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Ricci threw himself down on the sofa, dropping his head into his hands. “I had no choice.”
“Explain,” Mikel commanded.
Ricci raised his head. “I was blackmailed.” He looked around at the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. “For all I know, they’re watching me now. They probably know you’re here.” His toned was defeated. “I didn’t know what they wanted me to do until I got to the…site.”
“They?” Mikel prompted.
“The blackmailer. The kidnappers. Whoever it was.”
“You don’t know?”
Ricci shook his head. “They wore masks when they picked me up at the train station in Brussels and kept me in the back of a windowless van. When we got to the site, I was blindfolded. All I saw was the operating room and the patient.”
“What about the anesthetist and the nurse?” Quinn asked.
“I have no idea who they were. They knew their jobs, though. Not that it was a demanding procedure.” Ricci’s tone was dismissive.
His lack of remorse for what he’d done to Gabriel sent a nearly suffocating rage through Quinn.
“How long were you in the van?” Mikel asked.
“They took my watch…and never returned it,” Ricci said. “But it was more than three hours, I would guess.”
Dupont’s crew were pros. She had to give that to them.
“Any guess as to where they took you? Any distinctive sounds or smells as you got in and out of the van?” Mikel probed.
“I didn’t want to know where I was. I didn’t want to know anything. I just wanted to be done with them.” Ricci’s voice vibrated with real fear.
“All right. Let’s go back to the beginning,” Mikel said. “When and how did the blackmailer first contact you?”
“About two months before the surgery, a manila envelope showed up mixed in with my office mail, except it hadn’t gone through the post.”
“Do you still have it?” Mikel asked.
Ricci made a pushing-away motion with his hands. “No, no, I destroyed everything in it.”
“What was in the envelope?”
Ricci’s gaze flitted around the room again. Then he met Mikel’s gaze almost defiantly. “Photos. Of me with someone not my wife.”
“We know about the apartment in Paris,” Quinn said. “Were they taken there?”
“Yes.” Ricci seemed to deflate. “And one other place.”
“Where was the other place?” Mikel pounced.
“A…a bar restroom.” Ricci stared between his knees. “A gay bar. My wife might forgive me if I had a female lover, but a man? She would divorce me.”
“And take all your money?” Quinn asked, a note of scorn in her voice.
Ricci gave a humorless laugh. “She would take all her money.” He swept a hand around. “This? This is our smallest property. We have six homes scattered over the world, each with a full staff at all times. We have a private jet to travel among them whenever we want to. Sylvie likes the cachet of my profession, so I continue to work, but my pay is a bagatelle compared to her family’s money.”
Quinn wanted to smash his perfect nose with her fist. He’d nearly crushed another man’s future for a bunch of houses he hadn’t even earned himself.
This time, Ricci saw the look in her eyes and cowered back against the cushions.
“What came with the photos?” Mikel prodded.
