Clandestine Affairs, Part Thirteen
Ani begins preparing for the job that will change her career and life forever.
It’s been a bit… so if you aren’t caught up, make sure you check out the previous chapters of Clandestine Affairs before diving in this chapter!
I’ve been in Italy for nearly two months now, and time ticks by slowly. Not that I’m complaining — having the Mediterranean as a backdrop is more than one could ask for on a work trip. The work part has been easy, routine, but it’s been my longest assignment (so far, anyway). We are establishing ourselves as the Turners, a newlywed couple from England. Myself as Claire, the American ex-pat who met her new husband, Oliver, at one of the exclusive Soho House locations in London. A whirlwind romance led us to eloping in Paris, and now, we’re honeymooning our way around Europe for the next six months.
Yes, Oliver Turner is rich. Old money rich. Not quite royal rich, but wealthy nonetheless. The Turners made their fortune in manufacturing and land ownership in the early 1900s, ensuring their family would be well off for generations to come. Claire though, she comes from a middle-class family of farmers in the Midwest and left her hometown as soon as she was accepted to Columbia University in New York City, but after completing two years of an Art History degree, she booked a summer trip to Europe. After visiting London, she decided to stay in England and never looked back, picking up gigs in bookshops, coffee houses, and museums to get by. Fast forward a decade, Claire is working as a project manager for a small marketing agency and meets Oliver at Electric House while out with some colleagues, and well? The rest is history.
Claire and Oliver arrived in Italy last month and are working their through the country, spending time in less touristy areas but just couldn’t pass up the chance to stay in Sorrento for a couple of weeks. The honeymooners booked a suite at the Grand Hotel Ambasciatori, on recommendation from an art merchant they met in Naples. His push for the newlyweds to stay at that hotel specifically only further cemented our cover and ensured we would run into Vanessa Rossi, Carmine’s partner, and become a mark. The merchant gave us her information and told us she knew the best places to find the most authentic, original pieces Sorrento has to offer.
I can’t help but wonder what his commission is on these grifts. I have no doubt he’s made a decent living off sending unsuspecting rich people to be ripped off by Carmine and Vanessa. Or worse.
Since we met, Rhys and I have barely spent a day apart. Over the the last several weeks we have been practicing our roles, getting comfortable with calling each other Claire and Oliver, and playing house as a newlywed couple to ensure our cover feels authentic. I’m basically living at his villa when we aren’t spending a night or two in a random five-star hotel to keep up appearances along the Amalfi Coast. Definitely not complaining.
Our days are long — perfecting our cover, plotting our steps before we are officially in action. We only see Chuck and Noelle at the villa, never out on the town, and work together during the day to better establish the cover so we’re ready for action. We carefully craft routes into the various villages around Ravello, plan excursions to touristy areas, taking photos of us together in places like Pompei and Salerno. Chuck had someone on his team, whom I’ve never met, come up with some decent photoshopped images of us in London, Paris, and Berlin to have on our phones, just in case.
The nights… I never want them to end. I haven’t felt this way about someone in a long time. It’s… different. He’s different. We haven’t quite defined anything, but we don’t need to. I’ve never felt that. This whole situation is something I have never experienced. I struggle to find the line, though, if I’m being honest. Do I feel this way as Claire for Oliver, the man I am pretending to have married, because doing what I’m told over the last few years has helped me lean into these personas? Or is this me, Ani, falling for Rhys?
Doing what I’m told has led me to some interesting places, that’s for sure, but one feels different. Real life is blending into our work life a little too well, and part of me thinks it’s dangerous to be playing this game… but the other part of me is falling in love. The further we go into this façade, the more it feels real. I’m not sure what the future holds for us, if there is an us, after this assignment concludes.
At night, we’re absolutely ourselves. Our real selves. Ani and Rhys. Opening up to each other, learning more about one another. At this point, Rhys knows me. I know him, I think. He doesn’t talk about the years spent with MI6, or the contracting he did after leaving the firm, and I don’t press. I don’t tell him about my childhood (except for the whole father thing), and he doesn’t ask. He now knows my real name, but understands I don’t wish to be called Elizabeth. It only confuses things, I say. We drink wine and share memories and our deepest secrets and desires. And have incredible sex night after night. Sometimes, during the day, if we’re alone long enough.
The night before we’re due to check into the Hotel Ambasciatori, we’re having dinner in his villa, going over our plans again, quizzing each other. As we finish cleaning everything up (he sent the staff on paid leave weeks ago for us to have as much privacy as possible), he leans against the tiled island in the middle of his kitchen and smiles at me.
“Claire, darling” he says, moving toward me to wrap his arms around my waist.
