Lorna Tedder
Page 11
I twisted to look in the backseat. A blanket? I hadn’t noticed it before. Not in the dark. A deep, sleek navy-blue with a small crimson emblem embroidered at evenly spaced intervals. Two columns and a star behind them.
The Adriano family logo.
It was more than a blanket, though. More like a silken slipcover over a goose-down comforter. It exuded luxury. Owing to its dark color, the blanket hadn’t been noticeable in the night. Myrddin must have brought it with him.
Then it moved. Someone was under it!
Without thinking, I reached for my keys to form a bear-claw weapon, but the Mercedes key was nothing more than an oblong chunk of black plastic over a computer chip. No metal.
Before I could scramble for any other makeshift weapons to defend myself, a pair of tiny hands gripped the upper edge of the blanket and pulled downward. The biggest puppy-dog eyes I’ve ever seen stared up at me.
Benny. The littlest Adriano. The heir to their philanthropic empire and more.
Oh, God. I pressed my fingers to my lips. What the hell was the child doing in my car? He’d been playing hide-and-seek with Eric. He couldn’t possibly have gotten into my car by himself. It was too long a way for a child so small, especially at night. He wasn’t even big enough to lug that blanket by himself!
He spoke softly in Italian, something about his mother. Benny sniffed a few times, then realized I was the “pretty lady” who’d spoken English with Eric. “I want my mother. I want my mother now.”
Realizing I’d frozen at the sight of him, I shook myself. I left the groceries in the passenger seat and quickly scrambled into the back with him, gathering his tiny body to mine.
“It’s okay, sweetie. It’s okay.”
He nodded as I stroked his brown hair. He was so tiny, so innocent. I remembered those days with Lilah, the way she was always underfoot and clinging close to me for fear of strangers and monsters. Poor Benny was unaware that he lived among the monsters.
His body went stiff against mine. “Want my mother.”
“It’s okay, honey.” I let him get a good look at my face. “I was just at your mommy and daddy’s house last night. Remember? I was the nice lady with the juice you didn’t like?”
I saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. He nodded and relaxed against me. “Still want my mother,” he whimpered, his voice catching.
“I know, sweetie. I know. It’s okay. I’ll get you back to your mommy.”
What was I promising? Take him back? The Adrianos would shoot me on sight. But I had to. Tagging along with me was no place for a frightened little boy. Or any little boy. Or any child at all. In my line of work, I had no business being around children at all.
I took a deep breath and bit into my bottom lip. God, what now? If Myrddin hadn’t bailed on me, I could have sent him back with the child or at least gotten close enough to the palazzo to bribe someone into taking Benny back to Josh and Pauline.
“Look, Benny…sweetie…I’m going to see if I can find someone to take you back, okay?” Maybe I could find a courier. Pay them well. Well enough, anyway, to deliver the boy unharmed.
“No, you take me back. You take me to my mother.”
“I—I can’t!” How could I explain to him? Though he was destined to grow up to be as ruthless as Simon, he was a little boy, an innocent, with no concept of danger. Certainly the Adrianos knew already that I was gone, that Myrddin was gone and that their precious artifacts were gone. Once they realized Benny was no longer on the premises, they’d do the math and know he was most likely with me. If I returned to the palazzo, they’d shoot first and ask questions later.
Surely they’d know by now that Benny was gone. The Adrianos loved their cameras, as at least one sex scandal had proven. They weren’t fond of paparazzi cameras and they preferred to stage their photo-ops for their philanthropic galas. They no longer liked cameras in the bedrooms, but I had the distinct impression Caleb had secretly videotaped his carnal pleasures with me, probably so he could watch over and over how he technically had taken my life and given it back to me.
The only place I hadn’t seen cameras in the palazzo was in the vault itself and in the passageway that Myrddin had led me down. Simon had told me once that no one was allowed inside the vault and that not even his security team knew what was inside. I knew, of course, because so much of the contents was acquired by me personally, but he didn’t trust his own security team. Their job was to watch the vault entrance, not to admire its contents. The fewer employees who knew exactly what was stashed in that vault, the better.
As for the passageway, it made sense that it, too, was without cameras. Especially if Myrddin was right that no one there knew about it.
Once they’d realized their heir was missing, the Adrianos surely would have checked the security cameras and would know Benny had made his way to my car somehow. They’d know he was with me. Never mind the priceless artifacts I’d taken from their vault—even if they were mine or partly mine—kidnapping their most precious treasure would be grounds for immediate execution.
The Adrianos guarded their pedigree with a ferocity that led back to a bloodline of kings. The family had little use for daughters. Maybe for a political alliance. Sons were preferred, imperative. Legitimate sons. Rumor had it their bastards were killed at birth—if they lived that long.
If an Adriano could bear at least three legitimate sons, even better. One became the heir to the Adriano empire. Another son was often planted with unscrupulous leaders in the Church or the government with the intent that he could gain some control that would benefit the family as a whole. All the other sons were spares in case of foul play or unforeseen circumstances.
Aaron, Simon’s eldest, had died. Unnatural causes, of course. Adrianos rarely died of old age. Simon had then chosen as his heir the son who fathered the first grandson—in this case, Joshua. Caleb didn’t have a solid place.
