As the driver pulled the car around to the garage, Vadim and Sophie strolled toward the house. The diamond dealer leaned back his head and laughed at something she said. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. The older man didn’t have his hands all over her, but why would he when she was in his bed every night? An assumption on DARK’s part, but a logical one.
“Lucky bastard,” Leoni muttered. “He’s old enough to be her father.”
That wasn’t how Jack would’ve put it. But close enough.He should shoot right now. End it. But he wanted the son of a bitch to know who executed him and why.
The two continued their casual conversation as the woman tucked a wave of hair behind one ear.
“Why the devil can’t we hear them?” Jack whispered. “No bugs or wiretaps, but what about mics or EARS41?” High-tech listening via the Electronic Acquiring Reconnaissance System would do the trick.
“We tried. He’s got blockers we haven’t cracked. So we hang out in the vineyard and tail them. Old-fashioned police work.” Leoni yawned as if ready for another nap.
When the couple reached the doorway — wide double doors with a massive knocker — Vadim gestured to indicate that he was staying outside. He pointed toward the swimming pool, where his other thug waited for him. Petar, with an unpronounceable last name, hailed from Cleatia, like his employer.
Sophie smiled. Rising on tiptoes, she placed a hand on his shoulder. She brushed a quick kiss on his mouth.
Vadim barely reacted. Jack’s face heated as though she’d kissed him. He swore under his breath.
With a little wave, she pivoted, her flirty skirt allowing a glimpse of creamy thigh before she vanished inside the villa. “Woman likes to tease. Like all of ’em.” He angled his binoculars to follow Vadim. “A velvet trap.”
“Maybe some,” Leoni murmured. “Not for me.”
Jack didn’t comment. Tease? Maybe. More like torture. But he couldn’t let himself be distracted by a woman. For damn sure not a murderer’s woman like Sophie.
Sophie. He sat back on his heels. Nearly dropped the binoculars. How did she go from being the Rinaldi woman to Sophie?
***
The day after Jack’s arrival, he and De Carlo tailed Sophie and Vadim through Venice’s canals and winding streets.
Tailing them afforded Jack a quick tour of Venice, but not one he could appreciate. He felt only frustration grinding like rocks on a storm-tossed shore at being so close to his quarry yet helpless to do anything.
When the couple lunched in the fashionable Harry’s Bar, Jack and De Carlo washed down risotto di mare with a house wine in the cheaper trattoria down the street, where they could observe when the couple left. Jack didn’t need the other man’s reminder to limit the alcohol. He could afford no blurred senses or dulled reflexes. No amount of wine could smooth the edges of his hatred.
After lunch they strolled from shop to shop on the Merceria, a narrow street running between the Piazza San Marco and the Rialto. While Sophie bargained with shopkeepers, Vadim held her packages.
Jack and De Carlo followed, ducking behind displays and peering at merchandise. Jack’s ire grew as he observed her laugh at her lover’s jokes. She hung on his every damn word. Excitement at a bargain and pleasure in the beauty of the day brushed her cheeks with color.
Every movement — the sway of hips, the flash of dark eyes, the tilt of chin — appeared natural, unaffected. Even if Vadim bought the artless act, Jack didn’t. He knew firsthand about feminine manipulation.
Still, he couldn’t help checking out her high breasts when she reached up to sweep her mass of hair from her shoulders and fasten it at her nape. And he wasn’t alone. Vadim was openly leering. Jack’s chest felt so tight he thought he’d explode. He’d made a solemn vow to mete out justice. He’d waited long enough. He wanted this operation done so he could take care of the slime.
If something didn’t break soon, he would act.
Chapter 2
“AND THAT SHOULD wrap up our plans, Ahmed,” Vadim said into the telephone. “Do you foresee any loose ends?”
“What about the woman?”
“She is upstairs packing at this very moment. The goods are well hidden. Having her transport them to London will arouse no suspicions.”
“And she does not suspect?”
Ahmed Saqr was a fanatic but a careful buyer. His continual worry irritated Vadim. He wanted the deal over, the danger out of his house. “She trusts me implicitly. She believes what I want her to believe.”
