“You’ve hardly spoken a word since we left New York,” Nathaniel said as soon as they were alone in their room.
“What is there to say?” Natalia said. “We’re here for an inquisition, not a vacation.”
“The inquisition doesn’t start for five hours. Till then, let us enjoy life.”
By noon Natalia was swimming laps in the pool, ignoring the stares of strangers who were trying to figure out the relationship between the voluptuous woman in the white bikini and the silver-haired man who looked old enough to be her father.
She toweled off and slipped on a pair of sandals. “I’m tired of giving those mudaks something to gawk at,” she said. “Let’s walk in the garden.”
Directly behind the pool area were the lush multi-terraced Versailles Gardens, the thirty-five-acre centerpiece of the Ocean Club.
They walked hand in hand past tropical trees, bronze and marble statuary, and a pond whose surface was graced with water lilies and lotus blossoms, until they reached the final terrace — the Cloisters — a twelfth-century monastery that had been shipped stone by stone from France and now stood overlooking Nassau Harbor.
The air was fragrant with the scent of roses, hibiscus, and oleander. Natalia sat down on a stone bench.
“Why are they persecuting you?” she asked. “Zelvas shortchanged the customers and skimmed off the diamonds. You’re the one who caught him. You’re the one who had him killed.”
But they both knew that was only a half-truth.
When Nathaniel found out that Zelvas was stealing, he knew he should report the violation to the Syndicate immediately and return the stolen diamonds to them.
“I have a better idea,” he had told Natalia. “Let Zelvas take the fall, but we’ll take the money.”
He had recruited Natalia to get close to Zelvas.
“How close?” she asked.
Nathaniel didn’t hesitate. “Whatever it takes.”
And so Natalia worked her magic, the big, ugly Russian fell in love, and the cache of diamonds grew fatter.
It was all falling into place until the night Chukov got drunk and let Zelvas in on the family’s most-guarded secret. Natalia’s lover Nathaniel was also her father.
After that, it all unraveled like a Russian soap opera. Zelvas’s love for Natalia turned into sheer disgust, and he made plans to leave the country.
Now it had come to this: Zelvas dead, the diamonds missing, the Syndicate ready to cut off Nathaniel’s hands for stealing and put a bullet through his heart for betraying them.
“I’ll be all right,” Nathaniel said. It was a hollow promise.
And then he heard it — a soulful moan, like an animal in pain. It took several seconds before he realized the sound was coming from Natalia. She buried her face in her hands and began weeping.
He sat by her side and wrapped his arm around her. “What? What is wrong?”
“You swore—” Natalia said through her sobs. “Night after night you held my hand in the hospital and swore you would never leave me.”
“And I haven’t. All these years, I have always been here for you.”
“But I know them, Papa. They’ll kill you.”
“All they want is money. The man who stole our diamonds has it, and Chukov will find him.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“It may take everything I have,” Nathaniel said, “but I’ll pay it back, and the Syndicate will be happy.”
She shook her head. “No. They’re evil. They will still want their pound of flesh. They’ll kill you. Please…please…don’t go to the meeting. Let’s pack our bags and run.”
“We can’t run. Zelvas tried to run. It doesn’t work.”
“But I need you,” she wailed. “Now more than ever.”
“No, lyubimaya moya. You are no longer a little girl in a hospital bed. You’re a grown woman. Smart, strong, brave. I’m proud of you. You need me less than ever.”
Natalia’s body heaved with sobs. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and with tears streaming down her face, she kissed him again and again — his cheeks, his eyes, his lips.
“Papa,” she moaned. “You can’t leave me alone. Not now. I’m pregnant.”
Chapter 77
THERE ARE TWELVE hundred and one rooms in the Royal Towers at the Atlantis Resort. Twelve hundred of them are just what you’d expect from a luxury hotel. But the twelve hundredth and first is beyond imagination.
The Bridge Suite is an expanse of ten rooms on top of the bridge that connects the two Royal Towers buildings. It overlooks the entire resort and marina, and at twenty-five thousand dollars a night, it’s the most expensive hotel suite in the world.
It’s where the Diamond Syndicate held their meeting.
Two men in dark suits picked up Nathaniel and Natalia at their hotel, drove them to the Atlantis, and escorted them to the Bridge Suite by private elevator.
Nathaniel was patted down, then both of them were body-scanned — first with a metal detector, then with an EMF meter looking for bugs.
So much for trusting me, Nathaniel thought.
“You’ll wait in the other room,” one of the guards told Natalia.
He escorted her down a hallway while the other guard unlocked the front door of the suite and led Nathaniel into a lavish living room decorated in red, black, and lots of gold.
Six men sat on sofas upholstered in muted shades of silk damask. Nathaniel recognized the five Syndicate heads. The sixth man was a mystery.
Arnoff, the senior-ranking member of the Syndicate, spoke. There were no pleasantries, no foreplay, no invitation to sit.
“Did you know Zelvas was stealing from us?” Arnoff asked.
“No,” Nathaniel said. “When he delivered merchandise to our customers, he would always come back with the exact amount of money I expected. My ledgers were balanced to the penny. You saw them every week. It was months before I finally found out he was shortchanging the diamond merchants a few stones on every shipment.”
“Those merchants are our loyal customers,” Arnoff said. “Without them, we would be out of business. Every time he extorted a little bit from each client, he was doing damage to our reputation and goodwill.”
Nathaniel was still standing. “Absolutely,” he said. “That’s why I had him killed.”
“And what happened to the diamonds?” Arnoff asked.
“Unfortunately, they were stolen from Zelvas before I could retrieve them,” Nathaniel said. “But I have my people looking for them. I’m confident we’ll have them back soon.”
“That’s good to hear,” Arnoff said. “Very reassuring. Have a seat, Nathaniel. Make yourself comfortable.”
Prince lowered himself into a soft gold-and-white Queen Anne chair.
There was a brass samovar on the table in front of Arnoff, and he leaned across, turned the spigot, and filled a china cup with steaming aromatic coffee.
“Smells like home, yes?” He smiled. “It’s imported from Leningrad. Can I offer you some?”
“Thank you,” Nathaniel said.
“Liar!” Arnoff roared and lifted the samovar by the base, dumping the entire pot of scalding coffee on Nathaniel’s lap.
Prince screamed. He leaped up from the chair, grappled frantically with his belt, and dropped his pants to the floor. His thighs were already burned red, and he shoved both hands into his underwear and cupped himself, but nothing could relieve the scorching pain.
“Zelvas was stupid,” Arnoff bellowed. “We are not. He stole. You helped him.”
“No. I swear on my mother’s grave,” Nathaniel said, blinded by the searing pain. “I run the North American operation. Why would I steal from myself?”