It was three o’clock before she looked up from her work, and then it was only because she heard a commotion out in the reception area.
Suddenly, a girl with bright blue hair burst into her office. “Konnichiwa!”
Elli gaped at the girl. “Tandy? Oh my god!” She got up and the two women embraced, hugging each other tightly. Tandy, a part-Japanese, part-American woman in her early twenties had been Elli’s best friend for a few years, ever since the younger woman started as an intern at the magazine. Tandy Li had only one ambition—to travel to every country in the world—and over the last two years, she had been doing exactly that, working her way (sometimes illegally) through the Americas and Canada, down to the Caribbean, and then to Europe.
Elli made some coffee and they sat in her office. Tandy told her she was in Italy for just a week. “I’ve finally got enough money to go to India,” she said. “But I couldn’t do Europe without coming back to say hi to my bestie. How're things? Viv said you’re getting some decent sex at last.”
Elli nearly choked on her coffee, but then laughed. “Nothing is sacred, is it?”
Tandy grinned. “Nope. You look good, Els, I have to say.”
Elli smiled. “Well, I’m excited you’re here, Tandy. Where are you staying?”
Tandy looked a little guilty, and Elli laughed, having expected her to ask her to stay with her—it was an old habit. “You can stay as long as you want, Tee. You know that.”
“The boyfriend won’t mind?”
She hadn’t really thought of Aldo that way before. Elli turned the label around in her mind for a moment, feeling oddly uncomfortable with it, before dismissing the feeling as yet another residue from the damn concussion. “The boyfriend is in New York for the next few days, so you’re all set, as long as you don’t mind sharing a bed with me.”
“Have I ever?” Tandy rolled her eyes. “We’re going to have so much fun. Listen, I have to go meet another friend, so can I come by your place around nine tonight?”
“Of course. I’ll even go grocery shopping.”
“Don’t buy anything healthy.”
Elli chuckled. “Oh, I won’t.”
Elli lugged the grocery bags up the stairs to her apartment. Dumping her bags on the table and taking off her coat, she walked over to the small table beside the door to set her keys down—if she didn’t, they’d be lost immediately. As she leaned down, she spotted a plain brown manila envelope just poking out from beneath the door. Frowning, Elli picked it up and turned it over. There was no name on it, nor was it addressed to anybody. Walking back into the kitchen, she set coffee brewing, then opened the envelope and shook out the contents.
A photograph slid out, face down, and when she flipped it over, she felt a cold fist in the stomach. It was a picture of her from about twenty minutes ago. She was emerging from a bakery several blocks away, looking sideways down the street, so she’d missed whoever it was who had the lens pointed her way.
What the fuck? She studied the envelope and photo minutely, but could not see any trace of a clue to who might have sent it. It was such an invasion of privacy—and so creepy. She remembered how she’d felt at the art gallery on New Year’s Eve and that same prickling feeling chilled her skin. If this is you, Indio Navaro, stop it. I’ve moved on.
Maybe he had seen the picture of her and Aldo kissing. Don’t kid yourself, girl. Why would he care?
Elli shook herself and stuffed the photograph and the envelope in the trash can. She unpacked the groceries and was wondering if she should cook something for a late supper with Tandy when her cell phone rang. Not looking at the Caller ID—she automatically assumed who it was, based on Aldo’s earlier promise—she answered with a playful, “It’s not quite bedtime yet. Missing me so soon?”
The caller whispered down the phone.
“You look beautiful tonight, Elli.”
Her flesh crawled again and anger flashed through her. “Who is this? What the fuck do you want?”
A low chuckle, and she tried to pick out anything she could recognize in the voice.
“You, of course, Elli. Always you. It’s always been you.”
Elli gritted her teeth. “Well, asshole, you don’t get to have me, do you? Who are you?”
“You know me, Elli Bella.”
The shock was icy cold. “Indio?” her voice, a whisper, broke as she said his name.
