“What do you want with the blueprints?” It was a question that was irrelevant to my situation but I needed to know what it was all for. The why of it.
I just wanted to know what had led me here.
“War. It’s on the horizon. Countries get antsy and start slipping when there is unrest and they can’t come to an agreement on what to do, and who to side with. That’s when the most powerful countries start making back up plans. They contact people like us to get hold of something that gives them the upper hand. This time we did the choosing based on previous clientele who offered us a billion dollars. That is how much the blueprints are worth to them.”
I’d only heard of such things in the movies or the news. Wild and bizarre. As he’d spoken I had the sensation of hearing him but not quite believing he was talking to me or believing what he was saying.
I thought Pa was evil…
What about a man who worked for the government? Xander was under the impression that he was doing this mission to prevent the prints from getting into the wrong hands.
I couldn’t imagine what would have happened if he’d actually been successful and handed them over.
It didn’t matter now because look at me.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” I spat. It sounded stupid to say. It was the sort of thing my great aunt Layla would say and everyone would laugh because she sounded so ridiculous trying to tell off a bunch of mafia guys.
Ethan laughed now. I guess I sounded the same, trying to point shame on an anarchist.
Fuck him for laughing. I didn’t care, he was getting my opinion whether he liked it or not, and whether it meant anything to him or not. He could go fuck himself.
“Asshole, you’ll get yours and I hope you fucking die a painful death.”
“Wow, looks like she has balls.”
“Yeah? Guess what, you may think you can lure my father here and he’ll do whatever you say because you have me, but you messed with the wrong people. We’re the Marchesis, you prick. My father may give you what you want but you might not be alive to enjoy it or see that fucking plan of yours come to be.”
He didn’t like me saying that.
“We will see about that. We really will, Miss Marchesi, for your sake I hope Daddy dearest will comply and come willingly. We have our ways here. If he doesn’t then I’m sure you’ll be useful in some other way.”
As he said that I spotted someone at the door. Outside the door. I hadn’t noticed before that it was one of those with the little sliding window that allowed you to pull it across.
It was one of those and Balthazar Kane stood outside it just watching. Watching me.
Looking at me with those cold calculative eyes that made me want to run and hide forever.
I’d never met anyone who could instill the fear of God in me with just one look. It was that sort of wild, maddening, psychotic look of a person who’d done wrong. A lot of wrong and in the worst of ways.
The way he spoke to me when we first met. Telling me that he’d fuck me as many times as he could before he killed me.
Who said things like that?
Who thought it was okay to say things like that?
Men like him.
I wished for Xander. I wished with all my heart for Xander.
Chances were I’d never see him again.
This would be it for me.
This would be my end.
This would be my end whether Pa brought the prints and did as they said or not.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Xander
“What are you doing?” Giovanni asked. He looked to me with those sharp eyes assessing what I was doing.
“I’ll ask the questions here,” I answered, sharpening my gaze on him.
I’d already agreed to do whatever I had to, to get Jia back, even if I had to sign my damn life away to the devil, or work with him.
We’d gone inside the house. When Frankie saw him he nearly shit himself. Wes turned pale. Literally sheet pale.
Both men exhibited reactions that were understandable because this was the guy who’d sent us here.
I might have lowered my gun but Jack kept his pointed at my old boss while I laid out the blueprints on the dinner table to go over them.
I took them out of the tube to make sure everything was as it should be.
Everything in accordance with the way they were detailed in my mission brief.
I wouldn’t have put it past this son of a bitch to come with shit and try to trick me so he could get Jia and then try to steal her away from me.
I wouldn’t have put such a thing past him but these looked like the real deal. When I’d taken them out of the glass case in the secret chamber I never got the chance to look inside before he came and captured me.
Screwed me over more like.
I stopped pouring over them and looked at him.
We’d gathered in the dining room because of the table and the bigger space to bounce ideas.
In the room were Jack, Wes, Frankie, Giovanni, me, and Dorian. Dorian had come by a few minutes ago. Jack had called him earlier. He was probably expecting to come and help with something technical and happened upon our little standoff here, with Giovanni sitting in the armchair looking like he was getting ready to read the Sunday paper while Jack’s shotgun aimed at his head.
Badass. That’s what he was.
He knew, he knew no matter what stance I took or what I did or said, I’d do whatever he asked if it helped me save Jia.
He knew I was in love with his daughter and I supposed he knew too not to fuck with me.
So far he’d said he was waiting on the call from Balthazar with the details of where to make the exchange. He’d only made contact and offered Jia up for the prints. That was all that had happened so far.
It was a lot, but there were so many other questions swirling around in my mind.
“How were you able to bring these to us? I was under the impression that you’d handed them over to The Chameleon.”
“I was supposed to, then you took Jia and we never got the chance to meet for the exchange. With people after the prints they aren’t something you just hand over in the conventional sense.”
“So that’s it, he won’t come here with God knows who after you?”
“He is not my concern. I was very clear from the beginning when I got onboard this shit show that my family shouldn’t have been placed in danger.”
I remembered that conversation with him.
“There was never any way to control that.” I threw back. It pissed me off to no end whenever I heard people got themselves into deep shit and it blew up in their faces, dragging their loved ones into it, then they’d say they didn’t know it would come to this or that their actions would end up causing any harm.
It was all bullshit. No matter which way it went, this started with him and what he agreed to do.
“Maybe so.”
That answer wasn’t good enough. “Giovanni, don’t fuck with me. Tell me now if you think The Chameleon or anybody else will follow your ass here.”
He grit his teeth. It was clear he hated the switch in power. “He will not. He thinks I’m still in Vegas. He has no idea what’s happened. I was to arrange to meet with him in the week to make the exchange. That is all.”
Good. Then the damn Chameleon wasn’t my concern either. If we got out of this, I’d hand the blueprints over to Jack and he could give them to the right people. That was what I’d decided.