Chapter 1 - The Hand on Her Shoulder
Enzo Moretti had watched men lie to his face with guns hidden beneath their jackets and death already decided in their eyes.
None of them had ever made him feel what he felt when he stepped onto the sun-drenched terrace in Monaco and saw Marco Bellini’s hand resting on Elena Russo’s bare shoulder.
For one terrible second, the entire world narrowed to that hand.
Marco was six-foot-three, built like a reinforced door, and had protected Enzo for nearly eleven years. He had taken a knife meant for him in Brooklyn, dragged him from a burning car outside Newark, and once spent forty-eight sleepless hours outside a hospital room because Enzo’s younger cousin had been threatened.
Enzo trusted Marco with his life.
Apparently, that trust did not extend to Elena.
She sat with her back partly toward the terrace entrance, dark hair twisted into a loose knot, a cream blouse exposing a delicate strip of skin at the nape of her neck. Papers covered the glass table in front of her. The Mediterranean sun had turned her shoulders faintly pink.
Marco stood behind her.
His fingers moved carefully across the exposed skin near her collar.
Elena smiled.
“Thank you.”
Something primitive rose inside Enzo.
“Is this your job?”
His voice was quiet.
That made it worse.
Marco’s hand stopped.
Elena turned.
The smile vanished from her face.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Beyond the terrace, the Mediterranean glittered beneath an almost offensively beautiful blue sky. Somewhere below them, tourists laughed near the pool. Champagne glasses clinked. A waiter moved between white umbrellas.
The ordinary world continued as though Enzo Moretti were not standing three yards away imagining every possible reason his most trusted man might have his hand on Elena Russo.
Marco lowered his arm.
“Boss.”
“I asked a question.”
Elena stared at him.
Marco’s expression barely shifted. “Miss Russo was getting burned.”
“And that required your hands?”
“I was applying sunscreen to a place she couldn’t reach.”
Enzo looked at the white bottle on the table.
Then at Elena.
Then back at Marco.
Elena folded her arms.
“You could also ask me what happened.”
His gaze snapped toward her.
Most people changed when Enzo looked at them that way. Voices became softer. Spines straightened. Men twice Elena’s size suddenly discovered an urgent interest in cooperation.
Elena merely raised one eyebrow.
She had worked for him for two years, which perhaps explained why she had developed the dangerous misconception that she could survive honesty.
Enzo walked toward them.
“Did you ask him to touch you?”
Marco’s head turned sharply.
Elena’s expression changed.
Not fear.
Anger.
“That is an incredibly inappropriate way to phrase that question.”
Enzo stopped.
Marco quietly said, “Boss.”
“Go inside.”
“I think—”
“Marco.”
That single word emptied the terrace faster than a shouted threat could have.
Marco looked at Elena.
It was a quick glance.
Concern.
Enzo saw it.
He hated that too.
Then Marco disappeared through the glass doors.
Elena pushed back her chair.
“Sit,” Enzo said.
“No.”
Enzo almost laughed.
Nobody told him no.
Elena began gathering the financial reports into a neat stack.
“You have a four o’clock meeting,” she said. “I have forty pages of revisions to finish. If you’re done interrogating me over sunscreen, I would like to work.”
“You think that’s what this is?”
“I have no idea what this is.”
“Neither do I.”
The admission escaped before he could stop it.
That silenced her.
For the first time, something uncertain moved through Elena’s hazel eyes.
Enzo hated uncertainty. He had built his adult life around removing it.
Every room had an exit plan.
Every business agreement had contingencies.
Every rival had a weakness.
Elena had become the exception.
He knew her coffee order, but not because he had asked.
He knew she called her father every Sunday night.
He knew she rubbed the inside of her wrist when nervous and hummed almost inaudibly when reviewing contracts.
He knew she kept emergency chocolate in the bottom drawer of her desk and pretended not to know that he occasionally stole it.
He knew she loved old bookstores, hated elevators that moved too quickly, and had once stayed in his office until two in the morning because his aunt was undergoing surgery and Elena somehow understood that he did not want to be alone.
He knew too much.
And somehow not enough.
Elena looked at him for several long seconds.
Then realization entered her face gradually.
Confusion.
Disbelief.
Then amusement.
“Oh my God.”
