Chapter 4
FOUR
GAbrIEL | ROME
“We’ll be landing in fifteen minutes sir.” I look up from my laptop to find my pilot, Jonas, standing in front of me. “I’ve confirmed the handlers are ready on the tarmac to greet you as well.”
“Thank you, Jonas,” I say, closing my laptop.
He nods and flashes me a polite smile before shuffling back to the cockpit to begin the landing process. A couple minutes later we hit some turbulence and Vienna, the private flight attendant on my flight team, approaches.
She’s a fit woman with pin-straight long black hair that reaches her lower back, and red lipstick that is always perfectly applied.
“We’re seeing windier conditions as we descend, likely due to it being winter here,” she says, taking a seat across from me with a feline smile.
She’s pretty, but not my type. Though, by the way she stares at me each time we fly together, I am most definitely her type. Or, at the very least, my wallet is.
“Got it,” I say, focused on packing up my laptop.
“You look good in glasses,” she purrs after a moment. “Really good.”
I zip my laptop bag closed as we hit another round of turbulence and finally look at her. Her boobs are pushed up so high they almost spill out of her uniform, and instead of having the desired effect, I find myself wondering how quickly I could find a reliable replacement for her.
The only reason I’ve kept her around is because she has never bailed on a flight, usually keeps to her job assignments, and is more focused on her appearance than she is on what I’m doing or who I’m talking to. But, constantly shutting down her advances is becoming quite the annoyance lately.
“Thank you,” I say, removing them and putting them into their carrying case. “They’re new.”
“Gosh,” she uses her hand to fan herself, “I keep thinking you’ll get less attractive as you age but I swear you’re just getting hotter and hotter every time I see you.”
I force a small smile on my face, deciding that she’s got to go. “I’m still not available, Vienna.”
She pouts, but when I don’t react she stands up and creeps her way back to the front of my jet where she’s supposed to be sitting.
When we finally land at the Ciampino Airport in Rome, I quickly deplane the aircraft as the doors open, thanking Jonas on the way out for another smooth flight. Vienna has decided to hide away somewhere on the aircraft to avoid an awkward goodbye, and I’m grateful for it.
However, when I step off the last stair, I find myself standing in front of a car that looks less like the luxury car that would normally be arranged to pick me up from airports, and more like something a chipmunk would drive.
A bright red Smart Fortwo, about the size of my suitcase, stares back at me.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter as I stare at it, wondering how the hell I’m going to fit in this thing.
“Welcome back to Italy, Mr. Matthews. It’s been a few years since you’ve last visited,” my handler, a balding middle-aged Italian man says, his accent thick.
I don’t answer him as I continue staring at the car, positive this must be some mixup.
“Ah yes,” he says, clapping his hands together as he looks from me to the vehicle. “We were a bit surprised when your assistant booked this vehicle for you. We confirmed with him multiple times that this was what he meant to book, and he confirmed you wanted this exact vehicle down to the colour.”
I grind my teeth together, trying to calm the building frustration. “Thank you for confirming with him,” I say, forcing a smile. “I’m sure he’s right.”
My handler hums before taking my passport and visa documents from me. “I’ll get these processed for you at customs and bring them back out once done.” He gestures to the vehicle. “Please, get comfortable. The rest of our team will get your bags and perform the usual aircraft maintenance.”
“Thank you,” I mutter as he begins walking away.
With a deep sigh, I open the car door and it swings wide, as if to say “look at all this space, Gabriel!”
Ridiculous.
The seat is practically in the trunk—mainly because there isn’t a trunk—and I have to angle my shoulders just to slide in. My knees bump the dash immediately, and the steering wheel greets me directly in the ribs.
I exhale, attempting to fold myself smaller, as my luggage is brought over and shoved behind the seat.
My bag hits the back window with a dull thud because there’s nowhere else for it to go.
My suitcase they have to negotiate with, twisting and jamming it into the passenger footwell.
By the time they finally shut the door, I feel like I’ve been vacuum-sealed into place.
With another frustrated exhale, I slide my phone out of my pocket and dial Reid, who answers on the first ring.
“Ciao, boss!” he says, cheerfully.
“Care to explain why I’m sitting in a toy car?”
Reid bursts out laughing while I roll my eyes and start the car to warm up from the chilly winter air. He laughs even harder at the sound of the engine chirping to life—yes, chirping—and I shake my head in disbelief. This is going to be one long and uncomfortable drive.
“I heard the roads in Rome can be a tight fit so I figured a smaller car would be a better fit,” he finally says.
“A smaller car would have been fine, but this? This is tiny, Reid. Not to mention the brightest colour you could have picked.”
“Red? That’s your favourite colour though. Same as Zalea’s hair.”
I scoff, and then punch in the address for the hotel he booked for me into the GPS while I wait for the handler to return with my documents. “Any update on her?”
