Page 46 of Light Me Up

This colossal disaster was that son of a bitch’s fault. And he would pay. Vilardi was supposed to have taken care of him but he hadn’t been up to the task, the uselesspiece of shit.

Noah Gallagher, that was the man’s name. With his wife, Caroline Bishop. Russo had sent him files on the two of them. Ostensibly, the man was not a cop or a spy or a government agent. He was just a rich biotech entrepreneur with a thriving company, famous for its cutting edge innovation. No ties to Konig’s business at all. At least none that he could see.

Baffling, but it changed nothing. The man had to die screaming. Konig would be unable to sleep until he did. Things needed to be put back into balance.

Hisbalance.

At least the video feeds in the Sala were no longer focused on Lella’s hideous face. Konig had been sick of looking at it. But things were completely out of control. Konig had made sure that Lella’s command frequency could be activated from much farther than he had been, in his bedroom in the west wing. So what the fuckhad gone wrong?

Lella had one job to do in front of the surveillance cameras, TV cameras, and livestreaming smartphones aimed his way. One simple task that a goddamn toddler could have aced. And Lella wasfucking it up.

Konig jabbed at the screen of his phone, boosting the command frequency to the maximum. Anything above that would permanently obliterate Lella’sbrain function.

Not that Konig gave a shitat this point.

“Vilardi? Russo? Naimo? Where the fuck are you?” he barked into the headset. “Get the lights back on! Come in! What the fuck is going on in there?”

No response. Dead, or they’d jumped ship.

If they weren’t dead, they soon would be. He’d pay extra to make sure that the experience was painful and prolonged. Useless shitheads.

He was furious with himself for making a plan with too many elements outside of his control. Neurosurgery was not his forte, but that cooing hellbitch Sondra Laera had convinced him that it was the way to go. He’d studied the video documentation of Lella’s imprisonment and clandestine surgery. Impressive. Seemingly foolproof.

Konig had always admired ruthlessness. Skilled savagery got things done. Laera had assured him that the command frequency would put Lella under his full control.

He’d believed her, and handed over a staggering amount of money for her services—tens of millions he’d spent on this complicated masquerade so far.

And out of nowhere, a fucking knife through the hand had revived Lella’s conscious will. At the worstpossible time.

That bomb had to explode. Lella had to be vaporized, or his implants would be found during the autopsy—and traced. All of Konig’s meticulous plans would fail.

Konig hesitated for less than a second before he pulled the Beretta pistol out of his briefcase. He burst out of the room and ran toward the Sala dell’Annunziata.

As he ran, he tapped his phone, upping Lella’s command frequency once again. Well beyond the upper limit. As highas it would go.

No matter what happened tonight, if he was going down, he wanted Lella writhing on the floor. Bleeding outof every hole.

He deserved at least that much satisfaction for all his trouble.

* * * *

The force of Noah’s attack sent one of the tall panels behind the cross toppling backwards. He and Lella tumbled backalong with it.

Lella ripped his wounded hand free with a shout, rolled over, and lurched to his feet, climbing over the downed panel to grapple with Noah. His face was streaked with blood, his one eye wild and unseeing. He howled incoherentlyas he attacked.

Noah stayed in tight, taking a fuckton of head-ringing punishment from Lella’s powerful fists but he didn’t give an inch. He had to stay close. No ducking down, no dancing back. His body was the only barrier between that detonator cord and Lella’s other hand. He had to keep those hands busy.

Lella rushed him in the dark, crowded space, knocking him up against the back of another panel. Noah struggled to hold on, taking kicks and punches until he got a grip on one of Lella’s thick wrists. He yanked and dragged the man forward, trying to keep Lella stumbling and off balance with one hand, blocking his punches and kickswith the other.

The guy bellowed like a wounded bull and charged, driving Noah before him toward the French doors to the balcony. He was huge, desperate. Completely insane.

The charge smashed the two of them right through the glass, splintering the wooden frames, and they thundered headlong toward the wrought iron railing, locked together.

Oh fuck. Here it came.

Do or die.

He said a prayer. Not for himself. For Caro.

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