Intrigue (Elvis Presley Story)

Chapter 19

"You've got somebody else after olivia miller, don't you?"

Antonio's employer rose behind the desk. "What the hell are you doing here? Have you gone mad?"

Their meetings had always been arranged by a phone call, the locations always the boss's choosing. But this morning, in olivia Miller's kitchen, Antonio had heard enough to become suspicious.

He'd seen enough to know the truth. This was more than the routine search-and-retrieval mission he'd been hired to carry out.

This was personal.

"You haven't got Mr Smith with you to protect you here."

Antonio pounded his fists on the desk, sending papers flying. "So answer the damn question!"

But his boss had been a survivor for far too long to let anger get the better of common sense. Momentary fury at the intrusion quickly faded from his icy eyes.

"Yes."

"You admit it?" His boss gestured to the chair across from the desk, but Antonio wasn't here to sit and make nice. Finding out he was right about having competition on this mission didn't ease the sting to his pride. Or his concern about his competitor's tactics.

"You've setting me up to be the scapegoat. There's been more than one crank phone call, right? You're terrorising that woman to throw suspicion onto me so that someone else can fly under the radar and complete the assignment."

Unmoved by his temper, the boss sat. "The profile does fit your history, doesn't it?"

"You erased that from my record."

The boss actually smiled, as if they were sharing an old joke between friends. "Are you telling me you haven't thought about olivia miller in that way? I can make the paperwork go away, but the urge to take, to control, to own a woman in that way has always been your downfall."

Antonio ran his tongue around his lips. It wasn't olivia herself that had him so frustrated that he was tempted 
to commit violence at that moment.

"I have been loyal to you since I was a boy. No one in your organisation-no one-has served you better than me. And now you're setting me up to take the fall so that someone else can get the job done?"

"The method is of his own choosing. I have to admire it, though. There's nothing like a classic misdirection to divert Miss Miller and the police's attention from the job I need to have done."

"I could of completed the job on my own. I still can."

Impatient fingers drummed on the desktop. "The information Vernon presley may have written down could destroy everything that has taken me years to build. There too many secrets, too much money, at stake. Your pride is of no consideration to me. I'm covering my bets."

"It wasn't enough for you to pull the trigger and kill Presley?" Antonio finally lowered himself onto the chair, but he perched on the forward edge. "I would have done that for you, too."

"This is business. That was personal. It was my right."

Antonio detected the slightest quivering in the boss's tone. The clenched fist tapping the arm of the chair confirmed the rare revelation of honest emotion.

"Presley betrayed me. He convinced the others that irina zorinsky Miller had to die."

Antonio laughed before he could consider the wisdom of silence. "Do you know that olivia wears a charm around her neck that belonged to irina Miller?" Antonio pulled the ring of keys from his pocket and flicked the attached gold charm with his  thumb. A charm marked with a Cyrillic Z. "Just like the one my mother gave me." Antonio paused. "Is Olivia Miller my sister? Is that what Vernon presley found out?"

Raw, blinding emotion passed over his boss's expression. "Irina Miller is dead. Her bloodline died along with her. Nothing but getting me that information is any concern of yours."

The emotion passed as quickly as it had shown itself. The boss got up, walked to the door and opened it. Antonio was being dismissed. "I will see the job done. Whether you get me the information or my other operative does, doesn't matter."

It mattered. Antonio was the number-one man here. He'd earned the right to be trusted without question. But the loyalty that was of such importance to him meant nothing to his employer.

"I will have whatever presley left for olivia, and I will bury it forever. The man who brings me that information will be rewarded-handsomely, as usual. The man who fails? Dies."

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