There was a rapid intake of breath — a gasp — from the hallway.
“What was that?”
Vadim froze, his heart racing. Where was Sophie? But he feared that he knew. “Old friend, I must call you back.”
***
Five days after Jack had joined the task force, surveillance continued to yield no developments, only frustration. Seated cross-legged beneath the vines, he inhaled the warm fragrance of the ripening grapes. He let the sun slanting through the broad grape leaves soothe his aching shoulders, rigid with tension.
“Something’s going on at last,” Leoni whispered to him as he ended the call. “Roszca’s former buyers are sending out feelers about the uranium. On the quiet, like.”
Jack considered. “So that means they don’t know where the package went. Vadim has it. He’s got to.”
“So what’s he waiting for?” Leoni shook his head.
“Maybe he isn’t. Maybe he’s arranging a sale. They’ve been busy today. The Mercedes has gone out twice.”
“Yeah. Returned both times with nothing more suspicious than melons. No rich-terrorist-buyer types.” The officer snorted a laugh and unwrapped a stick of gum. “Lighten up, Thorne. You’d think this was personal.”
Personal as you could get, but Jack didn’t enlighten the man. Nobody knew. He’d kept his search secret. “Usually the housekeeper does the marketing. Something’s up.” He tried to put the puzzle together but got no picture. They didn’t have all the pieces, dammit.
The solid slam of the heavy front doors jarred him to alertness. He raised his binoculars as Petar exited carrying a small duffel bag. He jogged out of sight around the house. A few minutes later he drove away in the Mercedes.
“Hot damn,” said another of the surveillance team. “Get De Carlo on the horn to follow that sucker.”
“Roger that.” Heartbeat racing, Jack hit speed dial. Now maybe they were getting somewhere.
Moments later the second bodyguard, Guido, pulled around to the front in a black Maserati. The sports car was compact and low, built to take winding Italian roads like runways. He cut to an idle and relaxed in the driver’s seat. Static and then a heavy beat filled the air as the man found a station playing American rock music.
One of the double front doors swung open with a bang. Sophie darted out.
She wore a sleeveless knit top, tan pants and low-heeled sandals. Travel clothes? Her eyes were wild, her mouth open. Her breasts rose and fell with rapid breaths. She trotted down the steps and jogged past the idling car.
“What the hell?” Jack tensed, ready to move. He adjusted the focus on his binoculars.
After a quick glance at the bodyguard in the Maserati, she sprinted down the gravel drive as if the devil himself snapped at her heels.
Guido stared at her in amazement but stayed in the car. Vadim shouted to his man. The diamond dealer pounded after the fleeing woman, and the car began to roll.
At the hard look on Vadim’s face, Jack dropped the binoculars and flipped open the snap on his shoulder holster. “Let’s move!”
“No, wait!” Leoni scrambled to his feet. “It’s a lovers’ quarrel. Not our business.”
“He’s going to kill her.” Jack broke cover and raced between the trees and across the open expanse toward Vadim.
“Dammit to hell! We’re made anyway. Hit it, guys. Andiamo!”
The other officers followed Jack.
Leoni yelled to Vadim in Italian. Abruptly the man halted and looked around at the five strangers with pistols. The Maserati braked to a stop beside him.
Jack raced toward his enemy. Barking orders, Vadim jumped into the Maserati at the moment Jack reached the rear bumper. As the powerful sports car accelerated, gravel spit like bullets from beneath the rear tires.
Ignoring the flying stones, Jack stopped, panting. Maybe he should add sprints to his running regimen. He grabbed his phone. He was about to call De Carlo when he saw where the car was heading.
Straight for Sophie.
She appeared in good shape, but her stride faltered with every step. She was flagging.
The Maserati would overtake her in seconds.
Jack’s pulse hurtled in his veins. He took off again down the drive. “No!”
Sophie must’ve heard Jack’s yell or the car’s engine, because she swerved to the right. But not far enough.
The front right bumper struck her side. The momentum threw her into the air. Tossed her onto the grass verge. She landed in a heap. She lay there, still.
