Harden nodded. “Yeah, I know, and so does she. How do you think we met?”
Don Paulie’s eyes lit up as he turned back to Kerri. “You were…on the auction block?”
“Only once,” Harden said, also turning to Kerri. “That I know of.”
“That’s right,” Kerri said to them both, “just the once. And I’ll never do it again, if that’s what either of you are thinking.”
“Not me,” Harden said, “that’s for sure.”
“Nor me,” Paulie said, “it’s just…as long as you know what we’re talking about—”
“Don Paulie,” Harden said, “tell us, what’s going on, what’s wrong?”
Don Paulie sighed and leaned back in his little chair. “I had a friend… I thought of him as a friend anyway. I invited him to one of the local meetings. Turns out…he broke the rule.”
Harden’s face went cold. “That’s bad.”
“Yeah,” Don Paulie said, “the worst.”
Kerri glanced at each man. “What rule? I don’t get it.”
“The rule you can never break,” Harden said. “It’s the same rule outside the agreement, or anywhere in the Western world.”
Don Paulie said, “Thou shalt not kill.”
No more explanation was necessary, and Kerri could quickly imagine some enraged sadomasochist and his terrified female victim: the screaming, violence, and sex that became torture and ultimately bloody murder.
But that ugly answer only inspired more questions.
Kerri said, “Could it have been an accident? Maybe he left the plastic bag on too long, or she forgot the safe word or something?”
Don Paulie said, “There were two of them. So even if the first was an accident, the second was to keep it all quiet.”
Harden said, “And they’re sure it was this guy? They found the bodies?”
“Found a piece of one in Pine Barrens,” Don Paulie answered with a shrug, “that told the whole story.”
Kerri asked, “What about the police?” Off their glares, she added, “Well, I mean, it’s not like anybody here was responsible.”
“You’re sweet,” Don Paulie said with a smile, “but the cops never came to me, so I don’t know, do I? It’s outta the cops’ hands anyway.” Don Paulie turned back to Harden. “And you know those guys—they don’t care about justice. All they want is rule of order and as much killing as they can do. And people think we’re a social menace!”
Kerri said, “I don’t understand—”
Harden explained, “The girls vanished after this friend of Don Paulie’s here paid for their company. If they can’t find this man and make him pay the price, Don Paulie’s going to have to accept responsibility for the debt.”
“Can’t you just, um, pay them off?”
Harden said, “These are among the wealthiest people in the world. They don’t need anybody’s money.”
Don Paulie explained to Kerri, “What they want is to get the violator in custody. And they make a terrible example of this person, to make sure nobody ever breaks the rule again.”
“They’ll kill you,” Kerri said.
Don Paulie had to answer, “Only after they’ve skinned me alive.” Kerri raised her hand to her mouth to disguise her gasp. Don Paulie turned to Harden. “But now you’re here! What timing—it’s destiny!”
Kerri repeated, “Timing?” with notable worry in her voice.
Don Paulie went on, “Harden, you’re the only person who can help me! It’s fate that brought you here today, I’m certain of it! Santa Maria, thank Christ Almighty!”
Kerri and Harden shared a nervous glance. Harden’s calm expression reassured Kerri that she should let him handle this, and she was more than ready to let him for fear of saying too much and burying them all.
Harden asked Don Paulie, “Do you know the man’s real name?”
“Elias Olafssen, some Swede piece of shit I did business with.”
“Not…human trafficking?”
“No, of course not,” Don Paulie answered Harden, “I’m not a monster! It was just heroin.”
Harden asked, “Where is he?”
“Amsterdam,” Don Paulie said. “I hear he’s got a joint of his own—real dungeon-type place, almost impossible to get into. Y’gotta buy your way in, costs a fortune. Local cops are in his pocket and everything.”
Harden presumed, “And he knows your guys here, so you can’t send them in.”
