by Victoria Fox
Celeste hadn’t felt the electricity other women talked about, but after years of believing she deserved to be alone, Carl’s attention paid an unexpected dividend. Besides, love, proper love, seemed a risk too great and precarious; to adore someone utterly when, in a heartbeat, they could be snatched away. She should know.
At first, Carl treated her like a queen. But, as the weeks passed, his behaviour changed. He lost his job, was evicted from his apartment and slowly tightened his hold. He would explode at her for leaving a glass out. If she failed to arrange the cupboards in the way he liked, he would yell at her until her ears rang. Then came the first time he hit her: when she kicked off a pair of heels by the door and he tripped on them, spraining his ankle. After that, things got worse. Carl slapped her for the tiniest thing. He called her a stupid bitch, an ugly thief—and she regretted telling him her secrets because when things got bad he called her a murderer. Celeste could handle everything he threw at her, but not that.
Celeste stood. She eyed the trash can, listening for Carl. A footstep at a time, she approached and lifted the lid. She had to scramble for the last quarter, but finally she found it. Piecing it together, she read. Tawny Lascelles … Mitch Corrigan …
Salimanta. Indonesia. The crisis.
The invitation cited she had been summoned as ‘an asset’.
Celeste flipped back through the years. Yes, she had visited this place before. She had valued an item for the Salimantan vice president at one of his homes.
Cane Enterprises. Dimly she recognised the name, a door in her memory creaking open on rusty hinges. Where from? How did she know it? Cane …
And how had they discovered where she lived?
Celeste held the card to her chest, concentrating. Rain lashed fast and feverish against the windowpanes. Somewhere far off, a girl shrieked.
On impulse, she scribbled down the return email.
The group would leave on June 29. Three weeks, it promised, on the other side of the world. She wouldn’t have to tell Carl, she could just board the flight without breathing a word.
Three weeks away from him, no email, no phone, no contact.
Celeste twisted the stolen bracelet on her wrist.
She felt the skin beneath, naked and vulnerable.
There was a storm coming.
27
Boston
The sky was slate and dense with rain. A dull wind blew through the trees. Donald Silvers’ mourners were shadows against a bank of brooding churchyard firs.
Angela stood by her mother at the grave. Isabella’s shoulders were stiff against the cold, her head bowed to hide her stricken face. Thunder growled.
‘The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God …’
Donald’s coffin was lowered. Words were said, empty shapes that swam over Angela like fog on a still lake. They could never achieve what she needed them to.
‘You OK, baby?’ Dino murmured, fumbling to take her hand.
She slipped from her fiancé’s touch. The question was inane. Of course she wasn’t OK—whose funeral was he at? It pissed her off that he had even come in the first place.
Last night he had tried to comfort her. She had been shocked at his arrival at the house, and at how greasy his attempts to slide into her family’s grief. Instead of having the eve of the funeral to lament the loss of the man who had raised her, she had been forced to spend it fending off the one she had psychotically agreed to marry.
She had to be strong. She had done the right thing: for her father, for her family, for her. Through all this, that was the rope she clung to. It gave her comfort to know she was keeping their kingdom afloat, but, for all her life applying herself to this end, nothing could sweeten its bizarre reality. She quashed misgivings that it had all been a mistake: losing Noah, signing her life to Vegas, taking Dino’s hand, a man she scarcely knew and who wanted more than she was prepared to give …
But now there was no turning back.
The Silvers’ fortune had already been channelled into the Zenetti Group. It would remain under Carmine Zenetti’s charge until the wedding day. Once the ring was safely on Angela’s finger, their combined assets would be freshly divided under the terms of the contract. Angela was a walking, talking insurance policy. Until she made it down the aisle and accepted Dino as her husband, her family had nothing.
