PROLOGUE
Adriano
The cool Sydney air is welcome after several days spent in the stifling heat of Rome.
As I step off the plane, the grim look on my second-in-command's face tells me he's about to deliver bad news.
I've worked with Paolo Ruggerio for almost a decade. While he's able to hide his thoughts from most people, he can't conceal them from me.
I know from the way he draws his shoulders back that he's bracing himself to tell me something I won't like.
"What is it?" I demand.
Paolo grimaces apologetically although it's highly unlikely he's the one who fucked up. He's the most reliable man under my command.
"The girl is gone."
I stop dead. "Gone. How the hell can she be gone?"
"She slipped out in the middle of the night."
Something must have spooked her to make her run again. I'm guessing she spotted one of my men watching her.
For an amateur she's been remarkably adept at evading me. Her instincts are sharp. She seems to know when we're getting close to her.
Three years ago, she sold Gabriele out to some Hungarian thugs who carved up his face and left him bleeding in a dingy alley in Rome. I'm the only one my cousin confided in about his attackers and the woman who set him up.
Since I spoke to him as he lay in a hospital bed, asking for a woman who'd already fled the country, I've made it my mission to put things right for him.
The first step in that will be getting my hands on Eliza Moretti, or Elena Marek as she's been calling herself here in Sydney.
"Who was supposed to be watching her?" I ask.
It can't have been Paolo. He would never have been careless enough to lose her.
"Bruno."
"Bruno?" I pinch the bridge of my nose. Somehow I knew it would be him even before Paolo spoke. "That kid has been nothing but trouble."
Paolo nods. "I know what you're thinking but you can't kill him. The boss brought him in as a favor to his mother, remember?"
As if I'd forget. Damiano Volante, the head of our organization and my cousin, inducted Bruno eighteen months ago and promptly dumped the little shit on me. He said I'd be able to whip Bruno into shape.
There's been no progress so far. This moron gives me nothing to work with. Even Paolo, with his infinite patience, is close to losing it with him.
"How did it happen?"
"Bruno took over watching her at midnight. Sergio found him sleeping when he came to relieve him at six."
"He couldn't even manage a six-hour shift?" Fucking pathetic.
Paolo runs his fingers through his thinning gray hair. "Sergio didn't realize anything was up until the girl didn't head for work at her usual time. We hacked the surveillance cameras in the street outside and caught her getting into a cab at five a.m."
I grit my teeth. "Has anyone spoken to her roommate?"
"Sergio did but all he got was that Eliza, or rather, Elena, was gone."
The roommate must have more information than that, even if she doesn't realize it.