That’s where Caleb, much to his dismay, fit into the family structure. A spare. Of course, he was angry. He had something to prove. He was too much of a playboy for a life with the church and too likely to cause another scandal for a career in politics. He didn’t fit well anywhere within the Adrianos’ fifty-year plan and had fallen out of favor with his father in the past year. Joshua was now the perfect son—reliable, responsible, appropriately behaved—and he’d produced a perfect heir with Pauline. Caleb’s real worth was only if Benny died and he could produce another heir before his brother did.
“Want my mother,” Benny blubbered into my velvet dress.
I stroked his hair. “It’s okay, sweetie. I’ll get you your mommy.”
Though it was hard for me to imagine any child wanting Pauline as a mother. She’d always seemed so cold, so distant, so intent on her social life and her place in the Adriano household. Then again, I suppose some people might see me as cold and distant for not being with my daughter. Didn’t mean I didn’t love her.
Pauline, for all her faults, would certainly be devastated to find her baby boy gone, though possibly more so because he was an insurance policy that kept her position safe. I’d heard a black-eyed servant girl—she’d had a thing for Caleb—talking once about the possibility that Benny was not Joshua’s son but Simon’s. I never saw that servant again.
I hugged Benny to me. I couldn’t just leave him in a strange city with strange people. Maybe I could sneak back, hide the car and take Benny up the hidden staircase to the vault and leave him there with his blanket. He’d be safe in the vault for a couple of hours. They’d find him after I had a chance to escape a second time and all would be well. Except this time they’d be watching for me. Probability of success was nil.
But what else could I do? I could feel the gears of my priorities grinding, chewing me up. I had to keep Lilah safe—as a mother, that was always my top priority. Second to that, I had artifacts that I’d been told couldn’t be allowed back into Simon’s hands. And third, there was my own future. Getting away from the Adrianos, starting over, reclaiming m
y life, having a second chance to live as an honest woman among honest people. And now a little boy was asking me to help him. I couldn’t just toss him aside and run off to the nice, safe life I yearned for. How could I do that and ever look in the mirror again?
“Sweetie? Are you hungry?” I reached into the front seat and grabbed an orange. “Would you like some fruit?”
He nodded enthusiastically while I opened a bottle of water and offered it to him. He gulped the water, and after seeing the backwash in it that children tend to leave, I decided to let him keep the bottle. I peeled the orange and fed him half the slices, eating the other half myself, and then wiped his sticky face.
“I want you to be a big boy for me,” I encouraged. “I’ll find someone who can take you back to your mother.”
“No!” He shook his head and poked out that petulant lower lip. I recognized a faint resemblance to his uncle Caleb. “Want you to. You take me to my mother. Not supposed to be wid strangers. My father says.”
Typical Adriano male—insistent, not knowing how to take no for an answer.
Benny made a face and I knew what he wanted. I’d have to find a latrine for him. Any café would want me to stop and buy a cup of coffee at the very least. I’d done that once already and didn’t want to call further attention to myself by going back, this time with a child I hadn’t had with me before.
I sighed and looked around the alley, finally spotting a small chapel in the corner beyond the Mother Mary fresco. A priest who looked older than Myrddin stood at the door and nodded to me when I caught his gaze. I knew just enough Italian to ask for directions to latrines, gas stations and airports and I would have to fuel the car soon.
With as many assurances as I could make, I sent Benny to the priest to ask for help and smiled sheepishly back at the elderly man. He listened to Benny’s Italian—which was much better than his English—then closed his eyes and nodded. The priest disappeared through the chapel doorway with the child.
I ducked back into the car for a bottle of pom juice and as I reemerged—half standing, half bent to keep from straining my knee—I came face-to-face with Eric Cabordes.
Chapter 9
For the third time in less than a day, he held a gun on me.
I dropped the bottle. Plastic, it bounced and skittered under the car. Neither of us looked down. Neither of us breathed.
He pointed the revolver at my heart but kept the weapon low, hidden between himself and the car door so no one else could see it. He stood closer to me than a lover. With all the people passing us on the street, all going about their daily lives, none of them knew how much trouble I was in at that moment.
Mentally I kicked myself. I should have planned ahead. I shouldn’t have let myself focus so long on the child. Shouldn’t have let my emotions get in the way. I was a sucker for children, and look where it had gotten me. Most recently, at the end of Eric Cabordes’s barrel.
“Don’t move,” he instructed in a voice as low as a growl.
I couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark sunglasses, but I imagined them as I remembered. Pale blue. Intense. Deadly. He’d let me go, just to catch up with me? Was that how he got his kicks? The chase? Couldn’t blame him for that.
“Do you have the artifacts?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
I said nothing. I didn’t even glance in the direction of the trunk. So much for the child’s bodyguard being interested in the boy. It was all about the mundane treasures, wasn’t it?
He grabbed the neckline of my dress, hand halfway down my cleavage, and pulled me upright. The revolver pressed hard against my thigh. “Answer me.”
“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth.
I looked harder, tried to see through the sunglasses. The outline of his eyes. I saw my own face in the reflecting shades. Defiant, searching, ready to run.
