His passport photo shows him with blonde hair slicked back and secured in a ponytail at his nape.
I dip the shaving brush in the cream and swirl it over his jaw, creating a rich lather. “Are you planning to have sex with me in this disguise?”
“I have many plans for you. Would you like me to recount them aloud?”
Once his face is all lathered up, I put down the brush and grab the straight razor. I’ve never shaved a man’s face, but it can’t be that hard. And the fact that Daimon trusts me to press a razor against his jugular gets me excited.
I lift my leg and rest my foot on the toilet seat between his legs; then I lean forward and begin shaving the left side of his jaw first. The pain in my stab wound is barely noticeable. But my hand is shaking, until I lay it flush against his skin.
“Yes, please tell me what you plan to do to me when this is all over,” I murmur, dragging the razor in a smooth downward motion.
The rasp of the blade on his skin is exhilarating. I dip the razor into a cup of hot water and Daimon seizes the opportunity to speak.
“First, I’m going to take you to the safe house in Vienna.”
I swipe the blade over his cheek. “ Mm-hmm …”
“Then I’m going to lay you on the first surface I can find. A floor, a counter, a piano…”
“A piano?”
“Yes, let’s go with a grand piano.”
I chuckle as I push his head back so I can shave under his jaw. “What tune are we going to play?”
His hand reaches up, landing on the inside of my ankle where my foot rests between his legs. “I’m going to bend you over those ivory keys and start off slowly, like an adagio symphony. I’ll undress you slowly.”
I smile as his fingers trace the inside of my leg, moving up toward my thigh. “Then what?”
“Then, I’ll turn you around and kiss you. But it won’t be just any kiss. It will be the kind of kiss that makes your body ache with so much longing that you won’t be able to breathe.”
I swallow hard as I press the blade against the right side of his face. “Sounds like quite a kiss.”
“Oh, it will be. You’ll be dripping wet before I even touch your body.” His hand lands on the inside of my thigh and my clit throbs with anticipation. “Then, I’ll lift you onto the back of that grand piano and kiss your gorgeous legs.”
His fingers brush the edge of my panties and I suck in a sharp breath as I try to concentrate on the blade in my hand.
“Then what?” I whisper.
“Then, I’ll put my mouth on your hot, aching pussy.”
He slips his fingers underneath the cotton fabric and easily finds my clit. I quickly pull the blade away from his neck, whimpering as I grab his shoulder with my other hand.
“Then, I’ll suck on your hard little clit while my fingers slide inside you. You’re so wet.”
His finger slides inside me as his thumb caresses my clit. I drop the blade onto the counter so I can hold onto his shoulders with both my hands.
“I’ll lick your pussy up and down and all around, spreading your flesh to get to the most sensitive spot.” He moves his thumb a bit to the right, instantly finding the spot he speaks of, and my knees weaken. “I’ll savor you slowly. You can’t rush perfection.”
He massages my clit gently, but I soon find myself collapsed on his lap, still twitching with my orgasm. My arms are draped around his solid neck and my head rests on his shoulder.
“Then, your body will explode with ecstasy, and I’ll drink from you, savoring every last drop of your sweet essence.”
“Oh, God. Can we just skip the gala and go straight to that?”
He chuckles and softly swats my ass. “Get up and finish shaving me so I can dye your hair.”
I laugh. “Give me a minute. You don’t want me to shave you while I’m still trembling with lust, do you?”
He nuzzles his face into my neck and kisses me softly. “You should know by now, chérie. I never shy away from danger.”
The train ride from nice to the Monte Carlo station takes just eighteen minutes and a few euros, but it’s enough to get my pulse racing. I’m going to meet my mother. The first person to judge me before ever getting to know me.
A sleek, black Mercedes is waiting for us outside the station. It quickly whisks us away to the Sunset Lounge at the Fairmont Hotel, ground zero for the Billionaire Club Formula One Gala. The car drops us off at the steps of the hotel where a red carpet has been set up for the guests to enter.
