Page 106 of Enduring Caine

I froze in place, unsure if I should follow him or find out what caused this. He was at a sprint, heading toward the tower. There was no way I’d catch him, so ran to the control room.

One guard lay on the floor.

The other slumped over the desk.

All the screens were off.

I charged in and checked pulses, finding both men simply unconscious. The security displays were another matter. I hit buttons, attempted to cycle the power. Lights flashed on the keyboard, but the screens remained blank.

Leonardo and the entire security team were working blind.

Had Vincenzo… the coffee. Of course! Both cups had been drained. Was this a TPC action?

Or was it Henri? Had he left the coffee for Vincenzo to deliver as a cover for… for what? Another murder?

Oh, marone, Samantha, where are you?

I couldn’t do this again. Couldn’t live knowing she was in danger. There had to be something I could do.

Think, Tony.

The lights were on, so it was not the breaker. The security system was hard-wired into the wall, so there was no plug to come loose. I squeezed as far behind the desk as I could, but the wiring was intact.

I knelt next to the slumped-over man and looked underneath the desk, spotting a removable panel. When I took it off, my heart jumped. Three of the wires hung loose. I snapped them into place and leaned back to check the monitors. Everything flickered to life.

The cave’s camera was still on. And there she stood, with Vincenzo, talking to a man on a rib boat, whose face was not visible.

Shewaswith Vincenzo. Body-to-body with him, her hand in his.

Bile burned its way up my throat.

It’s not what it looks like, Tony. She’s planning something. Look for the truth.

Vincenzo pointed to the boat with a tube, which looked like it was used for transport. He’d asked her to get the passcode to the gallery so he could get a painting out. Could that be what it was? Had he drugged the men here to cover this operation?

A moan sounded from the man on the floor.

The other in the chair slowly lifted his head. “What…?”

I had to get downstairs before anything happened to her. But should I have them call Leonardo or not? If the man in the boat was Vincenzo’s contact and they were recovering a painting of Giovanni’s, I couldn’t tell Leonardo.

If he caught them, she’d be dead. I had to get her out of there.

Chapter 46

Samantha

“He’smycontactwiththe TPC, Sam.” Vincenzo remained precariously close to me, but I couldn’t rip my eyes off the man in the boat.

“No, he’s not.” I stepped away from Vin, but he held tight.

Last year, when I was visiting Antonio in Naples, I’d hurt myself on a hike and couldn’t walk back from the grotto where it happened. An art-loving Corsican man named Pasquale Fiori had swooped to my rescue, picking us up in a rib boat. He and his two bodyguards had taken us to his superyacht where his doctor had looked after my injured ankle.

And the man I knew only as Bodyguard One stood in front of me, maneuvering his boat closer to the edge.

I lowered my voice. “He works for Fiori.”

“No,” said Vincenzo. “We work for the TPC.”