The car stopped and backed up.
The black muzzle of an automatic pistol protruded from the open passenger window. A tree blocked the shooter’s view, and the car started to turn.
“Stop, you bastard! Throw down your gun!” Jack fired at the car as he ran. His first shots missed, but two bullets slammed into the trunk.
The pistol withdrew. The Maserati roared off, leaving him coughing in its dusty wake. The car swung a hard left onto the paved road. It disappeared from sight.
***
Awareness chewed into Sophie’s brain in painful waves. Her eyelids fluttered open to a swarm of black spots before her eyes. When she tried to sit up, every bone and muscle in her body protested, and she collapsed back, panting. Spears radiated into her left hip and shoulder. Her stomach lurched and her heart thumped wildly.
After a few minutes, she forced her eyes open again. The black spots smeared into a blur, and she could make out light green walls. White sheets. White blanket. Smells of antiseptic and medicine and cleanser.
An IV. With a tube into her right forearm. Straps immobilized her left arm and shoulder.
She was in a hospital bed.
What happened?
Her chest clamped tight, and tears burned her eyes. Stop it right now, Sophia Constanza Elena Rinaldi. You are alive. You are safe.
The confusion gave her something to focus on other than pain. It radiated from her shoulder and bounced around in her head like a spiked ball. Had there been an accident? The plane? Something in the airport? A mugging? Struggling to remember what happened made her head throb more. She closed her eyes against the driving pain. She fought the tears gathering in her throat.
A nurse bustled in with a pitcher of water. “Ah, signora, come sta?” she began, but then switched to halting English. “How are you? Is good you … wake.”
“What happened to me?” Sophie said in Italian. She managed only a croaking whisper from her parched throat. “How was I hurt?”
Uttering soothing sounds, the nurse gave her some water. “You rest. I will tell the medico.”
A few minutes later a blond woman in a white lab coat entered her room. She carried a clipboard crammed with papers beneath her arm.
The doctor. At last she’d get some answers.
“Dottoressa, please tell me what happened. How badly am I hurt? Where am I?”
The woman pushed half glasses lower on her nose and smiled gently. “All will be answered. But first allow me to examine you. I shall try not to hurt you.”
Sighing, Sophie subsided into the soft pillows. The haze before her eyes was thinning, and the nausea.
When the doctor finished checking her vital signs, she asked, “Tell me, signora, what is your name?”
Of course, they must check anyone who’s been unconscious. “My name is Sophie Rinaldi. I’m an American. I live in New York. I came to Italy on vacation.” The doctor didn’t need to know she was searching for family. That aspect of her trip would be delayed now anyway.
“Bene.” Very good. The doctor complimented her on her fluent Italian as she made a note on her clipboard.
“How badly am I hurt?”
“You are very lucky, Signora Rinaldi. A concussion. Bruises and abrasions and a partially dislocated shoulder, but nothing is broken. Dieci giorni. You will be well.”
Ten days. Probably longer. Two weeks or more. Italian time was fluid. Sophie managed a weak smile.
“And what is the last thing you remember before waking up in our beautiful hospital?” She smiled expectantly. A sunbeam through the tall window reflected on the lenses of her reading glasses and made Sophie blink.
As her brows drew together in thought, she felt each muscle movement as a separate stab of pain. Marshaling her faltering reserves, she forced her aching brain to focus. “The last thing I recall is the pilot’s voice announcing the descent to Rome, to Leonardo da Vinci Airport. Did we crash?”
***
Jack paced in the corridor outside Sophie’s hospital room. He knew her injuries and that she was awake but nothing else. Since his Italian extended only to basic courtesies like grazie and per favore, he could only wait until a doctor who spoke English informed him of her condition.
In yesterday’s excitement, Vadim’s Maserati had vanished into the Veneto countryside. Task-force vehicles didn’t scramble fast enough to know even which direction he’d gone. He could be hunkered down in a cabin in the Dolomites or he could be halfway to Morocco.
