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Brody
WiththepossibilityofAlessia being in real danger, Matteo’s original plans went out the window. Somehow, he was able to update his handler and have us outfitted with tactical gear and weapons as soon as we stepped off the plane. Neither of us was willing to wait for the other team. We got in the procured vehicle and made our way to the estate, parking in the forest next to it.
“Any ideas on how to get past the guards if we have to haul ass out of there?” I whispered as we snuck close to the wall. He shrugged off his bag without a word, unzipping a pocket and pulling out what was inside it. I grinned. “That’ll work.”
“Might I suggest less talking and more movement?” The gravelly voice in my ear just about caused me to jump out of my skin. “You’re on a timetable, after all.”
I hadn’t realized anyone else was on coms besides Matteo and myself. “Who the hell is that?” I whispered to Matteo, who started assembling the C-4. He ignored me, and I got the message loud and clear. As the new guy, it was my job to keep my mouth shut and back him up.
We quickly scaled the wall and entered through the hole in the guard that Alessia had somehow noticed and added to her notes. There was a lot fewer security personnel closer to the house than there had been the day we were there. Someone wanted to make sure no one was the wiser of what was going on inside the house, I figured. The only person inside the castle was the butler I’d met before. Matteo incapacitated him, leaving him tied and gagged in a closet off the kitchen. Falling into old habits, I held position at his back as we cleared each room, ensuring we were alone. When we found the tapestry that we all hoped was the hidden entrance into the basement, Matteo paused, his eyes casing the room for what would most likely be a hidden mechanism to open the door. “Is there anything in this room that looks historically important or ostentatious that he didn’t point out while he was with Alessia?” he asked suddenly.
I looked around. “Besides the tapestry?” I thought back. “I was trying hard to keep an eye on him, not necessarily the room. But Alessia seemed pretty interested in the bookcase of rare books. He skimmed over them. I thought maybe he didn’t know enough about them to brag efficiently, or he’d gotten them through less-than-legal means.”
Matteo looked over the collection. “I don’t know much about old books, but I’m going to guess this one,” he pointed to one that looked as old but much more ragged than the rest of the collection, almost as if it had been handled so often the cover was wearing out, “is not as important as the rest.” He pulled the book toward him, and we both heard a low click. The wall the tapestry hung on jutted out a scant inch, and we yanked it open. I expected stone walls with dank and moldy air and poor lighting. Instead, sleek modern metal walls and floors made me feel like I had walked into the future. I was a little afraid to allow the door to shut behind us for fear it would seal shut. Matteo must have had the same thought because he hesitated at the opening. Thinking quickly, I grabbed what I was sure was a priceless book off the bookcase and placed it in the doorway. Satisfied that we’d secured an exit, we crept farther down the stairway.
Lights turned on as we traversed the steps, our motion triggering the sensors. Humming from above us told me that fresh air was being pumped down. The stairs led to a long hallway with four doors on either side.
“Please don’t tell me he has more than Alessia down here,” I muttered to Matteo.
He shook his head. “Last intel tells us he doesn’t have anyone, which is why we think he jumped on Alessia so fast. Even then, he took us by surprise. We expected a move next week, not now, which is why a team wasn’t already in position. I’ll be honest, I expected to come across at least one guard by now. And where are Albrecht and his men?”
I had the same thought, dread crawling through me.
We stayed focused, clearing each room as we came to it, and I was starting to panic as we readied to breach the second to last room. Had they really killed Alessia, and we were too late? Or had they realized she had a tracking device and moved to a secondary location after removing it?
The door opened as I slapped the panel on the wall. I didn’t know what I thought I would walk into, but Lessia sitting on the floor, back to the wall, dead bodies lying prone around her while she stared at us with bloodshot eyes as we launched into the room, wasn’t it. She was tapping the fingers of one hand on the floor with impatience; her other was cradled in her lap, wrapped in a blood-soaked cloth. The white dress with gold trim was identical to the one she wore the first day of the photo shoot, only it had what looked like blood splatter on it, the sleeve of one arm was ripped, and the hem along the neckline had been yanked hard enough to warp the lining.
“It’s about time y’all got here. And someone make sure that door doesn’t shut, or I’m going to have to forgo waiting on someone to show up and attempt to hot-wire a retinal scanner.” She practically vibrated with an overload of emotions … fear, relief, anger, or some sort of mixture of them all, I wasn’t sure. There was a disconnect between whatever she was feeling and what she was showing. It was almost like she’d slammed a wall down on all her feelings. The mask she had in place was a familiar one—it was her professional model mask. Not model, I realized suddenly. The mask was Alessia’s professional façade, no matter what the job.
I studied her face. Other than the hand, a bruise along the jaw, and a slightly fat lip, she appeared to be unharmed. Holstering my weapon, I stomped toward her, not sure if I was mad that I needed to rescue her, that she apparently didn’t need our help, or that she’d allowed herself to get into this mess in the first place.
“You good?” I asked as I stepped over a pretty gruesome-looking body with a high heel sticking out of his face.
She stuck her chin up. “Yes,” she practically bit off, but I noticed she didn’t rise from her place on the floor.
I didn’t wait for her to try, just grabbed her by the upper arms and hauled her to her feet. She let out an “Oof” and put her hands on my biceps to steady herself, but she didn’t flinch, so I didn’t stop until I’d plastered our bodies together against the wall.
Using my hips to pin hers, I let her feel me—all of me—before reaching to tip her stubborn chin up. Her eyes narrowed, but before she could comment, I came down for a bruising kiss, not even caring about her damaged lip. If she was going to place herself in downright dangerous situations and make me get her across an entire fucking ocean, she deserved the consequences, and I was pretty sure Matteo wouldn’t allow me to wring her scrawny neck after he’d gone through the trouble of flying across the damn globe to keep her in one piece.
Her nails dug in my flesh, matching my kiss and adding to the heat by opening her mouth and allowing me entrance. “Can y’all do that later?” Matteo broke us up from his place at the door. “I would rather get out of here before the cleanup crew arrives. If they catch us still on scene, you know they’re going to rope us into demolition or body removal.”
Reluctantly, I pulled back, shrugging off my backpack to pull out a tactical uniform that matched my own, combat boots, cap, knife, weapon and holster, and a pair of wraparound sunglass goggle-looking things that Matteo insisted on adding to my bag. She beamed at me as if I’d just given her a diamond ring, snatching up the knife and cutting herself free of the dress.
“Hey, now.” I stepped between her and Matteo, trying to hide her from his field of vision. “Could you not strip yourself naked in front of other men?”
She waved a hand in dismissal as I snatched the uniform from the floor and shoved it into her chest. “Matteo has had plenty of opportunities to look over the years. Trust me, he doesn’t see me as anything but a pain in his ass.”
“Got that right,” Matteo mumbled, his back to both of us as he studiously watched the empty hallway.
She shimmied into the garment, looking much sexier than she had any right to, and donned the knife and holster. Jamming her hair under the cap, she placed the glasses on her nose. I scoured her for injuries again, not able to help myself.
“I’m fine.” She saw my gaze, and her own softened. “I have a puncture to my hand, a few bruises, and got hit with a hell of a lot of electricity, but other than that—”
I cut her off. “What kind of electricity?”
She huffed, pointing to the club-looking object on the ground where she had been sitting. “Albrecht hit me with what felt like the offspring of a cattle prod and a car battery.” She flexed her fingers, grimacing.
“Did you lose consciousness?” I asked, reaching to her neck to feel her pulse.
