“Well?” I demand.
He shakes his head. “You’re right. There is no bomb. But you wouldn’t have spoken with me any other way.”
“My God, it’s always the same with you,” I exclaim. “If you’re not selling deceit, you’re bartering with excuses. Please pull over when you can,” I call out to Maxim as though he is a taxi driver.
“There’s no need,” says my father swiftly. “I only need five minutes of your time. Maxim is already circling back to your vehicle.” He shifts in his seat and winces.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask, noticing his reaction.
“Your husband was free to show his displeasure with me last night. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Tell me what?” I glance at Frankie, but he’s not giving a damn thing away.
My father unbuttons the top of his shirt and pulls the left flap down. There, in exactly the same place where his insignia blemishes my skin is a black raven burned into his.
Regret bubbles up to my surface as he re-buttons his shirt. If I hadn't begged my father for his pain, Aiden wouldn’t have given him his anger.
“Don’t go to the meeting, tonight,” he says gruffly. “Put all of your hate for me aside and do this one thing.” He pauses as another volley of police cars overtakes us. “I want you to know that I wish things had been different between us. As I explained to Aiden, I made a decision many years ago that I will always regret.” He tries to take my hand, but I move it out of reach. “Money… Power… None of it matters without family.”
“Family?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “You acted like we didn’t exist, Papa. You pushed us away and ignored us constantly. You made us feel like we were nothing. That our lives didn’t count. That our problems didn’t count. That our health….” I stop and force the tears from my eyes. How different our lives would have been if he’d been the father we deserved. Annika would still be alive. Karina wouldn’t be recovering from a kidney transplant in a foreign hospital a million miles away.
“I’m concerned that your husband will make the same choice as me, kotyono. I don’t want your life to be mired in more misery. I saw it in his eyes, whatever he says to you in the privacy of your bedroom, if it comes down to money and power or family, I am certain that he will make the same choice I did. That’s just the type of man he is.”
“None of this is making sense,” I say wearily. “But I can assure you that Aiden is a far, far better man that you will ever be.”
We’re back in the side street again. No one speaks as Maxim pulls up to the curb in front of Frankie’s Escalade.
“Wait,” says my father as I reach for the door handle. “I’ve risked my life to say these words to you, Issa. You must promise me that you’ll consider them.”
“You’re talking in riddles, Papa, and being tricked into this car and forced to see you again has only compounded an already painful morning. My friend—” A surge of emotion robs my next words from my mouth.
“Which friend?” he demands. “What has happened?”
“My friend who has the clothing store here in Cannes. She—”
“Tell me, kotyono,” he says, grabbing my arm and looking distraught.
“Let her go, Dubov,” warns Frankie from the passenger seat.
“What has happened to Eloise Dubois?” He does as Frankie requests, but he still has the same wild look on his face. As for me, I’m shocked that he would remember her name from a single afternoon eleven years ago, and that his recollection would produce such a response.
“She’s dead, Papa.” I glance away so he can’t see my tears.
“How?” he says gruffly.
“She was murdered.”
What’s left of his color drain from his cheeks, and then I’m watching my father—one of the most feared Bratva Pakhans in the whole of France—collapse to his knees, keening like an animal and crushed beneath an avalanche of grief.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Aiden
We all have flaws. Admittedly, I have more than most. Stick a vampire in front of a mirror and you won’t see his reflection. Stick me in a courtroom and I’ll vanish behind a stack of charges and indictments so tall, the judge will need a ladder to reach them.
Tonight, I need to take these flaws and build a goddamn army out of them.
It’s five p.m., and I’m armed and ready. Sharp suit. Fitted shirt. A pocketful of fortitude and a trigger-happy smile. I check myself in the mirror and see a savage façade that only she can soften.
Striding back into the cabin, I slide my gun into my holster and grab my cell from my nightstand. The location for this evening’s meeting has just come through. It’s a medieval fortress on the outskirts of Monaco, toward the Italian boarder. Once the property of a media tycoon, it’s now the temporary residence for the bad and the ugly, or whoever can stomach the eighty-million euro price tag.
