“I can’t even imagine such a stone—or such an amount of money.” Penelope shook her head. “It’s haunting to think that that bottle of wine containing those stones could be somewhere in this house.”
“I wish the location of Anthony’s bottle would haunt me,” Nonna said. “Then this whole terrible situation would be finished.”
“If you find the bottle, what will you do with it?” Penelope asked.
A silence fell over the table.
Then the argument broke out.
Everyone wanted to open the bottle and see if the diamonds were inside.
Nonna thought they should give the diamonds to a museum.
Rafe and Brooke agreed.
Chloë wanted to examine the big diamond through a jeweler’s loupe and see whether the heart really did beat.
Eli wanted to taste the wine.
Throughout the quarrel, Noah smiled benignly, and covertly observed his father.
Gavino’s actor’s face was a showcase for false emotion, but now, while he thought no one was watching… he showed the real thing. In his expression, Noah saw the memory of Liesbeth’s seduction and the lies she had told, all with the intention of getting pregnant and placing her spy into Anthony Di Luca’s home. Gavino could not countenance what had happened in his past, yet there was no other explanation: He had been set up, enticed, his sperm taken and used for procreation. He had been a fool of incredible proportions.
More important for Noah—Gavino believed Noah knew nothing about Liesbeth.
Now was the time to enlighten him. With a smile, Noah leaned across the table toward his father and said, “Seems as if there should have been an easier way, doesn’t it, Dad?”
For the space of five heartbeats, Gavino didn’t comprehend.
Then he turned to Noah so quickly his neck popped. He saw the knowledge in Noah’s eyes, and the accusation. And Gavino did what he always did when facing a personal crisis.
He ran.
Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he glanced at it, then pushed back his chair. “Excuse me. This is a very important phone call, and I’ve got to take it.” He moved quickly toward the hall, turning back only to say with a smile, “Mama, I think maybe I have nailed one of those roles!”
Chapter 38
Noah watched his father walk away from him the way he’d always walked away from him and, in a single violent gesture, threw his napkin on the table. “Excuse me for a minute.” He shoved his chair back and headed after him. As Gavino swung open the front screen door, Noah grabbed his shoulder. “Oh, no, Dad. Not this time. You know stuff I need to hear.”
Gavino twisted out of Noah’s grasp. “She’s in town, isn’t she?” His brown eyes were narrowed, intent… scared.
“My mother?”
“Liesbeth.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Then I’m getting the hell out.” Gavino shoved his way out the door and onto the porch.
Night had fallen. The porch lamp was on. The windows cast squares of light into the shadows, but ultimately… the shadows won.
It seemed to Noah they always did.
Grasping Gavino by the shirtfront, he shoved him against the wall. “Tell me all about your affair, Dad. I need to know the truth—or at least your version of the truth.”
Gavino glared into Noah’s eyes, but he didn’t struggle. “I don’t know anything.”
Noah tightened his grip. “Look at me. I’m your son. And I’m her son. She’s in Bella Terra for me.” Taking his hands off his father, he unbuttoned his collar and bared his throat. “And I’ve got a bomb waiting to blow off my head.”
Gavino’s outraged gaze dropped to the dog collar, then lifted to Noah’s face, and his horror seemed genuine.
In this case, it probably was.
“When does it explode?” Gavino asked.
“Not yet,” Noah assured him. “If I don’t find that damned bottle, I’ll be dead in eleven days, at exactly three thirty-seven p.m. So tell me what you know.”
Gavino sucked in a long breath; then, like a tortured prisoner, he gave up the information. “She planned everything. Our meeting. The story she fed me, of how she was an international spy. My seduction. She played me, and then… she talked about Dad’s bottle of wine. I couldn’t figure out how she knew, or why she cared. Why would a spy give a damn about my father’s bottle of wine? The glamour was wearing off, nothing was adding up, and I got the hell out right before I was supposed to help her pull off a job.”
“You… left her hanging?” Gavino’s foolishness made Noah breathless.
