“You have me at a disadvantage, monsieur,” I say tightly, refusing to stand and greet him. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
A large hand appears in front of my face. “Frankie Adams. I work for your husband.”
I take it, and then drop it as quickly as I can. “Monsieur Adams. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise, Mrs. Knight.” He chuckles and takes a step back, tucking his sunglasses into the front of his shirt. “Aiden warned me you have an icy reverb. He told me not to piss you off. Said you have a talent for dishing out red wine punishments when we least expect it. Shall I ask Felix to hide the Saint-Émilion, just in case? Or should that be that by the case?” he adds with an easy grin.
“Why are you here, monsieur?” I say, flustered by his words.
“Aiden asked me to swing by and check on you.”
You mean spy on me.
“That’s kind of you, but as you can see…” I gesture to the empty, tranquil surroundings. “I’m perfectly fine.”
“You sure about that? I was there when you freaked out yesterday.”
“Then you have me at an even greater disadvantage,” I say, glaring up at him.
“We all have fears, Mrs. Knight. Some of us just have better coping mechanisms for them than others.”
“What are yours? Pointing a gun at a man’s back?” It slips out before I can stop it.
“You saw that, huh?” He sighs and glances at the ocean. “In my defense, Maxim was acting like a dick.”
“So was Aiden.”
“I’m not denying that, either.” His handsome face splits in two again, and I find my own lips twitching along. He’s droll and caustic, but there’s a tough amiability about him. He’s the tallest tree in the forest, the one that bends with the hurricane, but never uproots.
I watch his heavy gaze fall on the sketchbook and open pencil set next to me. “Do you draw?”
I shrug to hide my blooming panic. “A little.”
“Has Aiden seen them?”
My smile turns into the full force of winter, complete with a light dusting of snow and several pointy icicles. “I don't know my husband particularly well, monsieur, but what I do know of him suggests he’d be far from interested. Nothing about our situation…or me amuses him, as he’s been quick to point out on numerous occasions. Besides, I don’t think he’s a hobby kind of a guy.”
“You think you have the measure of him already?” His dark eyes start drilling holes into my face. “I can tell you now, lady, I’ve known Aiden a long time and there’s more to him than you think.” Oh, I’m counting on it. “May I see?” He bends down to pick up my sketchbook, but I whip it away and hug it protectively to my chest, forgetting about the ugly damage beneath my pretty dress.
His grin drops when he catches me wincing. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I rasp, shallowing my breaths though the pain. “I’m so sorry, but an artist never shares unless it’s perfect.”
“As you wish.”
Felix arrives on the scene with a loaded tray. Frankie chooses to remain standing as drinks are sipped and awkward silences observed. Finally, my curiosity gets the better of me.
“What do you do for my husband, Monsieur Adams?”
“Frankie, please. I oversee his business interests.”
“Including his casino?”
“Including his casino.”
I eye his massive arm muscles again. “Forgive me for saying so, monsieur, but you don’t seem like the businessman or accountant type.”
“Forgive me for saying so, madame,” he responds dryly, “but your husband doesn’t seem the law-biding type.”
My lips start twitching again. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be rude.”
“No offense taken.” He’s swinging his tumbler between his forefinger and thumb. It’s never enough to slosh the remains of his whisky over the sides, but it’s enough to unsettle me. “I wasn’t bullshitting you before. Aiden wants to know how you are, and—full disclosure? I can’t recall the last time he asked me to check on a woman.”
I choose not to dwell on that revelation. “Did you grow up together?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because of your accents?”
He laughs. “There are sixty-five million people in Britain. Don’t go jumping to conclusions.”
“I don’t do that anymore,” I say with a sigh. “I find I’m frequently disappointed. You seem close, that’s all.”
He stares at me for a moment. “Perceptive.”