Issa mutters in her sleep suddenly, thrashing out with her arms, laying waste to the sheets as she tosses and turns. She’s fighting demons that I want to slay for her. That I’m planning on slaying for her. She’s meeting me in the middle, as usual.
Crouching down by the bed, I smooth away a strand of dark hair that’s fallen across her forehead. It’s damp with tears and grief, and I hate that I have to wake her so soon for more of the same.
“Is she really gone?” Her soft, broken lilt invades the quiet, and she lifts her hand to mine, holding it prisoner against her temple.
“Want me to spin it for you?” I say, frowning down at her.
“No, Aiden. No more lies. No more spinning.” She lets go and rolls onto her back, blinking up at the ceiling. “When I was thirteen, I used to pretend that Eloise was our mother. We’d all live together in the small apartment above her store and we’d sketch dreams and designs on the kitchen table after school.” She shakes her head, dislodging the memory from its dusty resting place. “God, I was so stupid… Idealism is such a flavorsome word.”
“It tastes like black cherries to me.” Sitting down on the bed next to her, I trace her swollen lips with a finger.
“Or chili chocolate?” She smiles weakly. “It’s a sweet first bite before reality kicks in.”
The corners of my mouth twitch. “That sounds like one of my lines.”
“I like it when all of our lines blur.”
Me too.
I trace my finger downward to this beautiful, beating heart of hers. “You ready to go nuclear tonight?”
Issa nods. “I have more incentive than ever to destroy whatever this secret society is. I want answers just as much as you do.” She falls into a troubled silence, and I know where her mind is wandering. “Do you think she suffered?”
“No.”
One more white lie won’t hurt.
She’s been through enough, and I’ll do anything to stop the pain flaring in those soft brown eyes. I’ve seen the unofficial forensics report. Eloise Dubois was a nighttime curio for a couple of ruthless bastards. Once playtime was over, they slit her throat with a blunt knife and watched her bleed out for twenty minutes.
It wasn't pretty.
It wasn’t pleasant.
La Società Villefort are leaving a mess all over my town, and it’s time to start issuing penalties.
Are you involved too, Zaccaria?
Have you ascended the ranks?
Are you pulling the strings, like the wily old bastard I know you are?
She rolls t her side to face me. “Do you think they were having an affair?”
Yes. But I’m not going to admit it. Why? Because she hates her father and she loved Eloise. No one wants to be haunted by images of a gazelle fucking a shark.
“You should have asked him outright.”
“I never had the chance to. The wall rebuilt as quickly as it crumbled, and then he was ordering me and Frankie out of the car.” She sits up, and draws her slim knees to her chest. “I’ve never seen him show emotion before, not even when Annika died. I never thought he was capable o
f it.”
I make a note to tell Frankie to ditch the store footage as I stroke her head again, savoring her smallness, her vulnerability—all the more precious after someone took five shots at her this morning. Warning, or not, that’s a red card in my book.
“You never know what anyone’s capable of until their world implodes.” I chuck MI6’s listening device onto the mattress. “Father Intelligence has been by and he didn’t get stuck in the chimney. Time to mic up.”
I catch the nervous glide in her throat, but she smiles like the bravest woman on earth. She shines like an angel and she fucks like a queen, and I want to fall to the ground and worship her.
“All the colors tonight,” I tell her, glancing at the walk-in closet. “Blind him good, baby. Be the shining distraction we both need.”
Her eyes are like glass. “For Eloise.”
For her, for me, for all of us…
Château de Morcerf’s driveway is lined with cypress trees, casting an arc of crossed shadow swords as we pass by underneath. The stone-gray château itself is perched on the side of a mountain, with the sky above a dusty blur of pinks, blues and grays. True to her word, Issa is a blinding vision in the gold satin halter-neck slashed high to her thigh. Her real treasure lies just beyond that, and my hand is resting tantalizing close to it.
