The King's Gold Read Online Free PDF

ears, yelling, until Marco closed his fingers over my throat.
    “Gag—gaaaaa—” I wrenched his arm off me, biting his hand.
    “Shit!”
    He gave me a good, stunning slap. And then another.
    “Go. Go. Move!”
    I held my burning face in my hands. The car roared off through the darkening streets, as we sped toward the Long Beach Airport.
4
    The streetlights flickered in the windshield as we passed through Long Beach. We reached the airport terminal in twenty minutes. At the car park, an automated machine spit out a ticket; Domenico drove to the very last, nearly empty floor of the complex.
    “Let me go.” I still held Antonio Medici’s letter in my grabby hands. “Let me out of here.”
    I looked around to see a man walking away from his car in the parking garage. As I tried to scream, Marco wrapped himself around my upper body. Almost like a lover, he twined his arms tight about my neck, whispering in a hoarse voice: “Lola, you’ll understand what we’re doing if you just listen .”
    “I don’t talk to crazy, murdering—”
    “Crazy. That’s a little extreme.” He lightly bit my cheek, to further pacify me. “Though, I have been going through such a hard time these past two years.”
    “Oh, my Lord—”
    “Yes, after I flew out from France to Antigua for my father’s funeral I just…drank. Floated around in the pool, chugging brandy, crying about my papi . He was such a bastard. But I miss him. I loved him.” After a long, rough pause, he said in a calmer voice: “Everyone did. They were all—my father’s colleagues—telling me that I couldn’t let his death go unavenged. I was supposed to kill you and your family, understand. All very Greek tragedy. And well within my training, as a long time ago, the colonel taught me how to be an excellent assassin.”
    “I’ll bet.”
    “Oh, we had some jolly times in the war. But I was so depressed that I halfway didn’t give a fuck if you all rotted or not. Your mother, Juana, your ‘father,’ Manuel…your sister, the unhygienic Yolanda, who’s now living in the suburbs, I hear? And your fancy man, Erik. Because I had tried to run away from all this—violence. Killing. I went to Amsterdam, Paris, drank absinthe. Not that I exactly kept my hands clean in Europe, but I found that I no longer had my father’s knack for…taking care of problems. Lost the stomach for it.”
    “It’s easy, man,” Blasej said. “Try it out on her. She’ll be a pain in the airport—”
    “I don’t really think she wants to bring me out of retirement.” Marco brought his face closer to mine. “I did make a mistake, showing you who I was. I lost my temper.”
    “You’re kidnapping me!”
    “What I’m doing with you remains to be seen, doesn’t it?” He tweaked me on the nose, trying to smile. “Because I feel so very optimistic about your future. You see, I’m betting on you, Lola. I think you’re going to pay off. And I am a gambler, aren’t I, Blasej?”
    Blasej threw up his arms. “You always take the table at Carlo, man.”
    “Well, we’re back in Monte Carlo tonight. And I think I’ve got a winning hand.”
    “You can go f—” I blathered.
    “Oh, shut up,” he said fiercely. “And let me finish before you lose your ladylike manner. As I was saying, there I was, in Antigua, drunk, depressed—considering a pipe bomb for you or a shotgun for me. It was very bad. But then…something happened.”
    Marco knocked his head against mine again, waiting for me to guess.
    Grudgingly, I rustled the pages in my hand. “You found the letter.”
    “Yes. I met Mr. Soto-Relada and well—there it is in your hot little paws. I’ve spent the last year and a half trying to crack it. I did make some progress. But not enough. And that just won’t do. Because I need to . My father had a vision for the country, and if there is gold to be found, then, why, I can redeem myself. And finish his work—”
    “Your father’s vision,” I spat. “He was a