Kidnapped By The Italian Mafia

"Isabella, Cafe blanc plat et danois au fromage à la crème!"

I perked up and stood up from my booth to go grab my order from the barista at the counter. For the first time since my arrival in France, I was enjoying some alone time, and it was honestly very much welcome.

It took some convincing for Henri to drop me off here in the city and go mind his business for a while, but once I reminded him that he had scheduled some time with his friends in a cigar lounge, he didn't think twice about letting me go. He deserved a good time off and my joy was uncontrollable when I finally saw him in a navy button up shirt and khaki chinos. It was the first time I saw him in more casual—albeit still dressy—clothing and it was marvelous. It was also the first time I saw his arms flex casually as he opened the car door for me.

Was l.u.s.ting after your butler against any rules? I sincerely hoped not. True, Henri would never see me as anything more than the spoiled brat he worked for, but one could dream, right? Besides, it wasn't like I was in love with him or anything. As far as I was concerned, romantic love for another human being wasn't real. Anyway...

This cafe was one of the best in Saint-Étienne and I fully intended to spend a good amount of money here. The food was delicious and their prices were ridiculously reasonable, so much so that I considered overpaying multiple times. The quality didn't match the price, and this time it was in a good way.

The television on the wall provided some quiet background noise of what was currently French national news. Nothing interesting was happening but I would glance at the screen from time to time to ensure that I wasn't missing anything potentially dangerous. Still, I had to admit, the news was pretty slow for a Tuesday.

Tuesday. I had lost track of how much time had passed since my kidnapping, and frankly I didn't care to know. Time wasn't relevant to me at the moment because once I was finished with my plan, I could take all the time I needed to count the days since my birthday. The world was currently my oyster, and I was f.u.c.k.i.n.g Venus.

Actually, that might've been a clam…

It was definitely a clam.

"Merci beaucoup," I smiled at the barista and took my hot extra large coffee cup and cream cheese danishes. I didn't care if the danishes were large, one wasn't enough and that was that. Anything with sweetened cream cheese was my weakness. Cheesecake? Weak. Cream cheese danishes? Weak. Red velvet with cream cheese frosting? Weak.

As soon as I sat back down, my teeth tore a corner from the first Danish. The taste was like hearing a chorus of Angels personally sing Handel's Messiah. All of it. It had been too long since I had indulged, and it became a certainty that this would be my new regular hangout spot. The atmosphere was abuzz with quiet conversation, so I could use my laptop to do some work uninterrupted, and the pleasant atmosphere really made for fantastic concentration.

The first sip of coffee was equally as glorious. The coffee I drank on the way here didn't compare. It was like the barista made each individual move with a dose of love. Or maybe I just hadn't had good coffee in a while. Marco seldom allowed me to drink coffee in his house because apparently caffeine made scheming vixens like me more backstabbing than normal.

He wasn't wrong, but who could I backstab him with? Vincente? Fat chance. Unless he actually meant like a while Julius Caesar situation, then that would have made more sense.

My time was spent eating the danishes and drinking coffee and browsing the internet for any information that would give me leverage on the DiBiancci operation. Sometimes the best dirt was found in the cleanest places, that's what I always said. Considering a controlling family such as the DiBiancci's, one would assume they controlled everything that made its way onto the internet with their name on it.

So far, the only thing I was finding was old court cases against distant relatives and how much of a big deal the news outlets made it. "Eleventh cousin of notorious DiBiancci crime group patriarch commits tax fraud!" Big whoop. My dad's fourth cousin twice removed was a serial killer. He was sent to a psychiatric facility to keep the news from spreading. Turns out the man was sane, he was just a horrible person.

My eyes danced across the screen as I skimmed through the page to get to the next one. There was nothing of value for me to read here, so I just went on to the next page. Eight pages deep into my Google search and nothing. I had yet to find information that would be useful to me. None of the headlines were interesting either. Just how deep had they buried the good news articles?

Thankfully I had a few hours to spare, but I didn't want to still be here when midday arrived. It was ten in the morning and the cafe was already come to life. Maybe I could get a job here as a reintroduction to society. But then again, exposing myself like this couldn't be a good idea. A number of people walked into cafes every day, working in one could put me at a lot of risk, even if I was in disguise.

My phone chimed from its perch beside my laptop. The best way to hide was in plain sight, so, I built on the fake face I had when I first came to France and grew my Instagram. Nobody would suspect a French blogger, right? Allow me to elaborate.

When I first came to France to buy my chateau, I enjoyed the way the prosthetics on my face looked so much that I decided to create a blog for my fake self, mostly because it was a mental escape from mafia life. I uploaded a picture of myself to Instagram that day and began uploading travel tips from then on. My profile quickly grew, seeing as the advice I gave people was legitimately good, and I just kept it going.

Even though I didn't upload pictures of my fake face very often because putting on prosthetics in my fathers house was borderline impossible and there was a limit of pictures I had taken on my trip to France, the operation was a success. Thanks to my foresight, taking the leap and becoming an influencer was easy.

As far as the world knew, I was Isabella VanBurren, travel expert and foodie. Thinking back, I knew deep down that at some point I was going to have to disappear, and all my actions were done with that motive behind them. Whether I disappeared to escape my inheritance or because someone was trying to kill me, something kept me posting on those secondary Instagram and Twitter accounts. The universe was to be profoundly thanked.

"Hey," my attention was drawn from my laptop screen up to the voice hovering above me. It was a young man, probably a year or two older than me. Honestly, I kept forgetting that I was just recently turned twenty-one. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"What would make you think that?" He was speaking to me in perfect English, but I maintained an accent just in case he was a double agent. My accent was standard European, a mix of French, German and Spanish with a hint of disappointment. It was a hard accent to keep up, but once I said more than six sentences, I was sure that it would stick.

"Mainly, your screen is in English," he sat down on the other side of the table and blinked at me. "And you have that foreigner scent on you."

"Foreigner scent?" Were the French bloodhounds?

"Something akin to Burberry London's My Burberry," he smiled, showcasing a brilliant set of perfect teeth. His response made me stifle a laugh.

"Everyone knows that is a late night scent," my nose crinkled at the thought of wearing a night time perfume in the daytime. I wasn't a saint, but I wasn't a classless skank either. "I wouldn't be caught dead wearing that in the day."

"Ah, so you are at least raised as a Frenchwoman. Pardon my misconception," he reached out a hand for me to shake, "Jean-Louis Bordeaux, artist and daringly handsome."

"Isabella VanBurren, coffee addict and narcissistic," we shook hands and smiled at each other, but I noticed he didn't have anything with him. "Where's your order?"

"Oh, my girlfriend's ordering for me. She's always saying that I don't know what I want," he rolled his eyes playfully. "And I just had to come see the foreigner for myself."

"There are a lot of foreigners in Saint-Étienne," I gave him a cautious look and waited for him to respond. Jean-Louis smiled brightly and nodded casually.

"That's precisely why I was able to sniff you out. Oh my goodness, get it? Sniff you out? Because you're a foreigner and the whole Burberry thing?" He took a minute to laugh at his own joke, the very same joke which had me furrowing my eyebrows at him. "Did I also mention I am a comedian?"

"You did not and I preferred it that way."