His jaw tightened.
“Elena.”
“You’re jealous.”
“I am not jealous.”
She actually laughed.
It was soft.
Stunned.
Beautiful.
Enzo’s irritation deepened mostly because his body had chosen that moment to notice how sunlight caught the brown in her hair.
“Marco has worked for me for eleven years.”
“Congratulations.”
“He understands professional boundaries.”
“So do I.”
“Apparently not.”
Her laughter disappeared.
There it was.
The mistake.
Enzo knew it the moment the words left him.
Elena’s face closed.
“You should go to your meeting.”
“Elena—”
“No. You’ve made your position quite clear.”
She picked up the reports.
Enzo reached toward her arm, then stopped himself before touching her.
The fact that he had to stop himself only made him angrier.
Not at her.
At himself.
“At four,” he said, forcing his voice into its usual controlled register.
“I know.”
“And Marco will escort you.”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
She looked directly at him.
“Since his hands apparently create an organizational crisis, I wouldn’t want to put either of you through the emotional strain.”
She walked past him.
Enzo remained alone beneath the merciless Monaco sun.
Five minutes later, Marco returned.
Enzo did not look at him.
“If you are here to tell me I behaved irrationally, remember who signs your checks.”
“I was going to tell you something more important.”
That got his attention.
Marco placed the sunscreen bottle on the table.
Not Elena’s sunscreen.
The hotel brand.
Marco turned it over.
There was a tiny slit near the bottom.
Almost invisible.
“What am I looking at?” Enzo asked.
“I noticed someone leaving Miss Russo’s room this morning.”
Enzo went completely still.
“Housekeeping?”
“No.”
The jealousy vanished.
Cold replaced it.
Marco continued. “I checked her room while she was at breakfast. Nothing obvious was missing. But her toiletries had been moved.”
Enzo picked up the bottle.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know whether it mattered. Then Elena said her sunscreen was missing, so I brought this from the bathroom.”
“And?”
Marco reached for a clean napkin.
He carefully opened the damaged edge of the bottle.
Something black appeared beneath the plastic.
Enzo’s expression hardened.
Marco worked it loose.
A tiny electronic component dropped onto the napkin.
Neither man spoke.
Enzo had spent enough of his life around surveillance equipment to understand exactly what he was looking at.
A transmitter.
Small.
Professional.
Expensive.
Marco’s voice became lower.
“That isn’t all.”
Enzo looked up.
“I checked her luggage.”
“And?”
“There was another device sewn into the lining.”
The Mediterranean breeze suddenly felt cold.
Enzo turned toward the glass doors Elena had disappeared through.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who had access?”
“Hotel staff. Our people. Conference security.”
“Then narrow it.”
Marco nodded.
Enzo picked up the tiny device.
Jealousy now seemed embarrassingly trivial.
Someone had entered Elena’s room.
Someone had touched her belongings.
Someone was listening.
But why Elena?
She handled Moretti Group financial reports, acquisitions, contracts and travel schedules. Important information, certainly.
Yet Enzo had twenty executives with access to more valuable data.
Marco seemed to read his thoughts.
“I don’t think they’re after the company.”
Enzo slowly looked at him.
“What makes you say that?”
Marco reached into his jacket.
He removed a folded photograph.
“I found this under her mattress.”
Enzo took it.
The photograph showed Elena walking through Manhattan.
The date printed in the corner was six months earlier.
Another showed her outside a bookstore.
Another showed her entering her apartment.
Then came one that made Enzo’s blood turn cold.
Elena was standing beside him outside Moretti Tower.
The photograph had been taken from across the street.
A red circle had been drawn around Elena’s face.
Underneath were four handwritten words.
SHE IS HIS WEAKNESS.
Enzo stared at them.
Marco watched him.
“You were right about one thing,” Marco said quietly.
“What?”
“This isn’t about sunscreen.”
Enzo lifted his eyes.
“Find Elena.”
Marco turned toward the doors.
Enzo looked again at the photograph.
A second line had been written on the back.
He had almost missed it.
MONACO ENDS WHAT NEW YORK STARTED.
And suddenly Enzo understood something far worse than jealousy.
Whoever was watching Elena had not followed them to Monaco.
May you like
They had been waiting for her there.
---
