He swept her up into his arms and sprinted for the stairwell. Heading upstairs, unlike the rest of the mob who crowded the stairwell below them, struggling toward the exits.
“Noah, are you crazy? Put me down!” she hissed.
“What, you think you’re going to sprint in those heels?”
“Fuck the heels! Just give me a second! I have the flats, remember?”
“Don’t have a second.” He took the steps faster. “After. As soon as we’re alone.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Caro twined her arms around his shoulders and hung on.
Chapter 17
Konig hit the ground when the bomb went off, sliding on the slick tiles.
He covered his head as the glass from the windows above shattered all around him. Then lifted his head cautiously some moments later, in the ear-ringing silence that followed.
He squinted, trying to see. Lights were still on in some other parts of the huge Palazzo, which indicated that the damage was limited. Fuck. He’d wanted the Sala dell’Annunziata to be a blackened crater, but from the sound of the screaming that soon began, there were numerous survivors. Also unfortunate.
On the bright side, at least Lella had finished the job and vaporized himself.
Konig got to his feet. The door hanging open near the stairwell was the Blue Room, where Morelli had ordered Vilardi to take Gallagher. Konig eased inside, activating the flashlight function on his phone.
Vilardi lay by the wall next to the fireplace, his face covered with blood. As Konig watched, he stirred and moaned. Oh no. The worthless piece of shit was still breathing.
Not for long.
He looked at the gun in his hand, then dismissed the idea, sliding it into his pocket along with the phone. The job had started well enough. He should be consistent.
He grabbed the younger man’s limp body by the back of his shirt collar and his belt and heaved him up with a grunt. Vilardi was a big, heavy man, but Konig was bigger. Bigger and stronger than all of them. Stronger than everybody. He always had been.
He began to swing Vilardi backwards and forward, like a battering ram, and bashed the top of Vilardi’s head against the marble fireplace. A wet crunch…another…another. Konig dropped the man and checked on his work with the flashlight.
Vilardi’s brains were spilling out of his caved in skull. Problem solved, tracks covered, business expense spared. Onward.
He was almost out the door when he heard the voices coming toward him. Heading up the stairs, not running downstairs with the rest of the howling mob.
He shrank back behind the wall, motionless. Not even breathing.
“…crazy? Put me down!” A woman, whispering fiercely.
“What, you think you’re going to sprint in those heels?” a man replied.
“Fuck the heels! Just give me a second! I have the flats, remember?”
“Don’t have a second. After. As soon as we’re alone.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” the woman muttered as the sound of swiftly running feet pounded past the door and then faded away.
Konig leaned to peer out after them. The light that came into the broken windows from the grounds was just enough to see the flash of crimson from the woman’s fluttering skirt.
Aha. Gallagher and his wife. Yes.
Konig waited until they had gotten all the way down the hall and turned the corner into a part of the Palazzo that still had light.
When he looked around the corner, they were disappearing into the door between the statues of Artemis and Aphrodite. Heading straight for the Zeus and Europa room.
His hand tightened around his pistol grip as he raced after them.
Chapter 18
“Caro? What the hell? We have to go. Now!”
Noah stopped halfway through the Zeus rotunda when he realized Caro was no longer keeping pace with him. He should never have set her down, no matter what she said.
His skin crawled with alarm and his ears still rang from the bomb blast. It had compromised his augmented hearing, dampening it down to barely normal human levels. Which sucked. He needed all his AVP capacities jacked to the max right now.
“One second. My shoes. I’m crippled in these damn things.” Caro was crouched near the room’s entrance, her evening bag on the floor next to her. “Stupid strap caught on my heel.”
Noah pulled out his smartphone and tapped the flashlight function. It lit up the material of her dark crimson dress spread out upon the mosaic tiles like a pool of blood.
Caro finally yanked off the sandal, grumbling fiercely under her breath.
He listened intently for pursuers while Caro tugged her flats on, but heard nothing. Just muffled noise from the ground floor, sirens of the arriving emergency vehicles, the hum and chatter of agitated voices, some wailing and shouting. It felt strange, like his ears were plugged.
“There. Done,” Caro said triumphantly. “Mobile again. So let’s get—”
Click. Light blazed. Noah gasped in pain, covering his eyes.
The chandelier. Someone had turned it on while his eyes were completely unshielded, dilated, and in full infrared mode.
Blinded. Fuck.
Boom. Gunfire. The sound was huge in the echoing round room. Noah launched himself toward the nearby statue of Europa and the bull, or at least to the place where he last remembered seeing it. He hit the floor, and the phone flew from his grasp, sliding.
He groped around for it. Couldn’t see the damn thing. Couldn’t see at all.
Boom. The gun went off again. Fuck, and no cover in this whole fucking room other than the statue and the table.
He heard a creak and rattle above him. Caro had fled up the staircase and into the wooden gallery above. Not much protection there either.
Boom. Noah lunged out from behind the base of the statue, groping blindly for his phone. He had to ramp up the lens shield protection so he could fight that motherfucker.
Boom. A bullet hit the tiles near his head. Fragments stung his face. He scrambled back again.
