by Mari Carr
Antonio had already ordered them new laptops, and he’d called ahead so villa staff were able get a few necessities—predominantly underwear and toiletries. They’d only be here a few days. There was no point getting more clothing. He could dress Karl, and Leila had already raided Sophia’s closet.
Giovanni walked into the room and looked around. Antonio couldn’t remember the last time his father had been in his room, if he ever had.
Giovanni stopped at the small seating area—which had been set up by whatever interior designer had last redecorated the space—to take in the views out the tall windows. “May I?”
What was going on? “Of course.”
Antonio walked over, and after a moment, took a seat in the chair across from his father.
“Admiral?”
Giovanni looked out the window. “Is that all I am to you? Your admiral?”
“Father, what’s wrong? Mamma? Madre?” Had something happened to one of his mothers? They both lived in Rome, where their jobs were. He hadn’t seen them since before rescuing Leila and Karl, and if something had happened to them—
“No, no, they are well. Though, of course, you do not call enough.”
“Of course.”
“I received a message from the fleet admiral. About your trinity.”
Antonio held perfectly still.
“Since he will not confirm it, I have spoken with both Rosa and Viola and dissolved it.”
Antonio nodded.
“I want you…I want you to be happy.”
Antonio snorted.
Giovanni stiffened. “There is no need to be disrespectful.”
“You are serious?”
“Of course.”
“You don’t want me to be happy. You want me to be a good Starabba son. A good admiral.” Antonio wanted to say more, but forced himself to stop talking. There was a reason he’d learned to be quiet, especially around his father.
“The fleet admiral told me about your request. That you want to marry the two you rescued.”
“They’re not stray dogs.”
“No, of course not.” Giovanni held up a hand and closed his eyes. For a moment, he looked so…old.
His father had married late, just before he’d turned forty-five, to women half his age. It was easy to forget that he was in his seventies, but for a moment, he looked like an old man. Antonio’s heart clenched.
“I came here to tell you that I am sorry. I saw you had feelings for them and I…I did not want to lose you the way I lost Sophia. And not because Rome needs you to be the next admiral. Because you are my son.”
Antonio’s throat tightened and he looked down at his hands, working to fight back the sudden swell of emotion.
“I thought you would be happier with Rosa and Viola. They are smart, beautiful, Italian, as all the best women are.”
Antonio let out a little laugh, and it helped dissolve the ball of emotion that was choking him.
“I thought they would make you happy. But if you love the Dutchman and the Finnish woman enough that you asked the fleet admiral to place you in another trinity, well, then…I was wrong.”
Antonio looked up, and it wasn’t his admiral sitting across from him. It was his father—a parent who’d made mistakes, but in the end, wanted the best for his child.
“Thank you, Father,” Antonio said quietly.
“And if I could…if I could, I would place you in a trinity with them. If it were in my power, I would do it.”
Antonio could only nod; the ball of feeling was back in his throat, making it impossible to speak. Giovanni leaned forward and awkwardly patted his hand, then rose and silently walked out of the room.
Antonio pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and let the tears fall.
Leila woke up just as the eastern horizon lightened to a pale blue-gray that heralded the end of the darkest part of night. They’d left the curtains open last night, and the light plus the heat—Antonio and Karl’s big bodies were like furnaces—meant she wasn’t getting back to sleep. She wiggled out from between them, climbing over Karl—who slept like the dead—and went to the bathroom.
As she washed her hands, she admired the love bites on her neck, the way her hair was messy from their hands in it.
She yawned and decided she should at least try to get a few more hours of sleep. As she was walking back to the bed, she heard the faint sound of shouts and running steps.
She looked at the clock and frowned. It was just after four a.m., the sun not yet up. Around dawn, some of the knights who stayed full-time at Villa Degli Dei would go out for a run—she’d seen them jogging off into the woods. But this didn’t sound like workout prep, and it was still too dark to safely run outdoors.
Curious, Leila grabbed Karl’s discarded dress shirt and pulled it on over the silk camisole and shorts set she’d donned after their last bout of delicious, desperate sex.
She followed the sounds to the central hall.
Saverio and Vico were speaking with a frantic-looking man, who was gesturing wildly as he spoke in quick Italian.
Vico shook his head and backed up, lifting a phone to his ear.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Vico held up a hand as he finished his call. “It is fine, ma’am. You can go back to bed.”
Leila straightened. She wasn’t tall or imposing, especially in a shirt that was huge enough to fall to her knees, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t help. “I’m a security officer of Kalmar.”
Vico opened his mouth, then closed it. “One of the cooks is missing. This is her brother. He works here too, and they drive together. When he went to pick her up, her front door was open. She left him a note saying her boyfriend would bring her to work.”
“Oh.” Leila could understand the man’s concern at finding his sister’s front door open, but maybe she’d simply forgotten to lock it.
“She told her brother yesterday that she was leaving the man.”
Leila sucked in air. Had she been kidnapped by the boyfriend? “I will help search for her. Let me get dressed.”
