“Dominic Wilde,” Dom said, extending his hand.
“Wilde.” He inclined his head slightly as they shook. “I know the name.”
“Most people do.”
“Your father and uncles built something remarkable.”
“They did,” Dom agreed. He kept his voice easy, pleasant, entirely unrevealing.
Stavros studied him for a moment longer than was strictly social. Then he turned and gestured toward the entrance with one hand. “Your usual suite is ready. I’ve taken the liberty of having dinner arranged for two, if you’d like it.” His gaze moved between them. “You both look like you’ve had a difficult journey.”
Understatement of the century.
Dom followed Vivi through the arched doors, into the cool, shadowed interior of the above-ground villa, its tiled floors and whitewashed walls exactly as the schematics had shown. Behind him, a staff member materialized from somewhere and fell in step.
He glanced back once, through the open doors, at the view—the terraced gardens, the groundskeepers who weren’tgardeners, the cliff edge where the land ended and the sea began.
Stavros stood in the entrance, watching them go. He lifted a hand to wave when he noticed Dom looking.
That man put on a good front, but he was just as dangerous as Praetorian. Whatever they did, they had to be sure to stay on his good side.
Dom touched the small of Vivi’s back and leaned down slightly. “He already knows something’s wrong.”
“He knew the moment we walked in,” she said under her breath. “He just doesn’t know what. Yet.”
“Is that a problem?”
She was quiet for half a beat. “That depends entirely on how he decides to respond to it.”
The suite was on the second floor of the main building, accessed through a corridor lined with terracotta pots and framed watercolors of the Aegean. The staff member—young, efficient, probably armed—opened the door, set their bags just inside, and withdrew without a word.
Dom stepped in first. Old habit. He swept the room in the time it took Vivi to follow him through the door.
Large. Tasteful. White walls and blue accents, a four-poster bed dressed in white linen, French doors opening onto a private terrace with that brutal view. Sitting area with two low chairs and a coffee table. Kitchenette. Bathroom through an arched doorway on the left. Everything exactly as the schematics had shown, scaled up to the reality of being inside it.
No cameras.
He checked twice. Checked a third time, slower, running his gaze along the ceiling line, the crown molding, the vent covers, the smoke detector above the bathroom door. The smoke detector was real—he unscrewed the casing with his thumbnail to check, found a sensor and nothing else. He replaced it andmoved on. The mirror in the bathroom. The framed print above the headboard. The decorative sconce bracket beside the terrace doors.
Nothing.
He stood in the center of the room and turned a slow circle, cataloging it one more time just to be sure.
No cameras.
It was the first truly private space they’d had since the club in New York. He should’ve been relieved. He was relieved. And he wasn’t. He’d gotten used to the cameras in the apartment. They’d been an excuse, a useful external reason to maintain the careful distance between him and Vivi.
No cameras meant no excuse.
He turned and found her standing in the middle of the room, arms loosely at her sides.
“Clean?” she asked.
“As far as I can tell.”
She held his gaze for a moment, then nodded once, and something about that nod—the slight exhale that came with it, the way her shoulders dropped a fraction—told him she’d been holding her breath since they walked through the door.
“Good,” she said.
