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about her, did you not, Jakab? Did you not?”
    “No! I know nothing about this!” Jakab protested desperately. “Nothing! I am just a messenger! I was sent to find out what you wanted—”
    “I want her blood,” Novak hissed. “I want her entrails, spread out upon the ground. That is what I want.”
    Jakab swallowed repeatedly. He was gray-faced, shaking. Novak reached out, and stroked a finger along the ropes of gold that twined and twisted, snakelike, in an ancient Celtic design. The finials of the crescent were adorned with cabochon rubies. The piece pulsed and glowed in the light from the library lamp, as if it were somehow alive.
    Novak pushed one of the rubies on the finial. It came loose, and a tiny blade slid out. “Do you see this? It’s a miniature of the dagger that opened my son’s throat. It is an exact reproduction of the torque Kurt gave McCloud’s woman. My Kurt’s foul murder is immortalized in a cheap bauble for a brainless whore!”
    Jakab jumped as Novak drove the small blade into the table. It stuck, vibrating. He cleared his throat with a dry, nervous cough.
    Novak picked up the card in the black velvet box. No logo, no address, just bold letters.
    DEADLY BEAUTY
Wearable Weaponry by Tamara
    And below, a cell number. Inactive, of course. Nothing so simple as that.
    “A direct message,” the boss muttered. “A slap in my face.”
    In fact, the message was hardly direct. By pure chance had András noticed the torque on the mistress of a business associate at a party in Paris some weeks before. It had caught his eye, since he knew the odd manner of Kurt’s death. The woman had demonstrated her torque’s special properties when András got her alone, and helpfully shared the name of the broker who had sold it to her lover, but she’d been unwilling to part with the piece when András offered to buy it. Happily, no one noticed that the jewelry was not on her broken body when she was found shortly thereafter, having flung herself from the penthouse terrace.
    Drugs, of course. A useless life, a meaningless death. So sad.
    The broker had been most forthcoming, with András’s knife digging into his carotid artery. He’d provided the business card and a physical description of the torque’s designer. A stunningly beautiful, mysterious young woman who could only be Kurt’s lying, murderous ex-mistress.
    Whom Georg Luksch had sworn was dead. How very strange.
    “Help me understand this situation, Jakab.” Novak’s voice was deceptively gentle. “I spent a fortune to have Georg freed from prison. I spent another fortune to have his face and body put back together. I groomed him to be my successor, to take Kurt’s place at my side. I made him rich, powerful. Now I discover, by pure chance, that this filthy whore is alive and flourishing? And that Georg has contracted a PSS agent to locate her? Without informing me?”
    “He…how did…but how do you—”
    “How do I know this?” Novak’s smile peeled back from long, yellowing teeth. “I have my ways, Jakab. I know everything, sooner or later. I know that it is my old protégé, Vajda, who is charged with the task of looking for her. A good choice. A whore to catch a whore.” He wrenched the dagger loose. It left an ugly divot in the gleaming table. “I have been used,” he announced. “Lied to. Where is she, Jakab? Where is Steele?”
    András braced himself. Lied to, Novak’s pet hate. The words “lied to” always ended in a bloodbath.
    Jakab reached out an entreating hand. “Boss. I don’t know! I swear! They don’t tell me these things! And I am sure that Georg did not mean to mislead you. Perhaps this is a misunderstanding. The situation is complex. The woman is—”
    Thunk. There was a choked gasp from Jakab. The dagger had pinned his hand to the table. The man’s jaw sagged. Blood pooled under his palm.
    “Complex, did you say?” Novak’s voice had gotten even gentler. “I think it is quite simple, Jakab.