“A team from Cohortes Praetorianae is headed to her apartment. We’re running traffic camera searches for the boyfriend’s car.”
Leila hated feeling helpless. “What can I do to help?”
Before Vico could answer, his phone rang. He lifted it to his ear and visibly relaxed. Smiling, he turned to the missing woman’s brother and said something. The brother also relaxed, and nodded. They were speaking Italian, but she could read body language. They must have found her.
Vico was holding his phone away from his ear as he spoke to the brother.
The distinctive pop, pop, pop of gunfire came from the phone’s speaker.
Leila’s body flushed hot, then cold.
Vico slammed the phone back to his ear and started barking questions. Saverio whirled and raced for the door, the brother hot on his heels. Leila chased after them, managing to grab the cavaliere’s elbow.
“I need a rifle and access to the roof,” she demanded.
He paused, then changed course, leading her through the house to a small armory. He tossed a small com unit to her, barked directions to the stairs, and then ran again. Leila snatched two rifles out of their vertical rests, checked them quickly, then threw ammo into a bag and raced out of the armory.
She was going for the roof—but first she was going to wake up her boys.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Antonio. Karl.”
Antonio’s feet hit the floor before his eyes were fully open. His body reacted to the tension in her voice. He didn’t need more than that to know something was wrong.
“Gunfire,” Leila said. “I don’t know details, but I think the guards at one of the entrance checks was shot. Maybe by the cook. Or her boyfriend. I’m going to the roof.” Leila turned on her bare feet and was gone before Antonio had his pants all the way on.
“What’s going on?” Karl was sitting up and blinking. His hair was standing on
end. Antonio grabbed Karl’s glasses and propped them on his nose.
“Someone may have been shot.”
“The mastermind?”
“I don’t know. Leila didn’t say anything about him. Come. I want you with me.”
Antonio let Karl pull on pants, but when he couldn’t find his shirt, Antonio grabbed him and hauled him out of the room. He looked to the left, toward where Leila had gone to get the stairs to the roof. He turned the other way, Karl on his heels.
When they hit the first floor, Antonio’s phone rang. He checked the display. Lorenzo, his superior officer. If Lorenzo was calling, then whatever was happening, whatever had prompted someone to arm Leila—was serious.
After the week…hell, the month he’d had, Antonio planned to treat everything, no matter how small, like a level-one crisis.
“Sir,” Antonio answered. “I’m at the villa.”
“Find Martino. I want you both to hear this.”
Antonio raced for the office beside his father’s. It was where the knights guarding the admiral spent their time while he worked, and therefore the room acted as a secondary security hub, besides the main security room and armory, which was deep inside the villa.
Martino was there, a headset on, his gaze scanning the wall of screens. Every one of the sixteen TVs showed a different feed from cameras around the villa.
The fourth screen showed the image of a man lying facedown in the road.
Karl sucked in a breath as he caught sight of the body.
“What’s happening?” Antonio asked. He placed his phone on the desk and put it on speakerphone. “Lorenzo,” he said by way of explanation.
“Minister,” Martino said in greeting to Lorenzo.
“Report,” the security minister ordered.
“At 3:45 this morning, Luca Baresi arrived at Diana Baresi’s residence to pick her up,” Martino spoke with clipped precision. “They were due to arrive at the villa no later than 4:30, which is their normal routine.”
Antonio nodded. The Baresi family had run Villa Degli Dei for generations, serving as head housekeeper, cooks, and gardeners. Luca and Diana were niece and nephew of the current estate manager.
“When Luca arrived at Diana’s house, he found the door open, and a note saying she was with her boyfriend. He alerted us because previously Diana had told him she planned to leave the boyfriend. Approximately seven minutes ago, Diana’s vehicle, which is equipped with a security tag, opened the automatic gate on the rear access road. Two minutes later, the villa guard at the second checkpoint was shot and killed.” Martino went to a laptop and keyed up a video clip.
A small Fiat pulled up to the barrier that had been put across the road. It was simply a wooden stand, unlike the iron gates that opened automatically, assuming the car had been fitted with the proper RFID chip.
A guard stepped out of the woods—there was a hut several feet in, well hidden by the foliage and clever painting. He had a phone raised to his ear and was speaking into it as he bent to the passenger window. Thanks to the darkness, the video showed only a pale, grainy image of two people in the car, a driver and a passenger.
There was no sound on the video, so they could only watch as the guard’s body jerked once, twice, then crumpled as the car drove forward, smashing past the barrier.
“Who is he?” Karl asked in Italian. He had an atrocious accent, but he was trying.
Forgetting Martino was in the room, Antonio put his arm around Karl and kissed his head.
“His name is Marco. He works for Cohortes Praetorianae. We brought him in for additional security.” Martino’s voice was hard, but his face showed his horror at the sudden loss of life.
“Where’s the Fiat?” Antonio asked, turning back to the wall of monitors. He saw it before Martino could answer. “Why is it stopped?”
“There’s something else you need to know,” Lorenzo said. “I just left Diana’s apartment. When we pulled back the duvet, there was a symbol painted on the sheets.”
