Page 38 of The Thief

19

ANTONIO

The moment Lucia kissed me, I lost control. The instant her soft lips met mine, need swept through me, the kind of all-consuming need that could burn me from the inside out and leave me empty. Tart, tempting, and sweet, she was a drug I ached for and couldn’t get enough of. The scent of her filled my nostrils and my lungs and my soul, and when she pulled away. . .

When she pulled away, it had taken everything I possessed to let her go.

But we’re not done. My little thief and I have unfinished business. It’s one thing if she doesn’t want me—I can take no for an answer—but that’s not what happened. She got afraid and ran.

I get it. Everything changed today. Our kiss was a seismic shock, and I’m still reeling, still trying to find balance. But I’m not going to let fear get in the way. I’ll give her a day to adjust, but come Sunday morning, I’m going to be knocking at her door at nine.

But before I can do that, things go to hell.

It starts with Valentina coming into my office that afternoon, looking tired and excited. “I was able to hack into Ilya Kozlov’s phone.”

Triumph goes through me. Kozlov is back in Vladivostok; he got there on Wednesday, but of course, that isn’t the end of the matter. Gafur has too much invested in their weapons-smuggling business, and whether I gave permission or not, they’re still going to try to get their guns into Venice. “How did you manage that?” I ask her.

“He downloaded an app on his phone.”

“For porn?”

She shakes her head. “No, a crypto app. Anyway, it’s given me full access to his texts. I thought you should see this.” She hands me a burner phone.

It’s a conversation between Ilya and his father, Yuri, the pakhan of the Gafur OPS.

Moretti can’t track every ship that comes into the harbor. Our buyers are getting restless, and the Prizrak is already underway. I say we go ahead and move the goods whether he cooperates or not.

Go ahead.

Ilya Kozlov wasn’t joking about thePrizrakalready being underway; the cargo ship is scheduled to come into Venice’s harbor Saturday on the evening tide, and if I’m going to act, I need to hurry.

I call my team together on Friday night. “Leo and Joao, I want you to intercept the ship.”

“What about the crew, Padrino?” Joao asks. “Should we kill them?”

I don’t care about the crew; as far as I’m concerned, they made their own bed when they agreed to run weapons for the Gafur OPS. I’m about to tell him that when I picture Lucia’s reaction if she finds out. She’ll be shocked. Horrified.How did you know they were part of Gafur?I can hear her ask.What if they had no idea what was in their cargo hold?

“Throw them overboard,” I respond. “The harbor is shallow enough; they’ll survive. And then blow up the ship.”

“You don’t want to save the cargo?”

I shake my head. “No. I’m sending a message, and I want there to be no doubt about it. There will be no weapons smuggled through my city.”

I thought I gave Ilya Kozlov warning enough when I reminded him about the Meych ship I blew up last year, but it clearly didn’t make enough of an impression. Maybe when his weapons go up in a giant explosion, he’ll get the message.

The next evening, Leo and Joao blow up Gafur’s cargo ship as planned. It causes quite a stir, which is regrettable. Open warfare is terrible for business, and when ships blow up, the authorities tend to get involved and start asking a bunch of questions I’d rather not answer. At least no one died. The crew of thePrizrak,every single one of them, survived the explosion.

I’m feeling quite pleased with myself. Until later that night, when divers trawl the harbor to examine the wreckage, and I find out there were no guns on the cargo ship.

We’ve been set up. ThePrizrakwas a decoy. Kozlov knew we hacked into his phone, and he laid down a false trail for us.

And I fell right into his trap.

Valentina stammers apologies during our debrief, but I wave her off. This wasn’t her fault; it was mine. I should have sensed that something was off, but Ilya Kozlov is young, and I dismissed him as a fool.

Who’s the fool now?

“The guns came through on two other ships,” Dante tells me on Wednesday. “TheSussurro del Ventoand theLa Quinta Ombra. Both Italian ships. Valentina is trying to track down their ownership, but they’re hidden under dozens of shell companies.”

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