Frankie’s driving—it’s just us three musketeers—but he’s been acting very un-Frankie-like throughout the journey. He kept adjusting the rear-view mirror, then toying with the half-opened packet of cigarettes in the change pocket next to the handbrake.
“If you light up,” I tell him as we approach the château’s entrance, “I’m sticking the cigarette up your arse and you’re walking home,”
“Always the big brother… Cut me some slack tonight, okay?”
“I’m big in every sense of the word,” I say to lighten the atmosphere, smirking at Issa’s eye roll. Still, I’m aware that I’ve made this decision without him: a decision that changes the course of our lives. Ever since our parents died, he’s followed me, supported me, killed for me…
He pulls the Escalade around even with the sweeping front steps. Twilight has spawned the outdoor lights, and the château is illuminated in a vivid crimson that reminds me of the writing on the business card that Rocco Rossi gave me. Black-suited security greet us, and it’s only when we reach the raised portcullis that I notice the small, crimson key pins on their lapels.
La Società Villefort
I stop dead, and pull Issa closer to me. “Sweetheart?” I lean in with the pretense of kissing the side of her head “That feeling of Frankie’s is catching, and I’m getting a bad case of it, too,” I murmur. “If we get separated, make your way back to The Cristo. I’ve told the captain we sail at ten, no delays. Do you hear me? Interpol are closing in on us and I can’t hold them off. A search warrant is going to be issued at six a.m. tomorrow, and a warrant for my arrest is imminent.”
I see the quick-fire panic in her eyes. “Aiden…”
“Shh,” I soothe, projecting all the calm I don’t feel into a crooked smile. I’m not even giving shit to Frankie who is now chain-smoking like a pro behind us. “Now walk and talk like the fucking promise that you are, and I’ll follow you all the way.
“They’re waiting, monsieur.”
The security guys are looking antsy as they guide us through a main lobby that’s all white, high arches and renaissance artwork, and then pause by a set of huge, twelve-foot wooden doors with black iron pintles set into the stonework.
“Your weapons please, gentlemen,” one says briskly.
“Aren’t you going to ask her?” I say, nodding at Issa. “She’s more deadly than all of us.”
With her shocked gasp ringing in my ears, I drop the clip from my Glock and hand it over. Reluctantly, Frankie does the same.
“Welcome to Château de Morcerf,” one announces with a smirk as the doors fall open with ancient groans. “La Società is expecting you.
Well they could have invested in some fucking lights.
That’s my first thought as we’re led into a long, dark room that’s bathed in the same sinister crimson as everything else. A large mahogany dining table sits dead center, set with twenty-four chairs and finished with more gloss than a teenager’s lips. All are occupied except for the one closest to us. Black suits. Black masquerade masks on their faces. There’s a whole load of sinister fouling the room, that instantly gets my back up.
“What the hell is this?” I say loudly, and all heads turn to me with a rustling of fabric and a squeaking of leather. “Don’t tell me this is some kinky Eyes Wide Shut shit. If so, point us straight to the orgy room, and we’ll be on our way.”
There’s a long pause, and then the man at the head of the table starts laughing—a rich and toxic sound that make the hairs on the back of my neck scream ‘danger’.
I know that laugh.
It’s a brown room with peeling paint. It’s warm Limoncello. It’s a faded 1994 World Cup Soccer Squad picture on the wall that played witness to a deal I never should have made.
Slowly, he unmasks himself, but I know his name already.
“Take a seat, old friend.” Tommaso Zaccaria’s harsh accent slithers down the dining table at me. “It is time for a lesson in enlightenment.”
Issa is squeezing my hand so tightly she’s going to crack bones in a minute. Frankie’s a mute statue. I’m as curious as I am guarded.
“I came here to agree terms to a Riviera deal between La Famiglia and Dubov’s Semion, Zaccaria.” I glance around at the other men in the room. “Looks like a couple more crashed the party.” I swing my gaze back to him. “For someone who purportedly just joined this cult of weird, old man, you appear to be calling a lot of the shots.”
