I nod and step inside the control room.
Rizzuto is sitting in one of the chairs facing the wall of windows with a view of the container terminal, his gun is casually draped across his thighs. Four operators are gathered in the opposite corner, their eyes frantic.
“Rafael!” Rizzuto smiles. “I’m so glad you could make it. Hopefully, we can resolve this misunderstanding quickly so I can have my cargo processed and on its way as planned.”
His eyes fall to the rifle in my hand, and that smile gets wiped off his face immediately. “Umm . . . I’m sorry if I overreacted, but I’m on a really tight schedule.”
I pull a chair toward me, positioning it across from Rizzuto, and take a seat. “Why the haste?”
“I have a new buyer. Not a very patient fellow that one.” He tries to hide his nervousness behind his casual posture, but I see the beads of sweat along his temple.
“Mm-hmm. Tell me, how much did Calogero pay you to smuggle his cocaine through my port?”
Rizzuto’s face pales.
“It’s mine,” he chokes out while his hold on the gun tightens. “You know I wouldn’t dare bringing Cosa Nostra’s drugs here. I swear on my mother’s grave, Rafael. I—”
I press the barrel of my rifle to his forehead and pull the trigger. The top of Rizzuto’s head explodes in a mess of bone, blood, and brain matter, with some of the carnage propelled through the shattered glass. Lowering the rifle, I rise and leave the room, passing the group of hysterical workers on my way out.
Outside the building, I find Guido by his car again, staring at the blood and chunks of flesh scattered across his windshield.
“The fuck, Rafael!” he grunts. “Will you stop littering my car with people’s remains? That’s disgusting!”
“Sorry. I forgot you parked just below.” I throw the bloodied rifle in the back my vehicle. “Make sure everyone keeps their mouths shut about what happened here tonight. Let’s see what Calogero does when he realizes his drugs never left the port.”
“He’ll probably send his men to investigate.”
“If he does, you know what needs to be done.” I slide behind the wheel and step on the gas.
When I get home, I take a shower in the guest room, then slip inside my bedroom. My little hacker is curled up in my bed—asleep—still wearing the same outfit she was in when I left. The top two buttons of the pale-peach silk blouse are undone, revealing a glimpse of the white lace bra underneath. My eyes slide down her legs, clad in white skinny jeans, to the ivory stiletto sandals strapped to her delicate feet. She obviously dozed off while working, since my laptop is lying open next to her in bed.
I lean over and carefully unbuckle her shoes. As I’m doing so, my eyes fall on the lit-up laptop screen. It displays the website of my front company. The URL and the corporate name are correct, but instead of the dark-navy header and silver text, the feature image is of two cartoon frogs wearing pink hats. And the little green croakers are winking. Meanwhile, our customers’ reviews on the slider, have been changed to a cursive font with hearts dotting every lowercase “i” on the page.
Setting the heeled sandals by the bed, I move the laptop to the nightstand and pull up the duvet to Vasilisa’s chin. My little trickster. I reach into my pocket and take out the jewelry box I picked up on my way home, then place it by the laptop. The store owner nearly had a stroke when he found me on his doorstep at four in the morning. The blood all over my jacket and shirt didn’t help. It took him several attempts to spit out the words that the bracelet I ordered would arrive tomorrow. I had to pacify my irritation by buying a pair of ruby earrings instead.
They aren’t exquisite enough. Hardly the exceptional pieces I need, since the stones are nothing but a common cut. But they were the most expensive thing he had in the store. If it comes to it, I’m prepared to buy every exclusive piece of jewelry in Sicily for Vasilisa, in hopes that she may be open to accepting my advances. Maybe she’ll even consider going out to dinner with me.
After lightly brushing the tips of my fingers across Vasilisa’s cheek, I head to the recliner by the fireplace. It has a direct view of my sleeping tormentor, so I get comfortable in what has become my coveted nightly spot. It’s too late to get my own shut-eye anyway, and watching my sweet prisoner is much more enjoyable than a couple of hours of rest.
Chapter 10
“This is amazing,” I mumble while shoveling a mixture of scrambled eggs, bell peppers, and some sort of green stuff into my mouth. “Seriously, Irma, you should open your own place instead of working for Rafael. Nobody in this house eats here except me anyway, so it’s a total waste of your talent. Truly, you should just quit.”
Irma throws a look at Guido, who’s sipping his coffee on the other side of the dining table, and he translates for her. When he’s done, she just blinks at him in confusion, then throws me a smile and busies herself putting the dishes into the dishwasher.
Male voices drift through the open window—the handymen are still here. They’ve finished painting all the doors and windows, and have now switched to graveling the driveway. For whatever reason, they’re removing the existing cover—which seemed more than decent to me as is and didn’t look like it needed replacing—and spreading new crushed rock.
In the kitchen, the two maids appear to be busy. One is rewashing the pots—by hand—after she wiped (for a second time this week) the inside of the cupboards, while the other is tenderizing meat on the island countertop. Guido’s forehead creases, and he jerks slightly, with every loud strike of the meat mallet. It’s really funny to watch.
I have no problem with household noise. Compared to home, this is almost like being at a library. Still, it’s much better than it was before Rafael ordered the household staff to return.
“Why am I the only one who eats in this house?” I ask Guido between bites. It’s weird, and somehow sad, having all my meals alone. “You normally take your bowl of bird food somewhere else, and I’ve never seen your brother eat anything here at all. Does he even need sustenance, or does he just hunt his prey in the neighborhood and drink their blood?”
“Guido is an introvert who likes to eat his meals in his apartment.” The velvety voice rumbles behind me. “And I usually eat at work.”
My eyes track Rafael as he goes to the coffee machine and pours himself a cup. He’s in a brown three-piece suit today, paired with a black dress shirt. The top two buttons are undone. No tie. Brown and black together don’t sound like a good fashion combination. For him, however, it definitely works. But he looks really tired, and unfortunately, still drop-dead gorgeous, despite the dark circles under his eyes.
“Is there anything else you’d like to know about my habits?” he continues. “Or were you simply interested in inviting me to have lunch with you, Miss Petrova?”
“Having lunch in your company would be the low point of my day,” I say and grab a glass of milk. “You look like crap, by the way.”
Absolute silence descends on the room. The maid who’s been putting the pots back into the cupboards is staring at me open-mouthed. The other one is doing the same, her mallet frozen in midair as if she were struck motionless by lightning. Irma was preoccupied stirring something on the stove, but now she’s just got the spoon in a death grip, and her wide eyes are fused to the nearby wall. Guido’s gaze, on the other hand, darts from me to Rafael and back.
“No better way to start a day than by getting compliments,” Rafael says and takes a sip of his coffee.
“Did you resolve the misunderstanding last night?” I ask.
“Yes. It just took a little longer than expected.” He approaches the table with an unhurried stride and unceremoniously takes a seat beside me. “Love what you did with our website.”
I choke on my milk.
“That was her?” Guido snaps from across the table.
“Do we have another hacker with a grudge against me who also has unbridled access to our systems?”
“Mitch has been trying to fix the issue for the past two hours, but there’s some malicious code implanted into our server-side scripts and any change he makes won’t stick.”
