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I took a step back as the coldness in the room seeped inward. I’d never told anyone at the hospital about my childhood—including Raven. This wasn’t information he’d learned from a casual conversation with her.
“You… investigated me.” “Violated” felt like a more appropriate word.
“I had no choice. I know there is some connection between you and Bianchi. That means you and everything about you are my business.”
This nightmare got worse with every passing second. I’d always been a private person, but this man had ripped me out of my world and kept tearing through more and more layers, exposing pieces of me I’d never offered to anyone. It needed to stop. “If I tell you what I know, will you let me go?”
“He sent his men after you, Heidi. It might not be safe for you.”
“But being here, with you… that is safe?”
Heat flared in his eyes as he shook his head slowly, never breaking eye contact. “Probably not,” he admitted.
The unsettling sense of my own exposure mingled with the blatant desire in his eyes and trembled down my spine in half-tingling, half-prickling ripples of heat. I couldn’t bring myself to look away.
“Tell me what you know,perla,” he said, and though his words had no volume, I could feel the huskiness in his voice by the dark, heated look in his eyes. His gaze had the allure of a snake's, mesmerizing its prey. I could feel the draw, pulling the information he sought from my brain to my lips.
“I don’t know that any of it will be useful,” I confessed. “I know you think I’m involved in some clandestine plot, but I’m not. I’m still not convinced Elio is either.”
“There was a tracking device in your shoe, Heidi. Do you think someone else put it there? Do you know of someone who would want to be tracking your every move?”
I shook my head.
“Just tell me what you know.”
I sighed; I imagined it was a tired sound. Maybe the bits of information I had were somehow my key out of here.
“Owen Thompson—the man youkilled,”I said, “he used to come at odd hours of the night. When he did, Elio wouldn’t return to bed for an hour, sometimes longer. I spied on them a few times,” I said with a shrug. They’d been in Elio’s sitting room, not behind a closed office door.
“I didn’t really expect to see them speaking about anything clandestine, but after the first time…” I shook my head, trying to find an explanation for what had drawn me back.
“It wasn’t anything particular they’d said—that time I only managed to glean a handful of words—but the way they sat, their heads close together, it struck me as odd, that’s all.”
Amadeo was nodding. “So, you spied on them some more,” he said. There was no accusation in his eyes.
“I did,” I confessed, though I didn’t see how most of it was relevant. “They talked about debts and money… searches… something about birds and a man or a place named ‘Belemonte’.”
His eyes flared, and his jaw quivered just once, like he’d bit down hard.
“You know the name?” I asked. I suppose I could have looked it up on the internet, but it had never struck me as terribly important.
“I’ve heard it before,” he confirmed what I’d already gathered from his reaction.
“It was just little snippets like that, except for the last time, perhaps two weeks ago.”
“What did you overhear, er, oversee?” he corrected himself.
“Owen said, ‘We need the Luciano property; the money’s got to be there’. Then Elio nodded, but he looked angry. Very angry. I assumed he was talking about a real estate deal, but now that I… know you, I don’t know what it means. And I don’t see at all what any of that has to do with me. So, you see, it makes no sense that Elio would be tracking me. Whoever those men were at that ‘cabin’, it’s far more likely they were there because of you, Amadeo, not me.”
“Do you know anything about the Luciano property he was talking about?” he persisted.
I shook my head. “I have no idea what property you or your… family own.” Why would I?
He looked at me, eyes assessing. In such a short time, I’d come to notice he did that often. He nodded to himself after a moment like he’d come to a decision.
“The Regalton Arms and The Beresford. Those are the two properties he came to my father about.”
I gasped; it just slipped out. If I’d had more experience dealing with dangerous criminals, I might have done a better job covering it up, but, thankfully, I had little experience.
