I have about three seconds to worry that I’ve shown my hand, or our hand, before Kayden says, “What she is is the one and only reason that I’m willing to team up with you to destroy your brother, rather than doing it on my own. And I did that to offer her the protection we both give her.”
Niccolo’s gaze snaps to Kayden’s. “You might want to protect her, but you also want to avoid the war that shooting me, or stealing my necklace, would create. Put down the gun we both know you won’t use.”
Kayden doesn’t comply, instead leaning closer to Niccolo. “There won’t be a war if anything happens to her,” he says, his voice tight, hard. “There will only be the moment I look you in the eyes before I kill you.”
“You want to kill me,” Niccolo says, no question in his voice.
Kayden’s reply is slow; an edgy, dark power rises off of him before he says, “No.” His gun slides back into his holster before he leans back, his tone absolute as he adds, “Death is too kind for you and your brother, Niccolo. But luckily for you, we are one regarding his destruction. And for that reason, and that reason alone, I’m going to find that necklace for you. And then watch with amusement as you try to figure out how to take it to the grave with you.”
Kayden makes this declaration with such cold intent, I almost believe him, while Niccolo seems to make his own assumptions. “You do not fool me, Hawk. You’re thinking that when he’s dethroned and I’m gone, you’ll gain the kind of power no Hawk has ever had before. You’ll own our two countries. The problem is, whatever you think you know about me, you don’t.”
“I think and know a lot of things,” Kayden replies dryly, “none of which I plan to share with you. And on that note, I have a necklace to locate. We’re done here.”
He starts to move, and following his lead, I reach for the door, my hand freezing as Niccolo announces, “The men I sent to retrieve Ella the night in the alleyway disappeared that same night.”
“When were you going to tell me this?” Kayden demands, shifting back to face him, playing this game oh so well, acting as if there is no chance this is an accusation aimed at him or Adriel, considering Adriel killed those men right after they attacked me.
“I’m telling you now,” Niccolo replies, while I discreetly settle Annie back in my purse, my hand resting on the soft leather, ready to draw her again should this turn nasty.
“Why now?” Kayden asks. “Why not last week when I told you about Ella?”
“Aside from the fact that I had yet to conclude my internal investigations, until now, you hadn’t committed to finding the necklace for me.”
“But you committed to protecting her.” Continuing to act as if he didn’t know the men are dead, Kayden adds, “And if they took the necklace, the attention turns from her to them. Where are they now?”
“They’ve yet to reappear, and no one I’ve persuasively given incentive to find them has any clue where they are—which leaves me with one of two assumptions. Either they were attacked when Ella was attacked, and they’re now dead, or they’ve betrayed me, and they’re as good as dead.”
“In other words, they mugged Ella and took the necklace,” Kayden concludes.
“Negative,” Niccolo says. “They didn’t know about the necklace. They knew about the woman.”
“I intercepted internet chatter about that necklace and that location,” Kayden says, protecting his inside source. “Don’t tell me they didn’t know about it too. You have a leak, Niccolo.”
“And yet, the necklace hasn’t gone on the auction block. Obviously,” he flicks me a look, “Ella didn’t have it with her that night.”
“Or,” I say, “the two men who worked for you attacked me, took it, and disappeared with it.”
His gaze sharpens. “I don’t remember saying ‘two men.’ ”
“I don’t remember referencing anything you said,” I counter. “I simply stated a fact: two men attacked me in that alleyway that night.”
“You remember your attackers?”
“Not their faces,” I say. “Just two men in suits. It’s sounding like they were yours.”
Irritation flickers over his hard features. “You seem to have missed the part where I said it’s not gone up on the auction block.”
“That means nothing,” Kayden interjects. “Whoever mugged her, be it your men or otherwise, could be holding the necklace and biding their time.”
“Three hundred million dollars says they won’t hold it,” Niccolo snaps back.
