“But?”
“The group sponsoring this party is a powerful consortium that’s behind much of the fractured state of the Italian government. They want the power themselves, and are controlled by—”
“Niccolo,” I supply. “What is going on? Why are we here?” A bad feeling consumes me and I try to withdraw, but he catches my arm.
“Hear me out, Ella. There is nothing happening here that you don’t decide to make happen. My stopping here, now, is about giving you the power to decide if we go to the party. This is your choice. You always have a choice.”
“If that were true, you’d have explained this so-called choice before we were sitting in a car right by the party.”
“That’s not true. I did it this way because decisions that come with fear are easier made when you’re one step from the fire. You are the kind of person who will stand by the flames and be empowered, instead of cowering.”
“Is Niccolo the fire, Kayden, or are you?”
“I am the man who wants to keep you alive and by my side. If that makes me the fire, then yes, I am the fire.”
“Is Niccolo here?”
“Niccolo does not attend political events, nor is he on the guest list tonight—or we would not be. He controls the puppets inside, and many of his loyal followers will be present. And if you really know Niccolo—”
“I know him. Someone close to him will be here. They will see me and us. This isn’t hiding in plain sight. This is inviting Niccolo to find me.”
“Yes, they will. And that’s the point.”
eleven
My fingers curl into my palms. “I don’t even know how to process what you just said to me. No part of my mind can find a path to why you would want Niccolo to find me. Because ‘hide in plain sight’ seems to have become ‘knock on Niccolo’s door.’?”
“Hiding in plain sight worked when I thought you were a random person who’d stumbled into Niccolo’s line of fire. In that scenario, the interest in you would have faded. But now we know you’re more than that.”
“We’ve known that for a while, with my flashbacks.”
“And I’ve had this on my mind for a while,” he concurs. “When Gallo dragged you into the limelight today, it drove home what I knew needed to be addressed. Waiting for a hatchet to fall doesn’t work in our favor.”
“And that hatchet is Niccolo.”
“We don’t know who might think you have the necklace and be looking for you. We have to establish that you don’t have it. We have to take control—not allow it to be taken from us by Niccolo, or anyone else.”
“How do we establish that I don’t have the necklace, when I have amnesia?”
“We go public, starting with tonight. Let Niccolo find us—and when he does, he’ll call me.”
“And he’ll demand you hand me over to him, and probably try to beat the location out of me. And then he’ll be dead because I’ll kill him, and maybe life will be good.”
He cups my face. “Easy, sweetheart. Niccolo will never touch you. I won’t let that happen. I know you know that.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
He takes my hand. “We won’t let it happen. And Niccolo’s a businessman. He wants the power that necklace represents, but so do a long list of others, and he doesn’t want them to get it over himself. He’ll negotiate in order to be the insider when your memory returns—and the bottom line here is that he’ll tell us who you are. So we wipe out the unknowns and do just what I said: claim control.”
A million questions come to my mind, but I settle on the one that makes all of the others unnecessary. “If you really think this is the right move, then why not just go to Niccolo directly?”
“For the same reason that I need real proof that he killed Elizabeth and Kevin, before I kill him. Long before my time, The Underground was at war with the Italian and French mobs. The end result was an uneasy truce where all of us mutually respect each other’s business. If he thinks that I knew you were in that alleyway waiting for him, and I hid you, it could mean war. So we have to rely on the truth. I found you. I thought you were in the crossfire, and you have amnesia.”
“But won’t he be pissed that you were there for the necklace?”
“I’m a Hunter, and respecting that is respecting my business. I might not be willing to work for him, but he’ll easily believe that I’m chasing that necklace, and not for a client. I’ll eventually negotiate to find it for him, which, considering The Underground doesn’t work for him, will feel like a big win to him.”
“You say he’ll negotiate to be inside when I get my memory back, but I thought you didn’t want him to have the necklace?”