“Right, exactly. I mean, he don’t know all my guys, but management… Anyway, nobody on my crew’s gonna be able to get anywhere near him. They just ain’t that type. But you, my old friend, you’re exactly that type.” Don Paulie looked at Kerri and said, “And with all due respect—”
But Harden interrupted him. “What about European operatives? You’ve got connections in the Old Country, people who understand that part of the world.”
“That’s just the thing, Hard. I’m not sure I can trust them. The krauts could have gotten to any of them before I do. Then what?”
“Well, that’s our point,” Kerri said. “Let them find the guy and take him out themselves.”
“Because they’ve come to me to collect the debt,” Don Paulie said, clearly losing his patience with her interruptions.
“But the Germans wouldn’t hobble your efforts,” Harden said to Don Paulie. “They’d want you to bring the guy in. So why not reach out with confidence?”
“Hard, my Old Country connections were ready to act against me alongside Angela la Blanca. I can’t trust them. You’re the only person I really can trust!”
Harden gave it some thought, and Kerri knew what conclusion he was coming to. He asked, “What is it that you need me to do?”
Kerri asked, “Harden?”
But Don Paulie ignored her. “I need to get that maniac out of his lair, onto a plane, and bring him here. Once I personally turn him over, I’ll be well.”
Kerri asked, “Why not just send in an army of your men, blast the place to smithereens and drag out the dead body?”
“They want him alive,” Harden said. “A dead body won’t get Don Paulie off the hook.”
“That’s right,” Don Paulie said with a nod. “Also, in the chaos of a big hit like that, he could easily escape. That happens and he goes underground, I take the knife.”
The image turned Kerri’s stomach, but the idea of doing what this man was asking them to do was even worse.
“No,” Don Paulie went on, “I need somebody reliable to put their hands on him and bring him here personally. I can have an army of cars waiting out front to get you to the airport and outta the country, but I need somebody inside that club to get close enough to that Elias Olafssen to knock him out and drag his body out of that shit hole. And that has to be the kind of person who can get in to begin with, and hold their own among those cocky, moneyed Europeans.”
Kerri said, “I beg your pardon?”
“You’re an actress, ain’t ’cha? You can pull it off.”
“No,” Harden said, “I’ll go in alone. Don’t worry, Don Paulie, I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you, Hard.”
But Kerri said, “I don’t think so.”
Harden turned to her with all of his authority and stubbornness. “Excuse me?”
“If you’re going, I’m going. That’s all there is to it.”
Don Paulie said, “Hey, I really like this girl.”
But Harden shook his head. “It’s too dangerous, and you’re too well known.”
“I’ll cut my hair,” Kerri said decidedly, “real short, dye it black, get some contacts; I’ll look just like any of them.”
Don Paulie winked. “That’s the spirit, sweetheart.”
Chapter 8
The first thing to do was visit one of Fifth Avenue’s finest salons, where the over-the-shoulder length blond hair Kerri’d always worn would be cut down to a jagged pixie cut. At first Kerri felt a little nervous about it—those scissors approaching her shinny, golden locks. Kerri never thought of her
self as a vain person, and she never worked her hair the way a lot of girls did. She didn’t have to, which made it easy to take for granted; Kerri was only then realizing.
Once it was too late.
Snip, snip, snip. Childhood insecurities returned with every clip, locks of her hair falling to the shop floor. Snip, snip, snip.
Harden better truly love me now, she thought, smiling at her own silly doubt about that. The new hair color was another matter entirely.
They dyed it jet black and they added very subtle red highlights to give the overall color a natural look. Once they popped in the green contact lenses one of Don Paulie’s contacts managed to procure, Kerri looked into the mirror and barely recognized herself. She’d been changing; her evolution began the day she met Harden. But now she could see the physical manifestation of that change, and she was staring right back from the mirror’s reflective surface.
The pretty girl-next-door, who was the object of desire of so many screen murderers and video renters, was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Kerri looked at some wily adventuress, a spy girl right out of some sixties British TV drama.
