Page 63 of His Beautiful Revenge
He called his head of security. “Any news on Tara’s whereabouts?”
“We have a few leads, sir. One of my contacts said she was in New York at the weekend. She may still be there, but she’s in hiding. She knows the police are after her, but she definitely realizes that if we get to her first …”
“If we get to her first, take her to the hanger. I want to deal with her myself.”
“Of course. We’ve briefed your team in Italy; they’re doing daily security sweeps at the villa.”
“Good.” Giacomo sighed and rubbed his hand over his eyes. “The one advantage she has is who her contacts are. Where they are.”
“Her father was a mob boss, right?”
“Right. Look, just do what you can to keep her and her goons away from Norah.”
“She won’t get near, boss.”
Giacomo prayed he was right.
Tara’s father, George, glared at his daughter as she strode into his home in Chicago. “What the hell kind of mess have you got into now, girl?Murder?”
She waved her hand. “Pa, I am your daughter. I had a problem. I dealt with it.”
“With all the subtlety of a wrecking ball.”
Tara shrugged. Her father didn’t scare her—something he’d always admired in her. She was totally without empathy. George Hubert recognized the psychopath in his daughter and had even encouraged it. But her propensity for not thinking her actions through was beginning to threaten their lives.
“Tara, this is going to take a while to figure out.”
She raised her eyebrows at him. “Really? It’s such alittlething.”
“Let me understand this.” George got up. “You fucked a nobody, thus cheating on your rich, good-looking boyfriend. Your boyfriend’s best friend’s wife catches you out, so you have her killed. Just so happens she’s a prominent human rights lawyer. Not very low-key. Then your boyfriend finds out you’re fucking this nobody, and to get revenge, he hires the lover’s girlfriend. Then he falls in love with the girlfriend.”
Tara shifted uncomfortably in her chair, knowing her father was about to get angry. She hated it when he got angry. “You make it sound so …”
“Petty? Ridiculous? That’s because it is,Tara. It is. For the love of God …why did you kill Lucian Hargity?”
“Dad, they haven’t got a case. There’s no evidence.”
“Except you ran. You don’t think that looks suspicious?”
Tara said nothing. She could feel herself regressing back to a sulky teen. Her father sighed. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to contact the police and offer to fully cooperate with them. If what you say is true, then we don’t have a problem, except with the press, and we can work on that.”
Tara sat, fuming, but then nodded. “Fine. I’m confident the police have nothing on me but, if I’m going to risk it, I need you to do something for me.”
“What?”
She smiled grimly. “Giacomo’s fiancée never gets to see her wedding day.”
George Hubert glared at his daughter for a long moment, then, almost imperceptibly, he gave a nod.
Her murder was the last thing on Norah’s mind as she walked through the cool stone corridors of Giacomo’s Tuscan villa. The place was from a fantasy, she thought, all billowy white drapes at the windows and outside, the Tuscan countryside with rolling hill and olive groves …
“Heaven,” she sighed and Giacomo smiled at her.
“I’m glad you like it.”
“Understatement. I think I must be dreaming.”
He took her hand and led her inside, to his bedroom. There was a huge four-poster bed with draped white mosquito netting and pure white Egyptian cotton sheets.
