by Rea Thomas
Bingo, Vikram thought with a pleased smile when the silhouette of a woman crossed in front of the open doorway. A slender hand cradled a long-stemmed wineglass, bringing the golden liquid to her lips. It was a perfect mix of film-noir and Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Notte was a lucky bastard, dipping his nib in an endless rotation of very attractive ink wells.
The silhouette turned toward the light, offering him a glimpse of her bare back in a slinky black dress. When she caressed the long column of her neck and turned to cast her gaze over the rolling hills that were swathed in pale white moonlight, Vikram almost dropped his binoculars in a mixture of shock and white-hot rage.
“Lisabeth,” he uttered aloud, his voice practically booming in contrast to the clicking chirps of crickets that filled the otherwise silent country air.
The wretched witch was trying to seduce Notte, worming her way into his home as one of his many mistresses. She was a divine vision, her ample breasts spilling forth from the sweeping neckline of her dress. When she crossed the room again, Vikram saw the slim, towering heels on her feet and found it almost impossible to squelch the bitter jealousy that rose in his gut.
He could not explain the sense of betrayal he felt at watching her systematic seduction. While he had been jerking off to the vivid memories of their time together, Lisabeth had moved on to her next victim—or conquest, or whatever she saw her sexual partners as. Notte was another pawn in her elaborate game, certainly, but the knowledge of this did not reduce the knot of resentment in Vikram’s belly. He cursed himself for not sampling the local pussy while he had been imprisoned in Tuscany.
Luca appeared now, as a second, more rotund shadow. He stepped toward her and Vikram could imagine the self-satisfied sneer on the lecherous bastard’s face as he reached out to tuck a loose curling tendril of Lisabeth’s hair behind her ear. She brought the wineglass to her lips again and said something in that husky, sensual voice of hers that made Notte throw his head back with a dirty laugh.
Vikram’s teeth ground noisily together when Notte slipped his arm around her tiny waist and pulled her toward him.
Go get the damn sword and get out of this fucking place, he thought, lowering his binoculars. The unfolding scene turned his stomach and unfurled his alpha male tendencies. Tonight, he would drink in the local bars and would find himself a young, willing local woman with a mouth like a vacuum. Exactly as he should have done ages ago.
In the meantime, Vikram would get into Notte’s house while he was otherwise preoccupied, and get the sword before Lisabeth could pull another of her stunts and get there first.
* * * * *
Lisabeth wasn’t sure how she knew—only that she did.
Her instincts prickled when Luca Notte had opened the terrace doors, coaxing warm Mediterranean air into the dining room. Warm air and the very essence of him. He was out there, she was certain. Prowling, scoping…watching. The realization of it made her skin tingle happily in ways it had not for five weeks. She had thought of him almost constantly since hastily departing Mumbai.
Her work had resumed as normal, but instead of relaxing in Kathmandu, Lisabeth had conducted the majority of her negotiations from the road and had successfully sold The Lotus Star two weeks ago to an anonymous buyer. It was a relief to be rid of it, but the significant increase in her bank balance did not fill her with the usual sense of satisfaction and misplaced pride.
Rather, she had been focused to the point of near-obsession on getting to Italy. A considerable part of her brain was constantly counting down the days until she would bump into Vikram again—and she would, because he still owed her several million dollars. However, money just wasn’t the motivator it had once been. In fact, every plan she had refined with careful precision had been to ensure this moment—the moment in which she felt Vikram’s presence once more.
It disgusted and disturbed Lisabeth to be craving the company of a man. She saw it as a weakness, and regretted the moment she had negotiated having him as her sexual slave, of sorts. Not that he was ever truly complacent. Rather, it was she who had done most of the fevered begging—especially that last night on tousled cotton sheets in Mumbai. The mere memory of it made her skin flush with fever.
Luca Notte misread the signs in her blushing cheeks and moved toward her. He did not remotely resemble Vikram’s prowling feline agility; he was at least sixty pounds heavier and his come-hither glances were attractive only in his imagination.
