The armed men stepped closer.
The potential of it escalating to shots and seeing Ian’s blood spilled on the stone floor made Diana quickly raise her hands. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure.”
“You toffs never remember people like me.” He flashed a manufactured smile. “Unless we give you cause.”
Diana forced a laugh and willed her thoughts to stop whirling. They needed a diversion to facilitate their escape.
“You’re a man of business; that much is obvious.” She couldn’t risk looking at Ian as she crept forward, or she’d reveal her efforts to befuddle their captors. “Let’s negotiate.”
“You’re not understanding,piccola.” The tough waved his gun around at her and his men. “There’s no advantage for you to play.”
“I respectfully disagree.” Diana glanced at the man on their left. His hold on his pistol was shaky; he was the weakest link of the bunch and the best target to disarm. She prayed Ian noticed it too. “Everyone wants something. I’m prepared to provide you with a much more lucrative compensation than what your current employer is offering you.”
“Who says I need a bribe to get my hands on you and those pretty emeralds?”
A howl erupted from behind her.
Diana threw her best right hook with her palm exposed and belted the leader in the nose. His disoriented state allowed her to wrench the pistol from him.
The fiend roared at his henchmen, but Ian had similarly disarmed the shaky one. With one boot on his neck, Ian pointed two pistols at the man who was still armed. The goon holding the gun at Ian pulled the trigger, but Ian ducked in time, and fired back to disarm the assailant by shooting the pistol out of his hand.
Diana kept her gun pointed toward the gang leader. Ian searched the basement for other accomplices before taking a post with his back to hers. The waves of heat coming off him made her heartbeat retreat to a less frantic pace.
“Are you hurt?”
They spoke in unison, and it sent a delicious thrill through the pit of Diana’s stomach.
“I’m fine,” she confirmed.
Ian uttered a low grunt to affirm the same before he swung around and aimed both guns at the leader. “Let’s revisit our discussion.”
“I don’t think wewill, Mr. Holt.”
A wiry man with graying hair appeared at the crypt altar. The same man who’d scrutinized them so closely during their visit to the Swan’s Nest. Although short in stature, his posture held the same regal and lethal air as a lion king. Behind him stood six men, all armed to the teeth. Half of them woregendarmeuniforms.
The lion king flicked a hand, and the guards surrounded them before either Diana or Ian could move. They took the pistols. One of them quickly dispatched her of the knife in her pocket. The rough search of her person made Ian voice an incoherent, vicious protest, which earned him a silencing punch across the mouth.
Of all the moments for him to abandon his Herculean restraint. Diana silently pleaded for him not to do anything stupid on her behalf. She wished she could assuage him by telling him her other knife remained tucked inside the bindings wrapped around her breasts.
As she searched for some other escape route, her eyes clapped on Birdie, hiding behind the circle of men.
When they arrived in Monte Carlo, Diana had ordered the crew hands to keep tailing Ian, to keep up the appearance she remained distrustful of him. They’d obviously followed him as he’d reconnoitered the church.
The shame of her grave miscalculation heated Diana’s cheeks. Embarrassment and fear morphed into hot anger, and the warning flash of Ian’s dark eyes couldn’t stop her from flaunting a deadly smile at the gray-haired man. “Have we met,signore?”
“Forgive me, Signorina Rives, I’ve forgotten my manners. You may call me Titus.” His mouth twitched. “I did not expect I would need so much muscle to detain the two of you. That will teach me to follow the advice of your Widow.”
Amelia had once accused Diana of single-mindedness for the White Stag mission. Until now, she’d never seen the danger in it. She’d wanted a cause to drive her, something to fill her up. A purpose. A calling.
It was easier to live solely focused on that mission. In the boundaries of the black-and-white orders, on Widow’s black-and-white paper. She hadn’t questioned a thing. Because her mother had conditioned her not to.
The woman who had manipulated and lied to Diana her entire life was in league with men who’d happily kill her over a set of emeralds.
“What exactly is your agreement with Widow,capo?” Ian’s voice was cold, detached, a bastion of politeness. But his body remained coiled tight, poised to pounce the moment he had the advantage.
“Ah, youcanshow respect when you choose to. All that time in England must have made you forget what Don Alberti taught you.” Titus shook his head. “That’s why you didn’t bring usi gioielli. But now that your memory has returned, Holt, I won’t need to remind you about the rules. And you won’t move while mycompagnosrelieve Miss Rives of the necklace.”
With a flick of his hand, Titus directed two of thegendarmesto approach Diana.