Chapter 15
“Pull the cord!” Konig screamed into the headset transmit ter. “Pull it!”
Nothing. Lella wasn’t responding. Nothing and no one was responding. Even the livestream was useless now. Just chaotic darkness, moving shad ows, screaming.
The one clear memory he had out of the button cam on Lella’s jacket, while he could still see out of it, was a glimpse of that man’s face coming toward him. Morelli’s mystery guest. But now his eyes were glowing a strange, bright yellowish orange that looked almost spectral in the dimness.
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 useless piece 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 tha t 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 bac k into balance.
His balance.
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 fuck had 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 was fucking it up.
Konig jabbed at the screen of his phone, boosting the command frequency to the maximum. Anything above that would permanently obliterate Lella’s brain function.
Not that Konig gave a shit at 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 goin g 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. Use less 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. Seemi ngly foolproof.
Konig had always admired ruthlessness. Skilled savagery got things done. Laera had assured him that the command frequency would put Lella under hi s 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 mas querade so far.
And out of nowhere, a fucking knife through the hand had revived Lella’s conscious will. At the worst possible 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 pl ans 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 d ell’Annunziata.
As he ran, he tapped his phone, upping Lella’s command frequency once again. Well beyond the upper limit. As high as it would go.
No matter what happened tonight, if he was going down, he wanted Lella writhing on the floor. Bleeding out of every hole.
He deserved at least that much satisfaction for a ll his trouble.
* * * *
The force of Noah’s attack sent one of the tall panels behind the cross toppling backwards. He and Lella tumbled back along 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 incoherently as 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 th ose 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 kicks with 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. Com pletely 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, l ocked together.
Oh fuck . Here it came.
Do or die.
He said a prayer. Not for him self. For Caro.
He saw her beautiful eyes in his mind as they pitched over the edge.