Murphy's Wrath (Murphy's Law Book 2)

by Michelle St. James

  The guard at the door held a wand to the man’s cufflink, looked at the tablet, and waved him in without question.

  Would it be that simple? Another easy pass into the house?

  She didn’t dare hope as she stepped up to the guard.

  He held out a satin bag and she dropped in the burner phone Ronan had given her. Braden had tipped them off about the phone check, and they’d both brought untraceable phones that could be left behind.

  The guard lifted the wand and she held out her hand, looking around like it was all a formality she shouldn’t have to bear.

  “Name?”

  “Pardon me?” She was careful to use the accent she’d been practicing.

  The guard looked into her eyes. “Your name.”

  She tried to look mildly offended. “Anuska Král."

  “Identification number.”

  Why was she being asked questions when the man in front of her had been allowed to pass without so much as a word?

  She lifted her chin and rattled off Anuska Král's passport number. It was another tidbit from the man named Kane: passport numbers were used as Manifest ID numbers.

  The man checked the number against the tablet and looked again at Julia’s face, his eyes moving over her features.

  She met his gaze, trying to convey the superiority of wealth and privilege that must go hand in hand with inheriting so much money that you had nothing better to do than attend parties with corrupt rich people who sought pleasure from imprisoned women who couldn’t fight back.

  It seemed like an eternity before he blinked.

  He tipped his head toward the house and Julia stepped in, standing aside while she waited for Ronan to pass the same inspection. Instead the guard scanned Ronan’s watch, glanced at the tablet, and waved him forward without another word.

  They were in.

  17

  Every nerve in Ronan’s body was on high alert as they made their way through the crowd into the house. Had he been alone, it would have been just another job, if slightly more challenging given that he had to get someone else out alive.

  With Julia by his side it felt too much like chumming shark infested waters with fresh meat.

  The house was homier than he’d expected. It might have been the country estate of a wealthy Italian family, filled with luxurious but comfortable furniture and French doors open to the terraces that surrounded the house.

  The ceiling soared to worn wood timber overhead and the walls were warm textured plaster. It was a house he would have enjoyed spending time in under other circumstances.

  They made their way farther inside and he noted the suited guards positioned throughout the rooms of the first floor. He knew they were packing from the bulges under their jackets — he would have expected no less — and he was unsurprised to find two of them stationed at the bottom of the front staircase.

  If the house were set up like the Whitmore Club, they would bring the girls to the second and third floors. He could only assume they hadn’t yet arrived: no one approached the stairs, and the crowd seemed content to drink and mingle.

  A uniformed server stopped at their side with a tray of champagne. Ronan took a glass and handed it to Julia, then took one for himself.

  She touched her glass to his in a wordless toast and he knew she was thinking about Elise, hoping this would be the day they would finally bring her sister home.

  He turned his attention to the crowd around them. He recognized a handful of business titans, plus a couple of trust fund babies from the news. The other faces blended into a sea of polished flesh, tuxedos, silk and satin gowns.

  It was the women who bothered him most. It shouldn’t have mattered, but what kind of woman did you have to be to look the other way while men traded in members of your own gender, members who had spent centuries being used and abused by men, fighting and dying for the chance to be free?

  Was it possible some of them didn’t know that the party was a Manifest showcase for the “assets” of an upcoming sale?

  It was hard to imagine. The women had to know. Maybe it was just a relief to find themselves on the other side of the transaction for once. From that perspective, they seemed slightly less guilty than the men who’d always been on the other side.

  That was where he needed to focus his anger.

  “How long?”

  He looked at Julia, impressed that she’d remembered to use the Czech accent she’d practiced when they’d been running Anuska Král’s background. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close enough for anyone who might overhear or for anyone trying to make small talk with her.

  “Soon,” he said.

  They’d argued about which of them would create the distraction that would get the other one upstairs until he realized he wouldn’t be happy with any of the potential solutions unless they involved Julia not being at the party at all. Finally he’d had to agree that it was best for him to create the distraction.

  The less attention paid to Julia at a party like this one the better.

  She would use the time to slip upstairs via one of the three back staircases. Once there she would search the rooms for Elise, freeing anyone else she might come upon at the same time.

  Ronan would keep everyone occupied downstairs for ten minutes, after which he would meet Julia — and hopefully Elise — at one of the predetermined meeting points.

  It wasn’t as clear-cut as he would have liked. In fact, it was a lot like the way he worked when he was alone, when he had to remain flexible, roll with the punches of whatever awaited him: fine under those circumstances but not ideal when he was worried about getting Julia out alive.

  There was no way around it. There were too many wild cards at the party, too much they didn’t know. It would take weeks to case the Florence parties adequately enough to come up with a solid plan that took into account the number of guards, the weapons they carried, security cameras, and all the other factors that went into developing a foolproof exit plan.

  Elise didn’t have weeks.

