Another reason, if he needed one, that it wasn’t a gun that would kill you, it was fear. Or hate. Or anger. Or love. Emotions were far more dangerous than any weapon.
‘Explain,’ he said, finally breaking the silence that had fallen. ‘Why are you here, Miss Armstrong? Apart from throwing yourself on my non-existent mercy?’
She was sitting in the chair completely rigid, almost vibrating with tension. ‘But my father’s men will be here any minute.’
Fear, again. And she was right to be scared. Coming to him directly would be a betrayal her father would not forgive.
He glanced at his computer screen and, sure enough, she wasn’t wrong. Some of Armstrong’s thugs were already at the doors of the auction house.
Vincenzo touched a button on his keyboard and swivelled the screen around so it was in front of her. ‘Top right-hand corner is a camera feed of the front of the building. As you can see, your father’s men are already here. But they are being dealt with.’
It was clear he’d get nothing out of her until she was satisfied that she was safe from her father, so he might as well let her watch the proceedings. It would also serve as a good reminder to her that he was no less dangerous.
She watched the camera feed avidly, her eyes unblinking from behind her glasses. She didn’t move, clutching her handbag and looking like nothing so much as a small brown owl.
Fanciful of him. And he wasn’t given to fancies. Nor was he given to mercy for small, unremarkable women, who also happened to be accessories to the crimes committed by their father.
Really, he didn’t know why he was letting her sit there watching a feed of his security team dealing with her father’s men. Especially when what he should be doing was to call his head of Security and get Alessio to hand her over to the British police immediately. After all, if his crusade against the crime families of Europe had taught him anything it was that immediate action was the best kind of action.
Then again, she could be useful to him in all kinds of ways, especially if he wanted to eventually bring Armstrong down. Perhaps he wouldn’t be calling Alessio quite yet.
‘Seen enough?’ he asked, watching her.
She glanced at him, frowning ferociously. ‘How do you know that your security dealt with it? You didn’t look once.’
‘I don’t need to. My team is the best there is.’ He swivelled the screen back. ‘Your explanation, if you please.’
She took a little breath. ‘Okay. So, as I said, I’m here because I need your protection against my father. I managed to get away from him, but he’ll never let me go free. He’ll come for me whether I want to go back or not, and the only way to stay safe from him is to have someone to protect me. Which is where you come in.’
‘Lucky me,’ he said dryly. ‘Presumably you know who I am, Miss Armstrong? I mean, you didn’t wander into my office at random looking for a place to hide?’
The look she gave him was almost offended. ‘Of course I know who you are. I planned my escape meticulously, including coming to you. You’re my father’s enemy number one. You’re powerful and strong, and you have a great many resources. You don’t owe my father anything and apparently you can’t be bought.’ She pushed her glasses up her nose again in what was obviously a nervous gesture. ‘You’re incorruptible, which makes you perfect.’
She had done her homework, hadn’t she?
‘I’m not as perfect as I’m sure you’d like me to be,’ he said flatly. ‘What’s to stop me from taking you direct to the authorities right now, for example? You’re an accessory to a great many crimes, Miss Armstrong, and, as you’re no doubt aware, it is my stated aim to make sure people like you and your father are brought to justice swiftly.’
Her frown turned into a scowl. ‘I am not like my father.’
‘And yet you’re complicit in a number of illegal activities if my sources are correct, and they usually are.’
She went even whiter than she was already, making the dusting of freckles across her nose stand out, and highlighting the shadows beneath her eyes.
Now the little owl wasn’t just afraid, she was terrified.
Vincenzo had a reputation for ruthlessness, and some would have called him cruel. He supposed they could be correct about that. His world was a very black and white one, and it needed to be, since his personal mission in life didn’t allow time to debate moral quandaries or sort out grey areas. He turned everyone over to the authorities and let them sort the innocent from the guilty, which could be interpreted as cruelty by some people.
It didn’t bother him. He didn’t care how other people interpreted his actions.
And he wasn’t sure what the strange tightness was that whispered through him when he looked at the terrified young woman sitting across his desk. But it was there all the same. It was almost like...pity.
Her chin came up then, her narrow shoulders squaring slightly, as if she were facing down a firing squad.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You’re right, I am complicit. But prisoners don’t get choices, especially when they’re being threatened, and I didn’t have the luxury of refusing. Believe me or don’t, it’s up to you. Just promise me that you will keep me safe from my father.’
She was wrong. Everyone had a choice, even if you didn’t like the choice you were given.
‘And why would I promise you a single thing?’ he enquired, keeping the question casual.
Her gaze turned ever more determined. ‘Because I can give you everything you need to take my father down.’
CHAPTER TWO
LUCY HAD KNOWN nothing but fear for most of her life and was used to it. But the fear that gripped her as she sat opposite Vincenzo de Santi was unlike any she’d ever known.
And she couldn’t work out why.
Her father’s men had been dealt with efficiently—she’d seen just how efficiently on that camera feed—and so there shouldn’t have been any reason for her to remain scared. Yet she was, and now it had less to do with her father than it did with the man sitting opposite her.
He was still lounging there in that casual pose, to all intents and purposes bored. But his eyes glittered like black jewels and they did not move from her face, not even once. He was all coiled menace and a ruthlessness that she could almost feel like ice against her skin.
She hadn’t expected to be confronted about her own crimes, not so soon, though in retrospect she should have. But she didn’t like having to think about the things her father had made her do and, since she was very good at not thinking about certain things, she’d simply pushed it out of her head to be dealt with later.