Kidnapped By The Italian Mafia

"Henri," I called out sweetly, searching the halls for my wayward butler, who was probably somewhere polishing silverware. I had only been in Paris for three hours and already I was unimpressed. The view of the city wasn't better than the view of the country, and I already missed the artsy atmosphere of Saint-Étienne. "Henri!"

The house was quiet, the only noise came from the ticking grandfather clock in one of the halls and the other noises came from the scooters honking outside. If I looked out the window, I'd probably see a brunette in a pleated skirt and beret apologising to another brunette in a black and white striped shirt and satchel while he stared at her longingly.

It was sickening.

"Nazareth, have you seen Henri?" I really needed to stop speaking to Nazareth in English.

"Non, madame."

Great. Now I needed to leave a message with Nazareth. "If he comes back, tell him I've gone shopping with Moira. I'll be back in a bit."

"Et monsieur Connor?"

"Connor stays here, probably to have a go at you again. I don't know, just stay out of trouble."

Without waiting for any confirmation from my blushing maid, I returned to the parlour and fetched my purse. Moira was already waiting for me by the door.

"Two people just fell in love," she sighed dreamily. I knew it. "This place is so romantic."

"It's disgusting, that's what it is." I slipped on some white gloves and perched my wide sunglasses atop my new pixie nose. "Do you think I'm going to have to get skin tightening treatment once this filler dissolves?"

"I don't think so, but be prepared for every possibility," Moira said, but she was distracted. "It really was soo romantic, Kat."

Slipping into Isabella mode, I sighed dreamily along with her and pitched my voice up a couple octaves. "I hope we find our true loves while we're here."

"Okay, seriously," Moira glared at me. "The way you split your brain like that? That's f.u.c.k.i.n.g creepy. Let's just go, forget about true love."

I laughed and quickly grabbed an umbrella to shield myself from the sun. The fashion plaza was not too far from the townhouse, and even if it was, the city was crawling with taxis so it wasn't exactly an impediment to not have our own transportation.

Moira was a sight for sore eyes in her skintight jeans and halter top. Her long hair was topped by a bright red beret and her blazer did wonders for her outfit. All topped with booties and a big handbag. I was dressed more simply, with a pastel yellow sleeveless A-line dress and simple white sandal wedges. My red hair was loose, only lightly clipped back on one side by a sparkly clip. My cross body handbag completed my cute look, because that's what Isabella was. Cute with an undertone of naughtiness.

I still didn't exactly know how to build her character, but I had a general gist of it. The idea was to make her look like someone who was trying too hard to fit into the dark underworld. That would build uncertainty, but I knew the people there. They were vultures and all of them would dive head first at the opportunity to take advantage of a rich, innocent wannabe. That's how I would gather my network, by gathering debts. The more people I owed, the more people I would know.

Even though I knew charm didn't work with people in the underworld, I could always promise them something. Truth was, no matter how much money I had set aside over the years for this Isabella character, it would never be as much as what my father had set aside for me. My allowance was astronomical, the problem was that I couldn't touch that money because I was sure my father would trace it around.

Even if I managed to withdraw an amount and get it to my French account without a trace, just the fact that someone touched that money would be enough to let my dad know I was alive. But then again, I had Connor and Moira on my side now. Before my abduction, we had taken extravagant trips together, often dipping into each others money to cover whatever expenses we racked up. It was far fetched, but it could work.

"M, do you think that if you make a withdrawal for me, my dad will accept it?" Moira blinked three times before looking right at me, a confused expression pulling at her eyebrows. "I have money, but I want more just in case. You have access to my accounts, right?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "I don't think your dad locked any of your accounts. If he did, I can just ask him directly. I don't think he'll question it."

"Make up any excuse you can in relation to my death. Maybe tell him you and Con want to take a big trip to Turks and Caicos to remember me by or something. Remember we went there?"

"But how much money do you need?" That was a good question. I knew I'd be spending at least twenty million, or at least I had to be prepared to do so. Anything I spent needed to be cash. Knowing what I knew, they were going to charge me double the standard price of everything because I would be a newcomer. As far as they knew, anyway.

"I'm getting ready to spend up to a hundred mil."

Moira gave me a look. I knew exactly what she meant. "There's no way you don't have a hundred million euros in your bank account already."

"I'm telling you I need extra just in case. If it's possible to get that much then do it. My dad knows I've never been shy about spending money and a hundred mil isn't that much. It shouldn't be that weird for you to make a withdrawal of that amount, right?"

"Katarina what excuse could I possibly give your dad that would warrant one hundred million euros?" Moira gave me a flat look.

"Then don't get that, just tell him you and Connor want to recreate the most expensive trip we've taken as a group and get that amount."

Moira sighed and shouldered her bag some more. I could tell she was losing her patience with me but I had to persist. It was imperative to our mission at this point. Or maybe I was just being greedy and trying to fool myself.

We stopped at a corner before crossing the road, quickly cutting through a low street and emerging at the shopping plaza. Paris was a huge city but everything in France was small so we made it in record time.

Most of the clothes I spent my time and money browsing and buying were power suits, all of which were designer and in brighter colours. I didn't really like the idea of wearing suits, but this is what a novice to the dark dealings would think to wear in order to appear important. From now on I would need to mix Katarina and Isabella instead of just separating their mindsets.

"You realise you're going to look stuffy in those right?"

"I know, but isn't this what pretenders wear? Remember I haven't ever been to the dark side, much less hired a conman."

"Is that what you're planning to do? Hire a conman?" Moira smiled at me. "You know better than that."

"But Isabella doesn't." I winked at her and headed toward the front of the store to pay for my purchases, completely ignoring the worker that had followed us around the entire time. Europeans were so weird. "I think the pink one will be my favourite."

"How did you pick pink but no red? What is wrong with you?"

"Red is Kat's colour."

Red was my favourite colour, and as such, I had gained a reputation of wearing a red bodycon dress whenever I did something illegal. I did many illegal things, but the thing I was most known for was trading services. I would hire out my fathers men in exchange for intercepting and stealing our opponents drug shipments, kind of like a scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours thing. Over the course of three years, I had managed to intercept over seventy shipments.

When our opponents saw that we had intercepted them, instead of retaliating, they would talk to me, then I would buy them out, absorb their mafia into our network in exchanged for giving them their shipment back plus extras. Thanks to my genius, my father had spread over ten countries in latin america.

I wasn't crowned The Spanish Princess just for being spoiled.