  “Don’t forget to mark the time,” Ronan said quietly. “Ten minutes. That’s it, whether you find her or not.”

  It was his biggest fear: that Julia wouldn’t stop looking once she started, that she would search under every bed and in every closet once she was upstairs, even if the clock ran out. It would force him to go up after her, endangering them both, making it less likely that he would be able to get her out alive.

  She’d promised to take her cues from him, to follow his orders once they were inside, but he knew all too well how the desire to save someone you loved could make you do stupid things, rash things.

  He’d done those things in Erin’s name. He was doing them now for Julia.

  Julia gave him an almost imperceptible nod. It was as close as he would get to an assurance.

  The number of guests making their way into the house from the foyer had slowed to a trickle. The party was well under way, the murmur of conversation a hum that vied for attention with the music — an unexpected mix of EDM and techno-punk — that was being piped into the rooms through invisible speakers.

  It was time.

  He sat his empty glass on a passing tray and spoke without looking at Julia. “See you soon.”

  18

  Julia watched Ronan work his way through the crowd, purposefully jostling the other guests as he went. There was a hint of enjoyment in the way he shoved, sloshing flutes of champagne held in manicured fingers, displacing people who weren’t used to being displaced.

  She couldn’t say that she blamed him.

  She hated being here, knowing these people were using women like Elise, knowing the ones who weren’t were looking the other way.

  She looked at the faces around her and had to resist the urge to scream. They were polished and coiffed, wearing the latest designer fashion and swilling expensive champagne like water, but it was all a lie, a pretty veneer to cover up a corrupt and poisonous ideology that made them believe the rules didn’t appl
y to them.

  No wonder Ronan had shunned outward displays of his wealth. He’d seen the underside of high society more than most.

  She trailed far enough behind him that it wouldn’t look like she was following, waiting to stop until she reached the arched doorway of the large room where they’d been standing. From this vantage point she could see the foyer — as big as her whole apartment in Boston — where Ronan had shoved into one of the guards.

  The guard said something Julia couldn’t hear, his expression a warning to Ronan, who had adopted a look of belligerent aggression.

  A ripple moved through the people in the foyer, two men and a couple who’d just arrived moving toward the room where Julia stood. They looked from Ronan to the guard, then continued into the house. Julia caught the scent of expensive cologne as one of the men passed within feet of her, Ronan’s disturbance already behind him.

  These were people used to having messes and unpleasant circumstances cleaned up by others. It probably wasn’t the first time someone had gotten confrontational at a Manifest party: their members were rich but they were still human.

  Julia removed a compact from her clutch and pretended to check her face as Ronan shoved against a second guard. The first guard spoke into the mouthpiece of a headset tucked into his ear. Less than a minute later, two more guards appeared from the back of the house and moved in around Ronan, muttering something unintelligible to Julia’s ears.

  Ronan caught her eye just before his arm shot out, his fist landing in the middle of the first guard’s face.

  The man stumbled backwards, knocking into a marble console table near the entrance. A large Satsuma vase toppled, falling to the floor with a crash.

  The two guards by the stairs moved toward the melee in the foyer.

  The plan was clear: get to the second and third floors while Ronan created a distraction.

  It had sounded simple, but that had been before Ronan was surrounded by men with guns. She had to fight the impulse to go to him, to start fighting off the guards closing around him.

  He was a grown man. This was his work. He knew what he was doing.

  She glanced at her watch and forced herself to move past the stairs, her head at an imperious tilt, as if she had every right to explore the villa at her leisure.

  The rooms on the blueprint accessed by Clay had been unlabeled, which made sense given their age, and she kept the house’s floor plan in her mind’s eye as she moved past the large rooms, marking them off as she headed for one of three rooms that had a staircase.

  She didn’t know if her breach of the Whitmore Club had led to additional security at other Manifest properties, but she would save the kitchen stairs as a last resort in case they expected her to use the same method twice.

  She came to a room with a set of closed wooden doors. If she was right, this should be the first of the rooms with a staircase leading to the upper floors.

  She pushed through the doors without hesitation. Entitlement was the key to access. If she acted like she had every right to be there, she was less likely to be stopped and questioned.

  The room was dimly lit with green table lamps, every wall lined with shelves groaning with books. She’d barely stepped into the room when she noticed two men kissing on a tufted leather sofa.

  One of them looked up, his eyes glassy, his gaze sweeping Julia’s body. “Care to join us, darling?”

  “I’m sorry. Excuse me.” She bowed out of the room, closing the doors behind her.

  Damn…

  She crossed the hall and headed toward the other room that should have a staircase. Its doors were closed as well, and she took a deep breath before opening it, bracing herself for another unexpected surprise.

  The room was empty, a massive desk dominating one end of the room, two loveseats facing each other over an antique coffee table and rug.

