“That doesn't concern you,” Victor said.
“It's Novak, right?” Riggs said slowly. “Novak wants to get to you. Through her.”
Every now and then the man inconvenienced him with brief flashes of genuine intelligence. “It is not necessary for you to know why” he said coldly. “Just do as you are told. If you should be discovered, you know exactly what will happen if you mention me.”
“This is insane “ Riggs muttered. “How am I supposed to—”
“Don't whine,” Victor snapped. “Do I have to spell out everything for you? A federal agent at the pinnacle of his career, and you need instructions from me as to how to keep your eye on an innocent young woman? Use your dirty mind, Edward. I've seen it at work in those videos, so I know damn well you have one.”
Hatred glowed hot in Riggs's eyes. His hands clenched into fists. “Just watching the girl? That's all you want from me?”
“That's all.” Victor opened a cabinet and pulled out a handheld monitor. “Take this. It's already keyed to the transmitters planted in her clothing and jewelry. The device is simple enough so that even you should be able to figure it out. Her identifying icon is a tiny jewel. You must stay within five kilometers for the monitor to work. This enables you to find her more easily should she slip away, but I would prefer it if you kept her physically under your eye. Do you understand?”
Riggs took the monitor, holding it as if it were a ticking bomb. “How long do I have to do this?”
“I don't know yet.”
Riggs began to shake his head, and Victor let his voice soften. “Just this one last thing, and it will be all over” he said. “Think of the freedom, the peace of mind. And Edward?”
Riggs turned back from the door, looking hunted.
“I do not want a hair on her head harmed.” Victor enunciated very clearly. “At your hand, or anyone else's. If you fail me, I will destroy you completely. Completely. Do you understand?”
Riggs's face twisted. “You're out of your mind, Victor. Why are you doing this? That girl could destroy both of us!”
“Because that girl is worth ten of you, you miserable piece of shit. Now get out of my sight. I can't bear to look at you for another second.”
Riggs flinched, lips drawn back in an animal snarl. The mortal hatred between the two of them flashed in the dim room, as perceptible as a drawn blade. “You hate me for doing in Peter, don't you? You didn't have the balls to do it yourself, you arrogant prick. And you hate me for doing your dirty work.”
Victor's nostrils dilated in disgust The man stank of ruin, decay, and violent, premature death. “Don't push me, Edward,” he said, from between his clenched teeth. “I'm out of patience.”
Riggs's mouth worked. “Remember what you said about betrayal and self-loathing? Look in the mirror, Victor. You spit on me, you're spitting on yourself.”
“Shut up and do as you're told. Get out.”
Victor listened to the man clump away. He was clenching his fists, almost unbearably tempted to go after Riggs and put him out of his misery, once and for all. In the dark, from behind, as he deserved.
Yes, it was past time to devise a fitting retirement gift for Edward Riggs. Something very special, to pay him back for all his years of loyal service. He had been a walking dead man ever since he had soiled his hands with Peter's blood, but it was clear that Riggs's life was worth nothing anyway. Victor had been squeezing every last drop of usefulness out of him before his sentence was carried out. Waste not, want not.
He knew it was hypocritical. The order to kill his younger brother had been his own, after all. But Victor had given Peter every chance. He had reasoned with him, pleaded, and finally threatened him. A lifetime of wheeling and dealing, of holding his nose and doing what had to be done for the sake of the family. Protecting their interests, insuring their future. All the dirty work he had willingly taken on so that Peter and his family could sit in the lap of luxury, serene and pampered.
After all that, betrayal.
There was no point in thinking about it. Every thought that passed through his mind he'd thought a thousand times before. He poured himself a drink and gulped the liquor down, trying not to compare himself to Edward Riggs. He was not yet quite so reduced.
Ordering Peter's murderer to protect Katya was somewhat bizarre, he thought, with a twinge of doubt. But it made a certain crazy sense. Riggs was the perfect man for the job. For all his personal failings, he was a skilled professional. Best of all, he was expendable. He would do what had to be done, and Mackey was sure to notice that his lover was being followed. His reaction would be swift and predictable.
How amusing it would be if Mackey should end up killing Riggs. So much the better. It would be a fitting end, and it would save Victor the trouble and expense of arranging it himself. And since Mackey would never know who had hired the man, he would remain on guard for Novak or anyone else that Novak might send. It was perfect. Airtight.
But sadly, Riggs had ruined the rare good mood that the party had put him in. It had given him such pleasure to see Katya's beauty polished to a high gloss and displayed in a proper setting, out of Alix's long shadow at last. But Riggs had pried open Pandora's box. Ugly memories were fluttering out like bats.
The door behind him opened, and he recognized Mara's perfume, an earthy, alluring blend of essential oils. She made no sound as she padded across the cream-colored Aubusson carpet. “I saw Riggs out,” she said. “Charlie took him back to the mainland.”
'Thank you, Mara.”
He almost dismissed her then and there. He knew from bitter experience that sex could be disastrous when his mood was so precarious, but he had his weaknesses, too. He turned and looked.
She had changed her clothing. Gone was the black evening gown slit up to the hip that had been chosen to set off an exquisite antique, a Japanese pearl and lapis headdress that she had worn over her braided coil of dark hair. She had taken down her hair. The braids had left soft ripples in it, giving her a softer, more vulnerable look. She was wearing a short tunic of white silk, simple and stark, which showed off the length of her bronze thighs. The toe ring was gone.
She met his gaze, her topaz eyes unreadable and paced silently over to stand in front of the bank of monitors. She studied them for a moment, and pointed to the blank one. “Malfunction?”
Victor shook his head. “My niece's lover likes his privacy.”
She nodded, unsurprised, and turned her gaze back to the monitors. “Those two look good together,” she commented.
He stood up, feeling a warm shimmer of anticipatory heat. Amazing. He approached her from behind, bending down to inhale her perfume, to touch her shimmering chestnut hair. “Was it you who picked out the Dolce & Gabbana for her?”
Mara's slender shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug. “It was the obvious choice. It wasn't hard to make her look good. She's stunning.”
“So are you, my dear,” Victor said. “So are you.” He lifted up her hair to admire the curve of her back, the whorl of fine dark hairs at the nape of her slender neck. “Lovely.”
Mara smiled from beneath her thick, sooty eyelashes, then turned back to the monitor. She took the mouse next to the keyboard and clicked on the icons with expert swiftness until one of the images on Monitor #17 enlarged, obscuring the other windows. She enlarged it again, until the image filled the entire screen.
It was Sergio, the curator, tangled in a complicated knot with two beautiful young Asian women and a muscular blond boy, creating a writhing configuration that Victor would have sworn was anatomically impossible for a man of Sergio :s age.
They watched it for a moment. Mara clicked onto Monitor #9. It was the celebrated cardiologist, Dr. Wade, giving his own heart a strenuous workout They watched a lithe, coffee-colored woman in a black bustier apply a pink unguent to a certain part of the renowned doctor's anatomy, and then, very slowly, introduce a formidable sex toy into said part. To the august doctor's evident delight.
She clicked idly across the other centers of activity, lingering on the image of a beautiful young brunette, clad only in scraps of lingerie, rocking back and forth on her hands and knees. She was sweaty and flushed, eyes half closed, as a local software mogul belabored her vigorously from behind.
Victor had little interest in what was on the screen; he had gotten bored with it lifetimes ago. But watching Mara watch made his own sexual energy uncoil, slow and sinuous as a snake waking up from its winter sleep. “You
