Punching in the code which Alex had given her on their first tryst, she made sure the gate closed securely behind her before she scaled the stairs.
At the top of the stairs was another ornate, heavy metal gate. This one was propped open. Stepping through it, she carefully placed the silk bag containing her gun down by the gate. Reaching down to her upper thigh, she unhooked a holster with a dagger in it and placed them on the ground beside her bag.
She closed the gate gently so it would not make any noise. She didn’t want to disturb the magical ambience that was waiting for her.
Once that was done, she turned to face the terrace.
The entire stone patio was bordered by massive candles dripping wax. The waist-high stone ledge facing the sea was lined with glowing Moroccan lanterns in ruby, turquoise, amethyst, and emerald.
Soft strains of Latin music permeated the space. The air smelled like some exotic flower.
A massive, plush feather bed with white covers was pressed against one wall of the stone terrace. A small table nearby held a bottle of red wine and some small cubes of cheese and olives.
Alex stood in the arch of the massive French doors leading to his bedroom. The doors had been thrown open to the breeze, and the long, flowing white curtains whipped at each side of him.
“Aha. My Eva is here.”
Eva swallowed. She was nobody’s Eva. The only reason she didn’t take offense was because, more than anyone, Alex knew this to be true. For this moment, she let him hold onto the fantasy that she was his even though they both knew differently.
As she walked slowly toward him, she let her long, red silk jacket fall open. Underneath she wore an exquisite black lace bra, tanga, and a garter belt all shot with delicate silk ribbons in pink and red. The garter belt held up silk stockings that led down to sky-high stiletto heels. The patent leather red heels were part of her collection of shoes that rarely touched any floor that didn’t contain a bed. Seeing her lover’s face, Eva knew the exorbitantly expensive get up was worth every last Euro.
“Sei squisito.” You are exquisite. Alex groaned the words as she grew close and dropped the red silk jacket to the ground. He kicked it away with his foot and took Eva in his arms.
“One day you will stay the night with me,” Alex said as Eva stood, pulling her red silk jacket on and holding her red heels by their straps.
Instead of answering she smiled and leaned over to kiss him deeply.
At the gate leading down the stairs, she picked up her small bag, reassured by the weight of her weapon inside. She turned toward the bed. Alex was sitting on the edge watching her.
“I’ll be in America for a while. I’ll call when I return,” she said.
It wasn’t entirely true. She would be in Mexico mainly. But she never knew who might be listening, even at Alex’s house. And whether she would call when she returned was also up for debate. She’d found herself feeling surprisingly tender toward Alex tonight, and that set off alarm bells ringing in her head.
Caring about someone meant she could lose them.
She’d already spent many sleepless nights worrying about Jonathan, and they were just friends, not lovers. Ultimately, she’d decided Jonathan was probably safe from the danger that swirled around her because he lived a world away. The majority of their interactions were online, and she made sure to use hacker-proof communication methods any time there was contact between them.
People were safer if she didn’t care about them. There was only one conclusion to that train of thought:
Better not to love.
8
The girl was supposed to leave on her first mission for the Queen of Spades this week.
It was probably also her first assassination.
He couldn’t decide what would be more devastating—taking the girl out in the small village where she’d been sent to kill one of his colleagues or plucking her off the streets near the Queen of Spades’ villa.
As he watched the young woman approach the town square, he could tell she was preoccupied—she wasn’t as careful to look around when she entered the piazza. She looked down at times, something he hadn’t seen her do before. Her eyes scanned the crowd, glossing over him. Good. As part of his recon efforts, he’d been taking his morning coffee here for so many mornings that he’d become part of the scenery. Nothing to be alarmed about.
In the end, it was an easy decision. Here. Himself. Personally. It would give him great pleasure to grapple with a powerful young spirit such as hers. He could take her to his own special torture chamber. It’d been awhile since it had been utilized. And, as always, he would satisfy his own physical needs as part of the process. It went with the territory. Men or women, he liked to assert his dominance and power over them by controlling them in the most brutal way while satisfying his never-ending lust at the same time. The combination of sex and violence was unparalleled.
He’d tried his share of the most potent and beloved illicit drugs available to man, and nothing could compare to sexual gratification at the moment the spark of life left a body. It was the ultimate debauchery. An elite pleasure that only a select few people in the world ever experienced.
His eyes slit in pleasure thinking about this as he watched the young woman’s lithe figure undulate as she made her way across the square. As she rescanned the people there, her glance once again flicked on him briefly before moving on. Yes, he was just part of the scenery. For now.
He would have her soon. When she realized he’d been stalking her for weeks, it would add to her anger. He could tell she was of above average intelligence and, at first, she would be furious he’d trapped her. After that, her anger would morph into utter terror and despair.
The arrangements would be made today. He would strike tomorrow. The more he thought about it, the more his plan seemed perfect.
