The Rome Affair

by Addison Fox

  “Shut up.” The words were delivered with all the warmth of an iceberg and Jack struggled to open his eyes.

  Where was he?

  And where was Kensington?

  His lids popped open at the thought of her, but a quick glance around the moving car only showed the thugs who’d attacked him in the hallway and the man Kensington had followed.

  So where was she?

  Even as he thought it, he rejoiced that she’d avoided the same fate. If she wasn’t in the car, she had a chance.

  If she wasn’t in the car, it meant she was likely still alive and undetected by the bastards who held him captive.

  Forcing himself to stare out the window, he fought the wave of nausea that threatened as he watched the passing scenery and took note of where they were going. The fact he had no hood on didn’t bode well for their expectations on him getting back to the city, but he’d worry about that later.

  In the meantime, he needed to reserve his strength. He needed to focus.

  And he needed to figure out how the hell he was going to get out of this.

  * * *

  Kensington fought the nauseating waves of panic in her stomach. The image of Jack slumped in the backseat with all those thugs haunted the back of her eyes, burned there with unblinking clarity.

  She raced for the door to the ballroom, the loud clapping and excited voices a direct counterpoint to the sheer terror she felt, and she used every breathing technique she could think of not to hyperventilate.

  The ambassador sat at the front of the room, his table full of smiling faces and impeccably dressed guests. Everyone’s attention was turned toward the stage and it was only as she got closer that she realized one of the seats was empty and Holden Keene was nowhere in sight.

  Instinct had her heading for the ambassador and she let it carry her onward. Ever since the discussion about her father she’d sensed something in Hubert Pryce that was innately kind, and, out of options, she opted to trust her gut and trust Pryce.

  He glanced up, his smile broad as the crowd roared at something the luncheon emcee said in Italian. She could only assume her features spoke far louder than her words ever could have because the man stood immediately and walked toward her, gripping her arm.

  “Miss Steele. It’s a surprise to see you today.”

  “I need to talk to you. Where’s Holden?”

  “His phone rang and he stepped out to take a call.”

  “What was it about?”

  “Miss St—”

  She cut him off, plowing forward with as much clarity as she could muster. “Where did your son go?”

  Subtle red splotches lined his cheeks and the ambassador sputtered. “How did you know?”

  “Hubert. I need your help. Now.”

  Kensington didn’t wait for a response; she simply grabbed his hand and dragged him toward the exit.

  * * *

  Holden drove the roads out of the city at a sedate pace, satisfied that his plans were all coming together. Shipments of drugs had already begun their distribution throughout Italy, the packets of white powder floating inside each bottle of red amounted to a tidy sum for those preparing to take delivery.

  But it was the shipment headed out later that night that he was most excited about.

  He tamped down on the celebration since he had to deal with Andrews first. There’d be time for celebrating later. First, he was going to kill Andrews and then Steele when he found her.

  And then there’d be no one left to question him.

  No one left to put any further kinks in his plans.

  He had a terrorist already lined up and waiting on the opposite end, ready to take control of the diamonds in exchange for a rather tidy sum. The man would smash the evidence of the wine as soon as he’d retrieved the special packet at the bottom of bottle number seven and burned the crate it came in. And Holden would have the second half of a several-million-dollar payment sitting in his bank account.

  Easy peasey.

  Just like killing Andrews.

  And for this one, he would do it himself. The damn man shouldn’t have even made it to the event. But everyone he’d sent after Andrews had botched the job.

  Well, no more. He’d handle it and remove the threat of discovery once and for all.

  The Italian police thought they were so smart hiring Andrews. Thought he wouldn’t notice when one of the world’s most renowned security experts suddenly showed up at his father’s weekend house party.

  Amateurs.

  He’d worked too long and too hard to see his efforts crumble now. Events were in motion and his father was set up to take the fall. Just as he’d planned.

  * * *

  “What is this about?”

  “Your son. He’s been moving diamonds and drugs through your wine shipments.”

  “Holden? My chief of staff, Holden?”

  “Look, Ambassador. With every possible respect, I don’t have time to argue with you. His thugs got to Jack and they mean to kill him. I know it.”

  “What thugs? My regular security detail has impeccable behavior and they’re still inside.”

  She fought the scream welling in her throat, knowing she had to keep it together. If she wanted to discover where Keene had taken Jack she needed to stay calm and work the information out of Pryce.

  Piece by painful piece.

  “Your son has his own team of crackerjack security men, all of whom look like tanks and carry about as much artillery. They just captured Jack and have taken him.”

  “No.” Pryce shook his head once more, but she saw the truth alight in his eyes. His face crumbled at the news. “Not my son.”

  “I’m afraid so, Mr. Pryce.”

  “Why?”

  Wasn’t that always the question? Whenever something bad happened—unexpected and horribly, terribly wrong—the first question anyone had was why.

  “I don’t know. But I need your help getting to Jack before it’s too late.”

