“You’re cute when you’re speechless, Angel. Can’t wait to see what happens when I get down on one knee and—”
“Stop it! And stop calling me Angel! Get off me!”
“No, no, and no.” He refuses to budge as I try to wrestle him off. The damn man is too big, too strong, and too stubborn to move an inch.
In that maddeningly reasonable way he has, he continues. “You think this kinda shit happens every day? You think two people meet and have thermonuclear chemistry and make each other laugh and have mind-blowing sex, and then one of them steals a fifteen-million-dollar necklace and disappears and the other one finds the first one within a few days and breaks into her hotel room and almost gets stabbed but ends up on top of her in bed?”
I don’t respond because I’m too mind-fucked to answer.
“The answer to all that is no,” Ryan says. “Now get on board, Angel, because this train has already left the station.”
After a long time, I manage to speak. “Who told you how much the necklace was worth?”
He sighs like I’m the biggest idiot who’s ever lived. “You have a bad habit of focusing on all the wrong things, you know that?”
I blow out a breath and close my eyes because my clomping heart is making me dizzy. “That’s an amazing offer, cowboy,” I say in a strangled voice, “but I can’t leave with you. It would be a death sentence for someone I love.”
He’s quiet for a moment, stroking a thumb over my earlobe, then he presses the softest of kisses to my jaw. “Mariana, I can help you. That isn’t bullshit. It isn’t ego. It’s the truth. I’ve got a team of badass motherfuckers trained by the United States military in heroics and general mayhem who can be here within hours to back me up. We’ll get your people, and then we’ll get the fuck outta Dodge.”
“There’s nowhere I can run! They’ll find me!”
“Who will?”
I open my eyes. Ryan stares down at me with dangerous intensity burning in his gaze. It breaks my heart how serious he is about helping me.
He doesn’t realize I’m a lost cause, or that I’ve already got one foot out the window.
“The monsters.”
“Not if I get them first.”
I want to scream in frustration. “You don’t understand—”
“So educate me.”
“I can’t!”
“You keep sayin’ that word. Like you forgot you have somethin’ called free will.”
“Free will is for people who haven’t sworn blood oaths to—”
The bitter words die in my mouth. Horror at my blunder rises up in their place. When I look up at Ryan, a wolf is looking back down at me.
“Blood oath?” he repeats, deadly soft. “We talkin’ Cosa Nostra? The Sicilian mob?”
My entire body breaks out in goose bumps. “No,” I say firmly.
His laugh is short and dark. “Oh, okay. Sure. That was totally believable.”
I turn my face to his arm and close my eyes again, cursing myself for my stupidity and him for seeing through me like a pane of clear glass, which no one—with the possible exception of Reynard—ever does.
“So this is good. We’re makin’ progress! Now all you gotta do is tell me who else we’re takin’ with us and—”
“Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
I swallow a sob. “Make it sound like a hypothetical. Like it could actually happen. I stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago.”
Ryan takes my face in his hands. “Maybe they didn’t stop believin’ in you,” he says softly.
When he kisses me, it’s like a promise. Like he’s making a blood oath of his own.
This man is going to be the death of me.
I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him back with everything I have, my heart shattering into a million jagged pieces.
Because his kiss is a promise, but mine is a goodbye.
Fourteen
Ryan
Just when I’m about to rip off all her clothes, Mariana breaks the kiss and looks away, embarrassed. “Um. I have to…before we…I have to go to the bathroom.”
“I really don’t care if you shaved your legs or not, sweetheart.”
“I have to pee!”
“Well, why didn’t you just say so?” I sit up, help her sit up, and grin at her, because she’s wearing a look like she can’t decide whether or not to smack me or start kissing me again.
Then I catch sight of her neck, mottled with bruises above the collar of the hideous turd-colored sweater she’s wearing, and my grin dies a quick death.
Whoever the bastard is that did that to her, he’s gonna have to answer to me.