If she disappeared in Ledezzari’s small village, some might think that old buffoon had been behind it. The fool would be credited with being smart enough to sniff out the threat of an extraordinary girl like her and then have the wherewithal to stop her.
Ledezzari would be hailed a hero.
No, that wouldn’t do at all.
No. He would take her here in the Queen’s own territory. It would make it more personal. It would be a clear signal to the Queen of Spades that she was not safe no matter how high her stone walls or how impenetrable her villa seemed.
He would leave something on the girl’s body to reinforce that her murder was not random. Something that would signify it had been done as a personal attack against the “invincible” Queen of Spades.
She was not a superhero. She was not inhuman.
She was flesh and blood just like him.
She would mourn and grieve just like him.
He would make sure of it.
9
Eva spent the morning training alongside her guerriere. She was slightly hungover from too much red wine, sex, and not enough sleep, but she powered through.
Francesca had said airport workers remained on strike and she was still trying to track down a private plane. Eva knew the best way to fight the anxiety of waiting was to do something physical so she joined her soldiers in training.
At one point, she sparred with her young protégé, Chiara, and was bested.
When Chiara flawlessly disarmed her, sending Eva’s dagger flying across the courtyard, a group of soldiers had gasped. It had never been done before. They had frozen, holding their breath, waiting for what would happen next.
With Chiara holding a knife firmly to her throat, Eva smiled.
“If I had a daughter, I could do no better than you,” Eva said. And despite having lost her own daughter—a bright, fierce, beautiful girl who had been senselessly slaughtered—Eva felt no betrayal of that child in saying the words to this fine young woman.
The girl’s eyes welled with tears. She lowered the knife and then dropped into a kneel.
“At your service.”
Eva began to clap, and soo
n the other women applauded as well. She lifted the girl’s chin and looked her in the eye. “You are the best of the best. Don’t ever forget that. I’ve been waiting for someone like you. I won’t be able to do this forever.”
Eva looked around at the women surrounding her. “Someday I hope you will replace me and lead our women to victory long after I am gone.”
The young woman swiped at a stray tear that had slipped out and stood up straight.
“You honor me regina,” she said. “Had I a mother, I could do no better than you.”
Eva turned on one heel and stalked off before anyone could see on her face the way the words had ravaged her heart.
In her office that afternoon, she stood in the window high above the courtyard and watched the women as they did their afternoon training. The schedule the guerriere were on was brutal.
And Eva was constantly examining it to make it more efficient and deadlier. For instance, she wanted to figure out how to fit in time where the women could visit a firing range a few days a week. She deplored firearms but knew they were an evil necessity in today’s world. She’d learned on her own that a dagger was no match for an enemy’s nine-millimeter. It was distasteful. But necessary.
Fitting in a visit to a range would be challenging.
The women were already in the gym of the villa’s basement by four in the morning, lifting weights and running on the treadmills. Eva was ashamed that the girls were forced to run indoors, but she was too wary to let them take to the coastal beaches. However, branching out to the beaches was in her plans for the future. She had a few more enemies here in Southern Italy to bring into line before she would feel safe letting her army loose as a whole.
Once she was confident they could protect themselves, she’d allow them to leave the fortress for their training. It would be good for their morale. As of now, the rules permitted them to leave the villa during breaks but not en masse. Eva couldn’t help but imagine a sharpshooter hidden on a cliff taking out her entire army with a powerful assault rifle as they ran on the beach below or walked into the small nearby town.
Ever since a shooter had taken shelter in a hotel room high above the ground in Las Vegas and massacred 58 people, she couldn’t shake the thought of her own army being attacked in such a way. But she also needed to teach them to be prepared and on guard for that possibility at all times.
These were the thoughts that kept her up late at night. How could she train the women to be powerful and yet still compassionate? How could she make them invincible and yet protect them at the same time? It was a great responsibility. One she embraced.
After the basement gym workout, which lasted two hours, the women had an hour break to shower and eat. Most of the young women gathered in the kitchen where three cooks served up a variety of green smoothies or handed over plates of protein—eggs and bacon and sausage smothered in cheese. And espresso. Of course.
It had not escaped Eva’s notice that Chiara avoided the dining room crowd and set off by herself each morning, heading into the small nearby town for her espresso.
At first it had alarmed Eva. But she also didn’t want to tamp down the girl’s independent free spirit that separated her from the others. Eva piloted a drone to follow Chiara the first few times. She’d watched as the young woman walked briskly down the main road toward the piazza. When a car came, she’d effortlessly slipped into the woods until it passed.
Once she reached the village outskirts, the young woman became emboldened. If people or cars approached, she did not hide, but she also did not make conversation. The most she did was give a curt nod. Once in the piazza she entered a café for a few minutes. It was where she went next that most intrigued Eva. On the far side of the piazza, the girl took a small path that led through a wooded area down to a deserted beach. There, each morning, the girl sat lotus style in the same sandy spot and meditated for twenty minutes. When she was done, she took the lid off the second espresso, downed it, and then headed back up the stairs and then down the road to the villa.