“Yes, my love?” I lean into him, butterflies erupting in my belly.
“I’m so glad I married you,” he says, making me blush as he kisses my cheek.
These lines are so very, very blurry. He takes me to bed and we fall asleep as ourselves, Rhys and Ani, to the nightscape of the valley that sprawls outside his bedroom window.
Check-in isn’t until three in the afternoon, so we spend the morning by finishing our packing and drinking coffee. Chuck and Noelle are due to arrive by noon, so once we are packed, I prepare charcuterie for us to nosh while we go over the last minute things we need to discuss.
“It feels like we’re going on a vacation, Rhys,” I say, slightly sighing. “I wish we were.”
“Soon enough,” he says, looking out the window. “You are coming back to London with me when this is over, aren’t you?”
I smile at the thought. “Yeah, that’s the plan.”
“I’ll make sure you get proper rest then, my dear.” He finishes his cup of coffee and offers to refresh mine when the exterior gate bell buzzes. “Ah, that must be them, I’ll go greet them.”
I finish plating the board and take it to the salon, where we have our files set up. I set it down and look around the room, smoothing my linen dress. I’ll have to iron it before we go to the hotel, I think. I know I’m acting half the time, but damn if this vibe doesn’t feel so real to me. As in, I live here, it’s my home, and we’re about to entertain guests. Noelle walks through the door, looking stunning and fresh. She takes her sunglasses off and sets them next to her Louis Vuitton handbag on the table.
“Ani, my dear, you’re looking lovely today,” she says, kissing my cheeks and giving me a quick squeeze.
“You too, Sorrento looks like it’s been kind to you,” I say, nodding toward her tanned arms. “Spending loads of time on a terrace?”
She laughs and pops a grape in her mouth from the charcuterie setup. “You know me too well, I fear. Tell me, before the boys come in… how are you getting along?” she asks, arching an eyebrow.
“I’m fine, Noelle — I assume you mean with Rhys?”
“Of course, I know you’re fine otherwise, darling,” she smirks. “Quick, tell me. Have you taken the newlywed story to —” she stops short as she hears the door close downstairs. “Oh, never mind, we’ll have a proper girl chat a bit later!”
“Yes, we will,” I promise. I’ve grown to love Noelle dearly — in this life, she’s my closest friend and confidant. She’ll hear all about it in due time.
“Hello Ani,” Chuck says as he walks into the room. He gives me a long, comforting hug. “It’s good to see you. Are you ready for what lies ahead?”
“Right down to it, are we?” I say.
“Well, we don’t have too much time and I want to make sure —”
I cut him off by raising my hand. “I’m ready, Chuck. Truly. I am.”
“Good. Very good to hear. I promise, I’ll stop asking now.”
Rhys enters the room with the pitcher of water I forgot to bring into the salon and fills up our glasses. “Ole Claire here, she’s as modest as ever. I assure you, Mrs. Turner is very prepared,” he says, winking at me.
“Part of me still can’t believe Petrov was okay with most of my plan,” I say. It’s my imposter syndrome showing — I know I’m good at what I do, but until now, I’ve been good at doing what I’m told, not running an operation or calling shots. I have to constantly remind myself lately there’s a time for everyone to advance in their career. I just kind of wish this wasn’t the assignment where I’d have my chance to prove myself.
It was quite a proposal, but as Chuck found out, it gives her more of what she wants — the foothold she’s long sought after on the coast of the Mediterranean for quite some time. It just happens that our common goal of extinguishing the threat that is Carmine Gray and Vanessa Rossi is the key. I suppose it was hard for her to say no in the end. The night I proposed the half-baked plan at the safe house, Lisette was still handcuffed to a chair in the back and I was desperate to know why she was working here. She told me enough — enough to make a deal to get her out of our hair and out of the game for good. By the evening’s end, she left with a member of Petrov’s team and was on her way to Helsinki to start a new life. Part of me felt bad about it, but a bigger part was proud of how I played the game. A life for a life, but at least no one had to die. Yet, I suppose. Time will tell.
That night before we sent her off, Lisette told me she had been working Rossi for a few months on behalf of Petrov. She got involved with Petrov’s team inadvertently — really a wrong place, wrong time kind of thing — a year or so ago when she fell for one of Petrov’s hitmen. He talked her into burning her old life and coming to work for them and she wasn’t one to look back, so to speak. Especially after she burned her life down by betraying Chuck in Rio, she figured, why not? It was just another step into the deep, dark hole she had been digging for herself. The man she fell for eventually got taken out, during the same mission that Petrov’s husband was killed. So, she was stuck — it was either work for the Russians or be exiled, left out in the cold, with no where to go. As she left the safe house that night, she grinned at me while Petrov’s man was leading her toward their car. “I burned so many bridges already, Ani. It’s time for me to retire.” He told her to shut up and she rolled her eyes at him. “See ya never, right?”