When he drew her toward him, Lisabeth smelled garlic on his breath and cursed herself for coming up with her clever seduction strategy. Although it was guaranteed to work—Notte was an incorrigible womanizer—she was beginning to think it was more hassle than it was worth. She would sooner take her chances with his pack of feisty Rottweiler dogs outside than subject herself to his aimless, awkward fumbling as he tried to fuck her. Lisabeth had concluded with a fair degree of certainty that it was Notte’s expensive gifts of Cartier and Prada that kept his mistresses coming back for more.
“Darling,” she said, smoothly evading a slobbering kiss by withdrawing herself from his embrace. “You’ll have to excuse me for ten minutes. I promised my editor a call, and he’ll be fuming if I let him down again.” She dug into her small beaded purse for her cell phone, heaving a dramatic sigh. “Tell you what, why don’t you pour us another glass of this and I’ll be back in a minute.”
The aristocratic accent should have come naturally to her, but Lisabeth found it difficult to keep it going. Luca seemed to like it though, and when she had first approached him a week ago, he had been putty in her hands at the dramatic Dah-lings. Well, it was either that or her tits. Maybe both.
He protested, caressing her backside with open palms, drawing wispy chiffon over her legs.
“Call him later,” said Notte, fingering at the elastic waistband of her lace panties.
Lisabeth playfully slapped him away. “Good things come to those who wait. Now, pour me another glass of wine, and before you know it you’ll be peeling off this ghastly dress.” In your dreams.
She climbed the marble staircase to the first floor, slipping off the treacherously high heels to pad silently along the hallway. Tonight was the night she was going to seize the sword—the opulent silver and bronze sword she had noticed hanging in his office on her first visit. It had been a hardship, pretending Luca had been the most virile lover she’d ever had—but the self-sacrifice had paid off when she had glimpsed the so-called Excalibur.
It had not been nearly as impressive as she imagined it would be—nothing on the scale of the flute, with its bands of crimson rubies. The sword was old and tarnished, imprinted with intricate designs that looked almost linguistic. The supposed sword of King Arthur hardly looked worthy of legendary status, but Lisabeth chose not to dwell on it. It wasn’t history or legend she was in Tuscany for.
Notte’s office door was unlocked, and Lisabeth found the light switch from memory, fumbling only for a second in the darkness. As the room was bathed in a warming glow, she heard the familiar click of a gun that brought about a sense of déjà vu. She was, for a second, sitting at a breakfast table in Chennai looking into the handsome face of a dangerous stranger for the first time.
She was looking at the same handsome face again, only this time in an Italian businessman’s office. The amber eyes narrowed on her, eyes of her dreams, brimming with passion and lust, frustration and contempt. Lisabeth had got to sleep at night only by picturing him in her mind, touching herself to the memory of their frenzied lovemaking. She had remembered parts of him so vividly that her pink vibrator had been ineffective and yet essential. The batteries had been changed thrice, worn out by her insatiable desire.
Vikram had clearly been expecting Notte, for he had leveled a gun at her. His hard, cold gaze did not soften as he finally lowered it though, and Lisabeth felt animosity pierce her like an icy dagger. This was not how she had expected their reunion to unfold.
“Leave,” he commanded her. “I’m here for
the sword. That’s it.” He glanced at the artifact mounted on the wall to the right of the fireplace, meters away from his hand.
He looked good, even better than her late-night fantasies. Dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, he seemed brooding and sullen. He was brooding and sullen, she realized. His muscles were wound tighter than piano strings and his cheek was twitching in the way it did when he was supremely irritated—offended, maybe. Lisabeth was startled by how much of him she had come to know, and how easily she could unravel his emotions.
“On a scale of one to ten,” she said in a low voice, “how likely do you think it is that I would leave? Really? It’s got to be in the minus figures, right?” She took two steps closer, eyeing the slender blade of Excalibur.
Vikram swallowed audibly, following her movements with eyes more intense than gamma-ray lasers. “You’re such a…” He shook his head with what she thought was disappointment. “Sleeping with a man like Notte, Lisabeth? You would stoop that low?”
