CHAPTER ONE
PROLOGOS.PARADOS.EPEISODION.Stasimon.Exodus.
The stages of a Greek tragedy according to the great Aristotle. Nelios Petralis boarded his private jet at London’s City Airport half-hoping he was at the denouement: exodus.
The finale of a decades-long plot was close but not quite close enough. He hadn’t asked for his life to turn out this way. He’d been plunged into a harrowing drama by those who should’ve made better choices. But, while he hadn’t started it, by God he intended to finish it onhisterms.
Cradling his favourite tipple—aged whiskey that cost more than the average man’s monthly salary—he stared over the crystal glass at his right-hand man, Andreas Barbieri. He and Andreas had found each other at possibly the worst moment of their lives: cornered in a filthy alley with half a dozen bullies twice their size baying for their blood, all because they’d stolen a loaf of bread ‘on their patch’. They hadn’t perished that day, obviously, but they’d come far too close.
Nelios eyed Andreas’s Brioni suit, Savile Row tie and sleek Ulysse Nardin watch with a heartening sense of satisfaction. The outer trappings of success clawed out of the gutter, literally and figuratively. He didn’t ask the question bristling on his tongue—whether Andreas had ever imagined they would be here today—because he didn’t crave a trip down memory lane.
The three-hour meeting he’d just come from, one peppered with hoarsely voiced anguish and crocodile tears mingled with the stench of fear—from his opponents, never him—had been enough revisiting of his history for one day. His only regret wasthat another of those opponents had slipped his net through death some years ago—and, infuriatingly, remembering that fact still sent a lance of rage-tinged, wholly undeserving grief and regret through him, but that couldn’t be changed.
He took another sip, savouring the exquisite taste, just as Andreas looked up.
‘The meeting with the architects will start as soon as we take off. Would you like to go over the blueprints beforehand?’ he asked with a trace of the Sicilian accent he’d never lost, despite having been dumped in Athens decades ago, just like Nelios.
‘Not just yet,’ he murmured. The low, dark throb in his voice echoed the rumbling within him. The rumbling he had every intention of ignoring because it always went away. Whiskey and a little distance always put him back on an even keel. Although…thisstasimonmight take a little longer.
He hadn’t quite accounted for the little extra drama this afternoon in the form of the young woman full of fiery temper and righteous indignation. Definitely hadn’t expected the heat stirring through him when in the boardroom she’d defiantly hurled her, ‘I’ll make sure you regret this if it’s the last thing I do!’
‘How is the other matter unfolding?’ he asked now, with an extra-punchy layer of anticipation he didn’t quite care for, and yet couldn’t seem to discard. ‘Is she on her way?’
Eyes so dark they looked black, and vicious in some lights, glinted at him as Andreas’s brow quirked. ‘As predicted. Our spies came through. She is walking through the terminal as we speak. Guess she intends on carrying through with her threat.’
Neither of them even glanced out of the window at the VIP terminal where more drama was unfolding. Andreas shook his head. ‘It’s shocking how very little money it takes for nos to turn into yeses when your name is dropped.’
Nelios smiled wryly. ‘It’s not just my name—yours too.’ Although he knew his was weighty enough to swing things his way when required. ‘And economies everywhere are in the toilet. People do what they must to get by with a little incentive.’Like we had to.
A sage nod from Andreas concurred that they’d both been there and done that, right before his phone pinged with an incoming text. His friend’s satisfied grunt said everything Nelios needed to know. He hadn’t set the trap, but he’d known about it almost the second it’d been created. And he intended to make full use of it.
He drained his glass as Andreas rose and headed for the front of the plane. In low tones, he informed the pilot and crew that they were ready for take-off—complete with their cheeky little stowaway. They’d been informed, on Nelios’s orders, not to raise the alarm or do anything about it.
For the better part of two decades—ever since he’d ditched the name given to him at birth by undeserving parents who’d turned out to be faithless and cruel, and dragged himself and his new name from the gutters of Athens—he’d planned every corner of his life with lethal precision.
The woman who was sneaking her way onto his private jet with the sole purpose of somehow disrupting his plans to take over her hotel—an all but done deal with very small fry indeed—shouldn’t have mattered this much, yet somehow…
He shifted in his seat, wondering just why she mattered to him. Was it because she was now connected to those who’d wronged him all those years ago? Because those scant minutes when she’d stood up to him in their meeting earlier replayed in his head with a vividness he couldn’t dismiss? Because her earnest desperation and flaming determination had struck a chord with him?
Whatever. He hated unsolved puzzles. That was all she was, he assured himself. And, by placing herself within his orbit, he could be done with this silly conundrum by the time he stopped to refuel. And, hell, maybe he could learn a thing or two about his enemies while he was at it.
A full hour later, long after his plane had taken off and levelled out over the clouds of the Atlantic, and his meeting with his architects had been satisfactorily concluded, Nelios rose from his club chair.
Andreas’s teeth bared as they did whenever he scented a conquest. Sometimes it was hard to believe anyone on earth was more bloodthirsty than Nelios, but here he was, witnessing the stark truth on his friend’s face. ‘Happy hunting.’
Nelios grunted. ‘The hunt was over even before it began, my friend. The real question is, what to do with my unwanted prey?’
His friend’s low laughter echoed in his ears as Nelios strode to the back of the plane, entered his bedroom, stretched out on his bed…
And waited.
She’d done it.
Dear God.
Vayle Lancaster couldn’t stop the shivers from unravelling through her, despite the adrenaline having fled her system hours ago. She was grateful for the tight closet bracing her back and knees otherwise she would’ve collapsed into a pathetic heap long ago.
From the glow of her phone screen she watched the countdown: another five long hours of being stuck in this closet. Then she could enact the next part of her plan. With any luck, she could be back home by the end of the day tomorrow.
