Unseen Terrors
Autumn
Outside the Adriano palazzo, Italy
I had no idea why the compound where the Adriano family hides itself away always seemed to crackle with energy. I had felt the same surge of restlessness and power in a few other places—at Stonehenge and again on the misty Glastonbury Tor in Britain; near the legendary Temple of Delphi; at an archaeological site in Peru; and later at an underwater Greek temple that no one will ever know about. Maybe it’s because the Adriano home base is built on the tower ruins of an old castle close to such a famous volcano, old Mount Vesuvius, and the fact that modern technology has little effect on acts of God and Mother Nature. Storms, hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes—men are powerless in such conflicts, resorting to far-flung prayers in moments of crisis.
Then again, I thought as I waited at the main gate to the compound shortly after sunset, maybe it’s the fact that the Adrianos are always on alert, the air thrumming with dozens of unseen henchmen straining to distinguish any movement in the acres of darkness.
Careful not to let my cleavage fall too far out of my velvet dress—which was normal attire for me— I leaned out the window of my rented Mercedes, thrusting my identification at the pimply faced guard who didn’t look a day over sixteen. He barked at me in Italian to leave my automobile outside the gate and enter on foot. An older guard with a scar across his lips and large nose stood behind him, one hand on a low-slung holster. Neither seemed to have a sense of humor. They motioned for me to get out of the automobile, so I obeyed, taking the briefcase with me.
Hmm. Strange. I’d been to the compound thirty-eight times—thirty-five on official business—and I’d always been allowed to drive to the main building. Of course, I always had to exit my automobile while the guards scooted an X-ray machine on a slender trailer beneath the body of the vehicle, jabbed underneath with mirrors to look for bombs and then brought out the bomb-detecting dogs to sniff inside the automobile, under the hood, around the wheel wells and in the trunk. What had happened to ratchet up security several notches since my last visit a few months before?
“What’s in package?” the older guard asked me in stilted English, his head bobbing at the briefcase. His tone was as harsh as his apprentice’s, and they both seemed impervious to my usual feminine charms. Contrary to the allure of other Italian men, these thugs didn’t warrant a second look.
“What’s in package?” he barked again, knitting his thick eyebrows into one.
“I don’t know.” Why were they giving me such a hard time? I’d always been treated as an honored guest in Simon’s home. Or at least a very valuable employee. Had something changed?
“Explosives? Guns?” the guard asked.
I shrugged. These guys weren’t very creative. If I had plans to assassinate anyone in the Adriano family, it would have been Caleb and it would have been with something a lot slower than a suitcase bomb or a bullet. Hell, a little biological or radiological something would have been more in line with what the bastard deserved for what he’d done to me. That or a grenade up his ass.
Then it occurred to me that I really didn’t know what was in the briefcase I’d been sleeping with for the past six weeks.
The guard drew his gun. “Give me package.”
I shook my head. My grip tightened on the briefcase and its precious contents. “No one touches this package but Duke Adriano.”
“Fine. We shoot you. Then we give him package.” The older guard laughed at his own joke. Without warning, he grinned. “Meanwhile, we feel corpse for weapons. Maybe have to look everywhere.”
His leer made my skin crawl. Why did men always make me do this?
Before the younger guard could move, I kicked the gun out of the older man’s hand and left the heel print of my boot on his forehead. I caught the gun midair and swung it in the direction of the adolescent guard, who backed up against the wall with his palms facing me. Neutralizing him, I turned the gun on the older one on the ground.
“Please tell Duke Adriano that Dr. Moon is here to see him.”
Damn it. I’d twisted my knee again. I seriously needed some downtime to recuperate. Months’ worth of downtime.
The younger guard pressed the intercom button and mumbled something in Italian. Simon’s face appeared on the black-and-white screen. The video camera at the corner of the gate swiveled in my direction. Simon’s blank stare shifted to recognition.
“Dr. Moon! How delightful to see you,” he said in perfect English with a smooth-flowing Italian accent sprinkled with the slightest hint of British brogue from his long stays in London. I was well traveled enough to have noticed it where others may not have. He narrowed his eyes at me through the camera. “What’s that in your arms? Besides the firearm, of course. Have you been taunting my guards again?” He laughed. “Do you have something for me?”