“There is no Riviera deal, Aiden,” he says silkily, his composure making the blowback of truth extra bitter. “It was a fabrication to get you right where I wanted you.”
Not a muscle on my face betrays my shock. “I’m not a fan of manipulation, Zaccaria,” I warn. “From my wife, or otherwise.”
“Ah yes… The delectable Ielena Dubova.” He cocks his head for a better view of Issa. “Step closer, dolcezza. I wish to see your tragic beauty for myself.”
“Mrs. Knight is feeling a little shy this evening,” I clip back, moving in front of her. “She’d prefer a sweet sherry if you have it. Maybe even a vodka Red Bull to give her wings so she can escape this horror show through a turret window.” Keeping Issa tucked behind me, I saunter forward a few steps. “What the hell is going on?” I ask him, ultra-casually. “Is Dubov even here?”
“Pietro,” he calls out. “Please escort Mr. Adams and Mrs. Knight away. This business is not theirs, but they can watch from the side if so desired.”
“They’re not going anywhere,” I say, pulling even Issa closer.
“Then we’ll have to do it La Società’s way.”
On cue, there’s a chorus of cocking guns from the security guards behind us.
Fuck.
“Go,” I tell her as one of the guards approaches, but when I drop her hand it’s like I’m carving out the heart of me. I watch, scowling, as Frankie and Issa are escorted at gunpoint to the corner of the room.
“Take a seat, Aiden,” says the Capo Dei Capi. “The truth has been a long time coming.”
“You’re telling me.” I yank the seat out and glare at my neighbor. “This rolling stone is pure moss after fourteen years… I want that final name.”
“Do you have my caveat?”
“Yes,” I say, seeking out Issa. She’s a shivering vision in gold and courage: a lioness who doesn't know how sharp her claws really are. “My wife was most accommodating in that respect.”
The shocked gasp from her is a nice touch. The screams of Russian curse words, even better.
“Where?” I can feel his cold, dead eyes mocking me from twenty meters away.
“The Royal London Hospital,” I say, without hesitating. “Bonus points if you can guess t
he location.”
There’s a long pause, so long I can feel my foot tapping out a rhythm of unease. There’s a large, square box sitting in front of me, the old-fashioned kind—black wood, with shiny metal hinges. Engraved into the top is the outline of an ornate key, with the words ‘La Società Villefort’ stamped underneath it in my least favorite color.
“What’s in there?”
“Something that will set you free.” Zaccaria clears his throat. “Gentlemen, if you would be so kind…”
Hands drift toward faces as, one by one, the black masquerade masks fall away.
Hol-y.
Shit.
Heads of state and formidable leaders, both underworld and overworld... The kind of power that only dissolution and dirty money can buy.
“I didn’t realize I was in such esteemed company,” I drawl, catching sight of Dubov’s face opposite. “Except for my father-in-law, of course. How’s the chest? I hear it’s burning on the inside now, as well as the out.”
Dubov doesn’t react, but he’s staring straight at me, bludgeoning me with an unspoken message. His words from last night filter into my head.
“Tomorrow, there will be a choice for you. I fear that you will choose poorly and destroy my daughter’s heart, as I did to my own wife’s heart when the same choice was mine.”
Never going to happen. Issa’s heart is locked in a vault deep inside my casino, and not even Danny Ocean can crack it open.
“Shall we get this party started?” I say. “Most of you look like avid jazz aficionados. As for me, I’m more of a…” I trail off when I realize half the men are younger than Zaccaria, some by a decade or two.
“Villefort is a retirement insurance policy for a particular…generation. As corrupt men grow older, they grow weaker. They make mistakes—mistakes that can cost them a life’s work, reputation and fortune. There are no wrongs that Villefort cannot put right. Murders go unsolved. Illegal bank accounts remain hidden. Tax evasion becomes a game.”
Black Skies Riviera: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance Page 25