And then he’s gonna wish he’d never been born.
“It looks worse than it is,” she mutters, covering her throat with her hand. Before I can say anything, she goes into to the bathroom and closes the door. The water turns on. I picture her standing at the mirror looking at her bruised neck with those big, beautiful eyes, and I want to break all the furniture in the room with my bare hands.
I blow out a hard breath and stand, turning on the bedside lamp. I can’t stay in one place, so I start to pace. I remove my leather jacket, toss it onto a chair, and listen to the sound of the toilet flushing.
There’s nowhere I can run. They’ll find me. It would be a death sentence for someone I love.
Whatever shit she’s mixed up in, it’s bad. And if it’s really Cosa Nostra, it’s pretty much the worst it could be. The real Italian Mafia makes The Sopranos look like Sesame Street.
Thinking about it makes me antsy. I go to the sliding-glass door of the balcony and step out into the cool, misty night. The fresh air is bracing. Even at this hour, the sounds of taxis honking and people talking drift up from the street below. Like New York, London is a city that never sleeps.
I don’t know how long I stand there looking out at the city lights, but at some point it occurs to me that Mariana is taking a really long time to pee.
I whirl around and stare at the closed bathroom door. I’m across the room in a few seconds, knocking on it.
“Angel? You okay in there?”
No response.
Fuck.
I try the door handle. Locked. “Mariana?”
Nothing.
“Okay. You wanna do this the hard way? We’re doin’ it the hard way.” I step back, wind up, and give the door a brutal kick.
It splinters off its hinges and flies open, crashing to the tiled floor with an echoing boom. I stride into the bathroom, my head whipping from side to side, already knowing what I’ll find.
Or, more correctly, what I won’t find.
“This fuckin’ broad,” I mutter, staring at the open window above the bathtub. It’s the old-fashioned, claw kind, made of cast iron, heavy as a cement coffin. Around one of the feet is tied the corner of a bedsheet.
The rest of the bedsheet hangs out the window.
I rush to the tub, jump in, and lean over the windowsill. Sheets dangle all the way to the manicured boxwood shrubs planted along the side of the building two stories below. An elderly couple with a Corgi on a leash are staring up at me from the sidewalk. The dog is staring at me, too.
The man’s voice drifts up on a current of cool air. “Lost something, have you, mate?”
His wife titters. I resist the urge to flip them off.
Mariana is nowhere to be seen.
I don’t bother asking the couple if they saw the direction she ran. I simply withdraw into the bathroom, untie the knot from the foot of the tub, toss the sheet out the window, and pull the window shut. Then I go into the other room and turn on the TV.
She said she had the room for the night, after all. Pity to waste it. Besides, I need to give her a head start.
What’s that old saying about giving someone just enough rope to hang himself?
I call room service and order a cheeseburger and a beer. Then I pull my cell phone from the pocket inside my jacket and navigate to the
The screen glows with a red dot, moving steadily south of the Ritz.
Smiling, I settle into the big armchair in front of the TV and wait for my food.
* * *
Standing across the street from Mallory & Sons Heritage Auctions in the morning fog, I think it could be a different century for how old-fashioned the place looks. Even the street feels like something out of a period movie, with its gas lamps and cobblestones. Only the taxi trundling by ruins the illusion. I almost expected a horse and carriage to turn the corner instead.
A cheerful bell rings when I push through the front door. The place smells like incense and old books. Jazz plays softly in the background. A man looks up from a big oak counter carved with a weird battle scene involving dragons and meets my gaze with a level one of his own.
We size each other up.
He’s somewhere north of fifty, neither young or old, neither handsome or ugly, dressed in an average dark-blue suit. Joe Average.
I get the sense his average appearance is carefully crafted.
I also get the sense he’s been expecting me.
