Stolen Vengeance: Slye Temp book 6 (11 page)

Henri ran his hands through his stylish hair, sending the short, deep-red locks shooting in different directions, and muttering, “I ask myself every day what I was thinking. You drove me crazy. Now he drives me crazy.”

Call it a character flaw, but for the first time since they’d separated, Valene felt better. Someone hadn’t succeeded where she’d failed. She wasn’t wishing for Henri to be unhappy, but she’d heard over and over through friends in the business that Henri was so full of joy and content these days.

All she could think was how he hadn’t been happy at all for the last few months of their marriage. They’d spent the first part of that year consoling each other through the emotional hell of Henri’s cousin’s suicide and Valene’s father being diagnosed with stage-three lung cancer, probably from the crap he’d inhaled on archaeological sites.

And Dingo had abandoned her.

She’d been a hot mess for a long time.

Henri brushed his hair back with a sweep of his hand. “I did
not
meet him while you and I were together.”

“I didn’t mean to insinuate that you had behaved with a lack of morality. I would never think that. It was...I was just... angry.”

His chuckle rippled with sadness. “I know. It seems that I am without skills to make anyone happy no matter what I sacrifice.”

She realized right then that Henri was desperate to move this shop to the historic district for
Geoffrey
. She wasn’t at all glad that the two men were having issues and felt like scum on the bottom of a shoe for adding to his troubles.

“Let’s make a deal to work together, Henri, so that with a little luck we’ll both come out good on this.”

The smile he gave her this time was the first sincere one she’d earned from him in a long time. “I will do whatever I can and I know that you’ll be fair with me on the money.”

“Thank you.”  She let out a long breath of relief. One hurdle cleared.

“I’ll sign your form before you leave. Tell me about this scroll.”

She brightened up at the first sign that this was going to work out after all. “You aren’t going to believe this because I’d never heard of it in all my years of studying seventeenth-century writings.”

His eyebrows climbed at that.

She nodded and grinned. The excitement of the hunt sent adrenaline rushing through her. “You know that Galileo was put under house arrest after he was brought before the pope for–”

Henri made a rolling motion with his hand. “Yes, yes. As you would often say, give me the bullet points.”

She laughed at that and Henri’s eyes twinkled. Maybe they could repair what their marriage had destroyed. She explained, “Galileo supposedly wrote on a scroll–”

“That is not news,” he muttered, at once disappointed.

She put a hand on her hip. “This is why we butted heads before.”

French curses spewed again then he motioned with his hands to keep going and ordered her, “Finish.”

She grumbled, “Don’t interrupt.”  After scratching her head for a moment to clear her thoughts, she explained, “This scroll was never out of the Vatican until now.”

At his stunned silence, she gave him a look of
see
? Then she told him the one element that would fine-tune their search. “This scroll supposedly is what he wrote about visions he had associated with the Orion star configuration, best that I can figure from what I was told. And the scroll includes a star map.”

“Galileo would not have admitted to having visions,” Henri whispered, thinking out loud. “He’d been condemned for his beliefs about the solar system. This sounds like a fraud.”

“You’ll have to trust me that this scroll does exist and please don’t ask me to tell you more than I have to, because–”

“I know, I know... you protect me.”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“This sounds risky, Valene.”

True, but telling him she was just a little terrified would only make him nervous on top of his other problems. “I’ll be the one taking any risk. Weren’t you the one who said all great things come with risk?”

“Do not turn my words on me. What else can you tell me?”

“The name of the scroll is Profezia di Orione.”

Henri’s eyes flared for a second at that.

Valene asked, “Do you know about this?”

“No.”

She would actually have been worried if he’d said yes. “Here’s the kicker. I only have five days to deliver the scroll.”

He lifted a hand to his forehead and walked around in a circle.

Valene began to have true concern. This was Henri’s way of saying he had bad news. “What is it, Henri?”

“We have a gifted historian whose specialty is all things Galilean.”

“I know. Geoffrey.” She urged, “Don’t you have some pull with him?”

“About as much as I had with you. I have a bad habit of choosing hardheaded partners.”