“What symbol?” Antonio asked in English. If he knew Karl—and he did, in every way that mattered—the Dutchman was going to want to know about a mysterious symbol.
“A sword and laurel wreaths.”
Karl stiffened.
“What does it mean?” Antonio asked Karl in English.
“It could mean a dozen different things. The sword and laurel wreath are used in dozens, maybe hundreds of symbols, but if—”
“The car is moving.” Martino pressed a button on his headset.
Antonio went to a drawer, found two additional com units and put one on, then passed a handheld one to Karl. He clicked them on and they could hear the chatter coming from the knights, villa security, and additional guard staff.
A female voice cut through. “Sorry. Don’t speak Italian. I have a visual on the vehicle. I see two inside. Male driver. Female passenger.”
Leila.
In battle, there was nothing better than a well-trained sniper.
The Fiat was coming toward the villa from the access road, which joined with the driveway just past the car storage hangar. There was a small gravel parking lot the staff used not far from there. The Fiat didn’t turn into the parking lot, instead disappearing from view as it passed through a blind spot in the camera network. Martino pointed to a screen and a second later it appeared again. It was on the paved section of driveway now, headed for the house.
It started picking up speed.
“The female passenger appears to be in distress.” Leila’s voice was calm and dispassionate.
“They’re going to crash,” another voice said.
“I’m taking out the tires.” Crack, crack.
The sound of the sniper rifle firing was painfully loud over the com. Antonio winced, but watched as the car fishtailed. She’d taken out both front tires.
“Good shot,” Martino said with satisfaction.
The car slowed, and for a moment it looked like this would all be over, but then, despite the destroyed front tires, the car started accelerating again.
It picked up speed, headed directly for the corner of the villa.
“Leila, where are you?” Antonio snapped into the com. If she’d been able to shoot out the tires, she was probably on that side of the roof. If the car crashed into the villa, it might bring down the corner of the house.
“We need to move everyone out of that side of the house,” Karl said.
Antonio whipped around and hit buttons on the desktop phone, activating the intercom system. In short, clipped sentences, he issued a command for anyone in the villa or on the villa grounds to gather in the central hall. He shoved the phone at Karl.
Karl didn’t hesitate, but repeated exactly what Antonio had said. His accent was still atrocious, but he repeated the orders word for word.
There was another crack of rifle fire, and the car swerved again as Leila took out one of the back tires. The Fiat was only a dozen meters from the house now.
“Leila, move,” Antonio ordered.
“No shot on the driver,” she said.
“Move!” Antonio ordered.
“Stay on the driver,” Martino said in English.
Antonio snarled at the knight, who stared back coldly. They both knew that was the right call.
The Fiat suddenly swerved, making a hard right, jumping the flower bed that lined the road and bouncing down onto the wide lawn behind the villa. Maybe Diana had managed to yank the wheel away.
Then the car made another sharp turn, once more headed for the villa. The steps from the terrace down to the lawn were wide enough that the car would easily be able to mount them, striking the back of the central hall.
Karl realized what was about to happen at the same time Antonio and Martino did. He cursed, dropped the phone, and raced out of the office.
“Leila,” Antonio barked. “Take the shot.”
“No shot. Moving.”
He could hear her breathing, hear the faint sound of her running footsteps. The Fiat�
��s bumper hit the lowest step, the car bounced, but then it kept going, coming up the steps, the dangling bumper sparking as it scraped stone.
“I have him,” Leila said.
“Take it!” Antonio ordered.
Crack. Crack.
On the monitor, the Fiat leapt the final step, crashing into planters and chairs as it rolled to a halt on the terrace.
Antonio and Martino raced out of the room.
There were a dozen people in the central hall. There was just enough silvery predawn light filtering in the windows to give the scene an almost otherworldly air.
“Come,” Karl said in Italian. “Move.” He gestured frantically for people to follow him toward the front door. If the car hit the back of the house and shattered those windows, this whole room would be a death trap of shattered glass.
A few people looked at him in alarm, but no one moved.
“A car is about to crash through the back of the building,” he said in English. He repeated the words in French.
There were gasps, eyes widened, but still no one moved.
An older man stepped out of the crowd. He had striking dark hair, a white beard, and, despite the hour, was dressed in slacks and a black dress shirt. He turned to face the people and spoke in rapid, precise Italian.
The crowd in the central hall immediately obeyed, walking quickly and calmly past Karl and out the front door.
The dark-haired man turned to Karl—and there was no doubt this was Antonio’s father.
“Dr. Klimek, may I?” The admiral of Rome held out his hand.
It had been phrased as a question, but Karl knew an order when he heard one. He passed over the small walkie-talkie Antonio had given him.
Giovanni Starabba turned up the volume, then spoke a single word in Italian. There was a pause, and then Antonio answered, not through the com unit, but from behind Karl.
Antonio paused for only a moment, then started walking toward the back of the central hall. His father kept pace with him. Karl followed, falling in with the pack of armed, stern-faced men and women who materialized and followed Antonio and the admiral out onto the terrace.
