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“Hey!” I shouted. “What’s going on?”
“You are under arrest.”
“What? That’s crazy! What for?”
“You will soon find out.”
He pulled me from the row and pushed me toward the back of the plane rather than the front.
“Wait! My bag!”
He shook his head. “You won’t be needing it.”
I glanced out the plane’s windows as he prodded me to hurry to the rear exit, wishing Brand could somehow see me or know what was happening.
When we reached the back and the man who stood behind me put a hood over my head, I knew I wasn’t being arrested; I was being kidnapped.
30
MICHELANGELO
“Sir, you cannot go behind security lines,” a woman with a heavy Italian accent said.
“He’s with me,” said Maximo De Rossi, walking up behind me.
“Mi dispiace, signore,” the woman muttered.
“What are you doing here?” First Tropea, now Florence. Like Typhon, I was beginning to think his showing up wasn’t a coincidence.
He cocked his head. “It’s my job, my friend.”
The security agent swept by us, her cheeks flushed as she made eye contact with Maximo. I watched as he smiled and winked.
“What do you do to these women?” I said when she was a few paces away.
“I pleasure them. Just like you do. It’s been too long since you and I were out on the prowl.”
“Those days are over for me, my friend.”
“No! Do not tell me you’re in love.”
I shrugged a shoulder, not bothering to explain that the woman who’d captured my heart did it back when I was a teenager.
“Wait. Is that who you’re meeting?”
I reluctantly smiled and nodded. I wanted him long gone by the time Pen got off the plane.
When I stopped and checked the arrival board, I saw she was coming into gate eight. “Thanks again, Max,” I said, extending my hand to shake his.
“Oh no. I want to see this woman who’s taken away my wingman.”
I laughed. “It’s been a long time since our days in Milan.”
“Not so long for me,” he said with a wink.
“The plane is pulling up now,” I said as much to myself as to him.
When I’d received a message from Nemesis saying she arranged for Penelope to meet me in Florence, I was incredulous. It had been a little over a month since I last saw her, and I missed her like crazy. I was literally giddy with excitement knowing that, within mere minutes, she’d be in my arms. I rushed over so when she exited the jetway, I’d be the first person she saw.