“A price tag that could get them killed if they don’t have the right broker says that they would,” Kayden counters. “And you’d better hope it’s not The Jackals they go to for help, because I promise you: Alessandro will own that necklace, not your men.”
“Assuming they took it,” he states, “which I still doubt.”
“And yet they’re missing, and so is it,” Kayden reminds him.
“Yes,” he says keenly. “They are missing—and it seems to me that aside from Ella, you’re the only other person who’s been placed at that scene that night.”
“Murder isn’t my style,” Kayden says, never missing a beat, “and you know it.”
“But you will kill, if necessary,” Niccolo states matter-of-factly.
“Yes, I will,” Kayden replies, equally matter-of-factly. “But I didn’t have the pleasure that night.”
“As you say,” Niccolo remarks, his lips twisting. “Whatever the case, Alessandro’s not a problem.”
“In other words, he’s on your payroll.”
“Of course he’s on my payroll,” Niccolo says. “Anyone and everyone I was able to eliminate as competition to get that necklace, I did, and I will continue to do so.”
“Alessandro’s the redheaded stepchild that wants to be us. He wants to be you. He will take that necklace and sell it out from under you.”
“You underestimate me, Hawk, if you think I don’t know these things about him and don’t have the leverage to ensure that he does exactly what I say.”
“What leverage?” Kayden asks.
“You also underestimate me if you believe I’ll tell you that.”
“How do you know it wasn’t he who attacked Ella in the alleyway, intending to double-cross you? How do you know he’s not double-dipping and also working for your brother? Or even for Raul?”
“The kingpin of the drug cartel?” I ask.
“Yes,” Kayden confirms, answering me but focusing on Niccolo. “He knows about the necklace. He wants it.”
“Of course he wants it,” Niccolo states, “and as you keep forgetting, I know Rome. I know my business. And he’s not a problem.”
“Raul is not a man who can be threatened.”
“But he can be bought,” Niccolo replies. “And he does bleed. He’s contained, as is Alessandro. End of topic.”
“Nothing is done until I say it’s done, when it comes to the safety of those I protect,” Kayden states. “Raul will turn on you if he gets even a sniff of weakness, which we know you have right now. And Alessandro is not just a Jackal. He’s the Jackal, and my enemy.”
“Thankfully you’ve made your Evil Eye apparent where Ella’s concerned.”
“And should I have to invoke it on him, consider yourself part of that for bringing him into this.”
“Relax, Hawk,” he says, his eyes flecked with amusement. “I’ve ensured he knows that should my brother get anything he wants, including her, he will pay a price worse than death.”
“Then why,” Kayden says, “is Alessandro handing out her location to the private investigator her friend hired to find her?”
“Perhaps he felt that the more questions this investigator was asking, the more attention it brought in unnecessary places,” Niccolo states.
“In other words, you thought the investigator was asking too many questions,” Kayden surmises, the t
iming of this visit suddenly far from coincidental.
“Or perhaps,” Niccolo continues, homing in on me, “Alessandro thinks your past is where he’ll find the necklace.”
“My past has nothing to do with that necklace,” I say firmly. But there is this odd, uncomfortable niggle of something in my mind that I can’t explain, and a flickering image that I can’t quite materialize. “And your Jackal made a misstep,” I add, now worried about Sara’s safety and desperate to get her out of the picture. “What if this man Chris Merit, who’s funding Sara’s hunt for me, is after the necklace?”
“I myself own several Chris Merit works,” he says. “He’s well known and highly respected. He’s also far more concerned about curing children’s cancer than finding that necklace.”
“Maybe he wants the necklace to fund research,” I counter.
“He’d have to explain all that money, and even he, a billionaire in his own right, wouldn’t be able to do that without joining the likes of me and my methods. And he will not. But we’re certainly watching him and your friend, Sara. But tell me. How does someone with amnesia selectively have such certainty?”
I blink at the odd question. “What certainty are you talking about?”
“You said that your past has nothing to do with the necklace. You seem quite sure about that, but not a great many other things.”