He chuckled. “Who knows? All that is certain is one thing, beautiful Elli.”
“What’s that?”
“That soon you’ll be bleeding out, whore.”
And the line went dead. Elli dropped her phone and sank to the floor, trembling violently, unable to stop the panic attack, and that’s where Tandy found her an hour later.
Tandy insisted on Elli reporting the call and the photograph to the police, but the terse officer taking her statement evidently thought she was a hysterical female, and soon Elli stomped out, followed by a furious Tandy.
“Motherfucker,” she raved as she wrapped her arm around Elli’s shoulders. Tandy had the height from her American father, almost six feet of her to Elli’s five-five, and Elli was weirdly glad of it as they walked home through the dark streets. It was bitingly cold. Elli looked at Tandy a little sheepishly. “This isn’t the homecoming I wanted you to have, Tandy. Maybe I’m making too much of this.”
“A death threat? No way, Elli. This is scary stuff.” Tandy sighed, shaking her head. “You know what’s weird, though?”
“What?”
Tandy glanced at her. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I always was waiting for something like this to happen to you.”
Elli was shocked. “Why?”
“Because look at you, Elli. You’re so beautiful, so friendly, and yet when anyone gets close, they’re banging up a brick wall. Someone was always going to get nasty, and I think this is it.”
Elli was silent. “So it’s my fault?”
“Hell, no.” Tandy was vehement. “It’s the fault of a civilization that leads men to believe they’re entitled to any woman they want, and that murder is an option open to them if they don’t get what they want.”
“But I have let someone in,” Elli insisted. “I hope you get to meet Aldo …he’s just the sweetest, sexiest guy. And he and I are growing closer every day …in every way.” Elli flushed, and Tandy grinned.
“Then he’s probably not the one playing these games.”
“Of course it’s not Aldo,” Elli said in surprise. “He would never do anything to hurt me.”
“Of course, of course.” Tandy waved her hand. “I was being facetious. Elli, I know you won’t want to go down this path, but … do you think it might be Indio?”
Tandy knew everything about Indio and Elli’s love for the man. Elli sighed.
“I would hate to think so. Besides, Indio knows that if he came back …”
“You would dump Aldo in a second if Indio showed up.”
Elli was stung. “I wouldn’t.”
“Hey, I’m not judging—but are you being honest with yourself?”
Elli could feel the tears coming again, and she looked away from her friend. It was a moot thought anyway—Indio was never coming back—so what did it matter if Tandy just might be right? “Please don’t make this harder than it is,” she said in a soft voice. Tandy hugged her.
“Sorry. Now, let’s forget this nonsense and go eat our body weight in front of the television.”
Tandy did a great job of distracting Elli for the evening, but when Tandy fell asleep on the couch just after midnight, Elli put a pillow underneath her head and blanket over her and went to her bedroom, realizing she’d never gotten the promised call from Aldo.
She grabbed her laptop and opened Skype, hoping he would be online. She had been debating with herself all night whether to tell him about the threats, but when she saw his smile as he logged on and greeted her, she demurred.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
“Hi, Aldo. How’s the Big Apple?”
God, the article …she hadn’t thought about that at all since the threats. “It’s all good. We’re not going to respond to it.”
Aldo looked a little surprised. “Wow.”
“What?”
“Well, you were so fired up and now it seems like you’ve let it go.”
Elli nodded, not quite meeting his eye. “Yeah, well.”
“You okay?”
“Absolutely. Actually,” she said, seeing Tandy stumble into the bedroom, bleary-eyed, and using it to change the subject, “I do have to tell you that I’m sharing my bed with someone else tonight.” She grinned as Aldo’s eyebrows shot up and Elli moved the laptop around to where Tandy was crawling into bed. “Say hello to Aldo. Aldo, this is Tandy, a good friend of mine. She’s crashing here for a few nights on her way to India.”
Aldo chuckled and said hello to Tandy, who greeted him, then promptly went back to sleep. Elli grinned at Aldo. “She showed up at the office today. No warning.”