“Floundering.” I look away with a shrug. “I was meant to be marrying a man called Luca Zaccaria. Instead I’m sitting here married to a man I’d never even heard of before yesterday. I know nothing about Aiden’s story or his background… I was made to believe I was a ‘sign on a dotted line’ bonus, and now I’m locked up on a yacht and chained to a man whose idea of a good time is to make me feel as unwelcome as possible.” I take a sloppy sip of my orange juice to build up the courage to say my next words. “I want to know how Aiden’s connected to the Zaccaria Famiglia.”
“You and the rest of the Riviera.”
I give him a look.
“They’re business partners.”
“What kind of business partners?”
“The casino kind.”
“Have you spoken to him this morning?”
He hesitates. “Briefly.”
“Did he have a good wedding night?” I can't stop my resentment from creeping in.
“Not particularly. He spent half of it on an aircraft.”
“An aircraft?”
“May I offer you a piece of advice, Mrs. Knight?” He beckons to a hovering Felix and furnishes his tray with his now-empty tumbler. “I wouldn’t pay too much attention to your husband’s business dealings. You’re a Bratva princess... You know how this works.”
“In other words, spend his blood money like a good wife, look pretty and keep my mouth shut.” I glance down at my juice.
“The fact that you’re even asking this makes you more than a trophy wife already. I’m merely suggesting you don’t go buying any shovels. You won’t like what you dig up.”
“What could there possibly be to shock me?” I say, arching my brows at him. “Like you said, I’m a Bratva princess, born and bred.”
“Mrs. Knight,” he warns.
“Why do people call him The Raven?” I say, remembering Eloise’s words.
“On that note, the defense rests his case.” He unhooks his sunglasses from the front of his shirt. “Aiden’ll be back in a couple of hours. Enjoy your drawing.” His gaze slides toward my sketchpad again. “I’ll see you around, no doubt.”
“No doubt.”
I watch him leave with a seed of determination growing inside me. By the time his white speedboat is racing away from The Cristo, it’s a plan in full bloom. So far, I’ve been a good girl and played by Aiden’s rules, ninety-nine percent of the time. Tonight, that other one percent is coming out to play.
Back in my cabin, I track down Eloise’s shop number on my cell, ignoring Aiden’s messy stack of euros as the call connects. I’d love a new dress, but only if Eloise allows me a store credit extension.
Not just any dress, either.
It needs to be something as scarlet as the warning he’ll never see coming, with a high neckline to hide the damage and a back cut low enough to sell lust and temptation.
He has a casino with secrets.
Secrets that are mine to sell.
Chapter Eleven
Aiden
The moment my private jet lands at Nice Cote d'Azur, I set my sights on Monte Carlo. There are a couple of big-stakes players due at the casino tonight, and I personally like to meet and greet all those who add extra zeros to my bank account’s bottom line.
The dusk is a bloody delight and befitting of the day. It’s dripping down from the sky, mixing with the water and turning the ocean a pinkish hue. As the Escalade climbs higher an
d higher into the mountains, the rash of superyachts bobbing on the horizon look like pox on an iridescent skin. Somewhere down there The Cristo is playing host to a confused young woman who wants to find middle ground with a man who is hell-bent on churning it up.
My main focus now is obtaining the second name for my kill list, which leaves me five days to fuck the location of her sister out of Ielena. I promised I’d give her time, but I need to accelerate the process. It’s seduction 101, from now on.
I find Frankie in my office, helping himself to my whiskey. It’s a sprawling, circular room with an overkill of soft black leather and tinted windows overlooking the main gaming floor. He barely looks up as I throw my bag down on the floor.
“Good flight?”
“Had worse.”
“Here.” He hands his whiskey to me, and pours himself another. “Your leaving a present in the window of Gambino’s store was an inspired touch. Thought it was an ‘eye for an eye’, not a ‘head for a head’.”
I take a sip and smile grimly. “I left a calling card for Rossi. Gambino confirmed what we’d already suspected. He also spoke about some broken treaty between Rossi and Zaccaria before my bullets shut him up.”
What else are you hiding from me, old man?