“I can’t snap my fingers and get every piece of my memory back, any more than you can snap your fingers and—” I stop myself before I say more, actually feeling bad for what I was about to say, despite the inkiness blotting his soul.
“And what?” he bites out, his dark eyes flashing with irritation.
“Nothing you don’t know.”
“Say it anyway,” he insists, his voice hard with command, and it hits me that I’ve cast a net, perhaps luring him to a confession he’s dodged and weaved, handing us knowledge we can use against him.
I nod. “Any more than you can snap your fingers and beat cancer.” The harshness in my voice has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with the past I’m slowly threading together.
His eyes darken, pupils fading into black. “What do you know of cancer?”
“Enough to know that even the mob, even you, Niccolo, cannot buy, threaten, or beg its mercy,” I say, and unbidden, an image of my mother in a hospital bed, brittle and aged beyond her years, knots my belly. “If it decides to take you, it takes you.”
There is a spike of some unnamed emotion in his stare, there and gone in an instant, right along with any hope he might make an admission. “You remember its viciousness, but not the location of the necklace,” he says, casting a net of his own.
“It seems that its brutal nature transcends all else, including amnesia,” I say, my answer giving him nothing, while cancer takes everything, before I add, “much like your desire for that necklace.”
“What I desire,” he says tightly, “is to protect my legacy. It will live on when I’m gone, but my enemies will not.”
“And that’s why you want the necklace,” Kayden says. “One last big bang.” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Well, what legacy do you have if a Jackal outsmarts you?”
“I have him contained, Hawk,” Niccolo states irritably, and then shifts to Italian before returning to English. “Do you understand it in my native tongue better than your own?”
“If I were Alessandro,” Kayden states as if he hadn’t spoken, “I’d have taken that necklace from Ella, hid it, and then done my best to destroy whatever evidence you have on me before I sold it.”
“You continue to underestimate me,” Niccolo replies dryly. “When I own someone, Hawk, I own them. I layer the many ways I control them, in ways they know they cannot escape.”
“You underestimate me if you think I couldn’t find a way to shove whatever you had on me right up your pompous—”
“Alessandro is not you,” Niccolo says, cutting him off. “On that, I think we are all quite clear.”
“If he took that necklace he can simply wait for your death,” Kayden points out.
“Those layers I’ve explained extend beyond my death, a fact on which he’s quite clear,” Niccolo replies.
“A caged man has nothing to lose, and no choice but to try to escape,” Kayden retorts.
Niccolo’s jaw tics. “Then it’s a good thing that I now have The Hawk and the best Hunter in two countries, if not more, aligned with me.”
“Only if you hand me whatever ammunition you have on Alessandro. All of it. Every last detail.”
“That would be control I’m not willing to give you.”
“Well then,” Kayden states, “as of this moment, Ella remembers the necklace being in her pocket before she was attacked. When she woke up it was gone, and the two men in suits who mugged her, who I suspect are working for Alessandro, took it. If you want her to look at photos of your men, send them to us. Otherwise, our deal is complete. She is done with you, as am I.”
Niccolo’s eyes flash with agitation, that tic in his jaw more distinct. “What happened to destroying my brother?”
“See, this is where the fun starts for me,” Kayden says. “Now Alessandro is working for you, most likely playing you and your brother, on both payrolls. I get to sit back, order popcorn the way we Americans do, and watch you all destroy each other. And as a bonus, Raul is hovering, sniffing out blood. Oh yeah. It’s going to be a good show.”
He shifts in my direction again, and Niccolo must know he means business this time because he quickly states, “I’ll give you the information you want.”
Kayden reaches over me and opens the door, giving Niccolo a dismissive half glance. “When and how?”
“Delivered to your castle, by sunset. Then we take down my brother and Alessandro together. Four men now standing that we turn into two.”
“Five,” Kayden says. “Dismissing Raul would be a mistake I won’t make. I want what you have on him as well.”
