Chapter 13 - The Venice Masquerade
To keep Dante from digging into my late-night absences, I orchestrated a high-society distraction. I arranged for us to attend an exclusive, invitation-only masquerade ball at a 16th-century palazzo in Venice under the pretense of purchasing rare Italian oil paintings for our villa. In reality, Venice was where my remaining proxy commanders were assembling to identify the traitor who had killed my Zurich banker.
Dante looked breathtakingly lethal in his custom velvet tuxedo, a silver Venetian mask concealing half of his striking features. As we glided across the marble ballroom floor beneath glittering crystal chandeliers, he held me close, his hand resting securely against the small of my back. "You know," he whispered into my ear, his lips brushing my skin, "if I didn't know better, I'd say you brought me here to use me as eye candy while you hunt for something."
May you like
My breath hitched, but I maintained my composure, smiling beneath my feathered gold mask. "Can't a woman just enjoy a romantic evening with her husband?" I excused myself to the ladies' room ten minutes later, slipping through a hidden service door into the palazzo's lower arcades where my lead enforcer, Viktor, was waiting in the shadows.
"Who killed my banker, Viktor?" I demanded in a cold, harsh whisper, dropping the devoted wife persona entirely. Viktor looked terrified, dropping to one knee on the damp stone floor. "It wasn't a rival syndicate, My Lady," he stammered, pulling up a digital file on an encrypted tablet. "The killer used a custom government-issued suppressor. The footprint matches high-level federal agents... specifically, the task force that freed Sofia Vale from federal custody three days ago."
