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  “Not quite,” a female voice said from the doorway. “Not yet.”

  Kowalski and Yannis turned.

  Kowalski stared. Bling Lady. Only she wasn’t wearing bling right now, no. She was covered in a black Nomex flight suit, black watchcap over her dark hair. Night paint on her face so her pale skin wouldn’t stand out in the dark. She held an AK-74 with ease and clear familiarity.

  Not Bling Lady. An operator.

  “Throw your MP-5s and Sigs down, using your left hands. I’ve got Esterhaze in my sights. I could kill him at this distance even if I didn’t know how to use this weapon. But trust me when I say I do know how to use it.” She frowned. “Weapons down!”

  Esterhaze was slowly coming back into himself. He looked at the dead kidnappers, at Bling Lady. “It’s over,” he said.

  She laughed. “Oh no, Mr. Esterhaze. It’s far from over. The original agreement still stands. One hundred million dollars in the bank account we gave you. All it takes is one bullet to kill you. You’re old but you’re rich. You’ve still got years ahead of you, and what’s one hundred million dollars to you?” Still looking straight at Esterhaze, muzzle of her weapon pointed to where she was looking. “And you two? Don’t even think of trying anything. I have excellent peripheral vision and at this range I can’t miss. I can take both of you out in half a second. You lose, I win.”

  “You can’t get away,” Yannis said evenly.

  She smiled. She was truly an exceptionally beautiful woman. Kowalski hated her.

  “Yes, yes I can. You don’t need to know—isn’t that the phrase soldiers use? Need to know? So you don’t need to know but we have plans in place.” She tapped a large rectangle, bigger than a watch, on her wrist. “So when the money has been transferred, I’ll be gone.” She smiled. “And so will you two.”

  Kowalski watched her carefully. She stood like an athlete, wide stance, hands steady. If she was an operator, she wasn’t going to get tired or bored. She was fifteen feet away, too far to rush her. She wouldn’t leave them any kind of opening.

  Someone was coming for her, other operators. The resort was nearly empty, with only staff on the premises. No one who could remotely help them.

  Maybe when she got word the money had been transferred, she’d get excited and lose for an instant that laserlike focus she had. It was a slim chance, but better than the nothing they had now.

  A tapping sound came from the corridor outside. Loud, irregular. The woman shifted her attention for a microsend to the corridor behind her and frowned.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “Get out.”

  The tapping sound became louder. Behind her a Greek peasant woman appeared, dressed in black, with a black shawl around her head, dark round sunglasses though dawn was just breaking. She was blind, tapping her way down the corridor with a white cane.

  “Ti symvainei?” The voice was guttural. Yannis had taught him a few Greek phrases and he recognized this one. What’s going on?

  “Get out of here,” Bling Lady snarled, motioning with the muzzle of her weapon.

  The peasant woman bowed her head, murmuring, “Sygnò.” Sorry.

  Kowalski peered at her closely. What the fuck?

  The peasant woman suddenly whirled and whacked Bling Lady across the side of the face, hard, with the cane. Then whacked her across the hands, just as hard. Then against across the side of her head again, drawing blood.

  Bling Lady screamed, curling her bloody hands over her bloody face and Kowalski and Yannis dove for their weapons and took the shot. Two bullets slammed into Bling Lady’s shoulder, both of them opting to keep her alive for intel on who was coming and who had organized the kidnapping because they had every intention of making those guys very very sorry they’d tried this.

  The peasant woman ripped off the black shawl covering her head revealing soft red curls surrounding a very pissed-off face.

  She hauled off and kicked Bling Lady in the ribs, hard.

  “And that’s for ogling my husband, bitch!”

  Epilogue

  Kowalski found that one of the hardest things he ever did, in a life full of hard things, was fending off the immense gratitude of a very old and very rich man.

  Esterhaze’s people arrived from Athens in another expensive helicopter within the hour, to whisk him off to a private clinic. Bling Lady talked and the Greek authorities, working with Interpol, mopped up the German kidnapping ring.

  That was fine.

  What was hard to deal with was Esterhaze’s gratitude. For Yannis it was easy. Esterhaze’s company, Sun Investments, the largest hedge fund in the world, pledged to hold every single meeting, conference, seminar and workshop at the Hagios Nikolaus, to the end of time. Yannis and his cousins would walk in tall corn for the rest of their lives.

  Kowalski? He had to turn down five job offers, each offer increased by $500K up to the last offer which was for an insane amount of money. Kowalski wasn’t interested.

  Finally, Esterhaze offered Douglas’s and Midnight’s company, Alpha Security International, the contract for security for Sun Investments till the sun went nova. That was better and it made Midnight very happy because it was going to make them all rich.

  Kowalski didn’t give a shit. He was already rich.

  He had Allegra.

  THE END

  Copyright Information

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  MIDNIGHT SHADOWS: A Midnight Angel Short Story

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  Copyright © 2013 by Lisa Marie Rice

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  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  Published by The Story Vault

  Website: www.thestoryvault.com

  About the Author

  Lisa Marie Rice is eternally 30 years old and will never age. She is tall and willowy and beautiful. Men drop at her feet like ripe pears. She has won every major book prize in the world. She is a black belt with advanced degrees in archaeology, nuclear physics, and Tibetan literature. She is a concert pianist. Did I mention her Nobel Prize? Of course, Lisa Marie Rice is a virtual woman and exists only at the keyboard when writing erotic romance. She disappears when the monitor winks off.

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  Table of Contents

  MIDNIGHT SHADOWS

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Epilogue

  Copyright Information

  About the Author

  More Ebooks by Lisa Marie Rice

  Table of Contents

  MIDNIGHT SHADOWS

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Epilogue

 
Copyright Information

  About the Author

  More Ebooks by Lisa Marie Rice