Revenge is as circular as this room. It never ends. There’s always an order from an asshole who took an order from another. The bodies will keep piling up. The twister will spin faster until everything is consumed, and you either learn to let go or you keep on spiraling.
I’m never letting go, and I’ve made my peace with that.
“I saw Ielena earlier,” I hear him say.
“Oh?”
He takes a thoughtful swig of his drink. “She’s hiding something.”
“Try stating the fucking obvious.” I wander over to the windows to survey my domain. It’s packed in here tonight. The crowds around each table are three-deep, and the slot machines are ringing with the sound of other people’s money. Every inch of my crimson carpet is a shoe designer’s wet dream.
Frankie follows me over. “Let me ask you something. Why was Zaccaria so certain she had info about Karina Dubova’s disappearance?”
I shrug. “Sisters talk. Her father must have told him they were close.”
“Did the Russians rough her up before they handed her over?”
“What gave you that idea?” I say sharply
“Just a hunch.” He takes another sip of his whiskey. “Try and find out if you can. It might be a way into her affections. Manipulation isn’t a one-way street.”
“Christ, Frankie,” I exclaim. “You’re more of an unprincipled shit than I am.”
He laughs, but there’s a forced note to it. “Tell me it wasn’t the first thing to cross your mind when I mentioned it.”
I can’t, because it did: in crystal clear detail, with side notes and annotated diagrams. Still, that's not what’s pissing me off the most. That trophy belongs to the thought of another man’s hands causing her pain.
“Unicorn dick or not, I’ll get the truth out of Ielena.”
“Fine, but go easy on her heart.” I swing around in surprise, and we all know how much I hate those. “She’s just a kid, Aiden,” he says evenly. “When all of this is over—when we’ve used her up and spat her out—she has to pick up the pieces of her life and start again. And without her sister, if Zaccaria gets his hands on her.”
“When he gets his hands on her,” I say, irritated by his words. “That’s quite a dick swing you’re having there, Frankie—from devious bastard to caring criminal in under sixty seconds flat. Are you forgetting your place, brother? I make the decisions, not you. If I say we offer her up as a pagan sacrifice, your job it to organize the chants, the daggers and the robes. Understood?”
“Go fuck yourself, Raven,” he says good-naturedly, dropping his glass down on the desk and heading for the door.
“What happened to black and white?” I shout after him. “You want this justice as much as I do. For fourteen years, it’s been the beating heart of our whole operation.”
He pauses in the doorway. Hand on the handle. Scowl in place. “Perhaps I’m thinking there’s something in your shades of gray theory, after all. Don’t delude yourself. This shit isn’t sitting easy with you, either. Bad men are players. We kill, discard and move on. Good girls aren’t so clear-cut.”
“She won’t be a good girl by the time I’ve finished with her.”
“Monsieur Knight?” The crinkled face of my personal assistant, Camille, appears next to Frankie’s massive shoulder. She’s looking every bit of her fifty-five years this evening. Not that she cares. She’s here for the money, so I pay her double to make her blind. She knows everything that goes on in this place, but as long as I keep her in tri-yearly holidays to Tenerife, she’s loyal as fuck.
“What is it?”
“I just took a call from your captain. Madame Knight requested The Cristo be brought back to berth in Port Hercule this afternoon.”
“Why the hell did she do that?”
“She wouldn't say, but you can ask her yourself. She’s on her way to the casino. She’s expected in the next hour.”
I catch Frankie’s eye. Now there’s a chess move we never anticipated.
Fucking surprises.
Camille shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “There’s one other thing.”
“Go on.”
“Senator Sanders and his wife have just arrived. I asked Adele to show them into your favorite private gaming room.”
“Fine.” I finish up my drink. “I’m heading down there now. And stop voodooing me, Frankie... You’re coming, too.”
Rick Sanders is the kind of man you have no trouble envisioning in the White House one day, with his feet up on the Resolute Desk and a killer smirk for all the former presidents and their disapproving portrait faces. Even if he lost the vote in every state, he’d still charm his way in through the front door. He’s smoother than churned butter, and he has the kinds of connections I can only dream about, from top Bratva Pakhans to Colombian drug lords. You mess with this guy and he’ll conduct a vivisection on you with his wife’s tweezers.
