by Lenise Lee
A dull ache stabbed Marcello’s tight chest. The sting of a small tear dotted his eye. The guilt-ridden man did not want Marissa to see him in such a weakened state so he looked away. The velvety feel of her fingertips massaging his burning cheek brought his attention back to her. She slid closer while he rubbed his face deep into the warmth of her open palm.
“What happened after you escaped?”
Her soft and caring voice caressed the hurt and disgrace Marco had been carrying for so long. No one except another soldier can ever understand the terrible guilt of losing a comrade – a brother – on a bloody battlefield. Until now, Marco had never dared to pour out a single drop of his grief. His greatest fear was that he would never recover if his inner sorrow ever slipped out. However, fate must have brought this woman into his life for a purpose. She was the only person he was willing to freely share his shame with.
“We could not go back...we never recovered his body,” he sobbed. Remorseful tears trickled silently down his tan face. “I had to leave my own brother in the dirt while I ran for my life.”
The sheet separating their two nude bodies dropped from Marissa’s grip and fell to the bed. She opened her arms to him, and Marco quickly hid his face in the valley between her perfectly rounded toffee breasts. He pushed himself further into Marissa’s tender hold while she comforted him in her loving arms. After a much overdue bereavement, Marco finally wept for his loss and for his failure.
“You rescued the woman he loved,” Marissa said softly in his ear. Her fingers ran consoling circles across the hard muscles of his shoulders and lean torso. “Your brother would be thankful that you saved her life, even if you couldn’t save his.”
Her hands lifted and began a sensual stroke through the short edges of the hair at the nape of his neck. Marcello’s urge to claim this delicious woman flared up with feverish intensity again. A storm was brewing within him and Marissa had become both the cause of this blazing tempest and the cure required to appease his roaring passion. Marco’s probing fingers cupped the back of her neck, drawing Marissa’s face so close that only a single breath separated their quivering lips. He inhaled the air she pushed out between them in large gulps. In a heated rush, consuming flames of desire ignited between the couple. The hungry man quickly sealed the gap separating them then used his mouth to gently trace slow circles within her tinted lips. In response, Marissa’s slippery tongue dipped deep into Marcello’s hot mouth.
“Ti amo,” Marco moaned into her mouth. “Ti amo, Marissa,” he eagerly confessed.
The excited man rolled toward the center of the bed, pulling Marissa’s whimpering body with him. Using his strong hands, Marcello lifted her curvy hips and sat Marissa on top of his sweaty flat torso. He palmed his aching shaft then delicately eased his throbbing hardness between Marissa’s voluptuous mocha thighs. The instant his bulbous head slid inside her moist pink center, Marissa’s lower lips clamped down on him tight. She grabbed the bulging muscles of his upper back with a frantic grip, stirring Marco into a rabid craving. The sensation of her creamy juices coating his hardness overwhelmed Marcello’s feverish mind. As his wide shaft, pulsing with thick veins, sank into her slick walls and stretched them apart, a shower of euphoric tingles forced him to dig insanely deeper into her dripping channel. Marcello lifted his body up to suckle Marissa. Greedy lips were panting for a taste of her ebony breasts. With each chilling and sensual stroke inside his lover and after every teasing nip to her plump breasts, Marissa whimpered and moaned with breathless delight.
Just before his ecstasy climbed to its peak, Marco released Marissa’s breast from his mouth. He put his red lips to her soft throat and burrowed his hands into her long hair, pulling it back so he could push his face further against her moistened skin.
“Say it,” Marcello demanded. He would accept nothing less than her confession of absolute devotion to him from this day forth. “Give yourself to me, Marissa. Love me and I will protect you forever. I will give you everything I have until my dying day.”
Marissa’s head dipped forward, drawing his eyes to hers. Enchantment swirled in her hazel lenses, and Marco became trapped in their hypnotic charm.
“I love you, Marco,” she breathed out.
Her arousing confession summoned him to force one last intensely erotic plunge into her shivering core, up to the tip of her womb. Fire coursed through Marco’s veins. His seed burst from the tip of his slick head, driving the shrieking couple over the edge of exotic oblivion.
“Ti amo, Marissa!” Marco shouted his vow into the air as they screamed out their pleasure in unison.
Once their climax had been conquered, the couple had become bonded together forever. Marco pulled Marissa against his soaked chest to cradle his future bride in his arms. He was now bound by a new sense of duty, one that far outweighed any other oath he had ever taken before today. He would love Marissa until the day he passed from this earth. Until the moment when he had no breath remaining in his body, Marcello Rossi would never allow any living being to ever harm his true love…il suo vero amore.
While the early morning sun continued its slow drift across the steamy windowpane, and with the woman he loved napping securely in his adoring embrace, Marco fell into a peaceful sleep.
Chapter Twelve
Loose Ends
With one forceful blow, the villain kicked in the bedroom door. Two quick strides were all he needed to cross the room within the Central Park West condo. The instant the other man attempted to jump from the bed, the rabid killer put the barrel of a silencer to his target’s temple.
