*Author's note: I keep going back and forth in my head about which beheading the painting should be depicting, but I think I'm officially changing it to Judith and Holofernes instead of John the Baptist to touch back on some details from Book One. And yes, I'm alive 🙃 Sorry for the lack of updates lately*

I needed to get into Lucia's room.

As I busted through our suite's bathroom door, Desirae didn't even flinch. Her long legs comfortably stretched out over the edge of the clawfoot tub. Hair pinned up, head resting back, eyes covered with a damp cloth. Bubbles clung to her deep bronze skin and floated strategically everywhere else in between. Her empty champagne flute sat next to the bottle in the ice bucket.

"Mmm..." she groaned softly, rubbing her ankles together. "Who's dead?"

"I'm not here," I mumbled, shielding my eyes. I scurried over to the marble vanity sink. "You don't see me. Or hear me, rather."

Quietly as I could, I began to rummage through the top drawers. Qtips. Cottonballs. Toothbrushes. Next. Tampons. Pads. Deodorant—

"You're not even gonna sneak a peek?" she asked.

I glanced up at her through the mirror. The cloth still covered her eyes, but I didn't dare let mine lower. "I'm trying to be respectful."

She adjusted herself more upright in the tub, just enough that the bubbles began to part, but she didn't say anything else. I went back to my search for a bobby pin or something similar. Instead, I found brand new eyeshadow palettes, tubes of foundation in every skintone, bronzer, blush...

As I opened the smaller drawer on the side, two sealed plastic bottles rolled towards me. Toy Cleaner. In big purple letters. Slowly, I slid the drawer shut. "What kind of club is this..." I murmured.

Desirae chuckled softly. "You haven't figured it out yet?"

I shrugged, more interested in her amusement than I was in the answer. "At least you're laughing at my stupid ass now." Hair ties, brushes, curlers—bobby pins. Finally.

I snagged a couple and slipped them into my messy hair, hoping I wasn't being too obvious. I had almost escaped the bathroom when Desirae called out behind me.

"Kirby?"

I spun on my heels.

"Will you run the hot water for me for a minute?"

I glanced over my shoulder towards the suite door to Lucia's room. It wasn't like the bloody painting was going anywhere in the next five minutes. It'd be smart to smooth things over with Desirae while she seemed open to my presence. I turned back to her and crept over to the foot of the tub. As I turned the handle for the hot water, she uncrossed her ankles and placed her feet on either side of the faucet. Bubbles barely covered between her legs.

"Aren't you going to shower?"

"Huh?" My eyes shot up to meet hers, but she still had them covered.

"You smell like literal death."

"Oh, I will. I uh, just wanted to give you your space." Grabbing the bottle of champagne, I refilled her flute and slipped it between her fingers. "I know you're not exactly thrilled to be around me right now."

"Thrilled?" She laughed, but it didn't conceal her anger. "Kirby, you stole my gun, pushed me off a cliff, ruined my phone and nearly my hair."

"Des, I'm so sorr—"

"You then kidnapped me and took me on a half-day voyage to a barren rock in the middle of the Mediterranean."

"Technically, it was just the Strait of Sicil—"

"And let's not forget, this all started with me walking in on you standing over the body of a decapitated, skeevy, Russian art collector who was in deep shit with his fellow Bratva—mostly due to you of course, for stealing that Aivazovsky painting."

"It was a Vrubel, but—"

"So thrilled?"

I zipped my lips.

"No, Kirby, definitely not."

I twisted the hot water off and turned to leave.

"However..." she sighed, coaxing me to stay. "Here we are, both alive, in the Maltese countryside, in a stunning baroque palace with a mutual ex-girlfriend and thirty-some other beautiful women—"

My ears pricked. "Thirty?"

"—who have entirely too much money that they clearly don't know how to spend. Let's just enjoy it all before Interpol figures it out—or you do something else stupid to ruin it."

"Yeah..." I exhaled, looking back over my shoulder again towards Lucia's door. "I'm gonna try."

Her toe poked my hip. She lifted the cloth from her eyes finally and looked me up and down.