“Yes.” Gavino looked both frightened and defiant.
“Why?”
“Come on, son. I’m famous.” Gavino tapped his nose. “I’ve got a good instinct for when someone wants to use me.”
“You’re not as stupid as you would like us to believe.” It was a revelation to Noah.
Gavino puffed his chest. “No one stays on top in Hollywood by being stupid.” Then his pride collapsed. “I guess I am, though, because nine months later, there she was, her and an infant—you—and two of her goons in the middle of the night, standing in my trailer on a movie set on studio grounds.” Gavino thrust his face back at Noah. “Do you know what movie studio security is like? We were filming the last scene of the Wilder series. It was a closed set. We couldn’t leave. No one got on without a pass. And there she was, handing you over to me.” Gavino shoved back at Noah.
Noah let him go.
“I took you. Of course I did. I didn’t know if you were mine, but I wasn’t about to argue, not with those two black-haired boys of hers grinning at me.” Anger and humiliation fought for supremacy on Gavino’s face. “But they weren’t done. She pulled out a metal rod and plugged it in. She got the end of it red-hot—and while those two bastards held me down and smothered my screams, she branded me.”
“She branded you?” Noah could hardly believe it.
“With the Poopon coat of arms.”
“Propov,” Noah corrected.
“Whatever. She branded me on the front of my hip, right on the bone.” Gavino touched the spot as if it still hurt. “Ever since, I haven’t been able to do a nude scene without body makeup.”
Noah bit down on a reluctant grin. Trust his father to find the real tragedy of the matter.
Gavino had given up his information. Now it was his turn to ask questions. “How did you find out about her?”
“She came for me.”
“Of course she did.” Gavino pushed his hands through his head of salt-and-pepper hair in a gesture reminiscent of his despair in the remake of Death Takes a Holiday. “So she got pregnant on purpose. To plant her child in the middle of my family and get her hands on that bottle of wine. That’s Machiavellian! I mean, it makes a little more sense now, with the diamonds in play, but—why not just come to the house and steal it? Her gang is a bunch of what?”
“Expert thieves.”
“Right! They could have done it years ago. They could have been in and out and no one would have ever known. No one would have been hurt. Dad would have blamed the Bianchins.”
“So why didn’t they steal the bottle?” Noah wondered.
Chapter 39
For the first time, Noah really put his mind to the matter of why. “I know Liesbeth has lusted after those diamonds her whole life, looked on their recovery as the restoration of Propov honor. This spring, Bianchin tried to get his hands on the bottle, and that put things in motion. But I think perhaps she took his involvement as a sign.” Noah tried to follow all the threads of logic to their rational conclusion. “She’s old enough. Considerably older than you, Dad, which makes the whole affair even more revolting.”
“Yes, yes, everyone knows I’m easy.”
Noah wanted to heartily agree, but no matter how much satisfaction he got, he didn’t have time to wrangle with his father. The clock was ticking. He had to get this figured out. “I wonder if she’s retiring.”
“How in the hell does a wom
an with a family like that retire?”
“She disappears off the face of the earth—with the diamonds. In fact, I wonder”—Noah looked down in to the valley where the lights of Bella Terra twinkled—“if she has told her people what’s really in that bottle?”
Gavino started laughing, low at first, then with increasing volume and delight. “You’ve nailed it, son. The rest of them are after a valuable bottle of wine. She’s after the diamonds. Not to sell—to restore her family’s rightful honor. No one else knows about the diamonds—or at least she hopes they don’t—and as soon as the Beating Heart is in her hands, she is gone and the others have to fend for themselves.”
“Yes. Which, if they put her training to use, they should do very well.” Every time Noah had mentioned the diamonds, told Liesbeth that the rest of the family wanted to recover them merely to sell them, she had denied that with remarkable tranquillity. Noah had assumed her pride and affection for the gang blinded her to their greed.