“The question is, do you have something for me?” Like half a million American dollars, plus expenses. And hopefully a promise to release me from his employ. I’d trade the cash any day for an early retirement. The Adrianos thought my motivation was money, and I fed their assumption wherever possible. They knew that the money allowed me to keep up my international contacts and my expertise and still be on call whenever they demanded my services. I wasn’t some poor schmuck they forced into servitude with threats and no extra pay, and that made my status far more prestigious than that of most employees.
“Ah, yes. Cara mia. My dear, sweet mercenary, Dr. Moon. Have one of the boys drive you up to the house.”
I glanced at the eat-shit expressions on the guards’ faces and considered my throbbing knee. “Thanks, Simon, but I think I’ll walk.”
I didn’t mind the walk, but it had always bothered me how they’d overplanted trees and gardens along the driveway to the main house, mostly to hide the grounds from satellite coverage. In the dark, the walk seemed more like a nicely paved trail in the jungle, with small footpath lamps placed at intervals, so that I could see the toes of my boots in their glow.
The palazzo was far more impressive in daylight, especially with the four towers from the original castle standing like sentinels over the property. A series of earthquakes over the past year had damaged the towers, and on every visit this year scaffolding had tainted the picturesque view of the old stone architecture and its intricate crosswalks between the towers. Almost as soon as they completed the refurbishment, another tremor would rock the whole region.
Odd, I thought. So many earthquakes here in such a short time.
Not that Naples was immune to earthquakes. Besides the famous earthquake and volcanic destruction of nearby Pompeii in the first century, the area had been hit in the late 1600s, killing ninety-three thousand people, and as recently as 1980, injuring over sixty thousand. These small shakers within the past year were not a good sign of things to come, but the locals seemed more concerned with recent sudden rainstorms.
The walk along the driveway took almost twenty minutes. I didn’t let my knee injury slow me down, but I needed every second of the way to cool down and mentally prepare myself. I slid the borrowed revolver into my bra between my breasts and ignored the feeling that I was being watched by silent mouth-breathing security guards hiding in the shrubbery and behind the olive trees along the driveway. I was far more worried about the unseen video cameras photographing every step I took.
Caleb would be watching.
Biting my lip against the pain in my knee, I bounded up the stone steps to the main house and reached for the knocker on the door. I just wanted to get this over with, collect my fee, get Simon’s agreement to let me resign or retire and quietly disappear to some quiet little university town in Florida where the Adrianos would never find me. If that was possible. With any luck, tonight’s visit to the compound would be my last. That was my plan, anyway.
Cold steel brushed across my cheek. I held my breath and didn’t move. I kept my eyes straight ahead. The gun barrel caught the fall of hair above my eyes—the trendy style I’d chosen to hide the crinkles at the corners that some idiot had nicknamed crow’s-feet—and lifted my hair away from my face. I didn’t move as the metal traced my hairline to my forehead and examined my face with an intimacy that made me tremble. I felt naked. Worse—vulnerable. I had my props, my clothes and hair and makeup, to hide my flaws, and yet when your enemy inspects the lines of your face and knows how often you’ve smiled into the sun or frowned at your pain, there is nowhere to hide.
“Your weapon.” His voice was low, quiet, but sounded vaguely familiar. “Don’t move.” He reached into the open neckline of my brown velvet dress and withdrew the revolver, barely touching my skin between my breasts as he did, but it was still enough to make my breath catch. “Sorry,” he whispered in a Parisian accent that sounded like home to me. “We don’t allow guns in the house.”
I turned only my head to face him. I wasn’t sure if it was safe to move. He lowered both guns and exhaled audibly.
We stood there for a minute longer than necessary, sizing up each other. He was tall, very un-Italian, with brown hair that curled a little long on the collar of the sleek black leather jacket he wore. He had classic features and, for a man in his early thirties, nary a sign of a smile line or a frown crease. A good poker player, probably. His face held no expression at all, but I lost myself in his pale blue eyes.
It’s a man’s eyes that I’m always most attracted to, and in a split second I’d planned out the rest of our lives in my head. How we’d slip away from here and spend our days on the run, changing our identities and seeing the world together. Never able to slow down or become bores but always intense and exciting and thankful for one more day of life together. This man had what it took to keep the fire in my belly—and elsewhere—and I knew it in an instant. I could feel alive again with this man, at least for a little while.