‘The righteous, though they die early, will be at rest …’
Across the congregation, Luca’s red-rimmed eyes were hard on the ground. Her brother deserved his guilt. The night Donald passed, they had tried repeatedly to contact him, but Luca couldn’t be found: he was out partying, like he was every other night of the damn week. Things were going to have to change if they had any chance of extricating themselves from the Zenettis. For that was what Angela planned—and that was what she would spend every waking hour battling to achieve. If she could grow, she could buy her way out of Dino—but she needed her brothers’ help.
The congregation joined in a response, that joyless vibration particular to funerals, and though Angela had been raised a Catholic she found religion, expressly in death, hard to reconcile. ‘If I should walk in the valley of darkness, no evil would I fear, for you are with me …’ She didn’t like the idea that she should be cast upon the mercy of another, judged against a set of rules that seemed to allow for no shades of grey. Take her marriage to Dino: it spelled dishonesty in the worst way, a sacred bond used for financial ends, and yet hadn’t she been martyred by the deed?
Who decided what was right? Who cast judgement on her soul?
If she had sinned, what would be served as her punishment?
‘Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces …’
She hoped that someone, somewhere, was looking out for them.
Back at the house, Isabella retired to her bedroom. She wasn’t able to read the messages of condolence and so Angela set about filing them away. Flipping through the cards, one alone stood out. Noah Lawson had sent lilies, along with the note:
I’m sorry.
The sight of his name plucked a fragile string. It was the first correspondence that had gone between them since the theatre. Angela had replayed that painful encounter myriad times, rewriting it in her mind, wishing she had said everything differently, wishing she had kissed him again, wishing for another outcome, wishing she had held on tight and never let go.
She had to let go. It was survival.
Noah was her past. Dino was her future. She had committed to this contract and she was a woman of her word. Her heart would always bleed for the life that might have been, but it must do so quietly and invisibly, and never give itself away.
I’m sorry.
The card was not addressed to any one name. Who was Noah sorry for? Her mother? Them all? Was he sorry for Donald’s death, or for the way it had ended between them, the words that were said, the mistakes they had made?
Angela put the flowers in a vase. She wanted to run. She wanted to escape. Vegas, Carmine, Dino—the trio stood at her shoulder, frightening and oppressive. Wherever she chose, wherever she went to, she knew that they would follow.
Except …
She turned. On the mantelpiece, the mysterious invitation remained: she hadn’t imagined it. It had come through that morning. All other deliveries had been visions in pink and white, cream and blue, yellow ribbons and peach paper—and yet here it was, bold and undeniable, a black and gold envelope addressed solely to her.
Go, it urged. Get as far away from here as you can.
As soon as Angela had read it, she knew she would say yes.
It was the distance she needed. It wasn’t here, or in Vegas, or with Dino.
When she returned from this trip, she would be over Noah Lawson. She would put him from her mind and train her ambition and her energies on what lay ahead.
She would be ready to embrace the life and career she had always longed for.
Three weeks. Six companions. A charitable cause …
&nb
sp; What was the worst that could happen?
28
Szolsvár Castle, Gemenc Forest, Hungary
It was the first time in months that Voldan Cane had ventured outside.
Janika wheeled him onto the castle terrace. Ahead, the dark, dense forest was a smudged wall of green. Milky daylight strained through the mists that hung like a veil on the horizon. Szolsvár’s gardens stretched for half a mile, the once disciplined and cared-for plots now overgrown and wild with neglect. Weeds throttled the soil.
On the balustrade, a crow cawed, black as night. Voldan manoeuvred his chair so he could look at it. Its liquid feathers gleamed ominously, its orange beak sharp and its eyes twitching. With a heavy flap of wings, it plummeted out of sight.
Voldan breathed the new dawn. In lands far from here his wicked plan was in action. It was sweet to picture the missives arriving at their destinations, the words he had considered with such care, for each recipient a different text that resounded with them directly. Be it conscience, image recovery, career advancement or sheer goodwill, Voldan felt certain that of the seven invitations sent, seven would accept.
Seven of the planet’s most powerful people, eradicated overnight.