But no. Liesbeth was far too astute for that. Years ago, she had figured out where the Propov diamonds were hidden. She had kept that information to herself, and she’d been biding her time. She was taking those diamonds with her into retirement. “No wonder she wants me to take over the gang. She makes the plans. She’s the brains of the operation. Without her, they’ll dwindle to a petty band of thieves, get caught, and go to jail.”
“That’s it.” Gavino glanced at his Rolex, then clapped Noah on the shoulder. “I’ve got to call for my car and get a plane ticket, because I am getting the hell out of Dodge. Wish you could come with me.”
“I could, but how would you explain it when my head blew off my shoulders?”
Gavino cocked his head and studied Noah’s collar. “Liesbeth really put a bomb in there?”
“So she said. She included a camera and a microphone, too.”
Gavino’s start of terror provided Noah a great deal of amusement. “She can see me? She heard everything we said?”
“I disabled the camera and the microphone before I put it on.”
“Damn it, son! You scared me to death.” Gavino put his hand over his heart. “I was about to sprint down the driveway. But I suppose you wouldn’t say all that stuff in front of her, either.”
“No. She doesn’t need to know what I know. I probably don’t have a chance of surviving, but I’m still going to try my damnedest.” Because if he did, if somehow this whole mess turned out and his life suddenly became normal… he would court Penelope; he would build her a house; he would shower her with jewels and possessions; he would give her children; he would grovel at her feet.
Most of all, he would love her for all the rest of their days.
He wished he could see beyond the bleak days he now lived, but he had so long lived with death that he couldn’t even glimpse that shining future.
Gavino pulled out his phone. “I wish I could tell you what Dad did with his wine, but I haven’t got the foggiest idea. Have you looked in the house?”
Noah thought about the endless searches they’d conducted. “Gee, Dad, no. We didn’t think of that.”
Absently, Gavino said, “It’s worth a try.” Into the phone, he said, “Stephanie, darling, I need my car now, and get me on a plane out of here. I don’t care where. First plane out. Yes. Yes. Good. Thank you, darling.” He hung up and saw Noah looking at him. “Oh, stop glaring at me. Stephanie is my assistant, and she’s about a hundred years old. I’m going in to say my good-byes. Coming?”
“No, I don’t want to listen to all the ladies weeping over your departure.” He didn’t want to see Penelope’s disappointment. Feeling jealous of the woman he loved and his father was just too awkward. Besides, for once in his life his father had done him some good, and now Noah wanted to sit here and think about how he could bring this new information into play.
In less than fifteen minutes, a black Town Car with darkly tinted windows pulled up to the bottom of the steps, and Gavino came out of the house whistling. When he saw Noah leaning against the porch post, he composed his expression into one that was suitably grave. He flung an arm around Noah’s shoulders and hugged him. “Take care of yourself, son.”
It was not like Gavino Di Luca could help being vain, feckless, and irresponsible, and as long as Noah expected nothing from him, he was never disappointed. So he flung an arm around Gavino and hugged him back. “I’ll do my best.”
“Okay, I’m leaving.” Gavino pulled away, then stood at the top of the stairs, unmoving. “Son, when Liesbeth made contact with you—how did she know she would be able to use you?”
“I was young. I was stupid. I wasn’t suspicious like you, Dad. I made it easy for her.”
Gavino turned to face him. “She’s not going to let you die.”
Noah was surprised that Gavino allowed himself to think about the disagreeable possibility of death. “I would beg to disagree.”
“No. I not only am good at sensing when people want to use me. I’m also good at reading people. In my profession, jobs depend on that ability. Your mother is fanatically loyal to her family.” Gavino sounded very sure of himself.
And Noah wanted to believe him. He really did. But he knew too much. “She killed to take over as the head of the gang.”
“Sure. If someone isn’t good for the Poopon family—”
Noah started to correct him, then figured Gavino knew his lines well enough to deliberately make the mistake.
Gavino continued. “—she’ll weed him out without conscience. But she doesn’t kill indiscriminately, and you’re her son. That means something to her.”