  “Too...” Whatever he was about to say next faded as Pryce realized the implications. “Come with me.”

  * * *

  Jack dragged at the bindings around his wrists, but they were tight and strong, implacable knots that weren’t going to come loose with a few simple twists and tugs. The goons who’d knocked him out had done the tying and he’d done his level best to piece together their conversation in Italian as they’d trussed him up.

  Other than Keene’s name, he had no more knowledge than he’d started with, but he knew he needed to figure something out. Holden Keene’s arrival wasn’t going to bode well for him.

  Images of the past week with Kensington filled his mind’s eye as he fitted the rope against the frame of the chair he sat in. The position was painful as hell, especially when he started moving his arms, but he persevered. He needed to loosen the bonds and he had to ignore the pain in his arm from his healing wound.

  The anger that had left him so bereft the night before faded in the very tangible reality that he might never see her again. Yes, she’d made a mistake, but she’d owned it and explained why she’d done it.

  And she’d apologized.

  Wasn’t that enough?

  His hands stilled as that simple thought washed over him. Forgiveness. He’d wasted years of his life wrapped up in anger and pain, unwilling to forgive himself. Or his mother. Or the cruel circumstances that had left him and his sisters alone.

  Oh, he’d made a good show of it, but deep down inside, where it truly mattered, he’d harbored boatloads of ill will and anger.

  The moments he’d spent wrapped up in Kensington—from the simple joys of sharing a meal to the sheer elation of making love to her—had shown him something else. Had cleared out the ugly and made room for something good and new.


  He’d found love.

  With renewed purpose, he went back to work on the bonds. He’d wasted so much of his life waiting for what he’d found with Kensington.

  He damn sure wasn’t going to die and miss out on all the fun.

  * * *

  Kensington took the turns as Pryce prescribed, heading farther and farther out of the city. “How far did you say this place was?”

  “About twenty kilometers outside Rome. It’s a small vineyard I bought first, before Castello di Carte.”

  She stared at the odometer and hoped like hell Pryce had guessed right. She’d already called in the location to Dante amid the man’s protests to leave the situation to them, but she’d hung up on him and kept driving.

  The older man beside her had wept openly when she shared what they thought Holden capable of and he’d continued to shake his head, soft sobs escaping in heavy breaths throughout the drive. “What have I done?”

  “You haven’t done anything.”

  “I did. Early on. I should have claimed him. Should have let him know what he meant to me. But I always put my other children first. I let the stigma of illegitimacy stand in the way of love. Of caring. Of being a parent.”

  She left him to his words, the desperate need to get to Jack consuming her as she flew over the highway in Pryce’s luxury sedan. The car had pickup, she’d give it that, but oddly enough, she found herself wishing for the sports monstrosity Jack had insisted on.

  What if they didn’t get there in time?

  Holden had a strong lead on them and Jack and the thugs were even farther ahead.

  What if they were too late?

  The question burrowed into her brain with hard tenterhooks but she fought it back. Fought to keep her focus. Fought to keep the love she had for him in the forefront of her thoughts.

  They’d both waited so long. And what they had was good. And strong.

  And it would last.

  They’d make it in time. They had to.

  “Turn right here.” Pryce pointed.

  She followed his directions, taking the winding roads as fast as she dared.

  “Slow down or you’ll miss it. It’s up ahead on the left. There.”

  She saw the sign he pointed to, an old wooden plaque faded from the sun. She turned, then flew down the driveway, dirt flying from the tread of her tires at all angles.

  A sedan sat at the far end of the lane, a large car parked behind it. Pryce’s sharp intake of breath at the sight of the car had her identifying it even before the man spoke. “That’s Holden’s car.”

  “Then let’s go find him.”

  She was out of the car, the door hanging open in her wake, when a gunshot rang out over the still winter air.

  * * *

  Jack kept his arms motionless as he stared at Holden Keene across the empty barn. A gun dangled from his fingers but Jack barely paid it any attention.

  He focused on the insidious expression on Keene’s face. Twisted in rage, he stared at the two remaining guards still standing. The third—the one who’d ultimately captured him at Palazzo Altemps—was lying on the ground, a pool of blood surrounding his head.

  “What the hell do you mean it hasn’t left Tuscany yet?”

  “Sir. Let us explain. There was a problem. A mix-up.”

  The conversation went on in a mix of Italian and English, with enough English dominating that Jack got the situation. The local inspectors had paid the vineyard a visit at the request of the contessa who’d spent the weekend at Pryce’s house party.

  The two men manning the shipment from the vineyard felt it best to hide the wine until the dust settled. Then they’d move it out.

  Holden waved his gun once more, sending them off in a scurry toward the main house. “Get out of here!”

  Keene paced the length of the barn, shaking his head as he stalked the length of the room. “Nosy busybody. Just like you.”

  The ropes around his wrists were loose and Jack held his hands still, unwilling to give up the one weapon he had left in his arsenal.

