money. And yet you refuse and continue to keep me prisoner here. What was your reason for kidnapping me?”
“You’re the one who put that ad on the Internet and made it necessary for me to move on this job before I was ready.” Her green eyes gleamed like an icy glacial stream. “So you might as well provide us room and board while we take care of the matter, and keeping you here—well, it’s easy to ensure that you don’t get your hands on our little prize.”
It’s not your little prize. But according to her, it was.
He simply didn’t give a crap what she thought.
Liesbeth glanced up a split second before one of her young male cohorts wandered in. “What do you want, Hendrik?”
In his singsong Dutch accent, Hendrik said, “This is a very nice bedroom. I think I should take it.”
Joseph growled like a lone wolf who had been challenged. “And do what with it? Spit on the floor?” As far as Joseph could tell, Hendrik was Liesbeth’s enforcer: big, ugly, and mean. He seemed to have no sophistication, no manners at all, and the lustful way he eyed Joseph’s possessions made Joseph want to slap him. Hard.
“I would sleep here, of course.” Hendrik strolled over to Joseph’s seventeenth-century baroque Italian antique bed and caressed the wood with covetous fingers. “You must imagine yourself to be a king, lolling around in such a valuable piece of furniture.”
“I do not loll,” Joseph said coldly. His designer had created this room as a reverent homage to Joseph’s importance in the world, with a fireplace, a sitting area, and that bed, raised on a dais and enfolded with velvet bed curtains. To be here, insulted and disdained, cut off from the world, his privacy stolen by gangsters who wanted a place to stay and the bottle of wine he so deservedly coveted—it was almost more than he could bear.
“Enough, Hendrik,” Liesbeth said. “What do you want?”
“To find out what you want on your pizza.” Hendrik grinned like a half-wit and rubbed his stomach in a crude imitation of hunger.
Joseph snapped in bitter irritation. “I don’t want pizza again. My God, how often can you eat that crap?”
Hendrik’s grin widened. “Why shouldn’t I, old man? And in fact, why shouldn’t you? You’re Italian. Don’t all Italians like pizza?”
The cold rage of helplessness burned in Joseph’s gut. “No wonder you work for her .” He pointed a shaking finger at Liesbeth. “You are so stupid .”
Big, bulky, mean, and so fast Joseph never saw him move, Hendrik lunged.
Liesbeth punched her elbow hard in his chest, and the move made a sound like thumping a ripe watermelon. “No, Hendrik. We need him.”
Hendrik lunged again, trying to get around her, snapping like a junkyard dog.
She stiff-armed him, knocking him against the wall. One of Joseph’s finest pieces of art, an original Klimt art nouveau painting, rattled and turned sideways on its hook.
Joseph gasped in horror, and snapped, “Be careful, you careless fool.”
Liesbeth stilled.
Joseph had been an only child, one of the privileged Bianchins of Bella Valley, and he said whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, and never worried who was hurt.
But now, as Hendrik pushed off from the wall and stood staring at him, chin thrust forward, hands in loosely balled fists, looking like a bull about to charge and gorehim, it occurred to Joseph that he was the fool. Perhaps this time he should have held his tongue.
Liesbeth stepped back. “He’s an old man,” she said. “Don’t hurt him too much.”
Hendrik’s eyes narrowed. He straightened. He grinned into Joseph’s face.
For the first time Joseph saw a cunning intelligence there.
Turning slowly, Hendrik faced the wall. He cocked his head at the same angle as the painting.
An icy, incredulous thought trickled into Joseph’s mind. He fumbled to place his gnarled hands on the arms of his chair, to lift himself from his seat, to stop Hendrik before he dared to…
Hendrik’s