’s still behind us,” he said. “Coming around the bend.” The white taxi he’d paid to follow them from Rome emerged from the greenery behind them, keeping pace.
“Good,” Caro murmured.
Youssef was part of Noah’s swiftly organized strategy. He’d picked the guy out at a taxi stand in downtown Rome and run a quick online check on his background and immigration status.
Everything lined up. Egyptian. No legal papers. Minimal Italian. They’d discussed the details, and Noah paid generously in advance, promising a fat bonus at the end.
Caro smoothed her silken dress and rested her hands on her thighs, polished red nails gleaming. Nice visual, especially with her sparkling engagement ring and her wedding band in the mix. Having Caro by his side looking so hot almost made up for having to wear a tux. As a rule, he liked to dress sharply, and his costly suits were all bespoke. But today he would have preferred combat gear. Body armor, a ballistic helmet. Firepower slung over one shoulder.
He pushed the thought away. He was committed to this now. The trick was to keep himself busy simultaneously monitoring all the real-time security feeds in the Palazzo Bellocchio. Getting rattled about the risks they were taking was counter-productive.
His group’s tactic so far had always been to hide in plain sight. When they’d torched Midland, they had destroyed all the records. Most of the researchers who could have recognized their faces had died that day.
Theoretically, none of Obsidian’s surviving victims would be findable with current facial recognition tech.
Theoretically.
The guest list at the Palazzo Bellocchio made him sweat. Big shots in business, politics, entertainment. Always the center of attention. Exactly what he wanted to avoid.
He and Caro had spent all day—or rather, what time they hadn’t spent either having sex or shopping for the dress—on their laptops, poring over all the documentation he could find about the layout of the ancient palace, as well as satellite photos of the grounds. Every room, corridor, closet, staircase, and exit.
Together, they’d come up with multiple worst-case-scenario escapes and ranked the best places to stash the car, just in case they had to run for it.
“Why the last-minute change in plans?” Caro asked. “It took us hours to work all this out.”
“New info,” he said. “I liked the north side when we were doing the planning, but I didn’t factor in the thicker foliage. There’s better cover for the car outside the garden wall on the east side, and more hiding places for us if we have to escape through the garden.”
“OK. Good to know.” Caro’s voice was carefully even.
“Yeah. Although it is a longer walk back to the car.”
She sighed. “Gotta be flexible.”
He didn’t even have to look at her to know that she was only humoring him at this point. That was fine. She could think what she liked as long as she stuck to the plan.
He drove on, turning onto a small road that curved around the outside of the high stone walls of the Palazzo’s enormous formal garden.
“Um, what about the wall itself?” Caro asked. “It’s twelve feet high. Reality check, buddy. I know a twelve-foot wall is no big deal for you, but if we actually did have to make a run for it, I’m not dressed for climbing. Did you consider that when you revised our plan?”
“Hell yes,” he told her. “No need to climb. There’s a door in that wall. It’s covered with ivy, but when we were looking at the satellite photos today, I noticed a very old path through the grass that dead-ends right at that wall. It’s kind of overgrown but still visible. At least un
til it disappears into the ivy.”
She sniffed. “Visible to you, maybe.”
“Trust me,” he said.
“Oh, but I do trust you.” Her smile had a flash of sensual heat that turned him stone-hard in a heartbeat. “I told you this morning. Remember?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I remember every single detail of that conversation.”
“Me too,” she murmured. “Very memorable.”
“Damn, Caro,” he muttered. “Don’t get me started. I have to stay sharp.”
She was trying not to smile, and failing. “I’ll be good,” she said sweetly. “Tell me more about this getaway route.”
“OK. We start on the path alongside the east garden wall,” he said. “Then we get all the way up to that hidden door while staying mostly behind bushes, out of the range of the security cameras.”
“You sound awfully sure of the details.”
He shrugged. “Details are my thing.”
“If you say so. Anyway, go on.”