In the few seconds he pressed against me, I took in as much information as I could. Something would be useful. It always was. He smelled like the leather jacket he wore. His chest heaved in deep, measured breaths. Ah. Eric Cabordes wasn’t nearly as calm as he wanted me to believe. And that was useful.
“And the child? I saw him talking to the priest.”
That was a pleasant surprise. So he’d already seen that Benny was safe. He hadn’t needed to ask about the child before the artifacts. Maybe my intuition was right—he was smitten with the boy.
The bodyguard held up his cell phone with his free hand but didn’t dial. It was an odd gesture, a calculated one.
“In the latrine. He’s—he’s fine. I didn’t kidnap him. He was a stowaway.”
“Quiet!” His glasses fell forward on his nose, and I got a good look at his eyes and the strange fire that was incongruous with the tone of his voice. Amusement? “You expect anyone to believe you didn’t kidnap Benny for a healthy ransom?” he spat out.
“It’s the truth.” He’d been there. He’d seen me put the artifacts in the trunk. Eric Cabordes knew I hadn’t touched the boy.
“What would you know about the truth? The Duke took you in. He gave you a new life. A lucrative one. And this is how you repay him? Kidnapping his grandson? Stealing assets from his private collection? If you’ve harmed one hair on Benny’s head…” He holstered the gun and then slapped the headrest behind me—hard. “If you’ve hurt that little boy, I’ll take you out myself.”
I stared at him. His movements were deliberate. So were his words. “I told you—” I started.
“Shut up, bitch!” He slapped the headrest again, and I almost fell backward into the driver’s seat. “You don’t look so fine now with a bloody nose, do you?”
But he hadn’t touched me. I instinctively felt my nose and upper lip for blood and found none. I frowned up at Eric Cabordes, and he answered me with a wink.
“Stop struggling!” he snarled, making an elaborate gesture to me and to the phone in his hand. “You want me to hit you again?”
What the hell? What kind of game was he playing?
“No,” I managed. “No. I’ll do…I’ll do what you want.”
“Good.” He thumbed open his cell phone and pressed a button. He didn’t take his eyes off me.
“Duke,” he said into the phone. “I have her. I have everything, including Benedict…. Yes, I’m on my way back now. I just have to throw the bitch in the trunk and we’ll be at the palazzo in a few hours.” He watched me watching him. “You want her alive or should I go ahead and…? No. I understand. She’s Caleb’s.”
He snapped the phone closed and cocked his head, still speaking toward it. “Stop kicking! I said—” He hurled the cell phone at the alley wall. It slammed into the stone and shattered on the pavement. A girl on the street ran the other way without looking back.
I froze. Okay, I didn’t know what his game was, but I wasn’t sticking around for it. The man was crazy. The boy was safe. And I had no doubt the boy would be safe with the man even if I wasn’t. He knew where Benny was and he could take Benny back. Me? I was getting the hell out of there and to Cat’s as soon as possible. It would be nice to see a sane, somewhat friendly face.
“Benny’s in the chapel,” I offered quickly. Eric glanced over his shoulder, and in that moment I shoved him backward with one foot, jammed the key into the ignition and pulled the door closed behind me all at once.
He jerked the door back open. He grabbed my left wrist and held it, leaning into my face. His sunglasses tumbled forward and fell into my lap. “Don’t do that,” he snarled. “I’m trying to help you.” He reached over me and snatched my key, careful to keep his revolver out of my reach.
“Is that why you just went all homicidal on your cell phone?” I glanced at the bits of metal on the sidewalk. It wasn’t even recognizable as a phone. I didn’t know phones had that many parts. “You were trying to help me?”
He shrugged but didn’t let go of my wrist. It hurt. I pulled away, but he held firm.
“That wasn’t an ordinary cell phone. It was an Adriano phone.”
Eric Cabordes didn’t crack a smile. “Adriano cell phones are programmed to act as recording devices. They can be activated remotely, even when you think they’re off. The Adrianos do it all the time.” He released my wrist. “And I’m certain that my cell phone was activated as a recording device the moment I left the palazzo.”
“Then that was all…an act?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Would you prefer I slap you for real? I will if I have to. To save your life.”
“No, that’s okay. I can do without the slapping. But the conversation you had with Simon? Telling him you were bringing me in? For—” I gritted my teeth “—Caleb’s entertainment?”
“Didn’t matter. I’m sure Simon and Caleb were listening to every word said, both before and after I ended the call.” He paused. “That’s why I needed to be convincing.”
I tried to think of the last time I’d used a cell phone. Caleb had given me one as a gift several years ago and I’d purposely left it in a train station. Simon had offered me one for various assignments and I’d turned him down. I’d deliberately stayed away from cell phones because of Interpol. Certain audio software can detect a human voice pattern—which is as individual as a fingerprint—via airwaves and detect the speaker’s location within a few feet. Global Positioning Systems—or GPS—combined with smart weapons made high-tech killing as impersonal as a video game but most definitely real. Governments secretly used this method for assassination plots all the time. I’d been very careful, using only landlines and a message service, so maybe I was safe from the übersurveillance of the Adrianos.