“I am nothing like him,” she said, then regretted sounding as if she’d criticized Henri’s new partner. “What I mean is–”

Henri held up a hand. “Please. I know exactly what you mean, because you are correct. You two differ greatly in one point. I never worry that he will be off doing something dangerous.”

She had no argument for that.

Henri had walked the floor many times when she was late returning from meeting a new client who could have turned out to be a mass murderer.

“Geoffrey is also sensitive and the jealous type. He has never been interested in women so my past relationship with you threatens him. He believes he will not meet some unrealistic standard he has envisioned.”

What could she say about that? Her own insecurities had caused her to avoid any interaction with Henri once she heard he was involved with someone new, someone who made him happy. She’d been hurt more than anything when Henri left, but it wasn’t as though she carried a torch for her ex-husband.

Henri kept talking. “I will talk to Geoffrey and convince him to use his skills.”

“Thirty grand isn’t enough to do that?” she quipped.

“It would have been if you hadn’t pinched his ego. If I bring him to the table, can you mind your manners?”

She blew out a gust of air and ran fingers through her hair. “I’ll even apologize.”

An eyebrow quirked high on Henri’s forehead. “I see.”

And he did. She’d just told him how desperate she was, because Henri knew her pride could blind her at times. But her pride had been through enough battering over the past few years that apologizing to Geoffrey, snippy guy that he was, would be simple.

“In the meantime,” Henri continued. “The key to this contract is finding potential buyers.”

Valene had missed brainstorming with Henri.

She said, “Right. I wish someone on my gold list of clients could afford this scroll, but they’re only millionaires. This deal is going to take a billionaire who has an obsession with Galileo.”

The few seventeenth-century collectors who had the kind of money that could buy something even she couldn’t put a price on were practically impossible to get in front of because they used agents to handle their purchases and sales.

And those agents were often just as secretive about their identities.

“You do know one who happens to be in LA,” Henri said.

“They all come through LA at some point, but by the time we hear they’ve arrived, they’re already locked away somewhere private or on their private jet headed somewhere else.”

“I’m speaking of Jon Tinker.”

She got excited, then slumped. “Getting to the president in five days would be easier.”

“Ah, Valene, where is the woman who sent an exquisite seventeenth-century Oliver Cromwell shilling to a visiting duke as an invitation to meet?”

She was inside somewhere, buried beneath layers of worry over things like her father and fulfilling this contract, but she was there. “What are you saying?”

“I have an idea of how you might get in front of this collector. It’s a gamble, but doable.”  Henri lifted both eyebrows this time and that meant there was more to it.

She already knew she wasn’t going to like this, but that buried version of herself came crawling up from the dark place she’d been hiding when Valene said, “Point me in his direction.”

Chapter 12

St. Moritz, Switzerland

The General eyed the bane of his existence, Wayan, who was the second most powerful man in China and only the uninformed failed to recognize that. Wayan had a boyish face with the typical almond shaped eyes, soft cheeks and a mouth always pursed with disgust during these meetings. But where Asian women the General knew had beautifully shaped eyes, Wayan’s were small, black and unattractive.

He looked like a man secretly planning the next world war, which might be exactly what he was up to.

Now that they were seated in a private salon of L'air Doré, an exclusive resort in Switzerland that catered to those who could pay for absolute discretion, the General began, “You said the scroll was safe.”

Wayan propped his palms together with his fingers pointing up like a steeple. “The artifact was secure until someone unexpected got involved. We may argue and point fingers or we may take action. Which are you here for?”

To make sure you don’t screw the powerful families who pay me well to protect them.
The Rosso family was on edge and the General’s job was to deal with the issue causing them stress. Admitting that to Wayan would be the same as the General exposing his jugular. “I’m here to make sure you understand that I’m not trying to snake the scroll out from under you, but I have to get my hands on it.”

Wayan was a man of few facial expressions, but he allowed an eyebrow to float up. “You think I will assist you in gaining the single most valuable artifact of the five required to unveil Orion’s Prophecy?”

“You said the panel from the Amber Room was the key piece.”

Wayan’s eyes smiled even though his mouth remained all business. “The scroll explains how all the artifacts work together. It was necessary that you believed the Amber Room panel was most important or you would have focused on the scroll too soon.”