Would they repent? Would they beg for forgiveness? It would make no difference. Seven icons, missing presumed dead, in the worst private jet disaster in the history of aviation. Voldan turned to the surfeit of news screens, erected across a wall, a flashing hive from around the globe. He couldn’t wait to see them spring to life.
His first step had been to trace a way in—how to plot the crash, to make it appear an accident, and to vouch it could never be traced back to Szolsvár. Tawny Lascelles had bitten like a worm on a hook. The model’s latest lover, on the face of it a Vegas croupier, was in fact one of the city’s deadlier thugs. He belonged to Voldan, had been paid to find Tawny and seduce her. Voldan’s fortune could buy things people hadn’t dreamed up yet: it acquired contacts beyond the realm of the ordinary.
‘Mr Cane?’ Janika appeared in the doorway.
‘Come!’ he instructed in his reedy monotone. ‘So I can see you.’
The maid obeyed. Her mousy hair was plastered to her forehead, the quibble of loose flesh that hung from her chin shivering with exertion. She had spent all morning scrubbing the Great Hall floor. Voldan had commanded it be done.
‘I am finished,’ Janika said.
‘Can you see your face in it?’ came the robotic, mechanised response.
‘Yes, Mr Cane.’
‘You are lying to me.’
‘No, no, I’m not—’
‘You lie!’
The wheelchair lurched forward, ramming into Janika’s legs. She cried out, clutching her shin. Last time, Janika had fibbed on the matter, believing her boss to be incapable of checking, but by angling the mirror on his armrest Voldan had been able to prove her wrong. She had deceived him—and worse, she had underestimated him.
Although Voldan had inflicted no physical punishment, the weight of his disapproval hung heavy as a cross. Even in his withered state, Janika loved him as a husband. She took care of him, she bathed him, she dressed him and she fed him. It was impossible not to grow close. Not that she could ever confess her true feelings …
Sometimes, when Voldan fell prey to one of his fleshly urges, Janika could expel just a fraction of her passion. But that hadn’t happened in weeks.
‘I will do it again, Mr Cane,’ she begged. ‘Please! Let me clean it again!’
She scuttled off indoors.
Alone, Voldan calmed himself. So restricted was his movement that he was occasionally forced to lash out. Right now he wanted nothing more than to leap from the chair and stretch his legs—athletic as they used to be, not the crumpled sticks that brought him such despair—and run, run, run like the wind, across the lawns, through the bracken, down to the river and into the woods. He wanted to fling his arms wide and embrace the trees, the sky, to shout out his joy with the voice he used to own …
But here he was, still trapped in this device: a sitting, squatting corpse.
As soon as this project was completed, he would be demanding of Janika the ultimate sacrifice: to do away with this useless, broken shell once and for all.
Grigori …
Would his son be watching when the plane went down? Would he be watching as they gasped their last breaths, as they drowned in a dark and freezing ocean?
Angela Silvers, bitch heiress. Kevin Chase, child star, pop prince, thief. Eve Harley, devil-sent hack with a soul of steel. Tawny Lascelles: supermodel, seductress, slut. Mitch Corrigan, coward, dictator, ultimate fake. Jacob Lyle, cutthroat capitalist. And Celeste Cavalieri: the heartless, coldblooded killer.
All had shown their cards. All marked tombstones in the path of Grigori’s torment. Once they were removed, at last his son could be free.
‘Mr Cane?’
Voldan’s thumb activated the stick on his armrest, rotating his chair to the door.
Janika held her arms out. ‘It is all done now. Are you hungry?’
With a malicious grin, Voldan trundled up to her.
All of a sudden he had a brilliant appetite.
29
New York
While Tawny Lascelles was in the bathroom, the man achieved his final task. He located the payload without difficulty: Tawny never went anywhere without it.
He inserted the device, a timer and thermostat, and set it, consulting his watch to confirm the date and hour. He checked it, checked it, and checked it again.