He collected his train of thought. “The ceremony is in the Sala dell’Annunziata, which is on the second floor of the east wing. A straight shot.”
“Slow the car down,” she said suddenly. “Did you mean this part of the east garden wall? Because there’s a lot of ivy here.”
Noah braked, studying the wall. “Yeah, this is the place. Right before those big cypresses.” He pulled off the road onto an unpaved, rutted space outside the high wall, parking in the shadow of a shaggy Mediterranean pine. He glanced behind him to see if Youssef had caught up yet, but he was still nowhere to be seen.
Caro reached over, brushing a fleck of lint from his sleeve. “Why the contact lenses today?” she asked. “I’ve gotten spoiled on this trip, having you use just the shield glasses so often. I love getting a peek of your real eyes from time to time.”
He shook his head. “Shield glasses look OK in the daytime, but they’re weird at night,” he said. “The contacts are a better look. I don’t want to attract attention.”
She looked him up and down, a sexy little smile playing about her lips. “Good luck with that, gorgeous.” Her voice was a throaty whisper.
“I’m not the problem,” he told her. “Everyone’s going to be staring at you in that goddamn dress and remembering every last detail about you. That dress is a terrible idea.”
“Thanks so much.” She opened the car door. “Sweet of you. So glad you like it.”
They got out of the car as the grinding crunch of tires over gravel and dirt announced the arrival of the battered white taxi. Youssef killed his engine and waited.
Noah would have preferred to execute the next part of his plan unobserved, but the thick wad of cash in Youssef’s wallet, along with the bonus to come, was a strong incentive for the guy not to be too inquisitive. In any case, once he started looking for the spot he’d studied last night, they were soon hidden by bushes and out of the taxi driver’s line of vision. He walked along the wall for a few paces, studying the ground until he found the faint signs he was looking for…yeah. Right here.
He lifted up a heavy, tangled mat of ivy. The puff of rising dust made him cough.
There was a scarred door beneath the foliage, just where he’d expected to see it.
The sudden burst of light made spiders scuttle out. Caro flicked a particularly fast crawler off her gown. In his direction. “Did your plan have to involve spiders?” she complained.
“Sorry.” Noah lifted the heavy, rusted padlock that hung from the door, and fished in the secret inside pocket of his tux for the all-purpose tool he always carried.
He scraped away rust and got to work removing the padlock and flipping the hasp, slowly pulling the stiff, groaning door open on its rusted hinges.
He peered through to the other side. Yes. Pretty much exactly what he’d expected to see from the satellite images stored in his auxiliary memory. Excellent.
Everything under control. The door would open, if pushed from the inside. He pushed the door closed and let the heavy mat of ivy fall back into place, completely hiding his handiwork.
He brushed off his hands. “All set,” he said. “Just in case we need to leave unobserved.”
Caro had her arms crossed over her chest, a small frown between her eyes. “Noah,” she said. “It would be nice if someday—not now, I know, not now—we could just go to a party. Not a fucking pitched battle with evil villains intent on killing us. Just saying.”
“We are going to a party,” he said, stubbornly resolute. “We’re here, right? It’s happening. I have no intention of picking a fight with anyone. There won’t be any battle, Caro. Not unless someone else starts one. In which case, we’ll run like hell, and I’ll know exactly what direction to go. That’s all. What’s wrong with that?”
He waited for a reply, but none was forthcoming.
“We need to be able to disappear,” he reiterated. “As if we were never here at all.”
“Fine.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “If you say so.”
Noah reached out, gently pushing a lock of hair that had tumbled over her face. “I know it’s overkill,” he said, his voice low and intense. “And paranoid. But I have to keep you safe. You’re everything to me, Caro.”
She gave him a smile that made him combust inside. “Right back at you,” she said.
He didn’t say a word or move a muscle, but Caro’s face suddenly went hot. Her eyes dropped. “Stop that.”
“What?”
“Smoldering at me like that,” she said sternly. “Save it for later, lover boy.”