She gave an easy shrug, but the hostility in his words stung. “It was necessary,” she said, ignoring the incredulous shake of his head. “Oh fuck off, Vikram. There was no ‘for better or worse’, okay? We aren’t betrothed.”
He gave a single nod, unable to look at her now. “Yes, of course. I just thought…” Whatever it was he had intended to stay, Vikram suppressed with an acidic laugh. “Whatever, honey. You fuck everyone—literally, figuratively… It’s exactly your style.”
Lisabeth opened her mouth to retort, her stomach suddenly tight with regret, anger and the injustice of Vikram’s words. Did he think of himself to be nobler than she? Didn’t he realize he was standing in someone else’s home preparing to steal their belongings? Had he forgotten his own sins?
Heavy footsteps clicked along the corridor.
“Lisabeth?” Notte called, knocking the bathroom door that was three rooms away.
Vikram snatched the sword in one hand, backing toward the balcony doors behind him. His eyes had the manic glint of raging endorphins—the frantic high at the risk of danger.
Lisabeth spun on her heel, dropping her shoe to the ground. The clatter was deafening—would definitely alert Notte to her whereabouts. Her treachery would be revealed in a matter of seconds, but her mind refused to function. She watched in horrified silence as Vikram disappeared onto the balcony, prepared to abandon her to her fate.
No honor among thieves, she found herself thinking in the heart-stopping seconds between her shoe dropping and Notte pressing down on the door handle behind her.
These were the same words Vikram had said to her once, on the way to Mumbai, yet his abandonment of her hurt deeply.
“Lisabeth?” Luca found her standing in his office, her green eyes wide with bewilderment. The accusation was clear in his voice, building to an inevitable rage. “What the hell are you doing in my office?”
“I—”
A gunshot rang through the temperate night. The sound echoed in her ears, shattering the sultry atmosphere that blanketed the quiet, Tuscan landscape.
Luca cried out, looking down at his wounded arm. He seemed not to comprehend what had happened to him—how his evening of extramarital sex with a hot British woman had descended to chaos so suddenly. He watched blood ooze from the gunshot wound, and saw it soak his shirt in an expanding patch of angry red.
“Hey!”
Vikram’s voice broke the stunned silence, decidedly urgent.
“Let’s go!” He clung to the ivy-covered trellis climbing over the white walls of the villa, beckoning her to follow.
Despite the urgency, Lisabeth’s first thoughts were that he had not abandoned her after all—and how, despite his initial disgust and anger, he must have cared about her.
“Fucking move!” he cried, disappearing from sight.
Lisabeth raced across the office, stepping onto the balcony as Luca Notte slammed his hand against the alarm panel on the wall. The sound that followed was a squealing wail of emergency, bringing the villa compound to a state of pandemonium; the dogs barked with menacing intent somewhere to her left, and the manicured lawn surrounded by tall, shapely cypresses was bathed in luminous white light—every alcove and crevice revealed.
“Intrusi!” Notte screamed above her head as she reached the ground, overcome with panic.
“Follow me,” Vikram ordered, gun in one hand, the sword in his other. “Lavender fields,” he whispered to her as the broad-shouldered silhouettes of Notte’s guards began to advance from every direction. “Do what I say, okay?”
Lisabeth nodded, her mouth dry and her heart pumping with difficulty inside her chest. Her reunion with Vikram was not supposed to descend into a gun-wielding chase through Tuscany.
“Okay?” he pressed, impatient.
“Okay!” Lisabeth snapped.
“Run!” he yelled, and she did.
Chapter Thirteen
The lavender fields sprawled east for two acres. Endless rows of coarse, purple bushes rubbed roughly against Lisabeth’s legs and bare feet as she sprinted. Behind her, she could hear the growling of the dogs and the affronted cries of Notte’s guards as they pursued, weapons drawn.