I blinked away the illusion and promised myself I’d fantasize about him later. He was one of the Adriano henchmen and therefore off-limits to me in reality, but I knew without a doubt that I’d lust after him in my dreams. At least until I could find Matthew again.
The door opened inward, and I looked down at a little boy who stood between the door and the threshold using all his strength to keep the heavy door from pushing him out onto the steps with me. He nervously dug the toes of his sneakered feet into the stone floor and peered up at me with the biggest pair of puppy-dog eyes I’d ever seen on a child. Then he reached for the hem of the henchman’s jacket and tugged three times.
“Eh-wic?”
Eric? Eric Cabordes? The man whose shoddy information had nearly gotten me captured in San Francisco?
“Go back inside.” Eric’s voice stayed low and gentle even while the heat of anger rose in my temples. He hid both guns behind his back. I could still see them, but the boy couldn’t.
Of course. Guns weren’t allowed inside the house because of the child. Was that it? Or was it that I wasn’t supposed to have my own weapon while in the house? Guns had certainly been allowed in the house when a child wasn’t present. I’d seen Adriano Security on the job a number of times, though I’d never seen this man. Either he was new or he spent most of his time off-site. A courier, perhaps. Yet why would they trust someone new to help me on a crucial heist?
“Eh-wic?” The boy tugged again. “Would you play hide-in-seek wid me?” He stared up adoringly at the man, and I assumed the boy was his son.
“Not now, Benny.”
Benny. Ah. Little Benedict Adriano. He spoke English, so I assumed his multilingual training had already begun for the day when he would be the international businessman of consequence that his grandfather was. I hadn’t seen Benny since his crawling days. The boy was the son of the youngest Adriano brother, Joshua, and his sniveling wife.
Pauline was a waiflike creature with a big temper and even bigger ambitions, and I’d personally borne the brunt of both. I’d made the mistake once of commenting on the lavender-colored alexandrite in her necklace and actually reaching toward it, even though I hadn’t planned to touch it. She’d accused me of wanting to steal it. Simon had admonished her gently, but I’d been livid at having my integrity questioned. Maybe that’s a strange thing for a thief to feel, but I have my own sense of honor, even if I can’t wear it in an obvious way.
And Pauline rankled my sense of honor just by breathing. One of my connections had sworn to me that Pauline had once been Simon’s favorite mistress and that the two of them had worked together to install her as the wife of the youngest Adriano brother, who was somewhat gentler on the eyes and spirit than Caleb. Once Pauline had borne a male heir to the family dynasty, she’d been able to relax, and I’d not seen her again on my brief visits to the compound. Usually she was away at a spa, I was told. Which was fine by me. She’d performed the greatest service a woman could perform for the Adriano family—a legitimate heir—and as long as her son lived, she was safe.
But the kid… Benny… My heart broke for him. Had Joshua and Caleb once been the same? Or their brother Aaron, who’d died before I’d had the opportunity to meet him? Had Simon himself been an innocent boy?
Benny was all of four or five years old, with a freshness about him that made me want to scoop him up and hug him tightly to me as I had with Lilah at that age. Yet his destiny had been determined at birth, surer than any combination of stars and planets. He’d spend the next five years of his young life with private tutors, and the five after that learning the skills he’d need to be as cold and heartless as his grandfather. In another twenty years he’d know the cultivated pleasures of cruelty and manipulation as he prepared to take over the Adriano family. But at the moment he was just an innocent little boy who longed for a playmate.
And if Eric wasn’t the boy’s father, who was he? And why did he seem to care so much for the little tyke? He had to be someone they trusted to have been involved in my heist. Maybe someone they shouldn’t have trusted, given his penchant for errors. But even if the man was an idiot where I was concerned, my heart still softened as I watched his response to the boy.
“Benny, go back inside. Ask your mother to play with you.”
The child rolled his eyes. “She said to ask you.”
I caught the slightest hint of an exasperated sigh from Eric, but otherwise he kept his opinions to himself. I had the impression that he disliked Pauline as much as I did.