A gentleman in a tuxedo opens our door and offers me his hand. I try to remember to take slow, steady breaths as I allow him to help me out of the car. I smooth down my black, skintight dress, just to have something to do because I’m feeling completely out of my element. Daimon places his hand on my arm and I flinch a little, then I flash him a tight smile as he leads me toward the red carpeted steps.
“Oh, my God. That’s Beyonce and Jay-Z,” I whisper to Daimon out of the corner of my mouth as we climb the steps behind the power couple.
“Oh, my goodness. Can you get their autograph for me?” he exclaims. He laughs as I shove my elbow into his side. “Ah, chérie. They are human just like you. Only you are much more beautiful and skilled with your hands.”
He waggles his eyebrows at me, and I try not to laugh at his fake blond ponytail. “Oh, stop it.”
The prosthetic bump on my nose is itching, but I have to resist scratching or I’ll scrape off the makeup and glue holding it in place. Since Daimon never allows himself to be photographed, the only person who can describe him is the man he carjacked in the El Medano beach parking lot on Tenerife island. That man saw Daimon when he had blue eyes, dark hair, and a full beard. Which means Daimon doesn’t need to wear a prosthetic nose to further disguise himself. I, on the other hand, can’t rely on a simple hair and eye color change. The key to a good disguise, according to Daimon, is to change at least three aspects of your appearance.
At the entrance to the hotel, the door man asks us where we’re headed. Daimon responds, in French, that we are going to the Sunset Lounge. The squat man with the wide neck responds by nodding over his shoulder for us to proceed.
We enter the hotel and head in the direction of the club. As we walk arm-in-arm, Madonna walks past us with another woman and two security guards toward the hotel entrance. I’m not sure why being near so many celebrities should make me nervous. Maybe it’s my days of worshipping the television in the basement that programmed me to feel this way. Or maybe I’m just intimidated because high-profile people come with high-profile security teams.
Can we really pull this off? If Daimon thinks we can, I trust him.
I have to trust him.
When we reach the Sunset Lounge, there’s a short line of five people waiting to get checked by security. Oh, shit. Is that the Prince of Wales?
Daimon grabs my hand and gives it a squeeze. “Do you know what my grade school teacher used to say about people who only care about physical beauty?” I look up at him and he smiles. “Nothing has caused more foolishness in this world than the pursuit of beauty. It’s foolish to pursue something that is everywhere.”
I hang my head and blink a few times to keep tears from forming, smiling when he presses his lips to my temple. “Thank you,” I whisper.
“Not thank you. Merci.”
“Merci.”
He smiles and suddenly we’re at the front of the line where three huge bouncers in suits are waiting for us to introduce ourselves. Daimon reaches into his wallet and pulls out our IDs without saying a word. The bouncer with the thick gold chain around his neck checks the names on our IDs against the names on his iPad. He scrolls through the list as he pinches his eyebrows together.
“You’re not on the list,” he says in an Italian accent.
Daimon responds calmly. “Yes, we are. Check the list once more.”
The guy looks at one of the other bouncers, a black guy who’s at least four inches taller than Daimon and about fifty p
ounds heavier. The black guy purses his lips and my pulse pounds in my ears. This is not how this was supposed to go down.
“Check the list once more,” Daimon insists, his voice a bit more forceful this time, and I’m beginning to wonder if we’re going to have to enact Plan B. I don’t want to put Plan B into play.
The guy with the iPad rolls his eyes as he scrolls through the list again. He squints his eyes then looks at our IDs again.
“You’re here.” He hands Daimon our IDs and the black guy nods toward the inside of the club.
I smile at all three of the bouncers, though I’m not sure why. Once we’re inside the Billionaire Club, I immediately understand the allure of this lifestyle. The air is smoky from the fog machines, but it smells like money. There are famous people everywhere: Oscar winning actors and actresses, multi-platinum selling recording artists, supermodels, royalty, and tons of Formula One drivers. Almost everyone in this room is beautiful and intoxicated. Just being in the same room, I feel a strange pull to be one of them.
Daimon squeezes my hand again, focusing me. “Let’s play some blackjack.”
