Wicked Temptation (Nemesis Unlimited) (20 page)

With that, the assassin melted back into the darkness. Bronwyn scurried away from the door, but the killer never passed her. He’d found another way out.

She hurried over to Marco.

“You hurt?” he demanded. “He didn’t touch you, did he?”

“No.” Something black pooled beneath Devere’s prone form. Blood. She was no stranger to it, but not spilled upon unfeeling stone. “We need to get him to a doctor.”

Marco dispassionately studied Devere. “Only saints can perform miracles.”

Stumbling back, she looked down and saw that Devere’s bloodstained chest was still, his eyes open and staring at the cold night sky.

My God. A man was murdered tonight. His life just … gone. And I witnessed it.

Bile rose in her throat.

Marco tucked his gun into his coat. “We’ve got to get out of here.” He glanced up as lights came on in the second story windows, and confused, panicked murmurs about a gunshot floated down into the courtyard.

Before she could say anything, he grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her away. In seconds, they were outside and striding quickly away from the school.

Behind them came the shrill of a gendarme’s whistle.

“Cold?” Marco asked in a low voice.

She realized she was shaking. “I can’t believe … I didn’t think it would go this far. As far as murder.” She stumbled over the last word, barely believing it was leaving her lips.

“A little killing is nothing to Les Grillons,” he answered grimly. He turned them down a street and then another, leading her through twisting lanes and deserted boulevards. She barely noticed where she was, or indeed, could feel anything but a numb sickness.

Her mind whirled, trying to make sense of everything. She needed a distraction. “That group—Les Grillons—how … how do you know them?”

“Heard about them when I was doing intelligence work abroad,” he answered, remarkably calm considering a man had just been shot to death. “Never crossed paths, but I knew all about their work. They’d been around for decades but truly came into their own in the ashes of ’71 and the fall of the Commune. Made a killing—sometimes literally—through loans to rebuild businesses and the city itself. Then the spirit of entrepreneurship overtook them. It’s not just loans at exorbitant interest rates that fill their pockets, but demanding protection money from shops and businesses, importing opium, keeping brothels. Name a corrupt enterprise, and Les Grillons has their fork in the pie.”

Despite Marco’s strong hand gripping hers, she shuddered. “This has to stop. We’ll take the next packet back to England—”

He didn’t slow his steps, but stared at her. “We’re not giving up. Not now.”

“A man’s dead, for God’s sake!”

“He is.” He finally stopped walking and faced her. “Because he ran. If he’d stayed with me, he’d still be alive.”

“So it’s over.” She verged on desperation.

“Les Grillons can’t get what they want with a bullet.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, and she didn’t know whether to lean into his touch or shy away from it. “Devere was killed, but I’m alive, and I don’t stop a job until it’s finished.”

“I’m the client,” she insisted, “and I say it’s not worth it.”

“I’m from Nemesis, and I won’t quit till we get your fortune back.”

Anger washed through her. “Kill yourself, then. I’m going back to England.” She started to turn away, but his grip on her tightened, holding her in place.

“You heard him. They know us now. Including my name.”

Her heart pitched—that had been her mistake.

“Even when we get your money back, the danger isn’t going to go away,” he continued. “Not here and not in England. The only way to take the heat off us is to wound them, destabilize their organization.” He gazed off into the distance, his brow furrowed. “This is much bigger than I’d planned for,” he growled.

The knowledge chilled her. He planned for
everything
. But Les Grillons fell outside of even his carefully articulated schemes.
My God.

He shook his head. “If I could, I’d send you home, but you’re not safe on your own. You’d be vulnerable, even in Britain. He saw your face, and learning your identity would be a child’s game to him. I’ve got to keep us both alive, so you’re staying at my side.”

Again, she was poised on the edge of something deep and cavernous. Now blood had been spilled. Where would it all end? In more death?

But he wouldn’t stop. And neither would Les Grillons. Everything felt wild, spinning out of control, and she was caught up in the middle of the maelstrom.

“What if I stayed in the hotel until everything was settled?” she asked.

“This could take months, and we don’t have the funds to keep you here.”

