“He has access Xander, and that means a lot in our world. I can’t figure it all yet, but I suspect that son of a bitch. He’s the only guy who knew who would be at the poker games. All the players taking part and guests. Granted anybody who has deep pockets can attend and play, but the point is he would have had some idea who was coming. I think he’s working with someone else. The fucking web goes deep. Tangled up in knots so tight I can’t figure it. Giovanni is right though.”
“About what part?”
The man had said so much.
“He said The Ra would only get involved the way they are if they were tipped off. I didn’t know the specs of whatever the four knights were stealing but it was secret enough to keep it right under wraps. No one should know about Giovanni’s involvement at all.”
Ethan had said one of the guys was caught on camera. That was how the SMF knew. If Armand was working with the Ra, he could have tipped them off. It didn’t fit though. Something didn’t fit.
There was someone else.
Again, like Giovanni said, the someone was the joker. A person who’d managed to fool everybody and get all involved on this wild ride.
I thought he was right about that.
“So you think Armand squealed?”
“I think he squealed for the right price. I think he’s in balls deep for the right price. It actually grieves me that Jia has to have anything to do with him. The other reason I helped you was her.”
Just the mention of her name gripped my heart.
“I hated that she saw me being tortured.”
“Me too. Giovanni is one ruthless son of a bitch, but fuck, he definitely used to take the premise of keeping women out of business to another level. If this was another time he would never have allowed her to see something like that. It’s no excuse. The bastard is in over his head and acting out because of that. He won’t take me down with him when the shit hits the fan.” He gave me a more quizzical look, one more of scrutiny. “So, I won’t ask who you work for. Take you from the frying pan to the fire. All that shit. I reckon if you held your silence for so long and endured the torture Giovanni put on you, it must be important. What I will ask you is this. You one of the good guys?” He held my gaze through his reflection.
I nodded. “I am. I came with good intentions to stop bad from happening. Only bad can happen when certain things fall into the wrong people’s hands.”
“That’s good enough for me. Can I ask what the thing is? This thing it’s all about, that you came to steal. Is it okay to ask that?” He gave me a tentative expression. “I wasn’t able to really hear what it was while Giovanni was torturing you. I heard the word ‘prints’ drop, but couldn’t really tell with all that was going on.”
I didn’t see any harm in telling him that part given the circumstances. Or, rather clarifying. The issue of what it was I was here to steal wasn’t the worry anymore. It was what would happen next. Frankie seemed to know enough and some of what he’d shared with me was more than I knew before my sketchy plan to steal the prints went to hell.
“Blueprints for a nuke,” I replied, pulling in a deep breath. “A super nuke with a combo mix of uranium and plutonium. They were designed by a scientist at NASA.”
His face hardened and he looked back to me. “Fuck, you’re serious?
I nodded.
“Fucking hell, I was right. I was fucking right. I knew it was serious but I didn’t know it was that.”
“It’s serious.” And I didn’t have the damn prints. The mission was blown, The Chameleon saw me too, when he and Giovanni caught me with the prints in my hands in the chamber.
They could have moved the prints by now.
Now… when was it?
I got that disoriented feel again of not knowing what day it was. That made me think of Jia.
I gazed out the window, at the shadows of night.
I was too afraid to ask what day it was. It was something I needed to ask though.
“Frankie, what day is it? Is it still Monday?”
He smirked. “Kid they must have really did a fucking number on you.”
Fuck. I prayed weeks hadn’t gone by or something like that. I really was out of it and displaced.
“Frankie I’m serious. I just want to know for her. For Jia. She gets on that plane with that bastard.”
Understanding filled his eyes in the reflection. “I get it. It’s still Monday. Her plane leaves in two hours.”
Two hours.
Oh my God. She hadn’t left yet. She hadn’t left with Armand yet. I straightened up even more and for the first time since getting this mission to get the prints, I wholeheartedly thought of what I wanted most.
I had a second chance to try.
“Frankie, I appreciate the rescue. I do, but I have to get her. I can’t let her go off with Armand.”
He chuckled again.
“Yeah, I figured as much. I also thought you’d need a ride to make that happen. Gotta say though kid, that you don’t look like you can move all that fast so you probably need all the help you can get.”
All I could do was stare at him.
“What are you saying to me? You gonna help me?”
“Where do you think we’re going?”
I swallowed and the lump loosened in my throat. I glanced out the window again and saw signs for McCarran International.
Chapter Forty-Six
Jia
Armand was sitting across from me in the limo.
He gave me the occasional glare of annoyance. It was the type of look to kill.
It was the type of look that told me to be careful, be wary, be aware.
I just didn’t care anymore. He could kill me for all I cared.
He could just kill me, and if he didn’t I just might do it myself.
I was sure death was better than this.
This… me heading to Italy with a man I’d hated almost as much as I hated my father.
How did I get to this point?
How did I get here at this point in my life where I practically had nothing? Not even my God given right of choice. How could I be a grown woman of twenty six years old and be going through this shit?
The car careened down the road. We weren’t far from the airport now.
Another twenty minutes tops and we’d be there.
We’d fly by private jet at ten. I hated flying that way, usually for the company. Today would be the worst time.
It would be so much worse because it was just going to be Armand, me, the flight attendant and two pilots in the plane.
Just days ago Armand tried to rape me and here I sat with him enroute to Italy to be married in two weeks.
Yup.
That was my life. that was what I had to look forward to and worse, I had to do it knowing my father had killed the man I love.
I didn’t know if Xander was already dead, or if he was still alive. I didn’t know. I was assuming death. If he was still alive I figured it would only be a matter of time. He looked…. bad earlier.
That was a little over eight hours ago. He’d looked bad then and I didn’t think with all that I’d seen being done to him that Xander would last past the next hour.
It was so awful.
“Your thoughts are deafening bellezza.” Armand suddenly snapped, cutting into the silence. His voice took on an edge that pierced through me.