“I doubt that.” What she saw when she looked at him was the same thing she saw when she looked at Gavino all those years ago—a tool to be used.
“I glimpse a lot of her in you. When you look at me, you’ve got a cold, clear gaze. You evaluate ruthlessly. Your will is formidable, and while you hide your intelligence, it’s there for anyone with eyes to see.” Gavino nodded curtly. “Yes. Your outer shell might for the most part look Di Luca, but scratch the surface, and you’re her son. She won’t kill you—but she will try to bend you to her will.”
“I’m bent. I’m doing exactly what she wants. I’m trying to find that bottle.”
“What else does she want from you? That’s the question you need to ask yourself.”
Noah was silent. He knew what else his mother wanted from him. But even to save his life, he wasn’t going to take over her gang.
To do that, he would have to kill Hendrik, and once he walked down Murder Road, there was no turning back.
“One more thing,” Gavino said. “If Liesbeth is in town—get my mother out of here.”
Noah knew the right answer for that. “I brought in June and Annie to do just that. She says no, but I have hopes.”
“Good. If anyone can pry her out of this house, they can. All right.” Gavino saluted as he ran down the stairs to his car. “Until next time.”
Noah watched his father greet his driver, get in, and, with a wave of the hand, drive off.
Noah lifted a hand in farewell.
Would he ever see his father again? Only God knew that.
God. And Liesbeth.
He wrapped his hand around the killer dog collar and wondered—did he wear a time bomb wrapped around his neck? Or was his father right? Was this a ruse?
Behind him, the screen door creaked open.
Noah turned a little too fast—he was jumpy, on edge—and saw Penelope silhouetted against the light.
Her purse strap crossed her chest. She held her car keys in her hand. “I’m sneaking out early.”
No.
She continued. “I’ve got a long day tomorrow.”
No, please. “Surely Rafe and Brooke aren’t such slave drivers that you have to go home at”—he glanced at his watch—“eight?”
“I’m not working for them tomorrow. I’ve got other stuff to take care of.” She smiled politely, not a real smile at all, and she didn’t look him in the
eyes.
Was that the expression he’d been wearing lately? Pained and lonely, as if human contact created more trouble than it was worth?
Or was she furious at him over his caveman drag-her-out-of-the-house-by-the-hair routine?
He waited until she was even with him at the top of the stairs, and put out his hand to hold her arm. “You know you can call on me anytime. I’m here for you.”
“Oh, can I?” She turned to face him. “And what happens when I do? Do we talk? No. You get offended by having me around. Do we avoid talk and simply indulge in mindless sex? No. You don’t have time. No, Noah, you are not here for me! So don’t lie to make yourself feel better. I’m not in the flattering mood.”
Chapter 40
Joseph Bianchin sat in his bedroom, his laptop on a tray before him, studying the material he’d uncovered on Liesbeth and her gang. Not that he was absolutely sure he had uncovered them—Liesbeth hadn’t been exaggerating when she said they could change appearances at will.
But he’d used the information she’d given him as a starting point, looking up robberies of expensive jewels, exquisite art, and bottles of fine wine, and he thought he had positive identification in at least five different thefts over the last ten years. He started his investigation with the Smit family’s body type—they were all tall, strong framed, and that physical ID was hard to disguise. He examined eyewitness accounts of suspects and hacked into security videos.
It appeared Liesbeth’s gang struck infrequently and without warning. Their usual Modus Operandi consisted of stealing valuables as they were moved. But occasionally they robbed the châteaux of France, the fortresses of Morocco, the mansions of South Africa. He hadn’t found any evidence of their working in the Far East—again, they were tall, a trait difficult to disguise—nor had he uncovered any of their jobs in the United States.
Was their attack on him and his treasure their first foray into the country?
What a privilege, indeed.
He didn’t know what he could do with this information. They gave him no freedom, allowed no phone calls, and if he was forced to admit the truth, he had no friends he could summon for help.