“Move and your brain will hit the pillow before you do.”
The other man whimpered through his nose, too frightened to open his mouth and release the sniveling noise. When he stared into his male victim’s eyes, the villain almost laughed at the cowardly man. The pathetic fool was only seconds away from crying out a useless plea for his life.
“You have been very bad, Julius,” the killer spoke from between a thin-lipped smile. “Sending me those terrible messages…refusing to pay me my finder’s fee…convincing my beloved to betray me. Did you really think I would simply slink off into the dark without coming to find you? Your bosses will miss your services for no more than a minute or two before they replace you. However…no worries…you will not be alone in death for long, I will be visiting each of them soon too. I should end you right now, shouldn’t I?”
The question prompted the other man to actually believe he had a choice regarding his fate. As Julius coughed violently and swiftly shook his head no several times, tendrils of hair, drenched with cold sweat, matted themselves to the sides of his forehead.
“Bang,” the cruel voice declared, “you are dead. Why? Because I already told you…not…to…move.”
The former special agent pushed the tip of the gun forward at a snail’s pace, forcing the frigid metal deeper into his victim’s wet forehead. He was purposefully dragging out the action so that the frightened man could feel his life slowly slipping away.
“Should we try this again?” The air remained gravely silent. He smiled down at the semi-nude man. “You are catching on. I will end you, but not at the moment. First, you have some work to do for me. I have loose ends that need to be tied off. Pay careful attention to what is going to happen next, because one more slip and my smiling face is the last image you will ever see. If you play well this time, I just may hold off on pulling this trigger a while longer. Understand?”
More silence greeted him. Psychotic glee accompanied the wicked adrenaline running through the rogue’s icy veins. He reveled in the control dripping from his fingertips. The killer pulled the silencer back only far enough for the hostage to lift himself up from the bed, but he kept the second man’s head within deadly aim.
“Get dressed. I will give you all the details on the ride to the hotel.”
“Marissa, my love…” Marco whispered, “Open your beautiful eyes.”
He was kneeling beside their bed, delicatel
y brushing his lady’s soft hair. The noonday sun filtered through the window at a tilted angle, casting an angelic halo across Marissa’s sweet face. When her eyelashes fluttered slightly but remained closed, Marco leaned forward and kissed her smooth brow. Another few seconds passed before his sentiment finally began to pull the woman from her deep sleep.
“Marco.” Marissa smiled up at him, gracing the infatuated man with the gentle caress of her lovely hazel-shaded gaze.
When she reached forward to touch his cheek, Marcello turned his face and kissed the center of her palm. Her smile lifted then Marissa moved in to taste his lips, and he eagerly returned her adoring kiss. Their tender embrace was over far too quickly. Reluctantly, Marcello pulled away and stared longingly into Marissa’s angel eyes. After one passionate union, he was already endlessly devoted to the woman lying in front of him.
“I must leave, sweetheart,” he said. Marcello used his lips to caress her tiny knuckles after he spoke. Silently, he daydreamed of placing a precious gem on his woman’s beautiful ring finger.
“Where are you going? What’s going on?”
Marissa sat up straighter. The sight of her sumptuous nude form evoked another wave of arousal within Marcello. Quickly, he pushed down the erotic flame before it became too powerful and too heated for him to control.
“I must return to the police station. My team has just phoned me. They have reports I need to review.”
“Okay,” she nodded. “I guess I should go down to my apartment and get some clothes…maybe grab a few personal items.”
“No,” Marco’s frenzied voice cut her sentence short. He cupped Marissa’s chin and stared intently into her eyes. “Marissa, I do not want you to leave this suite, at least not without me. I will have a member of my unit bring or buy whatever you need to feel comfortable. You are safe from danger only behind these doors. The only people in this building who can be trusted are myself and the two men standing in the hallway.” He saw the look of hesitation on her face. “Per favore,” Marcello ran a palm over her flushed hazelnut cheek, “do this for me, Marissa. The man who has become my nemesis is still roaming around somewhere out there. I need to catch him but, more importantly, I need to keep you safe as well. He has killed once and I have no doubt that he will do so again. He wants the jewels and he will ruthlessly stalk whoever he believes has them in their possession. As of right now, that list only consists of the people who have direct access to the vault or to the hotel room I shared with Katerina. However, only one person on this list is the woman I love and have sworn to protect at all costs.”
His renewed oath cheered the woman’s sullen face. Her bright smile lifted some of the worry and tension from his heavy chest.
“Alright, I’ll stay here and wait for you.”
“Grazie,” Marcello replied with a pleased grin. “Your clothing will be on its way up soon.” He placed a moist kiss on her brow. “When I leave, be sure to turn the manual lock on the door. Open this door for no one other than myself or one of my men.”
Marissa nodded her head to signal that she understood. Marcello touched her warm face one final time then exited the suite and headed toward the police station.
Chapter Thirteen
Paper Trail
The second after Agent Marcello Antoni Rossi entered the makeshift crime lab, the droning noises from the hectic conversations of his forensic and data technicians came to a halt. He spoke his directions to the first pair of eyes his sight landed on in the crowded room.
