"Don't make me use bad manners, Danielle."
"Okay, you've won", I sighed in surrender. When I got to the door, all I heard was Aleksej answer the phone and tell the guards to let the guest in. He spoke in Russian, but I understood every word perfectly and I knew that if I wanted to catch that person, I would have to find an excuse to go downstairs through the hallway and main staircase.
Slowly I made my way to the door and went out.
Instead of returning to the room I had been assigned, I continued down the central corridor which opened onto an imposing staircase that forked symmetrically in two opposite directions, both towards the ground floor lounge.
With great satisfaction, I saw Aleksej's guest come up.
He wore sunglasses that obscured his face, but there was something familiar about him.
I stalled further, waiting for him at the top of the stairs to pass him by.
He sent me a quick glance that did not escape me, but went on pretending nothing happened.
I wanted to approach him and talk to him, but I knew that my attitude would be too suspicious and I couldn't play that occasion with the very man with whom Aleksej smuggled diamonds or exchanged them for something else.
I've been waiting for that moment for eight months.
I even went as far as going to bed with that Russian only to enter his private home, where I knew his most interesting and profitable encounters were taking place.
And now my chance had come!
The man passed me and I feigned indifference, but just as I was about to go down the stairs, I inhaled his aftershave.
It was a very peculiar and expensive perfume.
I only knew one man who used it.
A man with whom I had been in a relationship that lasted almost a year, but made up only of sporadic and quick sexual encounters and short chats, almost always centered on work or our dreams of glory.
It had been almost a year since I last saw him, but now, in a moment, my mind outlined the profile of my ex.
Blond hair, blue eyes, square jaw, hook nose, average height and weight ...
"Ryan!" I stifled a gasp.
Suddenly I turned around in shock.
He too had turned to me and took off his glasses.
He had longer hair and an unkempt beard, but it was him.
How was it possible?
I thought back to that year together and the problems I had had ...
I remembered all the times I'd confided to him my suspicions that someone close to me was cheating on me.
"How could you do this to me?" I understood instantly. He was the person who had hindered my projects from the very beginning.
Only then did I realize how much he had used me and how he had tried to compromise my plans.
Instinctively I looked for my Beretta hidden in the pocket of my skirt, but too late I realized I had left it in my room when Alexey had called me.
Ryan did the same and suddenly I found the barrel of his gun pointed at me.
"Kendra, don't take this personally, but here only one of us can get out alive".
"It doesn't have to end like this" I tried to convince him, starting down the stairs slowly, without turning my back on Ryan.
By now it was clear that he would soon betray me with Aleksej and at that point there would be no way out for me. I had to get out of that villa and quickly!
Also, the anger at the humiliation I suffered only made me want to take my cell phone in my pocket and call my contacts immediately to warn them not to trust Ryan.
"What the hell is going on?" Aleksej's voice thundered, attracting Ryan's attention.
I had too much experience not to understand that I was burned, so I did the only thing I could still do. I picked up my cell phone and quickly wrote a message, explaining what had happened.
"Put that phone away!" Ryan yelled at me out of his mind, as soon as he noticed it, blocking me just before sending the message.
I saw Aleksej stopping Ryan with a wave of his hand and come towards me.
His gaze seemed like a thin sheet of black ice that would soon break, exploding into a thousand shards ready to hit anyone near him.
After eight months in close contact, I knew him enough to know that he wouldn't hesitate to make me pay every single second alongside him, exploited only for my own purposes.
Forgiveness was the only thing he would never have granted me.
I had no doubts about this.
He would have done anything to destroy me. But only after making me confess how far I had come to do the same with him in those months.
"Give me your cell phone" he hissed in a low voice a step away from me, holding out his hand.
I took a quick glance at the display, regretting the old cell phones that used keys, easy to recognize by touch, instead of sight.
I just had to hit the Enter key with my thumb.
I was about to press it when I saw Aleksej's swift hand reach me.
I barely had time to move my arm to avoid it, but at the same time a gunshot echoed throughout the villa.
I didn't even notice the bullet directed at me, until a sharp pain in my chest cut my breath and pushed me backwards, making me lose my balance.
The heels of my shoes lost their support and, before I could cling to Aleksej's arm, which was stretched towards me, I fell into the void.
I barely felt the touch of Aleksej's fingers before starting the descent towards my end.
The last thing I remembered was his name which I weakly pronounced as a desperate and absurd request for help and then ... the pain.
Only the pain had the power to make me feel still alive, despite the bullet lodged a few centimeters from the breastbone and the repeated blows on the steps of the staircase, on which I rolled violently to the bottom.
And finally, there was only darkness.
CHAPTER 2
ALEKSEJ
Almost forty-eight hours had passed since that delirium that was unleashed in my house.
Hours that I had spent getting angry with myself for not having noticed the deceptions of Danielle Stenton, indeed no, of Kendra Palmer.