Deceitful bastard.

It wasn’t as though the General trusted Wayan either, but Wayan could have been straight about all these damn artifacts. Orion’s Prophecy was complete hogwash, but Wayan believed with the intensity of a fanatic. That alone gave the General reason to stay close to him. When it came to the warning about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer, the General only had to bother with the latter part.

He’d connected with Wayan when the Chinese nutjob sent minions trying to purchase a rare stater, a Greek gold coin used in trade during the fourth century. The coin had been in the General’s family for generations.

It was locked away where Wayan would never be able to get his hands on it as long as the General was alive. He reclined and grimaced. Damn pain meds weren’t doing it for his back. “Back to the scroll, Wayan. I meant it when I said I wasn’t trying to screw you. If you help me find the person with the scroll, I want the thief and you can have the scroll. Fair enough?”

Wayan pretended to mull it over, but the General had known him for three years. Wayan made his decisions faster than many people drew a breath. He hadn’t become the second in line to the leadership of China without being dangerously brilliant.

He was also a major ache in the General’s backside.

And the little fucker actually believed that once five specific artifacts came together, Orion’s Prophecy would come to fruition, revealing the final world conflict and who would win.

In Wayan’s private fantasy world, a final conflict would be a world war that left only one country standing.

The General didn’t buy into any of this shit, but six of the most powerful families in the world paid him well to keep his finger on the pulse of crazy internationals who might threaten
their
world–reality anchored by obscene amounts of money.

The scary part was that Wayan held a position where he actually
could
manipulate the launch of an international conflict.

Especially if the prophecy pointed to the US as the country that would come out on top.   

Wayan lowered his steepled fingers. “I will contact you if I locate the scroll thief first.”

Not exactly a commitment that left the General all warm and fuzzy. He clarified one point of the agreement. “I need the thief alive.”

Wayan’s head tilted forward only enough to acknowledge that he understood. “You wish to be sure he has spoken to no one of his deeds within the Vatican banking system on behalf of a prestigious Italian family.”

I really don’t like how this Chinese bastard always knows too much.
The General shrugged with nonchalance. “Exactly.”

“Then I see no reason we cannot reach an agreement, should fortune befall
my
people who search for the scroll ... as long as you are willing to make an exchange.”

You sorry sack of shit
. The General knew exactly what was being offered. Wayan would hand over the thief in trade for the General’s artifact, one of the prized five.

Wayan already possessed carved jade art that he’d purchased on the antiquities market many years ago, according to what the General’s people had discovered. A flat piece the size of a serving tray with gold Uyghur inscriptions, the accepted Mongolian writing. The art had belonged to Genghis Khan and had been sculpted to display one of Khan’s belt buckles in the middle. It wasn’t called a buckle back then, but the General couldn’t be bothered to recall the term.

A German collector owned the coveted panel from the Amber Room. It belonged to Tsar Peter the Great in the eighteenth century, and Wayan was already going after that one.

That left the Galilean scroll from the Vatican and a Celtic cross belonging to Chatton, the number-two pain in the General’s backside. The General groaned internally. That bitch had shown up unexpectedly, pushing her way into the Czarion, the code name Wayan and the General had chosen for their partnership.

The General had rogue CIA agents on his secret payroll, and he’d sent them hunting for Chatton, but they’d come up empty. She was a spook through and through. He and Wayan figured her to be MI6, but neither of their contacts in the British spy agency had anything on her.

“The time for fulfilling Orion’s Prophecy draws near,” Wayan announced. “We are entering the final days. The scroll will explain all.”

Were those words written somewhere or just a fabrication in Wayan’s twisted mind?

The General didn’t know, but he was keeping a close eye on everyone to make sure Wayan and Chatton weren’t teaming up to double cross him.

The General lifted his sixty-year-old scotch. “Here’s to a new world order where we’ve agreed to continue our alliance.”

Wayan’s hint of a smile was the equivalent of someone else doing a fist pump.

The General did his own silent fist pump, because he had no doubt that Chatton knew all about the scroll being missing. With just a little luck, Wayan and Chatton might cancel each other out.

Best case scenario? One of them would go down for sure.