“Who sent you?” a booming male voice demanded. He’d heard it before. Konig, the guy he’d seen with Folti this afternoon. Big, bald, and at that time, conveniently sick to his stomach.
“No one,” Noah said. “The door was open, so we—”
“That’s a goddamn lie!” Boom.
“Noah!” Caro yelled down from above. “The phone! Right in front of you!”
Noah grabbed for his phone. Knocked it to the side a few inches. Scrabbled for it again. Boom. Tile shards hit his face as he jerked back just in time.
He squinted at the screen, eyes streaming as he looked for the app. The wooden staircase squeaked. That son of a bitch was climbing up into the gallery after Caro.
Konig started to laugh. “You know what I’m going to do now, you eyeless, useless prick? I’m going to shoot your whore. I’m going to shoot her right in the face. I’ll dump her body down on top of you. Then I’ll shoot you—and then I’ll blame you. For everything. You used Lella, but I figured it out. Stopped you just in time. What a hero I am, huh?”
“It won’t work.” Noah tapped desperately at his screen. “No one will believe you.”
“We’ll see.” The stairs squeaked and groaned under Konig’s weight.
Shield activated. Finally. His vision was still blurry and watery, but Noah could just make out the bull’s angry eyes frowning down at him.
Bam. He heard Caro gasp, her feet thudding as she scrambled for cover.
* * * *
Shit! Every time Caro got her hand into her evening bag to get the gun, a fresh gun blast sent her scrambling frantically forward on all fours on the wooden gallery walkway, which now seemed barely attached to the wall.
She wedged herself into the nearest statue niche. Bam. A bullet snapped off the leg of a marble soldier, right by her
ear. She jumped, and the evening bag slipped forward and slid down into a hole from a broken flooring plank, oh fuck…
She barely caught the end of the bag’s strap before it disappeared.
She fished it back up with shaking hands. The shooter was getting closer, he moved more carefully now. The disintegrating walkway teetered with his every step.
And the fucking bag was trapped beneath the wooden slats now. She couldn’t tug it back out. Caro eased forward, slid her hand into the hole to pry it loose—and saw Noah springing up onto the bull statue’s back.
Oh God. He was about to do something reckless and heroic. For her.
Had to distract that shooter fast…
She gave a final desperate yank at the piece of wood blocking the bag. The chunk of wood broke free. She pulled the bag out and leaped out of the statue’s niche, screaming at the top of her lungs and taking off at a dead run down the gallery.
Her foot punched through the rotten floor and she pitched forward onto her knees. Broken wood shards raked her ankle as she dragged her foot back out.
Bam, bam. Bullets zinged off marble. One tore through her skirt. She dove for the next niche, huddling down into a narrow space between a marble boy and a huge bird.
Bam. The bird’s head exploded right over her.
Caro dug desperately in her evening bag for the gun.
Chapter 19
Noah caught the railing and pulled himself up and over, between Caro and Konig. He heard the slide and click of a magazine. Konig was reloading.
Fuck that shit.
He yelled as he charged. Slammed into Konig. Bounced him off the wall. They hit the railing together—broke through it—and fell.
A large section of the gallery tore loose and fell with them.
Noah hit the chandelier and clamped his hand onto the big, circular bronze frame as massive pieces of the fractured walkway crashed down to the floor below him.
Caro. Where…?
Konig glared at him through the glittering refracted light from the chandelier. The man dangled one-handed, right across from Noah, and their struggling and thrashing had set the thing swinging. Slow, heavy sweeps like a massive pendulum.
Konig’s face was bloody and wild. His reddened teeth showed in a sneering grin as he lifted his free hand, which still held the gun. He aimed for Noah’s chest—
Boom.
Noah heard a crack from below. He looked down, and saw Konig’s gun hit the floor, bouncing and spinning. Konig screamed.
A loud, wet thud—
Silence. Just the squeak and whine of the iron chain as it swung back and forth.
Konig was sprawled backwards over the horns of the bull, eyes wide and shocked. One horn pierced his chest. The other, his throat. The points gleamed wet and red. The bull’s head dripped blood. Rivulets trickled down over the pale marble to the floor.
Noah looked up. Caro was perched on what was left of the gallery, clinging to the statue’s leg to keep from falling. She held the gun in her other hand.
She’d shot Konig. Just in time. And the high gallery had almost completely collapsed, leaving her only a shaky fragment to stand on.
“Caro!” he called.
Her terrified eyes met his for just a second. She reached out to steady herself. The platform wobbled perilously beneath her. Her fingers patted smooth frescoed wall.
No handhold anywhere. No safe way to jump.
Just a long, sheer drop to a bone-shattering floor.
The gun in Caro’s hand began to shake.
Noah climbed quickly back up until he stood on the chandelier frame. He set the massive iron chain swinging, this time toward Caro. Higher and higher, until he got his hand around the marble elbow of the statue.
The force of stopping the chandelier’s swing tore at his injured shoulder and he cursed wildly. “Fuck!” he yelled. “Come on!”
Caro leaped toward him, arms around his neck, legs around his waist.
Agonizing pain shot through him as he let go of the statue—a second before it toppled forward out of its niche and smashed to the floor below them.