The attack on Sophie Rinaldi had convinced the local authorities to give the task force free rein. Jack and ten other officers spent the rest of the day and most of the night combing through Vadim’s villa. A more thorough search would take days.
Traces of radiation in several rooms, but no uranium. No courier named Dobrich. No Vadim.
Niente. Nada. Zip.
The debriefing was every bit as harsh as Jack had expected. Every one of the five officers on surveillance was interrogated and ripped from stem to stern by the task-force leader. Not surprising, as the one to blow their cover and lose the suspect, Jack received the harshest reprimand.
The only reason De Carlo didn’t send him back to the States was the surveillance video. The footage made Vadim’s murderous intent all too clear. It showed that Jack saved Sophie Rinaldi’s life. For the moment he was still on the task force, but De Carlo and the others viewed him as a loose cannon. This snafu ratcheted up a notch the normal tension between cooperating agencies.
As long as he got to stay, he didn’t give a damn.
De Carlo had given Jack an assignment guaranteed to keep him out of the loop — protecting Sophie. The commissario didn’t consider her important, but Jack’s gut said the opposite. She fled in fear of her life probably because she’d learned dangerous information. About the uranium or Vadim’s illicit diamond trade.
More important to Jack was finding Vadim. Sticking close to Sophie was fine with him. She might know her lover’s habits and maybe his hangouts and hiding places. She was beautiful, no denying it, but he could resist temptation. A woman like that, the lover of the man he hated with all his being? No problem.
“Permesso, excuse me, signore.” The tall blond woman held out her hand. “I am Cara Manetti, the staff neurologist. I am one of the doctors treating Signora Rinaldi.” She used the formal title applied to all adult women, married or single.
Neurologist? The possibility of brain damage to Sophie tightened Jack’s jaw. “Piacere, Doctor,” he replied. Glad to meet you. He shook her hand. “What can you tell me about Ms., um, Signora Rinaldi’s condition?”
She began to smile but didn’t. Jack supposed his demeanor intimidated her. Whether he meant to look harsh or not, he had that effect on people. In his work it was an advantage. But not at the moment.
She jammed her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. “Signora Rinaldi wi
ll recover fully. In time. The pain and dizziness from the concussion will ease in a day or two, and she can leave the hospital. A sling will protect her shoulder.”
Jack expelled the breath he didn’t know he was holding. “So she’s okay.”
The doctor’s lips compressed. As if unable to talk without gesturing, she withdrew her hands from her pockets and held them out, palms open. “She will be fine. I am certain. There is the small issue of amnesia.”
“My God, doesn’t she know who she is?”
“Sì, sì. Indeed she does. That type of amnesia is extremely rare. Signora Rinaldi’s global memory is intact. Hers is what we call retrograde amnesia.” She hesitated, expressive hands hovering. “Often with head injuries from an accident or attack, patients do not remember the seconds immediately leading up to the trauma.”
He’d seen it before, when fellow officers were shot. They didn’t always recover the memory later. But he needed Sophie to remember what had terrified her. “And retrograde amnesia is what she has? She’s missing only the seconds up to her … accident?”
Dr. Manetti’s brows drew together. She raised and lowered one shoulder. “Hers is an interesting case. Molto insolito. Very unusual. She has lost more memory than patients with her injuries normally do.”
Chapter 3
SOPHIE STUDIED THE leather bifold’s contents longer than necessary. Examining the gold badge and picture ID of the U.S. Domestic Antiterrorism Risk Corps was easier than facing the stern-faced government agent standing beside her hospital bed. Jackson Thorne was a rugged-looking man, tall and leanly muscled, with dark gold hair. His accusing blue stare and uncompromising jaw jittered her pulse. He was an intimidating man, so the flutter of sexual awareness she felt made no sense.
When he cleared his throat, she finally closed the wallet and handed it back.
Her fingers brushed his knuckles, and he recoiled as if she’d contaminated him. How odd. As though a concussion was contagious. She started to smile, to reassure the agent, but even that slight movement sent shards of pain rocketing around in her skull.
Dark Vengeance (The DARK Files Book 4) Page 2
