CHAPTER 6

She swallowed hard, then took a long sip of her scotch, shivering as the burn chased down her throat, then replaced her glass into its holder with a dull thud.

“There! Are you happy now?”

“‘Sì, grazie…’ (Yes, thank you)”

“Signor Gritti, I think I have the right to know where are you taking me… Because up until this point, this is kidnapping and…”

“This isn’t a kidnapping, Norah,” Leone countered dryly. “We’re going to Bellagio, on Lake Como. We’ll be staying at Yari’s villa. It’s in his wife’s name and away from the paparazzi’s radar. So, we’ll be okay there.”

“Lake Como? No, no, I can’t go there. I want to go home. My passport is in my apartment, my suitcase, all my things…” she insisted, reaching to open her seatbelt. “I want to go to my apartment and prepare everything for my flight back to the States. I can’t stay here a second more.”

“Oh, so you want to go back to the States, huh? The press there is more relentless than ours, Norah. Even if you managed to drop out of