AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, that’s what this op is all about, so you better get used to it.”
Cal huffed out a sigh and folded his hands on the tabletop, fiddling with the edge of the laminated menu.
Over the next thirty minutes, Cal changed positions at least ten times, ate three pastries, and made an origami crane out of a napkin, basically everything except watch the trio across the street, which was why I was surprised when he stood a second after Scivolo. “They’re moving. Let’s go.”
I tugged his arm. “Sit down. We aren’t following them anymore today.”
He flopped back into the seat. “What? Why the fuck not?”
“What did you notice about her time at the cafe?”
“I dunno. She sat there, ate a pastry, read the newspaper, and left.”
Honestly, I was surprised he’d gotten that much. I didn’t think he’d been paying any attention at all. “Did she order the pastry?”
“She must have.”
I shook my head, surprised Cal had survived as long as he had in covert ops. “She didn’t.”
“Okay, then how did the server know what to bring her?”
A smile tugged at the corners of my lips. “That’s the question. The answer is she’s a regular. She doesn’t need to order because the staff already knows what she likes.”
“But she’s allegedly only been back in Venice a short time.”
“Which means she’s cultivated this habit quickly.” I threw enough euros to cover what we’d eaten on the table and stood. “We need to be back here tomorrow, but we’ll be sitting over there.”
CHAPTER
NINE
CAL
Wakeup hard and aching for Jack, the pillow wall still solid between us, take the boat to Piazza San Marco, sit at the cafe, wait for Azzura Scivolo to arrive, watch her eat her pastry, drink her espresso, and people-watch for a couple of hours before leaving.
Rinse. Repeat.
For the last two days, all we’d done was sit and wait, and it was driving me fucking crazy.
Or maybe it was the waking up next to Jack that was making me nuts.
Either way, I was tired of waiting for something to happen.
“If you’re so sure the painting isn’t at her house, then why are we still following her around?”
Jack took a deep breath and let it out through his nose, his nostrils flaring. I’d asked this question yesterday too.
“Because she’s back in Venice for something. We need to figure out what.”
“And you can’t find out anything using your hacker skills?” I already knew the answer because I had my own duo of handy hackers back in Seattle, and I’d asked them to work their magic. They’d turned up exactly nothing. The only thing they couldfind out was that her daughter, granddaughter, and some other family still lived in Venice, though their connection to Scivolo had all but been erased. Neither carried her last name, and it had taken hacking into Scivolo’s medical record to even find out she had a daughter. None of her family had a criminal record. Her daughter was a nurse, and her granddaughter taught primary school. Scivolo didn’t even have a cell phone we could track. She was as off the grid as she could get, and if I wasn’t looking at her with my own eyes, I might have believed Reuben’s intel about her being back in Venice was bullshit.
Jack rolled his eyes. “Nothing to find.”
I sat back in my seat, my ass nearly numb from lack of movement. The afternoon sun was bright, and it filtered between the open umbrellas over the cafe tables. My fake wedding ring caught the light, and I turned my hand, making the gold reflect on the table. I was chasing a flying bug with the little circle of reflected light when movement at the table where Scivolo’s bodyguards sat caught my attention.
One of the men had a sleek cell phone pressed to his ear, and I leaned forward to whisper to Jack. “Something’s happening.”
“I see it. Relax. Act natural.”
