Pretending to have been shocked awake, Malone jerked up from the settee on which he lay in the darkness. Men barged into the sunroom with such force that the glass door slammed against the huge window next to it, shattering both panes. Shards of glass hit the stone floor, exploding into smaller pieces, crushed by the boots of the men who charged in, aimed pistols and flashlights, and yanked him to his feet.

“What the -” Malone tried to sound disoriented.

A man rushed outside. “We’ve found him! Here!

Over here!”

“What the hell’s going on?” Malone murmured. “Why are you…” The lights still hadn’t been turned on. The flashlights were aimed at his eyes, one of the beams so blindingly close that he raised his left arm to brush it away, only to have his arm thrust down and the flashlight whacked across the side of his face.

The impact sent a burst of colors through his mind. For a moment, those colors swirled. His legs bent. He started to fall, but the men jerked him to his feet, and the flashlight was cocked back to strike him once again when several more people rushed into the room.

Bellasar demanded, “Where is he? Show me the son of a bitch!”

The overhead lights came on. The blow to Malone’s face had blurred his vision, but now he managed to focus it, seeing Bellasar stalk through the guards.

Bellasar’s normally handsome features were twisted with rage. “The first time we met, you were tied to a chair. You’d pissed your pants.” Bellasar’s chest heaved, driven by the force of his emotions as he put on leather gloves.

“I don’t understand,” Malone said. “Why -”

“Shut your mouth!” Bellasar punched it.

Malone’s head jerked back. For a moment, he saw more colors flash. His ears rang. As his disorientation cleared, he became aware of blood trickling down his chin from his split lips, joined by blood from a throbbing gash on his left cheekbone where the flashlight had struck him.

“That first time I saw you, as I looked at the piss beneath your chair, I said you were a fool for refusing to cooperate with me.” Bellasar’s voice trembled. “But I also said that I was reasonable, that I was willing to give you a second chance. I warned you, though.” He punched Malone again, mangling his lips further. “I never give third chances.”

The men holding Malone were jolted back by the strength of the blow.

Malone needed a few seconds longer before his mind stopped spinning. “I don’t give third chances, either. You’ve hit me twice. Try doing it again.”

“What?”

“Without your guards hanging on to me.”

“This close to dying, you have the nerve to talk to me like that?”

“Why in Christ’s name are you threatening me?”

“You actually think you can bluff your way out of this?”

“Out of what?”

“You deny sneaking out of the library window?”

“Sneaking out of the library window? Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds?”

“You deny you were in there?”

“Of course I was in there! You made such a big deal about Dante and Beatrice, I read the book you suggested! You want a question and answer session? You want me to tell you what Beatrice was wearing when Dante first saw her? A red dress! Do you want to know the color of her dress the next time he saw her? White! The time after that, he saw her in church! The time after that, she was at a -”

“Why was the library window open a crack?”

“Beats the shit out of me! I didn’t know it was!”

“The guard didn’t see you leave the library.”

“That makes us even, because when I left, I didn’t see him, either.” Malone wiped blood from his face. “Reading about Beatrice got me thinking about sketching Sienna without her being in front of me. So I came over here and tried something new, but I was sleepier than I thought, and I took a nap on that settee. The next thing I knew, your storm troopers were barging in.”

“Prove it! Where’s the new sketch?”

“On the floor next to the settee. One of your guards is standing on it. I’m afraid it got a little smeared from my blood spattering over it.”

The guard who was standing on the sketch stepped away. Frowning at the blood and boot marks on it, Bellasar picked up the wrinkled page. “I’ve seen all the sketches you did of her. If this is the same as…” His voice faltered when he looked at it.

Malone had sketched it two days previously, when his obsession with Sienna had compelled him to depict an idealized version of her beauty.

Bellasar’s mouth opened as if he wanted to say something. When he finally managed to get the words out, his voice was a whisper. “It’s stunning.”

“Yeah, with the boot marks and the blood. I can’t wait to see it framed.”

Bellasar gazed at it, awestruck. “Breathtaking.” At last, he lowered it. “… Apparently, I was mistaken.”

“That makes my face feel a whole lot better.”

“I’ll send for a doctor.”

“While you’re being so kindhearted, how about telling your goons to take their hands off me?”

Bellasar gave him a warning look. When he nodded to his men, it was as if he had pressed a switch – they instantly let Malone go.

Malone wiped more blood from his mouth. Glancing past Bellasar, he saw Sienna in the doorway. She seemed even more dazed.

Bellasar noticed her. “There’s nothing to worry about, my dear. You’ll be able to pose tomorrow.”

Sienna didn’t respond. The dark of her eyes was huge, her expression listless. Malone wondered if she’d been drugged.

Outside on the harshly lit terrace, the two Russians waited. As Bellasar went to speak to them, Malone made another attempt to memorize their faces. Then, knowing he couldn’t keep staring at them, he did what he wanted to do more than anything – to look at Sienna, to try to get a sense of what had happened in Istanbul, of what she was thinking and feeling. Something sank within him when she turned away. He couldn’t tell if it was from fear or because she was horrified by the injuries to his face. But in that case, if she had any regard for him, wouldn’t she have given him a look of sympathy?

Not if she was afraid of Bellasar’s reaction.

When Bellasar came back from speaking to the Russians, he, Sienna, and Malone went through the terrace doors into the château. They were followed by three bodyguards.

As the group climbed the curving staircase, Bellasar said, “From now on, if you intend to work at night, ask a guard to escort you.”

“You make it sound like I’m a prisoner.”

With no reply, Bellasar led Sienna up to the final level. Two of the bodyguards went with them. A third stayed with Malone.

Bellasar’s voice echoed faintly from above. “No, my dear, I’m not finished talking with you.”

Malone’s stomach squirmed, but with the guard watching him, he forced himself to look as if he didn’t care about what he’d heard. Then a heavyset man holding a medical bag came up the stairs, and Malone had something to distract him.

The doctor made the repairs in Malone’s room, washing off the blood, then applying sharp-smelling disinfectant to the gashes. The one caused by the flashlight blow to Malone’s cheek required five stitches. The mangled lips, the doctor concluded, would mend on their own. “Keep the stitches dry.” The doctor’s English was heavily accented. “Take two of these pills every six hours. They’ll relieve the pain. I’ll come back to examine you tomorrow.”

A guard was in the hallway when the doctor left. Malone closed and locked the door, yanked off his bloody clothes, and threw them into a hamper. Mindful of what the doctor had said about keeping the stitches dry, he leaned his head back from the shower spray when he turned on the faucets. The steaming water rinsed the blood from his chest, arms, and hands, but no matter how hard he scoured his body, he couldn’t feel clean.