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“We’re talking seven figures for this, plus expenses.”
Nico had expected nothing less, but fortunately, he’d inherited over a billion dollars from his father, most of which was as dirty as the back streets of Volokolamsk. Spending a million or two fighting everything his father had stood for would be a nice “fuck you” for the old man.
“Kaylin’s worth it.”
“What about Cesare? How do you want that handled?”
A good question, and a tricky one. “My first instinct is to remove him from the picture entirely, but I’m not certain that’s the right approach.”
“Because you’re worried Kaylin might not want that?”
“Precisely. She’s not happy, but she still married the asshole. He’s still the father of her child.”
“He’ll want revenge.”
“So will the rest of his family if we kill him.”
“True. Plus the kid might need a kidney someday, and matches aren’t easy to find.” Emmy took a swallow from her glass. “Fun fact: that’s the only reason my mother’s still alive today.”
“In case you need a kidney?”
“Yup.”
“What if she’s not a match?”
“She is.” Cold. That was cold, but Nico would have expected nothing else from Emmy Black. “But if you want blood typing, tissue typing, and a serum crossmatch for Cesare Cavallaro, that’s gonna cost you a hell of a lot more.”
“How about we just stick with the standard rescue mission? If we need to carry out a side project later, we’ll call that a separate contract.”
Emmy clinked her glass against his. “Deal.”
22
EMMY
We had a green light, a blank cheque, and the brief from hell. Extricate a wife, a child, and a fucking dog from a Mafia man’s clutches. And not just any old Mafia man. Rumour said that Cesare Cavallaro was tipped to leapfrog his one surviving uncle and become boss of the family if anything happened to Vito. Which it probably would, and sooner rather than later. Rumour also said that Vito had a dodgy ticker, a rumour we’d confirmed when Agatha took a gander through his preferred hospital’s billing system.
“Belgravia Place is still a problem,” Ana said over dinner in our New York apartment. Sushi for Dasha, pizza for everyone else. My core team for this job was female because I knew, based on what I’d observed so far, that the Cavallaros would underestimate us. To them, women were good for entertainment and keeping house, not special ops and assassination. We’d bring in others as necessary, but for now, I had Dasha, Ana, Sky, Hallie, Dan, and Sofia with me, although I couldn’t take Dan away from the Investigations team for long. But she was a New Yorker, and she knew the city better than I did.
And yes, Ana was right. Belgravia Place was a problem. Not only had the sprinkler system been fixed, but the dog walker came in the mornings when Cesare was usually home. Kaylin’s hubby was too lazy to walk the mutt himself, and he was also a late riser. All that criming was tiring for a man.
We’d been watching the apartment building for over six weeks, testing, probing, assessing. Thanks to Bradley and his pal Ferdinand, we’d even been inside a handful of times. Ferdinand was a make-up artist who specialised in latex and special effects, but well-paid work was getting harder to come by with Hollywood’s current fondness for CGI, and he’d spent the past three months waiting tables. CGI couldn’t help you to break into a building, though. I was tempted to offer Ferdinand a permanent job. He’d already shown interest in a barista position in the café at Craft Cabin 2.0, so we could provide him with a steady paycheck and time off for other projects.
When applying for a role as concierge at Belgravia Place, it seemed there was only one question on the form: are you a condescending twat? If the answer was “yes,” then congratulations, the job was yours. Four supercilious pricks shared the role, staffing the desk twenty-four-seven between them.
Dasha had gone brunette and donned yoga wear plus a new face to become Loranne Brookhurst from the fourth floor. Once inside, she’d spent an hour mapping out key infrastructure before the real Loranne returned from her spa appointment. I’d morphed into Luella Haas from the eighth floor and taken the stairs to the parking garage, where I’d installed a camera to watch the comings and goings. Doing the same for the penthouse was a no-go since the elevator opened directly into the foyer, but Agatha had gone one better and hacked the Cavallaros’ nanny cam. Now we had eyes and ears inside, but mainly in the nursery.
“Why couldn’t they have purchased a two-way baby monitor like normal people?” Dasha grumbled.
“Maybe Cesare’s a cheapskate,” Sky suggested.
Ana shrugged. “Or maybe he worried that his wife-slash-prisoner would use it to contact the outside world.”
“Yeah, or maybe he just didn’t want some creepy dude talking to his kid in the middle of the night,” I said. Baby monitors were notoriously insecure, hence us turning one into our secret spy cam. “This is why I have birth-control shots. I don’t have to worry about nursery security.”
“Mack’s already designed a custom baby monitor,” Dan told me. “It’s hack-proof, and it speaks in her voice.”
I only hoped she’d have the opportunity to use her creation. Mack didn’t much like to talk about it, but fertility problems were making her miserable, and she was about to start her first round of IVF. I found it hard to know what to say to make her feel better. I mean, I’d offered to donate eggs if she needed them, but Luke, who was her husband and my ex—awkward—had looked so freaking horrified by the suggestion that I’d garbled an excuse and left.