“If I returned to England, I could go to my sister’s in the country. Or stay with Harriet.”

“I can’t go back to England now, and I don’t trust putting you on a ship with no one to protect you.”

Frustration welled. She was trapped, no matter which way she turned.

“Tell me where to start,” she said at last.

“We start,” he said, “in Italy.”

*   *   *

She would’ve expected Devere’s murder to make the front page of the newspaper, but as Marco perused it the next morning over breakfast at the hotel, all he found was a small paragraph buried behind political scandals and reviews of art exhibitions. An unknown man’s body had been discovered at the college, and in the absence of a positive identification and witnesses to the crime, the police chalked it up to yet more examples of the city’s chaos. The victim would be buried in a mass grave within a week’s time, unless someone came forward in the interim to claim the body.

“Life comes so cheaply,” she murmured. Her toast lay uneaten and cold, and even drinking her tea seemed an impossible task. How could the ending of someone’s life be reduced to cold, anonymous words in a newspaper? She’d heard the gunshot, smelled the cordite and blood. Seen his lifeless body in the wake of brutal violence.

How could she ever look at anyone again without imagining them with a hole in their chest?

“The only thing less valuable than a human life is dust,” he answered, still scanning the paper.

Tension made her nerves and temper snap. “Do you have an answer for everything?”

His dark eyes met hers. “Not everything.”

She picked her toast apart into little pieces, scattering crumbs. “You said last night that we have to go to Italy.”

“A man I know lives in Florence.” He set the paper aside and crossed his legs, wicked and elegant. She remembered the knife in his hand, and how familiar he was with using it, and how comfortable he looked holding a gun. Yet heat continued to spread through her whenever she looked at him or heard his voice. Which only proved that she’d completely misjudged herself. Far from enjoying a quiet life, some part of her strangely liked this danger. This uncompromising, grim world.

Yet he was more than just danger. He’d shown her understanding—more than anyone else ever had. There was respect in his eyes when he looked at her. She wasn’t a thing to him, a decorative object. She was … real. And he helped her recognize that for the first time in her life.

“An Italian spy,” Marco continued. “Giovanni helped a member of Les Grillons go into hiding. If anyone’s going to know the key to retrieving your fortune, it’s the one man who got out of their grip alive.”

“That information your friend Giovanni has sounds sensitive,” she noted. “Not the sort of thing he’d go telling just anyone.”

Marco smiled, and her stomach clenched at the flash of white teeth surrounded by his dark goatee. “I’m not just anyone.”

How could she feel anything other than horror at what was happening around her? Yet when she was with him, that awfulness receded.

“Giovanni owes me a debt, too,” he went on. “He’ll tell us what we need to know.”

“A telegram is just as effective as a train ride all the way to Italy.”

“But not as discreet. As our friend said last night, Les Grillons has spies all over the city. For now, the hotel is secure. It’s run by money older than Les Grillons. But as soon as we’re outside the doors, there are few places they can’t touch. Including telegraph offices.”

She took a sip of her cold tea. “If Les Grillons knows about us,” she mused, pushing past her continuing shock, “then we won’t be able to go straight to Giovanni. Not without risking ourselves and him. We’ll have to do some evasion.”

A corner of Marco’s mouth turned up. “You’ve changed since first we met. More observant. Aware.”

Was she? When she’d come into the hotel café that morning, she’d quickly scanned the room, looking for exits, assessing people and whether or not they might pose a threat. Not the kind of behavior a socialite usually indulged in.

She
had
changed. Continued to evolve, even now. She might not ever be a Nemesis agent, but there was something within her, an awareness that maybe had always been there, being brought to the fore.

Even if she retrieved all of her money, she wouldn’t be the same woman she’d been just a few weeks ago. The metamorphosis was irreversible.

*   *   *

The Gare de l’Est station was a veritable hive, with people, porters, shoe blacks, and newspaper vendors swarming over the platforms. Though Bronwyn carried her violin case, a porter followed them with the remainder of their luggage. While Marco strode with his usual upright, alert pace, she could sense an even greater sharpness within him than before. He didn’t glance around or behind him, yet she felt tension in him as her hand rested lightly in the crook of his arm.