They swung free again, swooping back and forth over Konig’s corpse until the movement slowed enough for him to risk getting Caro down. Noah’s bloody hands slipped and slid on the thick chain as he helped her crawl down and dangle from the chandelier. That got her feet close enough to rest on the bull’s back and grab Europa’s shoulders.
She slid down to sit on the statue, caught her breath, then eased down to the floor.
Caro glanced at Konig’s splayed body and turned away without a word. She sank down to her shaking knees as if her legs wouldn’t hold her anymore.
Noah dropped from the chandelier, landing in a deep crouch near her. He pulled her swiftly into his arms and they held each other tightly, hearts pounding.
Noah lifted his head after a moment. “Babe,” he said, his voice thick with exhaustion. “I don’t know about you. But I have had enough.”
She looked up, a smile flashing across her lips. “You and me both.”
Another breathless hug to say all the things both of them were too shaken to put into words, and Caro looked up. “What should we do about the gun?”
“What happened to it?” he asked.
“Must have fallen when I jumped on you. Don’t really remember.” Caro picked her way a little unsteadily through the wreckage of the fallen gallery, kicking aside pieces of wood and chunks of broken marble. Found one red sandal, then another. Then the gun. Her evening bag also lay among the wreckage. She pulled it loose and fished in it until she found a pack of tissues.
Noah took the Glock from her ice-cold fingers and carefully wiped it down with a tissue. A statue of a young girl carrying a large jug on her shoulder stood near the door. The neck of the jug was just wide enough to slide the gun inside.
“We’ll tell Stefano where to find it.” He looked over at Konig. “When we’ll tell him that he has to deal with…that.”
Caro started to look back at the sprawled corpse, but stopped herself. “Tell Stefano about the gun? Really?”
“He’s taking the heat for us,” Noah told her. “He saw me throw Lella over the balcony. I asked him to keep my name out of it. He said he would. So I owe him. If he follows through.”
“I see,” she murmured. “Good man.”
He held out his hand. “Shall we?”
“Oh God, yes,” she said fervently.
They clasped each others’ hands and ran toward the passageway.
Chapter 20
The crumpled evening gown was a tangle of red fabric on the bathroom floor. It was torn and dirty and spotted with Noah’s blood from when he’d carried her.
Caro picked it up and tried to rinse out the worst of the bloodstains. She wanted it cleaned and mended. The dress was a keeper. Something to wear when guts and steely nerve were called for.
Their return to the hotel was more or less a blur. She’d been lucky that Noah still had the presence of mind to find his way through the Palazzo and the garden, and remember the complicated route he’d initially chosen to avoid being seen, because she sure hadn’t. The drive had involved a lot of small, bumpy roads through dark vineyards and fields before they hit main roads again.
The guy at the reception desk gave them a startled look as they’d passed. So what. Rough night, she felt like telling him. But she’d restrained herself.
She’d been so grateful when the door of the suite had finally, miraculously closed behind them. Safe and home. Oh yes.
The shower relaxed her a little, but she still felt jagged inside. Seeing Konig and Noah falling backwards. The end of her world, playing out in her head over and over.
Caro folded up the dress. She put on a hotel robe and made her way back into the bedroom where the TV was droning in Italian, set to local news. Noah wanted
a widescreen look-and-listen with the latest buzz about the incident at the Palazzo Bellocchio as soon as it aired.
She opened her mouth to ask if he’d heard anything, and it stayed open.
Noah was fast asleep.
Caro hardly dared to move. She’d never, ever seen Noah sleep. And this was true, normal sleep. His head thrown back, his body sprawled out, his mouth relaxed. His breathing was deep and even.
She felt a rush of tenderness so intense, it made her teary.
The TV station went to a commercial break and the jump in volume startled Noah back awake. His eyes popped open and he looked at her blearily for a moment. “Hey.”
“You’re sexy when you sleep, did you know that?” She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his lips, trailing her finger down over his jaw. His face was battered from the fighting he’d done, but it wasn’t swelling up. His fast-healing gene mod at work.
“Really? Great.” He yawned, and stretched lazily, then stopped short with a wince, rubbing his shoulder joint. “Ouch. That’s talking to me, and it’s not happy. But the rest of me is doing OK.”
“You’re relaxing,” she said in a wondering voice. “Finally.”
“Yeah, I guess. Before that, I was refueling.”
The hotel had come through with an awesome assortment of food, considering the late hour. Judging by the stack of empty plates, Noah had been hard at it while she was in the shower, but he hadn’t eaten it all.
“Help yourself.” He gestured toward the tray set up near the nightstand. “The food’s great.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” She popped a tiny ball of fresh mozzarella into her mouth while he poured her a glass of red wine. “It’s crazy,” she told him. “I thought I’d need to calm you down the usual way—”
“Woohoo. Go for it.”
Lusty, too. Huh. Go figure. She ignored his invitation for the time being. They’d get back to that later. “Then I come in here and find you napping. Snoring, no less.”
“Bullshit. No way was I snoring. Now you’re just fucking with me.” Noah selected a thick slice of caciocavallo cheese and devoured it, licking his fingers.
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