Kidnapped By The Italian Mafia

After my tempting offer to Mr. Salmoud, Henri and I stayed in the lounge for a bit until I started to feel woozy, maybe because the smoke inhalation was giving me effects too.

"Are you alright?" Henri placed a hand on my lower back to help steady me. I'd stumbled a bit and the room felt like a very slow carousel. "Do you need fresh air?"

"Desperately, but we're six floors underground so forget about that." The bright lights of the main party helped ground me a bit.

"What was that back there?" He led me to a table and sat us down. "You basically offered up free merchandise. Marco is going to kill you!"

"This isn't about Marco." I took a deep breath. "This is about me. I'm making headway."

"Are you insane?" Henri turned my head to face him. "You're cutting paper with his product. He's going to find out."

"He won't because we won't be using his product. Not after a while, at least."

Henri blinked at me like he was trying to figure out what I meant. Sure, I was cutting a fine line here, but desperate times called for desperate measures. I was going to need to work overtime to pull this off.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm going to send him something new that the market has never had before." My bejeweled hands came to rest over his. "Henri, I'm talking groundbreaking cocaine."

"What the f.u.c.k are you talking about?" He repeated, more aggressively this time.

"I'm going to create my own brand, and I'm going to do it right under everyone's noses! Isn't that great!?"

"No, it is not great! What the hell!" Henri pulled his hands away from my face. "Your life has been attempted on twice already. You're going to get yourself killed with all your great ideas."

"Then it was a life worth living. I'm serious, Henri. I won't go back to living under anyone's shadow. We have the customers, I made connections. Now we just need to be smart about this." A waiter passed us carrying more flutes of bubbly. "Speaking of being smart, come with me." I stood up from the table and grabbed one of the flutes. "We have some networking to do."

My butler, ever the faithful one, followed me lead and headed back into the crowd beside me. There were people here who I faintly recognised, and others who completely came up blank in my mind.

I walked up to a random pair and prepared to make conversation. "Would either of you know where I can find a bar here?"

The pair turned to me and smiled. "There's no whiskey, I'm afraid."

"A pity." I stared into my glass of champagne sadly. "This isn't enough of a buzz for me. Isabella. This is my assistant, Kighton."

"I'm Finley and this is my brother Hector." Both men shook our hands warmly. "Are you new to this type of scene? We haven't seen you around and we have been to many of these."

"I suppose you could say that." My tone took on a note of curiosity. "Not that many faces here are familiar to me."

"Ah. Who do you work for? We service the Mexican cartel." Finley asked? He motioned to his brother. "We're chemists."

"Oh, lovely! We work for someone new to the business." I waved my hand nonchalantly. "You probably haven't heard of her."

"Her? There aren't many women in this scene." Hector provided, as if I didn't already know that. "We definitely should've heard of her."

"Trust me, she sticks to the shadows. I don't even really know who she is. My boss sends many envoys." The last part came as a conspiratorial whisper. "But she's a growing gem. Maybe one day she'll reveal herself."

"We hope so." Both men said at the same time. I took the opportunity to ask about the Mexican cartel and how it operates, hoping to just get them to talk to me so we could establish some level of trust. At some point Henri exused himself, whispering a quick excuse to me before wandering off into the crowd.

"—And the market seems to be expanding into the east, too." Finley remarked, a secretive smile on his face. "Where do you ship to?"

"North-Western Europe, mostly. I'm a distributor." I smiled when they looked at me with newfound interest. "You mentioned you're chemists? What do you make?"

"Mostly cocaine." Typical. The reigning drug in all mobs. "But we're experimenting in our own spare time." This came from Hector.

"Really?" Just what I'd hoped they'd say. "Care to share what you're experimenting with? I'm an eager audience."

The two men looked at each other then shrugged lightly, deciding there was no harm in telling me. "We're creating our own strain of heroin. Kind of to ensure there are no bad trips. It's taking longer than expected and it's hard." Finley shrugged. "But like I said, it's just experimental."

"Don't your bosses know about this?" One of my brows raised of its own accord. "This kind of invention could make an absurd amount of money."

"We were hoping to have it smoothed over before making any marketing moves. Besides, our bosses are pretty happy with cocaine right now. I doubt they're looking for something new to sell."

"Hmm." An interested hum left my mouth, and I tried to look nonchalant as the next words left me. "You two seem to be well put together. Do you know any other chemists who might help me? My boss is looking for someone who can make her LSD and I'm having terrible luck meeting anyone who knows."

"Sure, we can help you." Hector started.

"If you let us take you to dinner." Finley finished.

I blinked at them, completely taken aback by these turn of events. "Excuse me?" My eyes shifted between both of them, both smirking at me confidently, both suddenly seeming so much taller and I, so much smaller. "Both of you? At once?"

"We share everything." They shrugged in tandem. I felt like my third eye had been opened because all their similarities slammed into my brain. They had the same nose, mouth, eyebrows, and freckles. Their facial structure as in cheekbones, jaw and forehead was different, as were their eye colour. Height and build was the exact same from what I could tell.

These two were definitely brothers, and the way they were speaking in unison made me suspect they might even be twins. This was going to be new for me.

"How long will you two be in Paris?" Was my flirty reply. I felt the need to act coy, because that's what Isabella VanBurren did.

"A month or so, roughly." They replied in unison again. Good God, that was creepy.

"I won't be here as long but I suppose it would give us enough time to have dinner together." I remarked offhandedly.

"Maybe even more than once." Finley added. We smiled at each other and I pulled my clutch from beneath my arm, sifting through it to find a blank piece of paper and a pen.

"Here you are." I handed over the paper after writing down my number on it. "Let me know when and where."

Hector took the paper from me and slipped it into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, telling me they'd be in contact as soon as possible.

We spoke for a few more minutes before I excused myself with the need to use the ladies room. Even as I made my way through the crowd toward the ladies room, I couldn't see Henri anywhere, not that it was too worrying for me. He could take care of himself.

"Pardon me," I apologised once I'd bumped into someone. She dismissed it and went on her way. I faintly recognised her, but couldn't remember from where.

On my way back out, a hand clutched my arm and pulled me slightly out of the main stream of the crowd. Thinking it was Henri, I turned with a progress report ready to spill from my lips, but stopped short once the figure of the culprit came into view.

Ah, shit.