“I’ll play with you after the pretty lady leaves.” He stood in silence, studying me while Benny studied him.
I clutched the briefcase to my chest. “I’m not leaving.”
One eyebrow rose just enough to be noticed. “You shouldn’t be here at all. If you want to live, you’ll turn around and go. Now.”
“Can’t. Sorry. I have a delivery to make.” And a paycheck and a pink slip to pick up.
“Give it to me. I’ll see that Simon gets his artifact. Leave before your pretty corpse is hanging on a wall like one of your stolen trophies.”
Was that a threat? Or a warning? I ignored the chill in my bones but not the disdain in his voice. Unbelievable. He worked for the Adrianos, too, and yet he had the nerve to pass judgment on the way I earned my living? Who did he think he was? Did he think being a security guard was any more altruistic than stealing back lost treasures that had belonged to the Adrianos’ ancestors?
“Simon will want to see me,” I assured him through gritted teeth. “I want him to know I didn’t fail.” This time.
I still had to make up for losing that statue earlier in the year, and if this package was truly the “artifact of the second millennium,” then maybe Simon would feel he owed me my release. I’d already rehearsed my resignation speech in my head, about how often I’d come through for him and how he was right to be fond of me. I was nervous but determined. Sure, I could take the money I had stashed in several South American banks and hope to disappear, but without Simon’s blessing, I’d never really be free of the Adrianos’ grip as long as I was alive.
“Listen to me,” Eric warned in a whisper. “Your pride will be your failing. You’re fooling yourself about how much Simon likes you. You are not the teacher’s pet.”
Teacher’s pet? What was that supposed to mean? A reference to my former life as an English literature professor? The Adrianos knew nothing of those days.
Eric leaned into my ear so that only I could hear. “You’re special to him but not in the way you think.”
Before he could say another word, I pushed past both man and boy, through the door and into the lion’s den. Eric and Benny followed me, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Eric hand off my borrowed gun to a security guard called Algernon in a hallway and then discreetly holster his own weapon.
No matter how many times I had entered the compound’s main house, it always amazed me that people could live in so much luxury. The house reeked not only of money but of centuries-old wealth. But there was no warmth in this place. The air was as sterile as any I had breathed in the world’s most closely guarded museum vaults.
My boots clicked on the marble floor as I stalked across the foyer and into the reception area where I had previously met with Simon on thirty-five occasions, all of them successful. Always before, I’d felt calm and in charge. I’d never had butterflies in my stomach, but I did now. Then again, the only Adriano I’d ever said no to was Caleb, and that had ended badly. Very badly.
“Hello, Ms. Moon.”
I stopped in my tracks and clenched the briefcase. Panic rose in my chest. I took a deep, measured breath to calm myself. Just the sound of Caleb’s voice was enough to unnerve me, especially when he made the effort to discount my talents by ignoring my usual title of Dr. Moon, the one old Max Adriano had ordered given me on my last incarnation as an art thief. Caleb thought my name was Ginny and I’d let him think it. By the tone of his voice, I knew something was up.
Slowly I turned to face my ex-lover. He was as handsome as ever. Dark blond hair discreetly dyed to make him stand out in a family of dark-haired Europeans. Tall. Piercing Adriano eyes. Expensive casual clothes. Devastating smile. The physique of a muscular teddy bear.
Yeah. A teddy bear with fangs and claws.
I forced a smile but kept my distance. The twenty feet between us wasn’t nearly enough to make me feel safe. The fact that Eric, Benny and a host of servants and security guards stood watching on the periphery didn’t help, either.
“Can I get you anything to drink? Wine? Hemlock?”
Caleb snapped his fingers, and a svelte servant in a black dress and white apron appeared at his side with a tray of crystal glasses and dark red juice. “Oh, that’s right. You have a preference for pomegranate juice.”
The servant offered the tray to me, but I shook my head. How did Caleb know I enjoyed pom juice? Unless he’d been watching me. Checking me out. Spying on me to learn more than just what I considered the secret to my youthful looks or that, like the goddess Persephone, I made regular trips into hell. I frowned at the crystal pitcher of juice and the empty glasses on the tray. Caleb had gone to extra effort to let me know he was aware of this particular secret. In any relationship, you must follow the effort to know whether the other party is interested, and Caleb was interested… in something.