We enter the casino room next door to the club and quickly locate the cashier station. After showing the proper ID and his no-limit credit card, the casino accepts our one-million-dollar minimum bet. A security guard arrives shortly thereafter to escort us down the corridor to the high-limit lounge in the Galerie Cristal. I glance at the phone tucked inside my gold clutch and see it’s 10:23 p.m. We have one hour and seven minutes to complete the mission.
As soon as the security guard leaves us at the entrance to the high-limit lounge, I get a nervous fluttering in the pit of my stomach. My eyes scan the spacious, dimly-lit room, searching for any sign of the prince and princess. But the gaudy columns and the polished brass everywhere makes it difficult to focus. My anxiety is rising dangerously as Daimon leads me toward a table in the far right corner of the room.
We reach the blackjack table and Daimon slips his arm around my waist and leans in to whisper in my ear. “You are stronger than this.”
The way he says it, as if it’s a challenge, calls up a primal competitive instinct inside me. I am stronger than this. I brought Daimon to his knees a month ago in a hotel lounge not much different than this one. The princess is no match for Daimon; therefore, she is no match for me.
I take a deep breath and nod. “Right. Let’s play.”
We play a few rounds of blackjack. Daimon counts cards, though he doesn’t use it to win any bets. He’s merely keeping track of the count so that once the prince or princess come to this table, he’ll be prepared.
Sixteen rounds in, we’re down eighty thousand dollars and we couldn’t be happier, because a security guard has just come to our table to announce that Prince Andre-Louis and Princess Amica will be joining us. Daimon squeezes the crook of my elbow to pull me closer to him. Then, I hear her voice and everything gets hazy.
I close my eyes and take a few long, slow breaths.
“Do you mind if we join you?” says a smooth male voice with a thick French accent.
I open my eyes and turn to my left. Just beyond the princess on my left is Prince Andre-Louis. He has a thick head of perfectly coifed brown hair and a lean frame. But his wide brown eyes make my stomach clench. Those are my eyes on his face.
“Of course we don’t mind,” Daimon replies. “We are down eighty thousand. Maybe you’ll have better luck.”
“I think we can do better than that,” Princess Amica says with a slick smile.
Her soft auburn hair is pulled into a neat ponytail that cascades over her right shoulder in a tumble of voluptuous curls. Her red dress is made of a sumptuous silk that accentuates her curves. I’d envy those hips if they didn’t look just like mine.
I suddenly have a paranoid thought: If I smile at the same time as her, someone will recognize we have the same lips. It’s not too far fetched. My bedroom was pitch black when Daimon recognized I’m the princess’s daughter. The lighting in here is more than sufficient for someone to make the connection.
She continues to smile as she glances around at the cards in play. The prince has an eight, so he hits and gets a nine, then he stays. She has a jack facing up, so she doesn’t hit. I have a five and Daimon has a ten. I want to wait for Daimon to place his bet before I place mine. He knows the running count, but I have to play first since he’s standing on my right. It doesn’t matter if I lose this bet. The one million dollars we invested in tonight’s plan is nothing compared to the payout.
I hit and get a seven, then I stay. Daimon stays with his ten. I watch as his hand seems to move in slow motion. He reaches for the chips and picks up one chip, two chips, three chips… He keeps going until he has all the chips in his hand. Then he places them on the table and the prince chuckles in response to this bet.
“Five hundred thousand dollars,” Daimon says. “Enough to buy a hit man if I should lose this hand,” he says, winking at the dealer.
I glance to my left and, as expected, the princess is staring at Daimon with an expression of pure terror. The dealer glances nervously at Daimon’s stack of chips then at the surveillance cameras on the ceiling. A bet this high is a dead giveaway that Daimon thinks the count is running high.
The dealer flips his card and he has twenty. Prince Andre-Louis flips his and he busts. The princess’s horror turns to anger as she glares at Daimon.
He smiles at her. “Flip your card, princess.”
She reaches forward slowly and I hold my breath as she turns the card. An ace. Blackjack.
