Page 27 of Light Me Up

Not yet. First he had to find the snake in the grass. There had to be one, because the more green and velvety the grass, the more venomous the snake. It was a fucking natural law.

And he was the dickhead whose job it was to remind everyone ofthat fun fact.

The taxi driver sped away as Noah and Caro made their way up the massive marble staircase. They were met inside the doors by a security guy who greetedthem politely.

“Buon giorno, Signori.Your names?”

English speaking staff. Anything overheard would be understood. A wordless exchange of glances with Caro assured him that she got it. “Noah Gallagher and Caroline Bishop,” he told them.

“One moment.” The guard repeated their names out loud and listened to the inaudible response in his earbuds, then indicated a vaulted marble entryway to his right. “Come with me,per piacere.”

Caro took Noah’s arm and stared around as they followed the guard down the gleaming expanse of patterned marble. Golden late afternoon sunshine flooded through the high arched windows. The vaulted walls and ceilings were a chaotic blaze of wild, frescoed color that bordered on the psychedelic.

“Oh my God, look at that one. ‘The Wedding at Cana.’ That’s Cosimo Rosselli!” Caro murmured, gazing upward with awe. “It’s gorgeous!”

“You’re sure that it’s Rosselli? You can tell just by looking?In one glance?”

She shot him a look that made him grin like an idiot.Ka-boom. He loved getting put in his place like that. She could make his balls tingle with a singleblazing glance.

Several spectacularly painted corridors later, they were ushered through a larger, plainer room that hummed with activity. Banks of flat-screen monitors showed multiple video feeds from the surveillance cameras. Noah was already familiar with every vantage point, having hacked into the system the night before to study it in minute detail while Caro slept. He could monitor any of those cameras in real time with hisAVP processor.

Noah caught some of the security personnel’s chatter of Italian. He ran it through his processor, but it struck him as mostly irrelevant so he set it to dump straight into the archives unless his auditory enhancements snagged any red-flag words: weapons, bomb, attack, their own names, etc. A couple of guys gawked openly at Caro as she strode sexily past,heels clicking.

He shot them what Caro called the Look of Death. Their eyes slid away swiftly.

Two people at the other end of the room caught his attention. The short, red-faced man with a salt-and-pepper beard he recognized instantly from publicity photos. That was Gianfranco Folti himself, their very well-heeled host. Folti was talking to a big, barrel-chested bald man with heavy eyebrows and a thick neck. A quick flip through his archived files revealed that this man was Folti’s former business partner, Frederick Konig.

As they neared the two men, Noah honed in on their conversation, all in Italian, and eavesdropped shamelessly.

“…just started about an hour ago, but it’s getting worse. I’m afraid I’m in for it tonight,” Konig was saying. “I’m so sorry, Gianfranco. The timing couldn’t be worse.”

Folti looked appalled. “That’s terrible, Frederick! After all your work, all your support—are you sure you could not manage to attend somehow? Perhaps if you took something?”

“I just can’t risk it,” Konig’s voice was scratchy and colorless. “It’s…very bad.”

Now that they were closer, he saw the clammy sheen of sweat on Konig’s shiny bald head. The grayish tinge to his skin. The man was sick.

Noah wanted to AVP scan Konig so badly, it hurt. His hand slid into his pocket for his phone, finger hovering over the app that canceled out the shield protection on his contact lenses. Just fora brief second—

The bald man’s attention snapped onto them, like a magnet coupling. His beady dark eyes swept them up and down. The assessment felt distinctly unfriendly.

So much for a quickie AVP analysis. This man would notice if Noah’s eye color suddenly shifted from black to luminous amber.Shit.

“Who are these two?” Konig asked the other man in an undertone. “I don’t remember them from the guest list.”

Folti’s distracted gaze flicked over to them, uncomprehending, and the security guard who was escorting them spoke up. “Signor Folti, Signor Konig, these are Signor Morelli’s guests,” he explained. “Signora Caroline Bishop, and Signor Noah Gallagher. I was just taking them in to see Signor Morelli now.”

Folti made a shooing gesture with his hand. “Yes, yes,” he said fretfully. “Take them in to Stefano, by allmeans. Go, go.”

Noah and Caro walked past the two men and followed the security guard into an adjoining room. Noah felt the bald man’s eyes follow them as they went.

Once inside the room, the guard muttered in Italian under his breath and listened to the response. Moments later a tall, dark-haired man entered the room from a side door.

“Vice Direttore, this is Mr. Gallagher and Ms. Bishop,” the guard announced.

“Thank you, Carlo,” Morelli said. “That will be all.”

The guard departed. Noah and Morelli looked each other over as Morelli approached them, hand extended. Stefano Morelli was older than his online photos, but not by much. His military records revealed that he’d been in an elite branch of the Italian military before becoming an agent of the AISE. He was a black-haired, ruggedly handsome guy in his thirties. Dark eyes that didn’t miss much.Firm handshake.

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