  Surprise.

  His shoulders had nearly gone numb with the effort to loosen his bonds but all he needed was one shot—one moment with Holden close to him—and he’d make his move. The morons who’d tied him up had duct-taped his ankles to each other, not to the chair, and it gave him far more range of motion than he’d have had if they’d done the opposite.

  Keene continued to pace, his rage palpable in the small space.

  “Did you really think you could come into my territory and take me down?”

  “Until this weekend, suspicions were pointed clearly toward your father.”

  “Just as I’d planned.”

  “So what went wrong?” As questions went Jack knew it was risky, but it was also his only chance to personalize the discussion.

  And making it personal might get Holden close enough to physically attack.

  “Nothing went wrong except the fact that I hired imbeciles!” He waved his gun toward the dead man lying in the corner. “People who have no ability to think through a problem or act with decisiveness.”

  “Surely you knew that from the get-go. Fear and intimidation only get you so far. After that it’s all about loyalty.”

  The rage that had twisted Keene’s features morphed into something else as a dark sneer lit up his face. “There is no loyalty anymore, Mr. Andrews. None. My father proved that to my mother and to me and I’ve made a point to live my life not expecting it.”

  Like the skies opening up after a rain, Jack saw the picture Holden painted. Knew his own experiences had resulted in a fairly similar outlook on life.

  Yet he hadn’t become a psychopath.

  Nor had he chosen a life simply out for his own gains.

  He’d been dealt a crappy hand, too. Hell, his own father had abandoned them shortly after he was born, then his mother years later, but he’d survived. He’d played that hand and it wasn’t until this trip that he realized just how far he’d come out the other side.

  In some odd way, Holden Keene was his emotional twin. A mirror of what he could have been without his sisters and without his own determination to make something of himself.

  Something good.

  Kensington completed all that. Made the work worthwhile and the effort something he could leave behind at the end of the day just to be with her.

  He’d come out the other side.

  The will to live beat through his veins in the hard, pumping waves of his heartbeat. He toyed with simply loosening the bonds and making his leap, taking his chances. He calculated the distance between himself and Holden.

  As he watched Holden pace the space once more he saw a small flicker of something near the windows. He didn’t need to see the person on the other side to know who it was.

  Kensington was here.

  And two thugs were now licking their wounds outside the barn and likely to do anything to get back in their boss’s good graces.

  * * *

  Kensington kept her back against the outside wall of the barn and willed herself to wait for the right moment. She’d heard Holden for the past several minutes ranting at Jack, spilling his secrets and all his bottled-up anger. A wrong move and she’d put Jack in the line of fire.

  And if you don’t get a move on, you won’t get him out of the line of fire.

  The men he’d yelled at had left the barn, bitching to each other as they walked to the main farmhouse, and she sat and counted off in her mind, waiting for one of them to notice her car in the driveway behind Keene’s car, but the shouts never came.

  “Kensington!”

  Her name echoed in a loud whisper and she turned to see the ambassador tiptoeing along the wall toward her. She’d left him in the car at the sou
nd of the gunshot and had forgotten him.

  “I moved the car.”

  “You what?”

  “Moved it out of sight behind an old shed on the property. Too many people are here. I hid until the others were inside the house. In their anger, they paid me no attention.”

  Tears pricked the backs of her eyes and she leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  “The situation. Is it dire?”

  “Your son has Jack.”

  “I will handle this.”

  “Hubert. No.” She grabbed at his hand but he was too quick for her, shouting as he moved around the side of the house, bellowing his son’s name.

  Unable to reach him and remain hidden, she raced off around the opposite side of the barn. Her only hope was to come up behind Keene and take her shot.

  * * *

  The arrival of Hubert Pryce had Jack as shocked as he was frustrated.

  Was the man involved? In league with his son? And where the hell was Kensington?

  Pryce walked into the barn, his arms outstretched in greeting. “You’ve made me so proud. My son.”

  Something flickered briefly in Holden’s gaze before he lowered his gun to his side. “What are you doing here?”

  Jack knew that look—hell, Pryce’s use of the word son had his own gut clenching into a tight fist—and on some level he understood Holden’s need for approval. Acceptance.

  “I’m aware of far more in my sphere than you give me credit for. I know what you’ve been doing and I’m here to congratulate you and give you my approval and support. The diamonds will be moving by nightfall.”

  Jack shook his head, the scene like something out of a nightmare. Pryce knew? He’d been involved all along?

  Before he could question it further, Holden had his gun back up and directed at his father. “While I appreciate the reunion, drop it. You’ve had no idea what’s been going on, despite this charade to the contrary. So I’d appreciate it if you’d go stand next to Mr. Andrews so I can keep an eye on both of you.”

  “Holden?”

  “Move!”

  The older man moved in his direction, his face out of his son’s view. As he caught Jack’s eye, he winked, the move so at odds with the scene that had unfolded Jack held his position a moment longer.