“Serendipitous,” Aldo nodded, “I like you’re not alone.”
Elli gave a half-smile. “I’m a big girl now, Aldo. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Sorry,” he smiled ruefully, “I’m overprotective, I know. Scuzi.”
“You’re forgiven.”
They chatted for a little longer, until Elli felt herself wilting and said goodbye. Aldo blew her a kiss, clearly seeing that their evening rendezvous was a no-go tonight.
“I love you, Elli. Sleep tight.”
“Goodnight, Aldo. I miss you.”
After she’d shut her laptop, she lay back. She felt guilty about not telling Aldo she loved him when it had been her mind lately that she might be falling for him. Certainly she was very, very fond of the man, and she loved the sex—exciting and a little dangerous. Aldo being a billionaire didn’t faze her—she had never been the gold-digging type. It was his money, not hers.
Elli closed her eyes and was asleep in minutes. She wasn’t sure how long she slept before he nightmares came back, bloody and violent, and she woke, crying. Tandy inevitably was woken by Elli’s panic attack and sat beside her friend as she gradually calmed down.
“It’s still Indio, isn’t it?” Tandy eventually said.
Elli sighed. “Less so. I think …I think I just need closure, you know? I have no idea where he is—even Googling him brings up his company, but nothing, and I mean nothing, about him personally. It’s as if he’s wiped himself off the face of the earth. Even gossip sites have nothing on him, and seeing he was married to that model, I’m surprised.”
Tandy sighed. “Look, I wasn’t going to tell you this …but I saw him. Now, because I never met him, I could have been wrong, but I don’t think so. You can’t replicate his kind of beauty. In Seattle. He was having dinner with a couple. This was about six months ago. He looked tired, worn down, and they were having a pretty intense conversation by the looks of things, as if he were upset and they were trying to help him.”
Elli’s heart was thumping with a sad heaviness. “He looked tired?”
Tandy nodded. “I didn’t feel as if I could go over, so I thought it would be best if I didn’t tell you. But he is out in the world, safe, if not happy. Does that help?”
Elli considered. “I don’t know.” She hesitated. “I keep thinking I see him, just a brief glimpse and then he’s gone. Sometimes I think I’m going crazy. If it hadn’t been for Aldo, I might have.”
Tandy smiled. “You like Aldo, don’t you?”
Elli smiled. “He says he loves me, but I haven’t been able to say it back yet.”
“Where is he at the moment?”
“Four Seasons in New York. He’ll be back on Friday.”
“Huh.” Tandy was frowning.
“What?”
Tandy shook her head. “No, just something struck me. He’s a solid-gold billionaire, right?”
Elli half smiled, half frowned at her friend. “So?”
“Well, it’s just, if I had his money, I would be staying in the penthouse suite. From what I saw, that wasn’t the penthouse of The Four Seasons.”
Elli shrugged. “Maybe it was already booked. It was a last-minute trip.”
“Yeah, maybe. Anyway, I’m getting off the topic. You’ve probably heard this a million times from Viv, Elli, but …”
“Indio is history. Concentrate on the sexy man in your life now. Yeah, and I know you’re both right. I am trying.”
Tandy scooched down in the bed and tucked her arm around Elli. “Good. Now let’s get some sleep, or you’ll look like shit in the morning.”
“So will you, bitch,” Elli laughed.
“Not possible. Go to sleep.”
When her friend left for India on Thursday morning, Elli hugged her tightly. “Please come back soon. I miss you too much.”
Tandy got a little choked, but hid it with her usual bravado. “Don’t get all mushy. I’ll be back before Christmas.”
“Too long,” Elli grumbled, but waved her goodbye at the gate and headed to the taxi stand.