“Any time, any place.” He held out his arm. “So? Come on. Let’s do this.”
She took his arm, and they made their way back up through the bushes, over the lumpy, uneven ground to where the taxi waited. Once they were inside, he told Youssef to take them to the Palazzo’s front entrance.
He clasped her hand, loving the way it felt in his, and concentrated on staying calm.
Touching her helped keep his AVP running steady and smooth. It minimized the stress spikes.
It was all good. Tonight, he was just a guy in a tux at a high-brow party. In a beautiful place. With the most wonderful woman he’d ever met or imagined on his arm. There was nothing not to love about this scenario.
Fuck it, who knew? Maybe he could almost, well…enjoy himself.
Stranger things had happened.
Chapter 8
In less than five minutes, they were at the entrance of the Palazzo Bellocchio. Smooth as silk.
“Wow.” Other than that, Caro was speechless. With good reason.
The huge, graceful Renaissance palace overlooked rolling hills covered with picturesque vineyards. Behind it, sheltered by tall cypresses, lay a vast terraced garden. A big fountain at a rotunda at the entrance featured bronze mermaids, mermen, and other, less easily defined aquatic entities, all twined together like some sort of watery orgy. Thousands of flowers scented the warm breeze.
The setting was a honeymoon classic, guaranteed to make a new bride swoon. Caro was starry-eyed. It sucked that he couldn’t just congratulate himself for pleasing her.
Not yet. First he had to find the snake in the grass. There had to be one, because the more green and velvety the grass, the more venomous the snake. It was a fucking natural law.
And he was the dickhead whose job it was to remind everyone of that fun fact.
The taxi driver sped away as Noah and Caro made their way up the massive marble staircase. They were met inside the doors by a security guy who greeted them politely.
“Buon giorno, Signori. Your names?”
English speaking staff. Anything overheard would be understood. A wordless exchange of glances with Caro assured him that she got it. “Noah Gallagher and Caroline Bishop,” he told them.
“One moment.” The guard repeated their names out lou
d and listened to the inaudible response in his earbuds, then indicated a vaulted marble entryway to his right. “Come with me, per piacere.”
Caro took Noah’s arm and stared around as they followed the guard down the gleaming expanse of patterned marble. Golden late afternoon sunshine flooded through the high arched windows. The vaulted walls and ceilings were a chaotic blaze of wild, frescoed color that bordered on the psychedelic.
“Oh my God, look at that one. ‘The Wedding at Cana.’ That’s Cosimo Rosselli!” Caro murmured, gazing upward with awe. “It’s gorgeous!”
“You’re sure that it’s Rosselli? You can tell just by looking? In one glance?”
She shot him a look that made him grin like an idiot. Ka-boom. He loved getting put in his place like that. She could make his balls tingle with a single blazing glance.
Several spectacularly painted corridors later, they were ushered through a larger, plainer room that hummed with activity. Banks of flat-screen monitors showed multiple video feeds from the surveillance cameras. Noah was already familiar with every vantage point, having hacked into the system the night before to study it in minute detail while Caro slept. He could monitor any of those cameras in real time with his AVP processor.
Noah caught some of the security personnel’s chatter of Italian. He ran it through his processor, but it struck him as mostly irrelevant so he set it to dump straight into the archives unless his auditory enhancements snagged any red-flag words: weapons, bomb, attack, their own names, etc. A couple of guys gawked openly at Caro as she strode sexily past, heels clicking.
He shot them what Caro called the Look of Death. Their eyes slid away swiftly.
Two people at the other end of the room caught his attention. The short, red-faced man with a salt-and-pepper beard he recognized instantly from publicity photos. That was Gianfranco Folti himself, their very well-heeled host. Folti was talking to a big, barrel-chested bald man with heavy eyebrows and a thick neck. A quick flip through his archived files revealed that this man was Folti’s former business partner, Frederick Konig.
As they neared the two men, Noah honed in on their conversation, all in Italian, and eavesdropped shamelessly.
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