On the hush-hush he’s a former coke dealer from Brooklyn, but that doesn’t look too good on paper for the Bible Belt voters, so a couple of years ago he painted himself legit, taking over the reins of his wife’s family shipping business and making a cool billion in the process. His wife, Nina, is just as connected. She’s Alexander Petrov’s daughter, a dead Pakhan whose spirit is still haunting the Moscow underground. It means she’s as Bratva as my own dear wife, if not more so.
I like them both so I keep them in my inner circle, rolling out the red carpet for whenever they’re in town. To be fair, it’s been a while since they last visited. Squeezing out kids and corrupting the United States Senate can distract you from the finer things in life.
This private room is the most exclusive one in my casino. A couple of days ago, Zaccaria was in here with his sons and Consigliere laying down the law. Tonight, it’s my domain again, with a private bar serving the best liquor in the house, a luxury seating area for the ladies and a blood-red blackjack table on which to wager a cool couple million.
Rick’s standing by the bar with men I don’t recognize. Tall, lean, dark-haired and vulturine… Someone once described him to me as a bird of prey who prefers to toy with his carcasses rather than pick at them. Put it this way: I wouldn’t want to be his political opponent, in this life or the next.
“Aiden Knight.” He peels away from the group to greet me with a handshake. You can tell a lot about a bad man from this gesture. Firm handshake. Firm trigger finger. And his nearly crushes my fingers.
“Senator Sanders. Congratulations on your recent re-election.”
“I understand congratulations go both ways… Is she here?” I watch him nod at Frankie who enters the room a couple of paces behind me.
“You’ll meet her soon enough.” I bend down to kiss his elegant wife who
has appeared next to him. “This is an unexpected pleasure, Nina. What have you done with the kids? Checked them at the door with your fur stole?”
“They’re sleeping in their beds, I hope.” She laughs, a pleasing bell of a sound. If Rick’s a wide boy, then she’s as soft and willowy as they come. She doesn't suffer fools, though. I’ve heard the stories.
“How are the paintings?”
Nina owns a successful private gallery in New York.
“Sales are excellent,” she says with a contented sigh. “Rick’s nefarious friends have a constant supply of cash to splash.”
“Clean cash, I might add,” drawls Rick, sliding his arm around his wife’s waist in a classic mark of possession. “No doubt filtered, at some point or another, through this glorious casino. Am I right, Aiden?”
“I have no idea what you’re referring to,” I deadpan. “I run a legitimate business, Senator Sanders. As do you.”
“Oh, fuck off,” he says, good-naturedly. “And get me another bourbon while you’re at it.”
I make eye contact with Adele, our hostess for the night, who sets to work on our drinks as I’m introduced to his group. They’re mostly politicians and rich businessmen with port-wine faces who are just as bent as he is.
“Are you joining us tonight?” Rick takes his place at the table as the dealer waits for all the other players to follow suit.
I open my mouth to decline as usual. Then I remember that a couple of hours ago I was decapitating the first of my father’s killers, and yesterday I married a woman who despises the very ground I walk on. You could say that shit is upside down for me right now.
“It’s your funeral, Sanders.” I slip into the free chair next to him. “The house never wins in this casino… I do.”
“Care to put your money where your balls are?”
“What can I say? My balls are feeling lucky.” I nod in Frankie’s direction who returns it with a mild eyebrow quirk. He knows I never work the tables here. Nonetheless, a minute later he’s delivering a million-euro gold case of chips to the table.
“I hope you enjoy life as a eunuch,” taunts Rick. “I was taught to play by a Colombian who shot the fingers off those who didn’t try hard enough.” With that, he slams his hand down on the table, palms to the felt, to show me that all five of his fingers are still attached. “It’s safe to say, I paid attention.”
Black Skies Riviera: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance Page 10