One day, as the drone hovered high above where it should have been out of view, the young woman stopped in the middle of her meditation. Her head shot up, and she stared at the drone. She made an obscene gesture, gathered up her things, and angrily stalked away and toward the stairs.
Eva, who was absentmindedly watching the footage from her office laptop felt flushed with guilt.
She immediately sent word for Chiara to come to her office when she returned.
Chiara didn’t knock. When Eva noticed Chiara standing in the doorway, she had no idea how long the young woman had been standing there, studying her. It was disturbing and a feeling that Eva wasn’t used to. Few people ever successfully snuck up on her. Eva met her eyes. The woman was glaring. Furious. Her mouth twitched. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides.
“The drone will no longer follow you,” Eva said.
“Thank you,” the young woman said and turned to leave without being dismissed.
Remembering this now, Eva smiled.
She took another look at the soldiers’ schedule, trying to figure out how she could adjust it to fit in weapons training at a range.
After, they went into the classrooms to spend another two hours learning essential survival skills such as foreign languages, lock picking, and how to kill someone with your bare hands.
After that, the young women spent another two hours doing martial arts, parkour, and sword fighting in the courtyard until lunchtime.
A portion of the afternoons was reserved for down time. Some of the women took optional training classes, such as how to forage in the forest for natural food, how to make camouflage clothing, or how to fashion weapons from common objects.
Chiara was always in a classroom. She never retreated to her room to rest.
Before dinner, the young women spent another ninety minutes in the gym strength training and lifting weights.
After a healthy dinner, they were sent to an early bed where they often studied by reading books that related to their training or special interests.
As Eva thought over the schedule, she came up with a plan.
The gladiatura moderna training in the courtyard was not negotiable. The firearms training would have to take place between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. Eva sighed, anticipating the protests. But getting them proficient at firearms was a matter of life and death. They could argue all they wanted about needing their rest.
They could sleep when they were dead.
10
The next morning, Eva was deeply embroiled in arrangements to get the two dozen women to a nearby range three days a week when Francesca came rushing into her office out of breath.
Eva sat up straighter, alarmed.
The usually composed woman had never appeared flustered.
“Chiara is missing.”
“What?” Eva wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.
“She was expected back from the village thirty minutes ago.”
Eva stood, her throat growing tight. The young woman was extraordinarily punctual and regimented. “I’ll send the drone to the beach where she meditates.”
“I’ll send Alicia and Noemi to retrace her steps.”
Eva began to protest but then bit her lip. It was necessary. If the girl was injured somewhere, they needed to find her and help her as soon as possible. The drone wouldn’t be able to search the wooded areas along the path to town like a person could. The two women Francesca had named were also two of the few women who already knew how to use guns.
“Make sure they are armed and on guard.”
Francesca nodded and quickly left the room.
Ten minutes later, Francesca and Eva huddled over a laptop watching as the drone retraced the path Chiara took daily to and from the piazza.
It zipped above the heads of the two women who were making their way on foot. Each carried huge assault rifles “in case anyone wanted to flirt” as Francesca had put it.
Beyond the two women o
n foot, the drone’s camera showed an empty road. Once in the plaza, they directed the drone to swoop down and scan the area in a 360-degree rotation showing tables full of villagers who stopped to stare and point at it. A quick glimpse inside the window at the café showed that Chiara was not inside.
Eva directed the drone out of the piazza and down toward the path bordered by trees that lead to the secluded beach. At the water’s edge, the drone swung another 360 degrees. There were no signs of the young woman anywhere on the beach. Eva briefly directed the drone over the crystal clear turquoise sea, pointing the camera down into the shallow water near the shore.
Her heart skipped a beat when she saw something floating on the surface, but closer inspection showed it to be a huge mass of green seaweed. Eva flew the drone back to the wooded area lining the steps down to the beach. Getting in low she hovered, pointing the drone’s camera into the brush on either side of the steps.
Nothing.
Back down at the beach, Eva directed the drone’s camera to the spot where Chiara usually sat to meditate. There was an imprint in the sand where the girl had clearly sat that morning.
But it was the sand all around it that sent a wave of alarm through Eva.
The sand was disturbed. It was churned up as if there had been a struggle. There were also parallel ruts in the sand as if someone had been dragged into the sea. At the shore, there were several footprints. Large ones. Not Chiara’s. The footsteps led up to the disturbed spot in the sand and back down again. They didn’t lead toward the staircase.
A boat.
“They took her away in a boat.”
“Who?” Francesca asked.
Eva just shook her head. Her list of enemies was endless.
“And if they did so that easily, she must’ve been drugged. Send Alicia and Noemi to the café. Tell them to bring me whomever made Chiara’s espresso.”
“I have you on a private plane. But not until tomorrow.”
The Suicide King Page 3
