“A kidnapper and now a pickpocket,” she said with a mirthless giggle, “you really know how to charm a woman, don’t you.”
“Not a skill I use often,” I admitted, then grabbed the blocking bag from the pouch on the divider separating the driver’s seat. “But I value my privacy.”
“Is that a Faraday bag?” She leaned closer. “I read that Faraday cages don’t block all the signals from modern phones, the frequencies are much higher than they used to be.”
“This blocks everything, tested it myself,” I replied.
Once I zipped it in, I set it to the side of my chair, the opposite side to Gianna. Her attention remained fixed on me, narrowed eyes, but less out of anger than calculation. She’d surprised me too. A pampered privileged Mafia princess wouldn’t be reading up on Faraday cages.
She looked past me, through the window. Rome’s airport lay to its west, bordering on the Tyrrhenian sea. Gianna must have seen an arriving jet. Her shoulders relaxed and she shook her head.
“You aren’t taking me to the airport,” she stated, no question at all in her tone, “so where are we going.”
“Why aren’t we heading to the airport?” I asked.
Her answer would offer insight into her thinking, something my intelligence report lacked, given the surprises. Instead of answering right away, her head tilted, one eyed narrowed and lips forming a deep frown.
“Airports have their own security and a lot of people inside them.” She hesitated but then a smile took her. “I’d have you in custody the moment we stepped through the door.”
She blinked rapidly, deep breaths expanding her chest, distractingly so. My eyes had dropped by the time she started babbling in Italian, way too quick for me to understand. She’d raised the tone of her voice, sounding almost preteen. Yeah, that’d have security on me in an instant.
“I guess it’s a good thing we aren’t heading to the airport,” I said after her performance ended.
“Still not going to tell me?” Her dramatic frown came complete with puppy dog eyes. In another circumstance, if we’d simply been a guy and a girl, she probably would have goaded me into answering.
“If I had a private jet, we could have avoided the crowds and security,” I replied, ignoring her question the best I could.
“If you were Italian, a Mafioso, maybe you could pull that off.” Her head tilted, eyes narrow as she considered my words. “I don’t think you have the connections you’d need to pull that off here. Buy off a guard or two, sure, but they won’t roll the red carpet out for some outsider.”
“Not a bad analysis,” I admitted. She’d shown just how shrewd she was already, but the profile I’d made up on her continued to change.
“But you’re still not going to share where you are taking me?” she asked in a monotone voice.
I remained silent, a slight grin on my face at her second attempt with the puppy dog eyes. It surprised me she hadn’t asked about the other possibilities. Rome’s airport was by the sea, after all.
Gianna followed my lead, pouting, but with a closed mouth. Her eyes widened when my driver pulled onto the road next to the sea wall. She glared at the water and shook her head.
“This is why my father warned me about letting a kidnapper take me to a second location,” she grumbled, turning that glare to me. “You could abscond with me to at least a dozen countries in a boat and that’s not even leaving the Mediterranean. What’s our destination?”
“Dinner, like I said earlier,” I replied, unable to keep a smile off my face when she scowled my way. “I told you it would be private.”
Her only answer came with a huff and a head shake. My driver stopped in front of the stairs down to Ostia’s jetty. The manmade harbor contained several long piers packed with small motorboats. This late in the day, with the sun just about setting on the western horizon, few people were in the area, something I assumed Gianna noticed, judging by her sigh.
Oleg stepped out of the passenger seat and opened my door. I slid out and turned to offer a hand to my guest. From the withering glare she gave it, I might as well have been made out of lava. Still a long way to go, it seemed.
The car drove off, leaving the three of us. I motioned toward the stairway. After a glance up and down the road, Gianna shuffled toward the pier. She wasn’t resigned yet, she’d look for any escape. Good thing we’d tied the tender close.
Even so, Gianna’s way too observant eyes examined every boat we passed. If some pleasure cruising Roman came into port at the wrong time, she’d take advantage of it. Between Oleg and myself, her chances of escape weren’t great, but we’d avoided making a scene so far.
At the tender, Oleg’s meaty hand grasped the sidewall, holding it steady for me and Gianna to embark. She glared at the small boat, dinghy really. Its aluminum shell held two bench seats and was powered by a single 9.9 horsepower outboard motor.
“I take it back, you’d be lucky to make it down the coast to Naples in this thing,” she said, shaking her head. “Do you have dinner in a picnic basket I can’t see?”
“The harbor’s not set up for ships the size of my yacht,” I replied, holding out my hand to steady her as she embarked.
Her cheeks darkened and she glared at my hand. Instead of taking it, she grabbed the sidewall and swung her leg over and into the boat. Before her other joined, she paused as if she expected the thing to sink. Steadying herself with her hands, she dropped to the bench seat in the middle.
I stepped on board and sat next to her. She scooted as far to the edge as she could away from me. When Oleg, who had me by a few pounds, hopped on, the boat rocked. Gianna’s hand snatched at my arm. Almost immediately, she jerked it away, head wrenched as far from me as possible, cheeks dusted red.