He walked to the ticket booth. “Two tickets to Vienna,” he said to the clerk, “and two more to Marseille.”

“Are more Nemesis agents joining us?” Bronwyn asked in English as the clerk totaled up the amount.

“It’s just us.”

“Then why—” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Does this have to do with … the crickets?”

“They’re watching us now,” he answered in a low voice. In French, he thanked the clerk when four tickets slid across the counter.

Her blood chilled. She fought the urge to look around and see if she could spot the men from Les Grillons. So she kept her gaze on Marco, calm and steady as he pocketed the tickets.

He turned to the porter. “We left our trunk outside,” Marco said in French. “It’s gray with brown straps.”

The porter rolled his eyes. “Of course, sir.” Leaving their bags, he ambled off.

They didn’t have a trunk. But everything Marco did was for a reason, so she didn’t question him.

She followed his gaze toward a cart full of bags of various sizes and colors. Another porter stood beside it. With his eyes still on the cart, he said to her, “I need you to ask that porter whether those bags are headed to Vienna. If they are, give me a signal. Something small enough that our Grillons friends on a bench over there don’t see it.”

It was a struggle not to look toward the row of benches to try to pick out which of the people seated upon them were from Les Grillons. “And then?” she asked.

“Then keep the porter busy for a few minutes,” Marco answered. “You’ll think of a way to distract him.”

She wasn’t certain she had his faith in her abilities, but, drawing a breath, she headed toward the baggage cart. As she walked, she felt conscious of someone watching her. With a surreptitious glance, she caught sight of two large, muscular men sitting with apparent ease on a bench. One read a newspaper, while the other gazed at his fingernails—the picture of boredom. Yet she
knew
they followed her progress as she walked toward the cart.

Ice crystallized along her spine. Marco had spoken the truth. They were being followed by Les Grillons.

“Excuse me, monsieur,” she said to the porter in deliberately accented French. “Are these bags headed to Vienna?”

“Oui, mademoiselle,”
the man answered with as little interest as he could muster.

She shifted slightly, and tugged on the cuff of her glove. She hoped Marco recognized the signal for what it was.

And he must have, because when she glanced over to where he’d been standing, he was gone—along with their suitcases.

But her responsibilities weren’t over.

“Are you
sure
these are going to Vienna?” she pressed the porter. “Because I would hate very much for my luggage to wind up in Berlin, when I absolutely have no intention of going to Berlin, and I would be very cross, indeed, if I were to wind up in Vienna with entirely nothing to wear but the clothes on my back.”

“I’m certain, mademoiselle.” The porter sighed.

In the very edge of her vision, she espied Marco doing something with their baggage and another set of cases that were heading to Vienna, but she couldn’t be quite certain, since he crouched behind the cart, invisible to both the porter and the Grillons men on the bench, as well as the rest of the station.

Whatever it was, he was still doing it, so she had to keep up her distraction.

“I’m visiting my brother in Vienna, you see,” she chattered on. “We all thought he was mad to move so far away from London, but he fell in love with a Viennese woman and insisted he’d follow her to the ends of the earth.” She heaved a dramatic sigh. “It sent my mother into an absolute nervous frenzy, I can tell you. She wouldn’t leave her bed for weeks. We had to call a physician. Even so, it wouldn’t dissuade my brother from moving away to the very edge of the civilized world.”

“Oui, mademoiselle,”
the porter said, desperately bored.

She almost felt sorry for the poor man. Marco suddenly appeared beside the porter, and set their bags upon the cart.

“Don’t forget these,” Marco said loudly to the porter. He handed the man a coin.

The porter looked grateful for the interruption. “I won’t, monsieur.”

Offering Bronwyn his arm, Marco led her away from the cart. And when the porter wheeled it away, one of the two Grillons men rose from the bench and followed it.

Speaking low in her ear, Marco said, “They know we’re aware of them, and that we’ll try some way of evading them. But our luggage can be followed, so that bloke will be sticking close to what he thinks are our bags. Once he sees the bags being loaded onto the Vienna-bound train, he’ll be Vienna-bound, too.”