Page 74 of The Kiss that Captured a Billionaire
Allegra’s mouth flattened into a scowl. “I suggested it. I didn’t do the actual hiring.”
“You suggested it?” Rose gave a sharp laugh. “Great. My alternate universe theory that there’s a sane one and a crazy one has official been confirmed,” she grumbled with disbelief. “So—who did you sort of hire/suggest to kidnap me, and why?”
Allegra sighed, setting the washcloth on the bed. “My stepbrother, Vito, is the one who hired whatever misguided idiots he could find. He needed money, and I wanted Theo. It was a two-birds-with-one-stone type of transaction. I had no idea Vito would actually be stupid enough to do it,” Allegra scoffed with a dismissive wave of her hand like there were no laws being broken.
“I’m guessing your family get-togethers are… interesting,” Rose muttered, because really, what else could she say?
Kallistratos Family Villa: Syros, Greece
Alexandros Kallistratos had just decided that paperwork could wait when Dani shifted on his lap, her mouth brushing his in a kiss that was far more interesting than quarterly projections.
Her laugh was soft against his lips when his phone buzzed somewhere behind her hip.
He groped blindly across his desk, still trying to keep the kiss going. “Ignore it,” he muttered.
Dani slid off his lap with a teasing smile. “Break time’s over.”
He groaned. “Who decided that?”
“Your phone,” she said, already walking toward the door.
He glanced at the caller ID and nearly groaned again. Vito Marino. Exactly the sort of person who could ruin a perfectly good day. He thumbed to answer, already planning the shortest possible conversation.
“What?” Alexandros said flatly.
What came back was… noise. A desperate tangle of words—half apologies, half incoherent rambling—that included Theo’s name and a woman named Rose.
“Vito,” Alexandros cut in. “Slow down. English, Italian, or Greek. Not all three. Words in order. Try again.”
“I’m sorry,” Vito blurted. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done—okay, maybe not everything—but this one, this one’s bad. Theo is going to kill me. I wouldn’t blame him. But it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way, you understand? I owe the wrong people money, and Allegra had this wonderful plan—you know, just a minor delay, nothing serious?—”
Alexandros pinched the bridge of his nose. “Delay for what?”
“To give her time to… uh… seduce Theo.”
That made him straighten. “What did you do, Vito?”
There was a beat of silence. Then?—
“I might have helped… kidnap Theo’s woman. Her name is Rose something. She’s in the tabloids. Very photogenic.”
“Are you admitting that youkidnappedRose… Rose Smythe?” Alexandros’s voice sharpened. “Lorenzo Alliata’s granddaughter, Rose Smythe?”
On the other end, Vito released a low, miserable groan. “If Theo doesn’t kill me, Lorenzo will. And if Theo and Lorenzo don’t, my father will. And my mother. Possibly my grandmother. Definitely the men I owe money. They have real guns, Alexandros. I’m doomed.”
Alexandros leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “What were you thinking? You know not even your parents can protect you from something like this, right?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Honest! If we’d known, I would’ve… I don’t know… moved to Argentina or something.”
“Vito, tell me everything you know. Where is Rose? Is she in danger?” Alexandros said, pulling a pad of paper and picking up a pen.
“No—I don’t know—maybe?” Vito sounded unsure. “When the men came to collect the money I owed their boss, they found out about Rose—and that I knew her, and that she was dating a Kallistratos. They decided they could make some money on the side. I told them it was a bad idea, but they wouldn’t listen to me. They—they threatened to kill me, Alexandros. I think they mightreally do it. They have Allegra, too. If they don’t kill me, she will! I don’t know what to do!”
Alexandros rubbed his brow as he tried to get information out of Vito that would be useful in finding his sister and Rose. It took another five minutes—and enough tangents about Vito’s ‘bad luck with women’ and ‘terrible investments’ to fill a confessional booth—before Alexandros finally got the full story.
Apparently, what was a light, temporary hold of Rose had escalated into an actual kidnapping, because, in Vito’s words, ‘people just can’t be trusted anymore’.
“You are aware,” Alexandros said slowly, “that kidnapping—intentional or not—is a crime.”