Harden’s look needed less alteration. He was hardly on television at all, compared to the extensive coverage Kerri was always getting. They cut his hair back to a buzz cut on the sides, the top and front much shorter. Gone was that lock of black hair that sometimes hung over his face. A pair of wire-rimmed, round glasses did a lot to change his overall appearance, but they both knew that new clothes would go a long way toward disguising their true identities.
Kerri tried on a series of tight-fitting, enticing dresses. In a black leather zip-up minidress and thigh-high leather boots, Kerri felt aggressively sexy—that short black hair only increasing the drama of her appearance. In a red, deep V-cut party dress, Kerri was a sexy vamp with just a hint of vulnerability. She couldn’t ignore the feeling of being a girl playing dress-up, an actress being fitted for roles of women whose lives she’d never lead.
But this is my life, she had to remind herself. This isn’t some stupid dress-up game! Don’t get wrapped up in all this money and fashion, Kerri; there are lives at stake—Harden Steele and his wife’s first among them!
Harden sat quietly in a nearby chair, a flute of champagne in his hand, as he watched Kerri model outfit after outfit. He was nearly motionless, occasionally taking a sip from his flute, eyes silently locked on Kerri.
He was as in control as ever, and Kerri couldn’t help but recall her own fanciful theories about conspiracy murderers and high-speed chases to the death.
But that wasn’t all so fanciful, Kerri had to remind herself. Those skiers really were shooting at me in Switzerland! Somebody really was trying to destroy me and Harden, and ruin my movie. That fire was an arson after all, and poor Carl Harrington was murdered by that mafia princess. Those things really happened!
And what is all this masquerade for anyway? To go undercover into some Amsterdam sex club to kidnap the owner and get him out of the country to be tortured by some shadowy cabal that Harden said didn’t even exist?
No, this is a mistake; this is a terrible, terrible mistake.
I do trust Harden, of course, but there are things even he can’t control. But why do I get a gut feeling that he knew about the cabal and he didn’t tell me? How much else is there that I don’t know? Why hasn’t he told me? What’s really going on here?
Harden had their packages delivered to the hotel room. But before they arrived, Kerri sat Harden down and put a hand on his knee. Looking at him very calmly, eyes locking, she said, “Harden, we have to talk…about this trip.”
“You don’t want to go. Of course, I completely understand. And I agree. In fact, I’m relieved that you’ve finally come to your senses. I’ll fly out, you go back to Malibu, and I’ll—”
“No, Harden, no. If you’re going, I’m going with you, that’s just all there is to it. And what do you mean, come to my senses?”
“This is going to be dangerous, you know that. I’d much rather you stay home, where it’s safe.”
“Because you don’t think I can handle it? You don’t think I can take care of myself?”
Harden sighed. “No, Ker, in fact, the complete opposite. When it was you and Angela la Blanca, I was out like a light! You saved me; you saved us both! And before that, with that devious bastard George Hume, he bushwhacked me like I was a rookie! Believe me, Kerri, it’s not like I think of myself as invincible, some kind of corporate Superman. I’m just prepared, and lucky, with some private training. And that’s training you don’t even have. I mean, let’s face it, neither one of us is really qualified.”
“Then let’s not do it. Let’s hire somebody who is qualified. You’ve got all the money in the world, we could get some Israeli troops or something, or a Special Ops team.”
“It’s just not that simple,” Harden said, “and it won’t be necessary. You heard Don Paulie, he’ll send an army in to cover our escape; all we gotta do is slip the guy a mickey, make a cell call, and we’re done.”
“Then why are you so worried about me?”
“Because I love you, Kerri Steele. I love you more than anyone or anything, and the last thing I want is for you to be hurt or… I just can’t bare the thought of losing you, Kerri. This isn’t what I thought we’d be doing right now.”
“Oh? And what did you have in mind?” Kerri said curiously, awaiting his answer.
“How about a little normalcy?” Harden stood up and paced around the big hotel room. “Look at what you, what we’ve been through the past year or so: mob hits and double-crosses, international murder conspiracies, near death for us both! Believe it or not, I buy and sell tech stocks and real estate; I’m not James Bond and you’re not Batgirl!”
