Hooked Read Online Free PDF Page B

With a single twisting thrust up and back into the customer’s heart, she killed him on the spot.
    The owner called the police but in the panic and confusion that ensued before they arrived, Nicky grabbed X by the hand. He pulled her out the side entrance, hid her in his long American Cadillac, and under cover of night smuggled her onto
Lydia
, which was tied up at its usual berth on the Bosporus.
    Under the unspoken code of the East, both Nicky and X understood the terms of their bargain. His silence in return for her obedience. It was, like all good bargains, of equal value to both parties. Nicky’s silence had saved X’s life, and X, with the shrewdness born of slums, pimps, and shark-like nightclub owners, was an invaluable assistant. They needed each other and recognized the need. Nothing more had to be said.
    Another person owned by Nicky was his Royal Highness Prince Abd-el Sadun, all five-feet-six, two hundred and sixty-five pounds of him. Sadun was the cousin of Farouk, grosser, more depraved and more degenerate, according to those who knew them both.
    Nicky had purchased the Prince for the price of his flight out of Egypt when Farouk’s entire family was expelled. Additionally, Nicky had borne the cost of Sadun’s gambling debts and paid out hush money to the young boys and girls who were his favorite sexual playthings.
    Over the years, Sadun had cost Nicky a million and a half dollars, an investment that Nicky fully expected would one day repay him handsomely. The question was where and under what circumstances. Now, Nicky thought, perhaps, the time had come.
    “What’s Nicky like?” Gavin asked Gail as they sat on the terrace in Positano.
    “Thoughtful, selfish, hard, soft, cruel, calculating, generous,“ she said. “Dangerous—”
    “Are you serious about him?”
    Gail nodded. “More than ever—”
    “Is he serious about you?”
    “I hope,” said Gail. “I wish. Would you like to meet him?”
    Gavin nodded. “Yes,” he said. Nicholas Kiskalesi. A man who controlled fortunes, who bought and sold governments, a man who knew who had done what to whom and why — and where — the bodies were buried. “I’d like very much to meet him.”

9
    “
Hos geldiniz!
” Nicky Kiskalesi stood on the bow of the gleaming white
Lydia
as she dropped anchor in the sapphire-blue waters in the yacht basin of Positano. He had thick platinum white hair, a swarthy tan and wore large, dark sunglasses. Stocky of build, he wore white trousers tailored in Saville Row and a blue Sea Island cotton T-shirt made by his shirtmaker on Via Condotti that made him look taller and thinner. He was casual, commanding and impeccable.
    “
Merhaba! Merhaba! Nasilsiniz
?” Gail shouted back across the water. Nicky had taught her several phrases in Turkish, some for use in polite conversation and others for use in bed.
    “
Cok iyiyim. Tesekur!
” Nicky yelled back in answer.
    Gail looked better than he had ever seen her, thinner, sleeker, more confident. Nicky studied the man standing next to her. Gavin Jenkins was younger than Nicky had imagined, in his late twenties, but the strength in his sculpted jaw line was apparent even from a distance.
    The first mate lowered the launch and it sped toward the dock where Gail and Gavin waited. When it made the return trip to
Lydia
, two mates held the polished chrome gangway and Gail and Gavin boarded
Lydia
. Nicky’s welcoming kiss left no doubt whatsoever as to the nature of his relationship with Gail. When they pulled apart, Gail introduced Gavin.
    “Gail says that you have performed a miracle,” Kiskalesi said, extending his hand. He looked straight into Gavin’s eyes. Steel gray into black.
    “I don’t believe in miracles,” said Gavin, shaking hands with the man sometimes referred to as the rogue pirate of the Mediterranean. “There is only medicine.”
    Their first encounter: it had been a draw.
    While Gail went to the stateroom to oversee the unpacking of her luggage,