Vikram was several paces ahead, his body a shadow in the distance that was leading her, negotiating a path through the shrubbery. Lisabeth thought the rising humps of lavender were never going to end, their bundles snagging on the delicate fabric of her dress, tearing and maiming her skin. She ignored the pain, glancing over her shoulder to assess their progress.
The broad, muscled hulk of Notte’s men advanced across the field, shouting in Italian. In a brief glance, Lisabeth counted five wide silhouettes—there could easily have been more.
The erratic thundering of her heartbeat almost dulled the cacophony of orders and shouts from behind. When she turned frontward, Vikram had disappeared, an empty row of crop in place of his pounding feet. Lisabeth searched the darkness, and she continued running despite having no clear direction but forward.
Clouds had rolled in, blotting the moon’s pale glow, and Lisabeth was grateful; as the villa disappeared into the distant background, the fields were an eerie black. She veered several rows to the right, swallowing a yelp as the lavender sprigs grazed roughly against her legs. Seconds later, a guard stormed through the strip of dirt she had occupied moments before.
The plantation ended and she stumbled forward, down the steep decline of a grassy hillside. Lisabeth sank to her knees, flattening herself against the ground. Somewhere above her head she heard a despairing conversation take place in garbled Italian, and an angered scream rang out over the rolling hills.
Lisabeth clamped her hand over her mouth, stifling the thunderous sound of her breath. Inside her chest, her heart continued to pound with tremendous force, and her pulse seemed to vibrate through every vein in her body. She peered through the abyss, her eyes struggling to form shapes in the all-consuming darkness.
When the voices began to recede, she exhaled a shuddering breath, her lungs rejoicing in relief. Gulps of floral-scented air filled her chest—a heavenly elixir to her oxygen-starved blood cells. For a full five minutes, she lay flat against the ground, her cheek pressed to the cool, fresh grass while her heart gradually slowed to a less-frantic rhythm.
In the far distance, the cry of a siren pierced the still, quiet air. Police or ambulance, Lisabeth couldn’t be sure—both were equally disastrous.
She got to her knees, suddenly aware of the sting in her feet and legs. She had no idea where she was. When a fat drop of rain splashed against her cheek, she groaned in despair. This had been, unequivocally, the worst raid of her career—and a total failure, since Vikram was in possession of the sword.
Not that it mattered, for she had intended on using it as sexual leverage to get him into bed for a few more nights. Evidently, he had lost interest in her once he had seen her with Notte.
Getting to her feet, Lisabeth swallowed the tears of humiliation and resentment rising in her throat. Six weeks ago she had been the be
st female thief in the world, and tonight she had been foiled by a lecherous swine such as Luca Notte. It wasn’t enough that Vikram had looked at her as though she were some sort of tainted whore, but she had lost every ounce of her professional credibility as well.
Calming herself with a slow, deep breath, Lisabeth tried to recall the detailed maps she had studied earlier in the week. The lavender crops were east of the villa, planted for three acres. Beyond where she stood was farmland for another four acres and then a vineyard, belonging to a local grower. Beyond the wiry grapevines, an access road led to the highway into town.
She would hotwire a car and get out of Tuscany immediately, before the police started hunting for her.
A beam of light immobilized her like a startled deer, settling on her face. Had she misjudged the retreat of Notte’s men? Had the police started their search already? In that moment, her fight-or-flight response—usually so highly tuned—abandoned her. Lisabeth was willing to be led away, deflated by her failures and the realization that despite ten years of trying so hard to deny it, she did have a heart.
“Lisabeth?”
Vikram’s voice was gruff and edgy as he angled the intensity of the beam away from her. He stood less than twenty feet away, farther down the hillside.
“I thought you’d left,” she whispered, her voice broken. The fire he had ignited in her belly long ago, never to cease, had diminished to a dying ember.
“I had to get my stuff,” he explained quickly. “My bags were in the field. We need to go; the cops have arrived.” He turned the torchlight on himself, illuminating the somber lines of his dark features. His lips were tight, his eyes hooded in misery. “Come on.”