“Or in your case, hide while the rest of your crew puts their lives on the line.” Her voice was as bitter as I’d ever heard it. “At least you’re consistent. And this time you’re not running away, so yay to your personal growth.”
“We’re not putting our lives on the line,” I said. “It’s just a simple kidnapping for ransom. What could possibly go wrong?”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
?As it turned out, we didn’t need the tire iron. Gage knocked Ben out with the handle of his gun.
“What did you do?” I shrieked when he returned to the van with an unconscious Ben over his shoulders.
“What if it doesn’t go the way you planned?” Gage said, dumping Ben on the floor. “He’ll be able to identify us. Kidnapping is a felony. I thought you were trying to stay out of jail.”
“Okaaaay.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “Not how I thought the plan would go, but I can work with that. Everyone grab a weapon and let’s get going.”
“What should I do?” Cristian helped Gage lift Ben back onto his shoulders.
“You need to text Jack and Anil again and update them. Tell them we’ve kidnapped Ben for leverage and we’re going in. Then you should keep a lookout for suspicious activity. I’ve watched enough crime shows with Rose to know that nothing good happens in industrial parks at night.”
“This should be a quick in-and-out operation,” Gage said. “Once we control the exit, we control the room. We make the trade. And we’re gone.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
?With Gage carrying an unconscious Ben over his shoulders, we walked into the warehouse. Bright fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling, casting shadows on the grease-stained cement floor. I could smell diesel and sawdust and the lingering scent of perfume. A woman’s laugh echoed through the cavernous space. A hush. Silence. The slide of a clip in a gun. By the time we had navigated the labyrinth of wooden crates, metal drums, and plastic barrels, we knew they knew we were in the building.
I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me that a mob boss’s daughter might be armed, but the way the day was going, I wasn’t surprised to be staring down the barrels of three guns when we reached the center of the warehouse.
“Simi?” Bella’s eyes widened. “What are you doing here? If my father sent you . . .”
“He doesn’t know I’m here.” I gestured to Gage to put Ben down. If things went bad, I wanted him to have both hands free.
“So you’ve come to solve another problem.” She tipped her head back and groaned. “You’re the most irritatingly efficient event coordinator I’ve ever known. I successfully got rid of five wedding planners before you. I’d finally put myself in a position where the wedding would never happen. But no. There is nothing you can’t do. Plan a wedding in a few weeks? Sure. Find an elephant? Sure. Six-foot ice sculpture of swans in flight? Sure. Alter a dress in two days to meet the demands of an insufferable monster? Sure.”
“I thought my aunt did a good job with the lace.”
“If I wanted to get married in the eighteenth century.” She got steely-eyed and glared at me. “I had to poison a priest because of you and not even that was enough. Somehow you managed to fix that, too.”
I struggled to process what was happening. “Why did you need to poison the priest? We had everything ready for your escape, and it all went according to plan.”
“Mario came to see me last night,” she spat out. “I don’t know if he knew about our plan, but he put a knife to my throat and told me that once we were legally married, there was nowhere on earth I could run that he wouldn’t find me. It was a matter of honor, and honor is everything for our families. I’d never really be free. And then it occurred to me: there would be no wedding if the priest was dead. It would be seen as a bad omen.”
I stared at her aghast. There was cold, and then there was liquid nitrogen cold, and then there was Bella. “But how did you plan to escape?”
“I was going to hide in your van,” she said. “I figured it would be chaos when we had to shut it all down. I was going to get you to take me to the boat launch to meet Ben, and the rest would go as planned. But you solved that damn problem like everything else. Why didn’t you just give up when the priest was out of the picture? Or, more to the point, why did you have to go looking for him in the first place? If you’d just been a little less competent, he would have been dead.”
“But it all worked out in the end,” I pointed out. “In fact, it was even better. No murder. No real marriage. And you got away to be with Ben.”
It occurred to me at that moment that she hadn’t reacted to seeing the love of her life lying unconscious on the floor. No gasps. No tears. No shrieks of “Ben, are you okay?” or “What did you do to him?” or even “He’s not part of this. Let him go.” It was almost like she didn’t care.
“Is that why you’re here?” Her face twisted in a sneer. “You want me to thank you?”
“I want the necklace you took from your father, and I’m willing to trade Ben for it,” I blurted out.
Emma gave an exasperated sigh. “She means give us the necklace or Ben’s gonna shake hands with Elvis.”
Gage pulled out his gun and made a show of positioning it near Ben’s forehead, as if there was an optimum place to shoot out someone’s brains.
Bella’s lips curled at the corners. I’d never noticed before, but her lips were narrow and thin. Even the makeup artist had struggled to plump them up. “And who are you? The jewelry police?”
“Just think of us as a repo team,” I said. “You give us the necklace. We give you Ben. No one has to get hurt.”
“A chauffeur, an ex-priest slash elephant trainer, and a weak-ass security gal who doesn’t even have a gun.” She snorted a laugh. “That’s who you brought as backup?”
“It’s a gig economy,” I said. “They have many skills.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Once. Twice. Thrice. Four times. Whatever the caller wanted couldn’t be good, but there was no way I could check my messages now.
I heard a door slam. The thunder of feet. Before anyone could react, Gino burst into the clearing and greeted us all with a menacing scowl. “What the fuck is going on?”
For the first time since I’d met her, Bella almost lost her composure. “Gino . . .” Her voice wavered. “You found us.”
“Of course I found you. I just had to follow her.” He pointed at me. “She knew more than she was letting on. I could see it all over her face. Were you trying to run from me?”
“Of course not, baby.” She rallied quickly, and her honeyed voice turned sickly sweet. “I found a buyer for the necklace and he wanted to meet right away. I was going to surprise you.”
“Bella? Sweetheart?” Ben pushed to his knees, rubbing the back of his head where Gage had hit him. I motioned for my crew to take a step back so he didn’t see our faces. “What happened? I was standing outside and . . .” He shook his head, scrubbed a hand over his face. “Why did you call him ‘baby’？”