Chapter One
Niccolo Martinelli gazedaround the congregation filling the church to celebrate his imminent marriage. Perspiration was breaking out on his forehead. His back. Everywhere.
His whole family was there, from the parents he despised to the grandparents he despised only marginally less. The only Martinelli he had any love for was his brother, which was ironic considering Gennaro was possibly the hardest man on the planet to love. Even Lorenzo Esposito, the thug currently escorting his daughter to the church to marry Niccolo, had a charm that made people who didn’t know him love him.
The difference between the two men was profound. Gennaro was like a porcupine, his sharp spines deliberately created to ensure people kept their distance. Lorenzo was like those Slow Loris primates Niccolo had once watched a documentary about, all cute and innocent-looking, but get too close and they’re deadly. Not that Lorenzo was cute, what with his face that only a mother could love, but there was no doubting his charisma. It’s what had pulled Niccolo into his orbit. And no doubting that Lorenzo was far deadlier than any Slow Loris, which was why Niccolo was minutes away from marrying the man’s daughter. And no doubting, either, that Lorenzo’s sons were every inchof the same deadly mould, except with their beautiful mother’s looks thrown in.
It was the Esposito sons Niccolo’s gaze flitted between as he stood at the top of the aisle with his best man, Dante, and Gennaro. Tommaso and Rico were busy ushering in the guests. Mattia, though, had been tasked with keeping watch over Niccolo, a role he’d been playing since Monday when the wedding party had arrived at Accardiano. Niccolo had barely been able to scratch his backside without Mattia observing.
The Espositos’ paranoia that Niccolo was going to jilt their princess had reached a peak the night before. Mattia had casually walked back to Niccolo’s suite with him after the evening meal, then insisted on coming in to break open a bottle of bourbon to celebrate Niccolo’s last hours of freedom. Once they’d finished the bottle, he’d declared himself too tired to walk back to his own suite and settled himself on the sofa for the night. He’d kept his gun within finger’s reach.
Since arriving in the church, though, Mattia had loosened his leash and was deep in flirty conversation with a female guest wearing a precariously balanced fascinator. No doubt he believed it impossible for Niccolo to escape the church’s confines.
The perspiration now close to saturating him, Niccolo scanned the heaving church one last time. The sound of everyone’s chatter was white noise in his ears. Everyone was talking amongst themselves or craning at the door for the bride’s appearance. No one was paying the groom any attention.
With a murmured, “I need to use the bathroom,” to Dante and Gennaro, Niccolo strode away, past the guests seated on the pews to the right of the church, to the side door that opened into a corridor. Ignoring the Espositos’ hired thugs – theirdogsas Niccolo had come to think of them – guarding the space, he walked to the third door on the left-hand side and enteredthe men’s bathroom. Firmly locking the door, he went straight to the windowsill placed above the sink. The window was small and Niccolo tall, but he was lean, and if he had to dislocate his shoulders to get out of it, then so be it.
Lifting the window as high as it would go, he pushed the shutters open and exited feet first, wriggled his way free and dropped to the ground below.
He'd landed on the narrow path that ran the perimeter of the ancient church. Hidden from prying eyes by a thick row of high cypress trees, he didn’t hesitate, shucking off his wedding jacket as he disappeared into the trees and ripping off his cravat and waistcoat. After undoing the top three buttons of his shirt, he rolled up the sleeves and slipped through to the pavement lining the other side of the trees.
Accardiano was a town cut into the high cliffs of the Amalfi coast. The Santa Maria church he’d just escaped from was set at its highest point, but it wasn’t the only building at that level. The other side of the narrow street was lined with hotels and restaurants, and currently thick with tourists. These tourists, like the thousands of others packed into the small town, were all there hoping for a glimpse of the glamorous wedding party. Being a good head taller than most people and currently one of Italy’s most well-known faces, Niccolo put his head down and nonchalantly joined the throng.
Mercifully, everyone was too busy surging forward and craning for a peek of the bride and her father, who’d just pulled up at the church’s piazza, to notice the groom walking amongst them.
It took him eight minutes to reach The Bianchi. Most of the Espositos’ dogs were guarding the church, but a significant number were still guarding the hotel with The Bianchi’s usual security crew. There was no means of bypassing them, and so when Niccolo reached the pedestrian gate that led into thegrounds, he simply held his keycard to the security lock. The gate opened for him, and he strolled past the guards, feigning a nonchalance that was at complete odds with his sweat-soaked shirt and pounding heart.
Whatever happened, he wasn’t marrying Siena. The Espositos could bankrupt him, torture him, do whatever the hell they liked to him. Death was preferable to marrying into that damned family. That he only had his damned self to blame for the danger he was putting himself into just added another layer of acidity to the bile in his throat.
Knowing time was of the essence, the moment he was out of the guards’ sight he raced to his suite, opened the safe and retrieved his passport and handgun. After checking the latter was loaded and the safety catch on, he shoved it in his back pocket and ran to the hotel’s car park.
Thank God he’d decided to drive himself to the hotel. It had been a last-minute decision made for no other reason than that Niccolo loved driving. Thank God, too, that he’d driven his bulletproof four-by-four and not one of his sportier numbers. He supposed his subconscious had been at work, knowing before he did that he’d rather live whatever remained of his life a free man. Bad enough that he’d sold his soul to the devil, never mind tying that soul in perpetuity to him.
He hadn’t escaped a monstrous father to be saddled with a monstrous father-in-law.
His appearance at the hotel’s barrier in his car took the Espositos’ dogs, who all had their phones to their ears, by surprise. The barrier lifted before they could react, and through his rearview mirror, he watched them give chase. So the Espositos had put two and two together and realised he’d absconded.
Niccolo laughed and put his foot down.
His phone had automatically connected to the car, and suddenly the speakers pinged with a barrage of messages and missed calls. He ignored them all.
Once he’d cleared Accardiano and was heading inland and reasonably confident he had a good enough lead on the army of cars that would be giving chase, he pulled a long breath and spoke the command, “Call Dante.”
A few seconds of silence before the dialling tone came through the car speakers. After only one ring, his oldest, closest friend answered. “Where are you?”
“Miles away.”
“Good. Keep driving. Lorenzo Esposito’s dead.”
“What?”
“Looks like a heart attack. It happened in the church just after they realised you were missing. The sons are blaming you.”
Niccolo swore viciously under his breath. Under normal circumstances he’d be celebrating the death of the devil, but the timing of Lorenzo’s death was as bad a timing as could be imagined. Just because he preferred death to being married into that family didn’t mean he wanted the death to be more painful than necessary.
“The Espositos want your head,” Dante said into the silence. “Get yourself to my castle. I can protect you, and…”
“This is between me and them,” Niccolo interrupted. They were words he’d uttered many times to both Dante and Gennaro since being blackmailed into the marriage. His best friend and brother had offered the financial help they believed would get Niccolo out of it, but it had never been about the money. The so-called debt had been engineered for one purpose. Niccolo’s father was an Italian duke, a title that meant nothing to most Italians but meant everything to Lorenzo. The thug who’d built himself up from dealing drugs on the streets of Naples to become the most powerful man in Italy now craved onlyone thing – high-society acceptance. A marriage between his daughter to the son of a duke fulfilled that craving, and Niccolo was the fool who’d walked into the trap Lorenzo had created.