This was no practice run. This was the real deal.
The man worked smoothly and quickly. In the adjacent room the shower ran steady, her voice singing a tune beneath the hammering water. He gave no thought to her as a person. She was a target. He could have sex with her, laugh with her, kiss her, all the things lovers did, and never feel a thing.
His instructions were simple, as all the best were. When schemes got over-complicated, that was when fuck-ups happened. There would be no fuck-ups.
Tomorrow, Tawny would fly to Jakarta to meet her party of doomed VIPs. He gave no regard to those, either. They were names on a list, bullseyes, nothing more.
At Jakarta, they would board their jet. No official would challenge them. No handler would check the luggage. No security would forbid the gas canister inside Tawny’s precious hair straighteners and instruct her to remove them.
To do so would be an insult. These celebrities lived by different rules. Rules that would cost them their lives …
The man could picture it now.
Halfway through the flight, the timer activates: it is a soundless omen, the bringer of the end. The straighteners start to heat, setting alight to materials, first to Tawny’s clothes and then to her companions’, a licking flare and then a galloping fire, devouring all in its path. In the cockpit, the cargo alarm sounds.
The pilots don’t have time to panic; they have trained for this. Extinguishers are triggered in the hold. Remain calm, they tell themselves, keep control.
There is less than seventeen minutes before the hull is a loss.
Emergency descent procedures begin. Altitude evaporates as the jet falls through the sky. The captain terminates the oxygen supply. Smoke and fumes fill the cabin. The passengers are unable to make sense of it through their terror.
Ditching briefs begin. They are going to land in water.
The aircraft drops to sea level, slowing in a last attempt at salvation. Maybe there is hope. Maybe they will survive. Maybe their prayers are heard.
Maybe there is a God.
Maybe not …
Panic erupts. The fuel tanks at the wings ignite. Smoke flounders from the rear. The plane decelerates and the cockpit collapses, killing both pilots on impact.
Unmanned, the stricken craft pitches and yaws, rolling to its demise in the cold, cold dark, plunging deep into the purple night ocean, and then gone.
After that there is nothing. Silence. Still. Objective complete.
&n
bsp; Drawing himself back to the present, the man checked his work a final time, calmly replaced the yellow straighteners and resumed his post on the bed.
He gazed up at the ceiling, and blinked.
Tawny emerged with a towel wrapped around her waist. She let it fall to the floor. Her body was golden, perfectly proportioned, and it seemed almost a shame that in less than twenty-four hours it would be lost and bloated on the sea floor.
‘So …’ she teased, coming to join him, ‘are you going to miss me?’
30
Jakarta
Angela Silvers was fifth to arrive. Her flight from the States had been long and turbulent and she was relieved to reach the safety of the VIP suite at Jakarta.
Four of her companions were already there.
‘Jeez, Mom,’ Kevin Chase was muttering, ‘as if I’ve never gone away before!’ He was tapping at his phone, a violet baseball cap yanked down over his ears. His mother was fussing, patting his rucksack and suitcase to make sure he had everything.
‘Hello, Kevin,’ said Angela. ‘Good to see you again.’
‘Hey.’ Kevin deigned to toss her a cracked, insincere smile—an aloof reception given he was clad in thousands of dollars’-worth of Silvers gear.
‘I’m Joan,’ said the woman, compensating with an obsequious handshake that, at the last minute, flattened into a curtsey. ‘It’s a privilege.’
Sketch Falkner, whom Angela had met at several industry events, was grappling with a miniature dog. The dog was wearing the same cap as Kevin’s.
‘He’ll be fine once he gets there,’ said Sketch, giving the pop star a playful slap on the shoulder. The slap could have been gentler, Angela thought.
Joan simpered, ‘I know he’s used to all this, but a mom can’t stop caring …’
‘JESUS!’ Kevin exploded, with a scowl that chewed his eyes up almost completely. ‘DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO FUCKING EMBARRASSING?’
