Page 40 of Icebound

“I’m going.”

Anderson heard the words like a death knell. Peter Madsen was legendary—if anyone was a match for Bastien Toussaint, he was. Anderson was going to have to kill him, and he hated to do it. He liked the man, he’d worked with him for years, he’d even been out to his house in the countryside and met the crowd of children causing chaos. Peter had been in the midst of that chaos, calm and in control. He wasn’t a man to be easily distracted.

But he knew too much, and if he realized they were in Lake Como, he would put two and two together and the entire operation would be blown.

Anderson didn’t believe in procrastination. He didn’t bother checking with Le Fauçon—he knew what the man would tell him. Kill Peter Madsen.

“You want me to make the arrangements?” he asked Madsen.

“I’ll do it,” Peter said, dismissing him.

And Anderson went back to his desk to find his gun.

By the time they stopped at the small villa just outside the town of Bellagio, Chloe was ready to throw up. She seriously considered flinging herself against the back seat and saying, “Kill me now,” but common sense won out. Her stomach stopped moving a few minutes after the car did, and she took a deep breath.

“I am never leaving here,” she announced.

Luc looked back at her. “It’s very beautiful,” he said. “I don’t blame you.”

“It’s not the beauty. I just don’t want to ever drive those roads again,” she said with a deep shudder.

Bastien laughed heartlessly. “You’ll do what I tell you to do.”

It would have served him right if she threw up on his shoes when he opened the back door for her. Unfortunately, her stomach was mostly settled, and she had to make do with a glare as she scrambled out of the small car. And then she caught her breath.

Luc was right—it was incredibly beautiful. The small villa was a soft coral, surrounded by a profusion of overgrown flowers, and she could smell their scent, mixed with the clean, bright smell of the lake water. The house itself was slightly shabby in a way that only seemed to enhance its beauty, and there was a long veranda overlooking the lake. She could see the town in the distance, a riot of color and flowers like this smaller house was, and she couldn’t resist her sigh of pleasure.

“Is this where we’re staying?” she asked, trying to keep the awe out of her voice. “Because I’m not cleaning it.”

He laughed again. “You’ll do exactly what I tell you to do. Fortunately, Villa Tedesco comes with housekeeping. You can enjoy a vacation by the lake in style.”

“For how long?”

“Such questions,” he mocked her. “Do you really think I’m going to answer?”

“Come along, Chloe,” Luc said, coming up beside them, her battered suitcase in his hand. “For now, we get to enjoy ourselves. We’ll worry about work later.”

What work could they have connected to this beautiful place, she wondered, climbing up the cracked marble stairs to the veranda. At least there would be enough bedrooms—she’d no longer have to sleep with Bastien. She viewed that with mixed feelings. At night, pressed up against him, she could forget that she was a hostage, that her own husband didn’t know her, and she could relax in his warmth.

But alone, she could stay stronger, plan how she was going to…what the hell was she going to do? No matter what she did, he didn’t recognize her. How was she going to get her husband back?

There might come a time when she had no choice but to leave him. She ached for her children—they would be better off with one parent rather than none at all, and she was hardly going to stand by and let Bastien kill her.

She still couldn’t believe he was seriously considering it. Would the dangerous man she’d first known be capable of such a thing? She had the depressing feeling that he might—long ago, he’d almost let her die and done nothing until the last minute. That Bastien had been burnt-out and hopeless; this one was determined. Whatever he would do, she could hardly feel safe around him.

The view from the colonnaded porch was enough to make her catch her breath. Tall mountains ringed the lake, shades of blue and purple in the distance, bright, puffy clouds danced in the deep cerulean sky, and the soft breeze brought the scent of roses to her. She stood there, transfixed, until Bastien came up the steps.

“Stop gawking,” he said. “It’s a fucking lake.”

“You’re a Philistine,” she said sharply. “Why are we here?”

“Get in the house. You can enjoy the lake later—in the meantime, we need to get settled.”

“Why?”

She was pushing him, which was unwise, but she couldn’t help herself. She’d had enough of him right now, and she refused to be cowed.

It wasn’t a wise idea on her side. He caught her arm in a painful grip and pushed her past the leaded glass doors into a formal living room, filled with modern, overstuffed furniture and spindly antiques, a haphazard combination that somehow worked. She didn’t have time to admire the place with his hand a vise around her arm, and she stumbled over the door sill as he shoved her inside.