He nodded.
She looked down at her hands. They were trembling visibly. She clenched them into fists. “Why are you telling me this, Janos?” she asked. “It’s not an efficient tactic if you want to save your friend. Why not just knock me on the head and do the deal?”
Val shook his head. “I was hoping to find a better solution to the problem,” he confessed. “One that would not damn me to hell.”
She looked dubious. “You think that a solution exists?”
“I hope so,” he said. “I do not want to hurt you. And Imre would not thank me for saving him from death and torture at your expense.”
“Hmmph,” she snorted. “This Imre must have very high standards if he can reason like that in Novak’s clutches.”
“Oh, God, yes. That he does,” Val agreed fervently. “His high standards have been a pain in my ass for most of my life.”
Tam waited for more, and threw up her arms. “So?” she prompted him. “The suspense is killing me. Tell me about this better solution.”
“I have not formulated it completely,” he admitted. “But I want to offer a trade. You help me with my problem, and I help you with yours.”
Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Go on.”
“By helping eliminate Novak, you help both yourself and your daughter,” he said. “I hire a team, and we will set a trap for Novak. You are the bait, pretending to be fooled into being delivered to him. You will be covered on all sides by manpower and electronic backup.”
“Ah.” Her bright eyes were unreadable. “And what do you offer me in return?”
“I will take care of Georg for you. He will never bother you again.”
“Do you mean kill him?” Her eyebrows shot up. “Ambitious.”
He shrugged. “I will manage it.”
She shook her head, and his heart sank. “It’s a bad bargain,” she said. “Not a fair trade.”
“Why not?” He could not control the jagged edge of frustration in his voice. “We will solve all your problems at once.”
“No. Your problem, Janos,” she pointed out. “Which is much bigger than mine.”
“Is it?” he demanded. “What happened in that shuttle bus did not look like much of a problem to you? Georg Luksch is not a fucking problem for you?”
She dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “If those guys were PSS and working for Georg, then they wouldn’t have killed us,” she said with irrefutable logic. “And I am perfectly capable of taking care of the Georg problem myself, if it comes to that.”
“Oh, yes? With Rachel to protect?” he snarled. “And even if you should succeed at killing Georg, what kind of mother would you be if you are on the run night and day from Daddy Novak for the rest of your short life? He will not rest now that he knows you are alive. You will never sleep again.”
She shook her head. “I never slept much anyhow.”
Val clenched his fists. “Very well. Would you consider doing it for payment?”
She blinked a few times. “How much payment?”
“At least three million euro, perhaps closer to four,” he said rashly. “Everything I own, minus whatever it will cost me to mount this operation. And it will take a little while to pull it all together, transfer the stock options, sell the apartment in Rome, et cetera.”
Her eyes widened. She looked toward Rachel, splashing and singing in the bathtub. “A generous offer, but no,” she said quietly.
He wanted to scream, pound the walls, smash the lamps. “But if Novak and Georg both are—”
“My chances of surviving what you propose are too small,” she cut in. “I appreciate your honesty, and I’m sorry for your friend, but my first responsibility is to Rachel.”
“Which is why you should reconsider,” he said desperately. “The quality of both your lives will improve if—”
“I know what’s at stake,” she snapped. “The answer is still no. There is nothing more for us to talk about. Rachel and I will be on our way as soon as I get her dressed. Unless you intend to abduct or murder us, of course. In any case, excuse me while I go shampoo Rachel’s hair.”
Val sat on his ass outside the bathroom door, limp and bleak and defeated. He stared at Steele where she kneeled by the bathtub, her back straight, her husky voice murmuring nonsense to the child as Rachel sputtered and shrieked at the insult of shampoo. He stared at her black diaper bag, his hand fiddling with the tiny SafeGuard X-Ray Specs burr beacons he had hidden there, in case he got lucky enough to manage to mark her things again. Her murmuring voice floated out of the bathroom. He was out of her line of vision.
He pulled the smallest beacon out, and slid it into the seam at the bottom of her bag. Done. He would know her location, at least for another twenty-four hours. He was not yet ready to admit defeat. And the end of the world.
He got up and logged on to his computer. A few minutes later, Steele carried the wriggling Rachel out wrapped in a big bath towel and dressed her with some difficulty. When Rachel was on the floor again playing with her dolls, Val slid the laptop across the bed and spun the screen around to face her. “Here.”
She frowned down at the screen. “What’s this?”
“The online catalog for the department store at the mall,” he said.
She looked blank. “And? So? What about it?”
“Clothes for the wedding,” he said. “We’ll have them delivered to the hotel.”
Her mouth tightened. “Have you not been listening to a word I said? You’re not going to the wedding, Janos. No is no. Capisci?”
He gritted his teeth. “Do you need clothes for this event, or do you not?”
She gave him a thunderous glare, and then, out of nowhere, her face miraculously cleared. “Whatever I need, did you say?”
“Whatever,” he stubbornly repeated.
Too late, he registered the catlike satisfaction on her face as she tugged the keyboard closer and began to clickity-click with the deft ease of a seasoned online shopper. Oh, cazzo. He was in for it.
She was going to make him pay and pay and pay.
Thank God for cosmetics. Tam dabbed still another layer of coverup under her eyes with the makeup sponge. The bruise-colored shadows down there were gruesome to behold without foundation to camouflage them. She studied the effect, and put on the finishing touches: a final brush of mascara to make already thick lashes thicker, a slick of clear gloss to make the bronze-toned lipstick glisten, color on her cheeks to brighten her shocking pallor.
Not bad. Even on a day from hell.
Janos was in the other room, sunk in silence as he perused the details of her Internet order. Yes, she had been bad, very bad. But he deserved to be punished for his mischief-making. He deserved worse for what he’d done to Rosalia alone, let alone the passports, the adoption agency, the cops. She didn’t even want to total up how much money he’d cost her.
Therefore, she was authorized to fully enjoy the horrified look on his face when he saw the totals. Hah. Take that, testa di cazzo.
She went out into the hotel room and rummaged through the shopping bags, gathering the elements of her ensemble together. Janos watched her take the new shoes out of their box, and then glanced at the receipt for the reference.
“Manolos,” he said, his tone aggrieved. “Eight hundred dollars?”