Another liaison in his bedroom? No way in hell was that going to happen. I’d told him that a year ago. I’d told him again on the two occasions I’d seen him since, and he hadn’t taken the rejection lightly.
“I had the juice prepared especially for you.” He winked at me over a smirk that told me he knew something he shouldn’t.
Drink whatever poison Caleb offered? “Not damned likely,” I murmured too softly for him to hear. My fists tightened. I wouldn’t put it past him to try to force me to drink something more dangerous than antioxidants. Tonight he was more treacherous than usual because he was alone—he didn’t have a new conquest on his arm to keep him in line.
I’d warned his newest love interest, a woman named Scarlet Rubashka, what he was capable of. I doubted he’d bedded her yet, but he was definitely courting her, and she wasn’t letting the relationship move too fast. Smart woman. I’d liked Scarlet. Something about her reminded me of Lilah, even though Scarlet was a grown woman in her thirties and Lilah—according to the last photos I’d seen—still had a slight sheen of adolescence.
If Caleb hadn’t already hated me enough, he’d vowed to kill me after my little conversation with his new infatuation. Scarlet had reminded me that I was a criminal and hadn’t believed me, then she’d told Caleb all about my warning. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Caleb had promised to see me dead for telling her about his bedroom antics. He didn’t need yet another excuse to want me dead, but I’d given him one.
I should never have gotten involved with the older Adriano brother. I’d known better. And yet, true to form, my years of rejecting Caleb’s advances had brought his pursuit to fever pitch, just as Scarlet’s slower pace was doing now. He always wanted what he couldn’t have, and my denying him just made him that much more determined to have me.
Glancing around the room, I suddenly felt self-conscious. What the people in that room must have been told about me! Eric Cabordes included. Even the servants eyed me as if I were some kind of slut. I knew without a doubt that if I needed help from them now, not one would risk his life to save me. None of them knew the whole story.
Caleb had worn me down, gotten through my defenses, and I’d relented after six months of his constant attempts to court me. Over several dinners at the palazzo, including one private rendezvous on the old tower ruins before the first quake of the past year skewed the stones, he’d shown me a tender side of him that seemed incongruous with the man I knew now. Probably the same lies he’d told Scarlet on every attempt to get her into his bed. He’d been wildly passionate and intense, and I’d let go of my worries and found myself acquiescing.
Once. Just once.
Caleb was an experienced lover, almost fanatically competitive about bringing me to climax, as if it were a power over me that he simply had to wield. Then, when I’d been lost in the throes of passion, he’d closed the fingers of his large hands around my throat and pressed his thumbs into my carotids, cutting off the flow of blood to my brain until I’d felt dizzy. I’d fought the intensity of the physical pleasure, fought to live instead, fought him, scratched at him with my long fingernails, cut his chest and face.
The people in this room… the ones looking at me with such disdain… they don’t know the truth.
He seized my wrists then, held them down with one hand while he’d borne down his full weight onto my chest until I couldn’t breathe and cupped his other palm over my gasping mouth and nose. His candlelit bedroom had given way to gray sparkles of nothingness. Later I would remember thinking, I’m going to die and the last thing I’m going to see is the look of delight on this bastard’s face. I’d felt my body give way to light and a sensation of floating among angels.
Then I’d felt the sting of his palm on my face, again and again, slapping me to bring me back to life. I’d gasped and choked and crawled to the bathroom to throw up.
“Ms. Moon?” Caleb asked more forcefully as I stared at the glass of pom juice.
I shook myself and then glanced back at him. As more than one man can attest, I’m by no means a prude when it comes to sex and I wouldn’t mind surrendering control to the right lover. But Caleb Adriano had stepped over the line. I’d ended our affair then and there, which had stirred up an anger I’d never seen in any man. He’d threatened my life several times since that night, and I had no doubt he knew exactly how he wanted to see me executed and whose hands would be around my neck.
“Aren’t you going to drink your juice?” Caleb grinned at me and gestured to the tray as the servant poured a glass from the pitcher.
“Why?” I found my voice last. “So you can drug me? Poison me—”
“Juice!” Benny screeched from across the room and dashed for the tray. He grabbed the glass in his two small fists and pulled it toward his lips.
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