The prince slaps the table and says something in French to express his delight, but the princess does not look the least bit happy with this hand. I flip my card quickly and get a ten. I bust. Daimon flips his card and smiles when he sees the two. He just lost $500,000. A small price to pay for the trust of the dealer and the house.
Now it’s my turn.
I can smell Princess Amica’s spicy perfume as I lean in and whisper in her ear. “Nice win, Mother.”
Daimon pockets our chips then nods toward a corridor on our right. I watch in silence, wondering if the princess is going to do something stupid, like trying to alert her bodyguards, but she doesn’t. She hooks her arm in her husband’s and whispers something in his ear. Then they both follow our lead.
“Good game,” Daimon says to the dealer as we set off. “Now I must retreat for a cigar and a good cry.”
The dealer smiles and the royals’ bodyguards follow right behind the four of us. Prince Andre- Louis looks a bit stunned, but also a bit excited. Is it possible he’s happy to see me? No, I can’t start thinking stupid things like that or this mission will only become more difficult. We don’t need any more obstacles.
Once we’re in the corridor, Daimon produces a cigar from the inside of his jacket and holds it out to the prince. “Genuine double corona Cohiba. Limited edition,” he says as we continue walking in unison.
I keep my eye on Amica as she strides confidently on my left, but she only stares straight ahead as we walk. But Andre-Louis seems quite intrigued. He steals glances at me, his mouth hanging slightly open in a dumbfounded expression, but his eyes are smiling. I can see that he wants to say something. He wants to know if it’s really me, but he knows that would be a bad idea.
We reach a door marked Grand Prix B and I check the time on my phone as we enter the dark room. We have twenty-one minutes to finish this job and get out of here.
Daimon hits the lights and the room is revealed to be a mid-sized conference hall with about a hundred chairs lined up facing a stage. He closes the door behind us and one of the bodyguards says something to Amica in French, probably expressing his concern about this discreet meeting. But she doesn’t have a chance to respond before Daimon and I shoot both bodyguards in the head.
Amica begins to scream, but Daimon quickly grabs her from behind and clasps his hand over her mouth. Andre-Louis looks shattered as I point my gun at his forehead, and I can’t help feel as if I’ve d
isappointed him. I’m not the little girl he lost nineteen years ago, and I’m certainly not here for a loving reunion. I’m here for revenge.
My hand is steady as I look my father in the eye. “I’d feel sorry for you if it weren’t for your stupidity. What kind of man accepts his wife’s word that their child has died without any proof?”
“You do not understand. I was told your body was so badly decomposed that seeing you would have haunted me. I knew nothing of you until one month ago.”
I shake my head in disgust as I search his pockets for a phone, then I slide it into my purse. “Get on your knees and keep your hands clasped on your head.”
He kneels before me with his hands resting on top of his perfect hair, then Daimon drags the princess over to his side.
“I’m going to remove my hand from your mouth and you’re going to be very quiet or Baby Alexandria is going to put a bullet in your brain.”
She nods and Daimon lets go of her mouth. She stands next to her kneeling husband, looking very unsure about whether she should be more angry or frightened. She takes a few breaths and decides on angry.
“You won’t get out of this building alive. The cameras followed us into this room. They will come looking for us very soon.”
“Good, because what we have planned won’t take very long,” I reply with a smirk. “Get on your knees!”
She falls to her knees and her hands tremble as she laces them behind her head. “What do you want?”
Daimon tucks his gun into his waistband and pulls his phone out of his pocket to open up the app. “Oh, I’m thinking Alex’s pain and suffering go far beyond any amount of money or sympathy you can give. But I think $50,000,000 would soften the blow.”
Amica laughs and Andre-Louis spouts off a few French expletives. “I’ll give you no such thing!” he shouts.
“Oh, yes, you will,” I say, pressing the muzzle of the silencer against his forehead. “And you’ll do it in the next two minutes or Princess Amica will lose her nose, like this.” I peel off the prosthetic bump on my nose and toss it over my shoulder. I look at the princess then back to Andre-Louis. “The resemblance is uncanny, don’t you think? And yet, somehow, I was the one deemed too hideous to exist. Believe me, the irony of this moment is not lost on me.”