"To enjoy it, I mean," I corrected.

"You're up to something." Taking a long sip from her glass, Desirae continued to stare me down. "But I'm staying out of it this time. I can't keep cleaning up your messes."

"Wasn't that why you tracked me down in Sicily in the first place?"

"I tracked you down because I needed your help with the Russians. I thought maybe you and I—" she laughed half-heartedly, and shook her head. "I foolishly forgot what being around you would cost. My career, my dignity, my gun... Fortunately, Artie came through instead."

I should have been trying to decipher what she meant by Artie coming through, but instead I was too bothered by her referring to her as Artie. She never used her pet name. Maybe in the past, sure, but now after everything between them? With my eyes down, I nodded, fidgeting nervously with the chain to the tub. "Yeah, Artemisia always comes through one way or another."

"Just be careful around Lucia," she warned softly.

"Why? What do you know about her?"

Her teeth grazed her bottom lip. "I think that's for Artie to tell you."

"And I think it's safe to say at this point, Artemisia is not gonna tell me shit."

"Tell you what?" Artemisia's voice startled me.

"Christ, Artie." I whipped around to face her in the doorway. "Put your heels back on or something so I know you're coming."

Wrapped in only a white towel, Artemisia walked over to us at the bathtub, running her fingers through the water from Desirae's legs up to her neck. She leaned onto the edge of the tub and reached down to steal the champagne flute. Surprisingly, Desirae didn't shrink away. Instead, the corner of her lips lifted with a slight smirk. And she almost seemed... flushed? Was she drunk already?

"I thought you were showering down at the pool?" I asked Artemisia while studying them both.

She handed the now-empty glass back to Desirae. "It was occupied." Pushing off the tub, she slinked towards the shower, letting her towel slip off to hang it on the wall hook. My heart somehow seemed to both speed up and slow down at the same time. There was some kind of charged energy in the air, radiating off of both of them and I was stuck in between. Artemisia glanced over and caught me staring. "Did you want in first?"

"Oh, uh, no." I cleared my throat and took a step backwards. "Go ahead. I can wait."

Both Desirae and Artemisia gave me the same suspicious look, but I quickly left the bathroom and pulled the door shut behind me, sealing off whatever that was. I waited a good sixty seconds to make sure they weren't going to follow me out into the bedroom. But the bathroom door remained shut.

Which annoyed me even more.

I had to shake them off. I couldn't let either of them eat at me. Not right now. I didn't know if I'd get another chance like this away from both of them. And ruminating over Artemisia never led anywhere good anyway. Pulling the bobby pins from my hair, I bent them into shape and snuck over to the door to Lucia's room.

But Lucia's muffled voice came from behind the door. I couldn't quite make out what she was saying, but was pretty sure she was talking to that Charlene chick. Or giving orders, rather. After a moment, a door closed. Hurried high heels clicked past our room and faded down the hallway. It was quiet on Lucia's side.

I knelt down to the keyhole.

Lucia walked past the bed, but I couldn't see much beyond. The sound of a drawer slid open, then closed hard, making me jump a little. Earlier, she had seemed eager to have a little chat, I wondered if maybe I should just knock. She stepped back into frame and laid something on the bed. Just as I raised my hand to knock, she slid the straps of her bathing suit down.

Darting upright before I saw something I shouldn't, I smashed my bad shoulder into the doorknob. A silent-scream left my lips with a pained breath. I grasped the knob to still the rattle and prayed she hadn't heard it.

She had to have heard it.

But still, it was quiet from her side.

Taking a deep breath to recenter myself, I leaned my ear against the door, listening for any kind of movement. Running water rumbled through the wall. She had gotten in the shower too.

It would give me just enough time to get in there and scope out the painting.

I kept my ear to the door, trusting my hands. It was an old skeleton key lock, practically begging to be picked. In just a few seconds, I felt the resistance of the lever against the bobby pin. I inserted the other and with barely a twist, the deadbolt slid open. My dexterity actually surprised me, boosting my confidence. I didn't even need to switch to my dominant left hand like I normally would.