Strolling in his direction, I take in everything about the room, including the security cameras masquerading as speakers on the walls. When I get to the counter, I lean my elbow on it and give him a corn-fed, backcountry dumbass smile meant to convey I’m not a threat, and might even be a little slow on the uptake.
He stares at me. His left eyebrow slowly lifts into a condescending arch. In a tone so dry it’s practically dust, he says, “Is that what they’re teaching in the American military now? How subtle. I’ve seen bulldozers with more finesse.”
I instantly decide I like him. “Haven’t been in the military for a long time, pal,” I reply. “I’m just a smiler.”
His tone grows even more disapproving. “The smiling American. How cliché.”
“I’m anything but a cliché, friend,” I say softly. “Where is she?”
His lips purse. He exhales a small, annoyed breath. If he rolls his eyes, I might have to punch him in the face.
“She?” he repeats, a little cattily, I think.
“Mariana.”
He blinks, taken aback, but quickly recovers, smoothing a hand over his tie as his face shifts into a neutral expression.
“You’re surprised she told me her real name.” I’m feeling all kinds of macho and self-satisfied. I resist the urge to puff out my chest and calmly gaze at him instead.
He folds his hands on the counter and drills me with a look. “If you knew her the way I know her, you’d be surprised, too.” His gaze drifts over my leather bomber jacket to my jeans, then flicks up to my hair, which I combed by dragging my fingers through it. His mouth takes on the shriveled appearance of a prune. “You’d be very surprised indeed.”
I dig that he’s not trying to pretend he doesn’t know who I’m talking about. And I don’t take it personally that he obviously thinks Mariana’s too good for me. We’re pretty much on the same page there.
Even if she is an international jewel thief wanted by all the police.
I straighten, fold my arms across my chest, and smile wider.
He closes his eyes and shakes his head.
“Listen, buddy—”
“It’s Reynard,” he interrupts. “Please refrain from calling me any more nicknames. A grinning American addressing me as friend, buddy, and pal is quite literally my definition of hell.”
“No need to get pissy. And what d’you have against Americans, anyway? We saved your asses in World War II. If it wasn’t for us, you’d all be speaking German.”
“Let’s not get into a debate about history, Mr. McLean. I never enter into a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.”
Bypassing the zinger—which I have to admit is a good one—I say smugly, “So she told you about me.”
From his coat pocket, Reynard withdraws a pair of glasses. Snooty as shit, he puts them on and looks down his nose at me. “Don’t flatter yourself. I looked you up in a database.”
By now my grin must be blinding. “But you had to know my name in order to look me up.”
After a pause, he says, “I’m jealous of all the people who haven’t met you.”
“Tell me where she is.”
His irritation is palpable. “Mr. McLean—”
“I can help her,” I insist, bracing my arms on the counter and getting into his face. “Whatever trouble she’s in, I can get her out of it.”
He stares at me for a long time, his gaze sharp and assessing. “You’re an interesting man, Mr. McLean, I’ll give you that. But you seem to be operating under the mistaken impression that your help is wanted.”
“You talkin’ about you, or her?”
A muscle in his jaw flexes. “I think it’s time for you to leave.”
I drop the nice-guy act. “And I think it’s time for you to realize that dumb motherfuckers who stand in the way of something I want have extremely shortened lifespans,” I growl. “Tell me where she is and where she lives, or I’ll break every bone in your body.”
His patience finally snaps. Eyes blazing with fury, he whips off his glasses and lays into me.
“This might surprise you, you gargantuan idiot, but you’re not the first man on earth to threaten my life, nor would you be the first to cause me harm for protecting her. And if you had even one functioning brain cell, you’d realize that a woman in her position would never tell anyone where she lived—especially someone like me, who could be pressured by someone like you into giving up that information. For the love of all that’s holy, I have no idea what she sees in you! You’re proof that evolution can go in reverse!”
Red-faced, he huffs, jerking the glasses back onto his face. Then he peers at me through them and shouts, “Why the bloody hell are you smiling again?”
