His Mafia Prince
Chapter 275: We Make Our Own Luck

Chapter 275: We Make Our Own Luck

(SASHA)

Our talk last night about escaping fate has led me to want to try the one thing I swore I wouldn’t when I came to Venice: a gondola ride. It’s not that I have anything against gondolas...except that I do.

I also have an ulterior motive, though I haven’t told Tyler yet. I wanted to think my plan through a little more, decide how much I’m willing to risk simply to get close to Magda.

How much danger I’m willing to allow Tyler to be in for the sake of the Family.

Miles supplied several potential opportunities to contact Magda, and I always had a backup plan in mind should our attempt at the opera fail. Tonight, there’s a masquerade ball that Magda will be attending, and a masquerade ball suggests several possibilities. But the particular plan I’m contemplating means Tyler being very involved, and I worry that my protective instincts toward him might take over in the heat of the moment.

"I’m not sure how this is helping," Tyler says, as we glide along the Grand Canal on a private gondola. I checked the gondolier carefully, picking randomly from the new arrivals at the dock. The more random, the better, as far as I’m concerned.

"It’s helping," I say.

Tyler shuffles carefully out of my arms to look over the side of the boat, leaning his chin on his crossed arms. He turns his head to look at the Rialto Bridge coming up, its smooth, pale arc shining in the morning sun. "Venice is just gorgeous," he sighs.

"Not as gorgeous as you."

He turns to me with a grin and moves back into my arms. "You know that Irish guy is a few boats down, right?" he whispers. "Following us?"

"I do."

"Is that part of this master plan you’re working on for the masquerade tonight?"

"It actually is."

He raises one eyebrow. "Interesting. When do I get let in on it?"

I stretch out in the seat, raising my face to the sunshine. It’s a much prettier blue sky than the mural on the ceiling over the Las Vegas canals, that’s for sure. A few pigeons flutter overhead as I watch, high up in the blue, probably on their way to San Marco to prepare for the lunchtime crowds.

"Sasha," Tyler says, and pinches my arm. "When?"

"You see this palazzo coming up?" I ask, and have to smother a yawn afterward. Between the smooth swipes of the oar in the water, the pleasant droning of motorboats up and down the Grand Canal, the warm sun on my face and the echoing warmth of Tyler in my arms, I’ve become drowsy with happiness. The Las Vegas canal experience has been successfully expunged.

I have everything I need right here, right now: sunshine, an intellectual puzzle, and, most importantly, Tyler .

"What about it?" Tyler asks, and I bring my mind back to the task at hand.

"That’s where the masquerade will be tonight," I tell him, sitting us up a little more as the gondola comes alongside it.

"Could you slow down a little, sir?" I ask the old gondolier in my most polite Italian. "Just a little," I add, when he gives a grumpy grunt.

We slow to a passive-aggressive crawl, which suits my purposes just fine. Tyler stares at the building as we pass, and I take my time checking it over for methods of ingress and egress. I’m not sure if my plan—such as it is— will work. And if it doesn’t, Tyler and I will need a convenient escape, and perhaps another high-speed train out of town.

The masquerade ball is a private fundraiser for the preservation of Venice. The rich, the connected, the elite and the powerful will be there, including Magda—and us. Miles reached out to some of our associates here in Venice and managed to get Tyler and me on the guest list.

Tyler gets that lazy, knowing smirk that I love so well. "And is there a particular reason behind those costumes we ordered?"

"There is." We placed our costume orders at the same time as we shopped for the tuxedos for the opera, though in a very different store than Giorgio Armani: a private atelier of historical carnival costuming.

"And our shadow knows we’ll be at this shindig tonight?" Tyler glances back down the canal.

"I’m counting on it." I have no doubt our Irish shadow will figure it out, if he hasn’t been tipped off already by the mole.

Tyler is staring hard at the building, hard enough to indicate keen interest, and if our friend is worth his salt, he’ll have noted Tyler ’s preoccupation.

For good measure, I make sure to turn my attention to the palazzo as well as we drift by. The canal-side exit has a few wooden poles emerging from the water for the mooring of gondolas or motorboats, but it’s not an easily accessible exit. It will probably be closed off tonight. But I’ll trust my instincts. If there are ways into a building, there are ways out. How noisy and noticeable those ways out will become depends on necessity at the time.

"So what exactly is this plan?" Tyler asks softly.

"I’m wondering if there’s a way to kill two birds with one stone."

***

I look at us side by side in the dressing mirror that night, at the glint in Tyler ’s eye as he smiles in pleasure at his own reflection and then at mine, and wonder if I’m really prepared to risk his safety. But if all goes as planned, we’ll be granted an audience with Magda and I’ll be able to dispose of the irritation of our shadow.

What I’m most concerned about, as usual, is Tyler . But covered over in his plague doctor neck-to-ankle flared and belted overcoat, and with a long, beaked mask covering the top half of his face, he’ll be very difficult to recognize. It’s not carnival time in Venice, but the ball tonight is carnival- themed anyway; many of the attendees are rich foreigners, and the Venetians are canny enough to know what rich foreigners enjoy. Tyler ’s plague doctor outfit will be one among many of the same. Our Irish tail will have to pay close attention if he wants to follow Tyler through the crowded party.

As for me, I’m peacocking in a red and gold Renaissance tunic, with close- fitting leggings underneath. My mask is a sheer slip of black lace that does nothing to conceal my identity. I don’t want Magda to get the wrong idea—that I’m an assassin, for example, trying to get close to her without her knowing. I want to win her trust by appearing completely open.

"You look so damn good," Tyler sighs, pulling off his mask. "So do you," I say, ruffling his hair.

Tyler grins at me. "Kiss me for luck?"

"We make our own luck," I remind him, but I kiss him anyway.