Kerri smiled. “No. But I love you in your tux…and I’d look pretty hot as Batgirl.” The two shared a chuckle, gently nuzzling as they stared out over the lights of New York. “But what about all this cabal stuff, Harden?”
“What about it?”
“Over the past year you’ve been saying there is no cabal, never mind any special rule you couldn’t break under threat of being tortured to death! What happened to, ‘They’re just a bunch of German bankers,’ Harden?”
“Well, I did say they were German.”
“Harden!”
“Kerri, I said they weren’t some gang of robe-wearing cultists, and they’re not. They’re like a cartel of investors who run this business through an escrow, White Gold Holdings. We’ve been over this.”
“Then what about the rule and all that, killing this guy the way they want to?”
“Okay, you’re right about that—it was a detail I didn’t share. But that rule, and any ramifications there are to breaking it, that’s exclusively for people on my side of the auction block. The auctioned subjects, like you, have to be protected. There are no rules about you or whatever you do; even if you break that particular rule, which no female has ever done.”
“What happens when a rich woman auctions a man?”
“The client takes the risk. But if they break the rule, they pay the price. We all know that. It keeps things…civil.”
“Civil? How much of this is at all civil?”
“Almost all of it.”
“Would you say what we did was civil?”
“No, and I’d hope you wouldn’t call it that either. But Kerri, there have to be rules.”
“What if there hadn’t been any rules? What would you have done to me then?”
Harden looked deep into Kerri’s eyes. “Do you really have to ask that? Do you really doubt me?”
Kerri didn’t have to think about it long. “No, Harden, no, I don’t doubt you, not at all. But…all this, I dunno.”
“Are you sure you want to go? You can still stay home, let me handle it,” Harden said assuredly.
“No, Harden, no. My place is by your side, where ever that is, whatever happens.”
Chapter 9
The Amsterdam morning opened up just as
Kerri and Harden stepped off his private jet and into the waiting limo, all the ugly business of international travel handled behind the scenes by his forever-unseen staff.
As usual, Harden and Kerri would be leaving them behind.
Outside the rented Audi convertible, Amsterdam’s gorgeous architecture of brownstone row-houses created a colorful urban patchwork. Bridges crossed the citywide canal system at almost every mile or so, ornate statues and street lamps helping to create the atmosphere of an era long-since lost to time. But this was the city of Anne Frank, the tragic child victim who became the face of Jewish oppression under Nazi tyranny. This was a city with one foot in the present, and one reaching deep into the past, beyond the Renaissance to the time of the druids, beyond the Dark Ages and even the mighty Roman Empire.
Cherry trees and hemlocks and other transplants lined the canals, reflected in its dark, briny waters. It was too early to simply storm the club, called Het Huis van Schaduwen, Dutch for The House of Shadows. Harden insisted they take just a little time for themselves first, the better to establish the cover of a disinterested couple of tourists who stumble upon the club instead of charging into town just to storm the place.
And Kerri couldn’t argue with his logic; she didn’t even want to.
The brine of the canals filled Kerri’s nostrils, their private boat carrying them slowly down that massive canal that encircled the entire city. They passed under bridges filled with bicyclists and pedestrians and past waterfront cafés where smiling diners would raise their drinks and toast the happy couple.
Families of ducks swam alongside the long canal boat, quacking and stuttering their little feathers. Harden and Kerri both chuckled and pointed at the little family: gray and black mother and father and several yellow, fluffy chicks. Harden and Kerri nuzzled and smiled, sharing a tender moment and inspiring Harden’s attention.
“Kerri, do you remember back in New York, during that handsome cab ride?”
Kerri nodded, a little lump rising in her throat. “What a lovely night,” was all she felt she needed to say, knowing the subject Harden was about to broach. It had been on her mind and in her heart for a long time, and now that fated conversation was about to take place.
Billionaire Bash: The Complete Steele Series Page 22