When the full moon bleeds and the lonely dog cries
And the stars trail dust in the night
A leader will rise from the scattered hordes
And the People will regain their might.
—Indian poem, circa 1000 A.D.
The blonde sauntered into view on the security monitor, looking like every erotic dream he’d ever had—sultry, seductive, sin-on-heels sensuous. Luke Moreno’s pulse hitched, and a wild laugh rose in his throat. Oh, yeah. This woman was his fantasy, all right. His Delilah. His Mata Hari. His Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Too bad she was just as corrupt.
He watched, riveted, as she approached the glass display case cordoned off with velvet ropes. She played the elegant guest role to perfection, bending close to admire the primeval amber, the meticulously hammered gold. As if she’d never seen the ancient necklace before. As if she hadn’t come here to steal it. As if she weren’t setting him up to take the blame—again.
Damn her conniving soul.
“Who let her in here?” he demanded, still not pulling his eyes from the screen.
“Who?” Luke’s partner in his security business, Antonio Flores, leaned across the crowded console toward the monitor.
“La americana. Sofia Mikhelson.”
His partner raised one stocky arm, reached for the laptop nearby and tapped the keyboard to scroll down the names. “Mikhelson. Sofia. She’s on the list. Part of the antiquities crowd.”
“She wasn’t on the list last night.”
“We added a new batch this morning.” Antonio leaned back in his chair and lifted his hands, palms out. “You know how it’s been. We’ve had experts calling from all over the world. It’s been a nightmare trying to vet them all.”
Luke grunted. He couldn’t argue that. It wasn’t often a thousand-year-old necklace surfaced in a Spanish bank vault—especially this necklace. The Gypsy’s Revenge, coveted for centuries, shrouded in legends, haunted by an ancient curse—a curse that condemned any non-Gypsy who touched it to die. An artifact so elusive, so priceless, so powerful that few experts even believed it existed until now.
But the necklace was real, all right, and sitting in that case—a dazzling gold collar inscribed with ancient symbols, inlaid with multi-hued amber, adorned with miniature bells. And its discovery had ignited a firestorm of controversy—former Nazi war loot, Swiss banking connections—an international scandal ready to explode. Now every antiquities expert on the planet had converged on the palace outside of Madrid demanding a close-up look.