I cross my arms over my chest and drawl, “So she told you she likes me.”
He grits his teeth so hard, I think they might shatter. “Get out.”
I cock my head, pretending to think, then say, “Nah. I think I’ll just wait for my buddies from Interpol to show up and take a little gander ’round the place. You looked me up in a database? Well, I looked you up too, brother. Real nice establishment you got here. Real legit. Squeaky clean, at least on paper.”
I peer over his shoulder toward the back of the shop. “I’m sure you don’t have anything to hide, right? No random ruby necklaces hangin’ around? Big ones, maybe a hundred carats?”
I already knew it wasn’t Reynard Mallory who bruised Mariana’s neck, even before I set foot in his shop. I pegged him as her fence the minute I entered his address into Metrix’s search program and took a look at his business. If anyone can move a hot, one-hundred-carat ruby necklace, it’s Mallory & Sons Heritage Auctions. It has branches all over the globe and a sterling reputation unvarnished by its secret, long-standing ties to every underworld organization that exists.
“Your bluffs are as unfortunate as your fashion sense, Mr. McLean,” he says stiffly. “I have a high-ranking friend on the police force who would have alerted me if Interpol were about to pay me a visit.”
Then, with no small satisfaction, he continues. “But I do have a GPS tracking device you might be interested in. It’s small and extremely light, excellent for hiding in clothing. Unfortunately it’s nonfunctional, due to being smashed by the heel of a shoe—whose owner was spewing some rather colorful language at the time, I might add—so it won’t do you much good.”
So that’s why I lost the signal. Somehow Mariana found the tracker and destroyed it.
Which means she knew I’d come here…which means she’s gone.
Again.
Shouldn’t have ordered that cheeseburger.
As a jazz number that sounds like five different guys are playing five different songs comes on the speakers, Reynard and I glare at each other. After a while, I cave in. “Okay. Two things. Number one, I’m gonna give you a cell phone number. It’s unregistered and untraceable. Only one other person in the world has it—”
“Your therapist?” he asks sweetly.
“Funny. I’m gonna give you my number, and you’re gonna give it to Mariana.”
His expression sours. Before he can tell me to go jump off the nearest bridge, I add, “In case of an emergency, she can call me twenty-four seven on that number. I mean it. Day or night. From anywhere in the world, she can call me, and I’ll come.”
I grab a pen from a cup next to the cash register and scribble my number on a yellow Post-it note, then stick it to the center of Reynard’s tie. He peels it off with two fingers, his pinky held out and his lip curled. I’m surprised he doesn’t pinch his nose.
He mutters “Stupendous” and puts the Post-it between the pages of a book he lifts from under the counter. Then he tosses the book back into place with derision, dusting off his hands.
Cheeky son of a bitch.
“Number two, I want you to tell me who did that to her neck so I can have a talk with him. And by talk, I mean beat him to a pulp.”
Reynard freezes. “You’re playing a very dangerous game, Mr. McLean,” he says with a strange stillness in his entire aspect, even his voice.
I send him a hard stare. “I’m not playing any game, Reynard. I’ve never been more serious in my life. Someone hurt my girl. That shit doesn’t stand. He’s lucky if I leave him breathing.”
He blinks rapidly, as if clearing his vision. “Your…girl?”
I make a dismissive gesture, then park my hands on my hips. “She’s not a hundred percent on board with the program yet, but I’ll get her there. I’m irresistible, as you can tell.”
His laugh is faint and disbelieving. He reaches for the porcelain teacup sitting to his left on the counter and gulps from it, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Then he reaches under the counter again, this time to produce a slender silver flask. He uncaps it, pours a small measure of what looks like whiskey into the tea, then decides to drink directly from the flask instead.
“She loves you, you know,” I say, watching as he violently coughs, spraying a mist of golden liquid over the counter. When his coughing fit is over, he stares at me with watering eyes and an open mouth.
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