“Tell me everything you have so far.”
An African-American woman in her twenties was the first to respond.
“We reviewed all the footage from the hotel’s security cameras and traced all the calls and emails that were sent and received from the computers, office phones, plus the business and personal cells of the supervisors and the manager on the date you and Agent Corvino arrived.”
“Give me the update on the data transmissions first,” Marco quickly replied.
A thirty-something blond woman read her findings to him.
“The hotel manager, Dennis Schaeffer, spoke to his wife a few times from his office line. The night shift supervisor sent over a dozen emails to various family members and friends from the front desk terminal. One of the day supervisors, Marissa Stiles, texted and phoned her sister, Jasmine Stiles, and another woman named Nichole Edwards Raven several times. And the second daytime supervisor, Julius Smith, only had two phone calls the entire day.”
“To whom?”
“When he was at a doctor’s office on Lafayette Street, he received an incoming call from a prepaid number on his private cell. About an hour and a half later, he called a unit at the hotel registered to Marissa Stiles.”
Marco’s heart missed a beat.
“He called her apartment?”
“Not the apartment we have on file for her,” the black woman responded. “He called another employee suite on the third floor, one floor above Ms. Stiles’ unit. Both are registered to her personnel ID number.”
Marco wrinkled his brow.
“That makes no sense. You are saying she is registered to two apartments within the hotel.”
“Exactly,” the blond woman continued. “As of Friday morning...the day of your arrival...Marissa Stiles was registered in two units at La Grande Roi. Data records from the hotel’s CPU indicate that, at 0800 hours, Ms. Stiles deactivated the serial number on her personnel ID card then activated a new card and number. She logged in the new serial and badge as a replacement and coded them for access to her original employee apartment on the second floor...the first one we had listed for her in our records. At 12:05 PM, the serial number from her first badge...the one she disabled...was reactivated and assigned to a separate apartment on the third floor.”
“By whom?” The answer was obvious, but Marco required verbal confirmation.
“Julius Smith.”
While Marco’s brain quickly sorted the pieces together, one of the male data analysts jumped into the fast-paced discussion.
“There’s more,” he said. “We received the financial records for the four people we just named. Only one of them has a record of Certificate of Deposits spread out over several personal accounts that add up to a total of a quarter of a million US dollars…Julius Smith.”
Marco looked to a distant corner of the room. He pinched the tip of his chin as he mentally scanned through the information reported to him. Was Julius Smith the villain he had been seeking? Could routine data searches have unmasked a criminal mastermind so easily? No, there had to be more. Before his arrival to the hotel, Marco had studied each of the supervisors and their manager closely, monitoring their habits and observing their personalities. Julius Smith was by no means a cold-hearted killer. In addition, Marco knew that well-documented research on criminal psychology conclusively stated that strangulation is an act of devious passion. Whoever murdered Katerina had been close enough to grab her without the trained female agent ever realizing the danger the man posed. He must have been someone she knew well and had no reason to fear. Nevertheless, this person had developed a sudden and uncontrollable hatred for the woman. Someone was still missing from this complicated equation.
“What else?” Marco turned his attention to the excited team again.
“We finally decrypted the content and the IP addresses from the instant messages,” one of the women answered. “One of the computer’s belongs to Mr. Smith, but the only information we could track for the second user was that his or her computer was located within the hotel during the time of use and the name the person used as an ID was RAM. The messages stated that Smith discovered the merchandise he received from RAM was a forgery. He refused payment to the seller and planned on keeping the faked goods.”
This new piece of evidence offered no insights for him, so Marco moved on to the remaining details.
“What about the security footage? Go back to that. Did you find anything?”
“Yes and no,” the blond an
alyst replied.
“Elaborate, please.”
Marco’s mood had turned edgy; he had no time to spare for word games.
“The only unusual detail about the footage was you, sir.”
Confusion jumbled his face.
“What do you mean?”
“You asked us to go back thirty minutes before you and Agent Corvino entered the hotel, correct?” Marco nodded that this was so. “Well, that’s exactly what we did. We watched every second of the film then double-checked our findings. Based on the footage we received, it looks as if you walked into the building twice. The first time was fifteen minutes into the video…You were alone then walked into the lobby and mingled with the crowd. Another fifteen minutes passed by…You walked in again...This time you were with Agent Corvino, then you approached the concierge desk.”
“It gets weirder.” The male technician wearing eyeglasses moved his rolling desk chair from behind his station. “During the rest of the video, you’re walking around in places where you weren’t supposed to be...like on the third floor, near the employee apartments. Sometimes you’re on the footage twice…in two separate shots…on separate floors, but within the same timeframe. For instance, during the period when the police CSI unit believe Agent Corvino’s murder occurred, you appear to leave the room you shared with her, return, then leave the room again. You’re also seen exiting Ms. Stiles’ apartment immediately after the time of the robbery.”
Dread raked over Marco’s mind. Impossibile…impossibile, he repeated the word to himself over and over.