My fingers gripped the ornate metal doorknob and turned, slowly pulling it open.

Lucia's room was nearly symmetrical to ours in both layout and decor, just deeper tones of reds, golds, blacks. Wind blew through the heavy tasseled curtains that parted open to her much larger balcony, wrapping the corner of the mansion. The bathroom door was cracked open, but the shower continued to run. I slipped inside her room and quietly let the door latch shut behind me.

I went straight towards the bed where the painting hung above. Dark brown blood—black even in places, splashed across the canvas from left to right like brushstrokes. At first, with the way the beheading of Holofernes was portrayed, you would almost think it was just part of the painting.

But obviously, Lucia knew it was her husband's blood and clearly had no qualms with showing it off as is.

She also had to know how it got here and my money was still on Chaya.

I began to look past the blood to study the painting itself. Judith stared out at the viewer, caught in the middle of beheading Holofernes while her maid seemed to be telling her to hurry the fuck up. It was a near perfect copy of a long lost Caravaggio painting. If Georgiy had mistaken it for one, I could understand why. And maybe I was the fool for thinking it wasn't an authentic Caravaggio. Hell, I was in prison in Paris when I should have been graduating from art school. What the fuck did I actually know about art?

But there was also a familiarity to this piece somehow.

And the longer I stared, the more I saw it in Judith's blue eyes.

Kneeling onto Lucia's bed, I tried to get a closer look, but my heel caught on something. I fished it off, realizing it was what Lucia had laid out moments ago; a black leather full-body harness. As I held it up, I couldn't help but picture her in it.

"How exhilarating..." Lucia's sultry voice came from the balcony, making me fling the harness down. I scrambled to get off her bed just as she appeared around the curtain in a very sheer kimono. Sans bathing suit. "To sail all the way here with these winds we've been getting." She pulled the curtain closed and walked over to me. "I'd love a lesson in ropes. You must know your knots."

I swallowed hard. "My knots?"

"Do you like it?"

As I turned back to the painting thinking she meant it, she instead reached over me for the harness and held it up to her body. The same Chanel perfume Artemisia wore filled my nose. My pulse pounded in my head.

"Oh, gosh." I exaggerated a fake sigh, but didn't need to fake a blush as I glanced to the closed door between our rooms. "Is this not the Rococo suite? I thought—"

Lucia's smirk dropped as she lowered the harness away from herself. "Darling, I realize you received a subpar art history education at Bay City University, but surely you can see this room is not the least bit Rococo."

"I uh, probably would have paid more attention in art history class if Artemisia hadn't been sitting in front of me."

"Ahh, I see," she laughed softly, bowing her head to tuck a long tress of gray streaked black hair behind her ear. "I fell for that same distraction as well, I fear."

"Oh?" I studied Lucia's face as she looked back up at me. I would definitely remember her if she had gone to school with us. But Artemisia had transferred to Bay City after getting kicked out of VCU. "Did you go to school with her in Richmond?"

Her head tipped as she seemed to consider the question. "You might say so."

"But you don't know Desirae?"

"Know her? No. Knew of her? Yes, I knew she was Artemisia's first love, well, other than that babysitter... what's her name—"

"Petra," I answered without thinking. My mind was instead focused on that minor detail about Desirae she dropped. I knew they had been roommates in college and likely what that implied, but her first love? I glanced over at the door separating our rooms, knowing they were alone together beyond it. A strange jealousy knotted my stomach. But jealousy for who?

"Yes, Petra, that's it. The one she named the yacht after." Lucia's eyes roamed over me in silence, drawing mine reluctantly away from the suite door. She tossed the leather body harness back onto the bed and sunk down into the burgundy duvet in front of me. "Kirby, did you break into my room to interrogate me about your lover's past or are you here to ask me about my headless husband?"

Looking down at the blood stained leopard print blouse I was wearing, I untucked it and tugged it up over my head. "I was actually hoping I could use your shower."

Her chin lifted with just the slightest nod, her green eyes sharp and lustful.

I let the shirt drop to the floor.