She caught a cab back into the city and went straight to work. It was still early, six-thirty a.m., and the office was empty as Elli sat down and flicked on her computer. She filled the coffee pot as she waiting for her ancient laptop to boot up, then wondered if she should grab some pastries for breakfast. She patted her flat belly—she could do with gaining a couple of pounds, she thought. She had lost weight lately, mostly due to the Olympic sex she’d been having.
She decided to go down to the nearest bakery, a couple of streets away. Venice was just coming to life in the dark January morning, but there were few people around. The bakery was just opening, and Elli bought a couple of breakfast rolls and some pastries for her colleagues when they got into the office.
She was almost back, walking down the short street that led to the magazine’s back entrance, when it happened. Suddenly, she felt someone slam into her from behind, knocking her flat against a stone wall. Elli cracked her head hard against the stone—the feeling was disturbingly familiar—but couldn’t scream before her attacker knocked her to the ground and landed a vicious kick to her stomach. Elli tried to curl up in a ball, pain ripping through her, too shocked to cry out or fight back, but her attacker straddled her, his face obscured by a black mask, and reached into his pocket for a knife.
Oh, god, no …
“Please, don’t.”
As he raised the blade to drive it into her, there was a shout. Elli heard footsteps running towards them. Her attacker took off, and Elli struggled into a sitting position on the ice-cold ground. Two young men helped her up, peering worriedly at her. “Are you okay, signorina?”
She nodded, shell-shocked, and touched her forehead, but there was no blood. Thank god.
“Tomas, you take her to the hospital while I get the polizzia,” the taller of the two men said, starting down the street already.
Elli’s hand shot out and grabbed him by the back of the sweater. “No!”
He stopped and both men looked at her, confused and concerned. “I’m fine,” she assured them. “My office is right here. I’ll go in and … get help there.”
With her rescuers staring unhappily after her, she walked slowly to her office and went in. It was still empty and she went to the little bathroom to clean her face of dirt. There was a small bump that she knew would bruise badly, but otherwise, aching stomach muscles apart, she was unhurt. But he had been about to kill her …or had he? Something was bugging her about the whole attack—more than just the fact that her life had been threatened. The thing was …it just didn’t seem like whoever it was had his heart in it. Even though the men had interrupted them, he would still have had time to stick the blade into her and then run. So what the hell? Not to mention, why?
She poured herself some coffee and sat at her desk, opening her emails. Working methodically, gradually distracting herself from the ea
rlier fear, she opened another message without looking at the sender and suddenly there were photographs of her, taken that morning as she walked to the bakery.
Elli stared at the shots, gritting her teeth as she scrolled through the extensive footage of her small excursion. But it was the last photograph that made her gasp. It wasn’t a photograph of her; it was a beautiful, dark-haired woman in a pristine white wedding dress—pristine except for the blood spattered across it and the knife wounds in the bodice of the dress.
Yvetta.
“Oh my god.” Elli was trembling. Suddenly it all became clearer to her. This wasn’t about her or Indio—it was about Aldo. Someone was threatening to kill her to torture him. She grabbed her cell phone and called him, knowing it was after midnight in New York. She texted him, Aldo, baby, we have to talk. Please call me back when you can.
She’d barely hung up the phone when Aldo called her back, and after she quickly explained, his answer was definitive. “I’m coming back to you, Elliana. Do not even think to argue. No business trip is worth more than your safety. Umberto will pick you up from work and take you back to your apartment.” His tone softened then, likely knowing she didn’t respond well to orders. “Please, Elli, for me, pack your stuff. I want you safe in our home for as long as this psychopath is at large.”
Elli hated the idea of being cooped up in an ivory tower, but she had to admit she was frightened. “Okay. Okay, Aldo, just until it’s over.”
Umberto, Aldo’s sweet driver, gave her a grin as she walked outside the office to meet him. “Good afternoon, Miss Moretti.”
“Call me Elli, won’t you?” She got into the front with him, obviously something he wasn’t used to. She grinned at him. “Umberto, I’m just a normal girl. Unless Aldo is with me, count on me riding up front with you.”
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