When Lisette told me Carmine was the one who pulled the trigger on both her lover and Petrov’s husband, I saw something die inside her, that presumably died when her lover was killed. Her stare went blank, and it was clear she was just trying to get by. I didn’t think she was capable of feeling this way. I’m reminded I never knew the real Lisette — Erin — I only knew who she presented in the moment. The girl who recruited me was nothing more than an illusion, an enigma, a riddle I’d never figure out. I’m okay with that.
After learning Carmine was indeed the killer, and finding out he worked for an infamous crime family who “owned” most of the Amalfi Coast’s import/export business, my gears started to turn. I had to forget I had blood relation here — Carmine was just another mark. Another piece of trash the world didn’t need. That’s how I tried to view all my marks, if not only to make myself sleep better at night, but to reconcile with the work I was tasked with carrying out. Until now though, I never did more than get people into the right place at the right time.
Chuck hands Rhys a large envelope. “Here’s everything we could get on short notice. All the account information is there, cash, and a couple of cards you can use. Pre-authorized max of a million pounds. Try to keep it under though, will ya?” he says with a hearty laugh.
“No problem. Unless Mrs. Turner wants to buy a villa in on the coast, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” he grins.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” I say. “I have been looking into some pieces though ahead of time, so I can give Rossi an idea of what we’re willing to buy. You know, because Italy has been so good to us,” I smile, leaning into Rhys, prompting him to put his arm around me. I look up at him and bat my eyelashes. “My husband could never tell me no, though, isn’t that right darling?”
“Oh you two, get a room,” Noelle says. She looks over at Chuck. “They’re quite convincing, aren’t they?”
Chuck nods, seeming pleased with the care we’ve taken to perfect our cover. “Now then. You check in this afternoon — spend the first couple of days lounging around the hotel, not leaving the room much. Order room service, go to the hotel bar, lay by the pool. Be the newlyweds. We anticipate in a couple of days, Rossi will make contact. We’ve been keeping an eye on the guy in Naples and as we expected, the bug Simon’s friend planted paid off. He finally called Rossi yesterday telling her there would be a rich English couple checking into the hotel to spend a week or so on their honeymoon.”
“Sounds like it’s all coming together,” I say, quietly. I’m nervous and desperate to not let it show.
“Sooner than we realize it, but remember, this is a long game. If we play our cards right, we’ll all walk away from this unscathed.” Chuck glances at me, realizing that isn’t true as quickly as it escapes his lips. “Well, you know what I mean… Ani, I know I said I’d stop asking, but I’m afraid I have to once more — are you sure you are good with this? Point of no return and all.”
I know he’s coming from a place of protection and he cares about me, but I’m starting to get annoyed with the constant are you sures. I shake it off, in an attempt to be professional, choosing to see his positive intent. “Yes, Chuck, I am sure.” I give him a slight, reassuring smile. “Do you have the list of shops we’re supposed to ask about?”
Chuck gives me a nod and hands over another folder. “Here’s everything we’ve gathered around the hotel, and a few places ‘off the beaten path’ that Rossi is sure to recognize. I called out a few pieces they have, too. It would serve you both well if you leave the hotel on, let’s say day three for some sightseeing and pop by a couple of these, take a look at the pieces. When Rossi makes contact, you can mention things you’ve actually seen. Remember, long game. It might take longer than a week, so be prepared to lengthen your stay. Noelle and I will check into Riviera, the hotel next door, tomorrow afternoon. We will signal you if we need to, but for the most part of this week, you two will be on your own. When we have the location set for the big day, we’ll send word. We will people watching in the meantime — they will know if someone needs to step in. If that happens —”
“Just go with it,” I say, finishing his sentence. “I — we trust your judgement here, Chuck. We know what to look for.” I affirm.
“Right. And if we need to stop you, someone from the hotel will approach you in the lobby on that day before you leave with Rossi. You remember what they’ll say to you?”
“We sent the towels to your room, is there anything else you require?” Rhys and I say in unison.
Noelle laughs. “See, I told you they would be fine.”
“Good, good. I think that covers it. Good luck, you two. See you on the other side.” He stands up to shake hands with Rhys and gives me a hug goodbye.
Noelle gives me a big hug. “If you need anything, you know how to get us,” she whispers in my ear. “You’ll do great, Ani.”
I truly hope so.