  She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, then checked her watch. Three minutes had passed since Ronan had initiated the distraction. She was only guaranteed seven more minutes to get upstairs. Once there, it was anybody’s guess how much time she had.

  She made her way deeper into the darkened room, searching its periphery for the staircase that had appeared on the blueprints. When she came to a door set into a wood panel in one of the corners, she knew she’d found it.

  She tried the knob and was unsurprised to find it locked. It took her less than ten seconds to remove the pick set she’d tucked into her clutch after hours practicing with it in the days leading up to the party.

  Like so much about the event, they’d had no idea if the secondary staircases would be hidden behind doors and whether those doors would be locked. Working the lock picks on the doors in Ronan’s Florence apartment had been maddening, but now she was glad Ronan had insisted she learn. She wasn’t an expert, but she’d gotten fairly quick with basic locks.

  She bent down to take a look at the mechanism. It was old, larger than a modern lock. She chose a pick that looked to be the right size, but it proved to be slightly too big, so she sized down one pick. This one fit easily into the lock.

  She forced herself to breathe slow and easy as she felt for the tumblers inside the lock, waiting for the pick to clear them one by one. The first time, she turned the pick too fast, before the final tumbler had cleared.

  She took a breath and tried again, backing the pick out of the lock and turning slowly.

  The lock clicked and the door swung open.

  She stepped into a wood-paneled stairwell and started up a flight of stairs. The stairwell was similar to the one at the Whitmore Club, but this one was older, the stone walls concealing a chilly vestibule that smelled of age and damp.

  She reached the door on the second floor landing and was relieved to find it unlocked. She couldn’t see the face of her watch in the stairwell, but she knew she was running out of time.

  She opened the door and stepped onto a carpeted hallway.

  The hall was lined with doors, some open and some closed, sconces casting shadows against the textured plaster of the villa’s old walls. Oil portraits marched down the walls, a series of severe but sensuous looking men and women with dark hair and brooding eyes watching as she made her way to the first door, open a couple of inches.

  She’d barely stepped into the room when she heard voices at the other end of the hall.

  She left the door open an inch and listened as two men came closer, the conversation getting louder as they neared the room in which she hid.

  “… possible security breach. Orders are to put the charter on hold. The choppers too,” one man said.

  “They’re ready to land.” The second man spoke in English accented with Italian. Or was it French?

  “I don’t give the orders,” the first man said.

  The second man cursed in Italian. “He’s a drunk. Why don’t they clear him out and be done with it?”

  “You know how they’ve been lately. Protocols were ramped up after the breach in Dubai. They’re being careful.”

  … put the charter on hold. The choppers too.

  They’re ready to land…

  Julia balled her fists at her side, resisting the urge to plunge them into the wall against her back. Had Ronan’s distraction served the purpose of preventing Elise and the other women from being brought to the party?

  She looked around the room, taking in the desk against the window and thinking about the other doors lining the second floor hallway.

  She looked at her watch, forcing herself to focus. She couldn’t afford to be emotional. Not when Elise was out there, still counting on Julia to find her.

  It had been eight minutes since Ronan started picking a fight with the guards. Technically she only had two minutes before they were supposed to meet, but there was no way she was going to call the mission a loss because Elise wasn’t in the building.

  The guards had moved toward the stairs, their voices evaporating as they stepped into the stairwell.

  She turned the kn
ob, closing the door with a quiet click, and moved deeper into the room.

  She would move as quickly as she could. Ronan would find a way to wait for her.

  She knew he would.

  19

  Ronan couldn’t look at his watch but an instinctual clock in his head ticked down the time as he punched and kicked the guards, taking a few hits along the way to draw out the fight.

  He was surprised they hadn’t pulled a weapon on him yet. He could only assume they were hesitant to take the fight to the extreme in front of the guests.

  He’d been gratified to see additional guards entering the large foyer, lining the periphery of the area, waiting to be called into action. With any luck they’d left other parts of the house unguarded, making it easier for Julia to get to Elise.

  He figured he had roughly two minutes before Julia would be at one of their predetermined meeting spots.

  He looked at the two guards circling him. Blood dripped from the nose of the tall, skinny one. The meaty one was breathing hard.

  He could kill two minutes no problem.

  20

  She found what she was looking for in the third room she tried. By then she wasn’t surprised. In spite of its untraceable ownership, the villa obviously wasn’t some generic meeting place for Manifest.

  Someone lived here — or stayed here at least some of the time.

  The realization had only teased the back of her mind when she’d been on the first floor — the desk in the room she’d used to access the staircase a giveaway that the room might be someone’s work space.

  But when she’d gotten to the second floor, it had become obvious. There was another desk in the first room, and while there hadn’t been any photographs or overtly personal artifacts, there had been evidence that the desk was used on a regular basis — pens, paper clips, a half-empty pack of breath mints, two cigars, a gold lighter.