“If I agree to that,” he says, “you agree right here and now that we fight this war together.”
It’s a command, and Kayden doesn’t take commands, this I know, even before he says, “I’ll let you know where we stand when I see that delivery,” and with that, we exit the vehicle.
I’m the first to the street, with Adriel stepping directly into my path, waiting on us. Kayden joins me, and the three of us move in unison toward the Mercedes, where Kayden and I climb into the backseat and Adriel into the front.
The instant the doors are shut, I turn to Kayden. “I’m trying to be comforted by the fact that it sounds like Chris Merit is safe for Sara, but I can’t be. Not with Alessandro and Niccolo watching her. Not when they can use her to convince me to give them . . .” It’s all I can do to stop myself from saying “the necklace,” since Adriel has no clue it’s connected to me in any way. “I tried to play Sara off as unimportant to me, but clearly that isn’t going to work.”
“I’ll get our people protecting them by nightfall,” he says, glancing toward Adriel. “Why aren’t we moving?”
“Niccolo has us blocked in,” he says. “Am I clear in the rear? Because if I sit here another minute, someone is going to tell me what the fuck is going on.”
Kayden gives a look over his shoulder that I mimic and says, “We’re clear in the rear, and we’ll talk at the castle when we know we’re one hundred percent secure and uninterrupted.”
Adriel doesn’t argue, pulling us onto the road, and I don’t even want to think about how furious he’s going to be when he finds out everything we’ve kept from him. Or about why I have a knot in my belly at the idea of him being brought into the circle of trust. As Adriel drives, all eyes go to the windows, the energy between and around us jagged and weaving, with sharp edges that promise more trouble. But seconds tick by, then minutes, and that trouble doesn’t seem to plan to follow.
I know
the moment Kayden decides the same thing; his hand settles on my knee and he pulls me to him, a silent reminder that he is my partner in this. But he also is The Hawk, and Adriel is his hunter, his friend—his family. He can’t keep this from Adriel much longer. I’m not sure he will agree to keep it from him any longer at all. I have a sense of being cornered, an awareness that we can’t just shut Adriel down. We damn sure can’t just shut Niccolo down, and unbidden, and seemingly without a trigger besides Niccolo’s name, my declaration to him replays in my mind: My past has nothing to do with that necklace. I said those words because I was right. My past isn’t a part of this. This started with David giving me the necklace as a gift. It’s unrelated to anything else. But if that is true, why did I have that funny feeling in my belly when I’d declared the separation of past and present to Niccolo? Why am I hyper-focused on the past here and now? What am I missing?
As if in answer, my mind jerks to the past, to a memory of me pulling into the driveway of my old family home in North Carolina, after my parents were gone. I exit my Ford Focus as a black sedan pulls up and stops. I stand by the car door, watching as two men get out, both in dark suits, one blond and in his thirties and the other dark-haired and in his fifties. I don’t know who they are, but I know what they are. And I have a bad feeling about why they’re here.
Which is what? I ask myself.
The answer is unexpected, my mind thrusting me back into the moment in time when David died. I’m leaning over him on a cold Paris street, his body lifeless, hearing his warning about not giving the necklace to “him,” whoever he is. Then the memory fades into what feels like reality. I’m there . . .
David’s hand falls away from mine, his body now lifeless. Survival instincts kick in and I don’t give myself time to process the blood or his death. I stand up, the darker-than-dark night offering me the façade of shelter, my hand closing around the necklace in the pocket of my coat, which I have only because Garner Neuville paid for my hotel room for two weeks. That, after my credit cards were oddly cancelled and I started putting together the bigger picture, of something nefarious going on. It was then, the moment after I’d called credit card company number four, that I set aside the façade of the schoolteacher, which I’d adopted to get the wrong people to stop looking at me, and became the woman beneath that façade. Then I tracked down David to this location, looking for answers. Right now, though, I need to make decisions, and quickly.