During the flight I was able to figure out how to tap into her phone, but she refused to answer. I sent Reid all the data that I was able to pull from it before she shut it off, in hopes that he’d get a more accurate location.
“Yes, actually,” Reid says, the sound of his speedy typing taking over momentarily. “I was able to find her perimeter with the data you sent over, and after checking surveillance cameras, I found her at a small family-run restaurant just outside the city centre.”
I check my watch, glad to see that there are plenty of hours between now and dinnertime. “Lovely,” I look up and see my handler returning, “send me the address for that restaurant.”
“You think she’s going to go back.” It's not a question.
“Yes,” I confirm, “and if not then maybe they’ll at least know where she went.”
“Smart,” he replies. “I can also keep trying to tap into her phone throughout the next few days to see if she’s reconnected it.”
“Sure. Send me her exact location as soon as she does.”
After hanging up on Reid and confirming a few document details with my handler, I follow the directions my GPS spits out. It takes about thirty minutes to get to my hotel, and I’m not at all surprised at how on edge I feel as I climb out of the car.
Italians drive more aggressively than I’m used to, and that’s saying something. I found myself the victim of one too many middle fingers on the way here.
I stare up at the hotel, more excited than I’ve ever been to get into my room and sleep for a couple hours before I search for Zalea. The jet lag is hitting me hard, and after wrestling my bags out of the car and hoisting them up the front stairs, the only thing I can think about is sleep.
The front lobby is empty, except for the woman standing behind the check-in desk. I make my way to her and wait for a greeting that never comes. After a minute of waiting, I clear my throat and she lifts her head from her cellphone, chewing her gum obnoxiously as she looks me up and down.
“Buongiorno,” I say, my patience slipping.
“Ciao,” she replies, sliding her phone onto the front desk and grinning at me.
The fuck?
“I have a booking here under the name Gabriel Matthews,” I say, sliding my passport and credit card over to her.
She eyes my passport without picking it up. “Fifty Euro.”
“It should already be paid for.”
She tuts as she taps the front of my passport. “Fifty Euro is Traveller Tax,” she slides my credit card back toward me. “I only take cash.”
“Of course you do,” I mumble, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Is there an ATM nearby?”
She jerks her head to the far corner of the lobby where I find an archaic ATM, and I shuffle over, doing my best to guess what the Italian words mean. After five minutes of guesswork, the machine spits out a single fifty euro bill, and I walk back over to hand it to her.
She takes the money, holding it up against the light to check if it’s real. “You literally watched me get it out of the machine,” I growl.
“It is procedure,” she mumbles while narrowing her eyes at it.
After the longest minute of my life, she accepts the money and slides my key card over without a word. Normally, I ask to speak to upper management if someone treats me this dismissively, but I’m so tired that I decide it’s a problem for tomorrow.
I wheel my bag to the elevator, grateful to find it’s already waiting for me, and I punch the number three just as the doors slide closed behind me. I practically run to my room once the elevator re-opens, scanning the numbers on the doors as I pass until I find mine at the end of the hall.
With a quick swipe of my card, I push my way in, already dreaming of the king sized bed I’ll be sleeping in after a long hot shower. But I stop short when I realize the room looks like a converted storage closet.
A bare-looking twin sized bed is pushed up against a wall with one single, flat pillow.
In the corner sits a tattered wicker chair, and across from that is a tiny mini fridge, next to a wooden door.
Ants crawl along the stone floor and my hand twitches, hovering over my pocket, ready to pull out my phone to tell off Rei, again.
There’s no king size bed, no selection of pillows, and no television. Based on the chilliness in the room, no heat either. Ditching my bags next to the bed, I open the door next to the mini fridge and find the bathroom.
There’s a small standing shower with a musty, stained shower curtain, a standard toilet, a bidet, and a sink that probably costs more than anything else in this room.
Without a second thought, I strip out of my clothes and jump straight into the shower, hating how unclean I feel after the plane ride.
The water is lukewarm at best, and that’s my final straw. I shower quickly, not bothering to use the already opened and half-used body wash provided, too scared of what I might contract. Once I’ve dried off and changed into loungepants, I grab my phone and call Reid.
“Missed me already?” he answers.
“In the seven years that you’ve been my assistant, I’ve never seen you fuck up as bad as this trip.”
There’s a pause on the other line, followed by a forced chuckle. “It can’t be that bad.”
“Oh no, Reid. It’s atrocious,” I scoff. “Find me a new hotel by tomorrow, nothing less than five stars, and if you can’t find me anything then buy the nicest fucking villa closest to Rome.”
I hang up and take myself to bed, pissed when I realize the blanket is paper thin, just like the pillow.
It’s almost a blessing that the jet lag is hitting me this hard, because between this shitty sleeping arrangement and the constant noise of city life and construction outside my window, there’s no way I’d fall asleep under normal circumstances.
But tonight that’s not a problem as I doze off.