9:42 PM - PALAZZO CORSINI - FLORENCE, ITALY - BEDELIA'S APARTMENT

The warm Tuscan night pressed against the high arched windows of Bedelia Du Maurier's apartment, the glass slightly warped with age, distorting the flickering lights of Florence beyond into wavering streaks of gold.

Inside, the air was thick with the scent of jasmine and something darker—expensive perfume cut with the faint metallic sting of anxiety. The rooms were a study in calculated elegance, all Venetian mirrors and antique furniture, the kind of place where every surface held a secret and every shadow seemed deliberate.

The FBI Agent stood in the foyer, his suit rumpled from travel, the weight of his Glock heavy against his ribs. He had tracked her here, hours spent combing through aliases and flight manifests, but stepping into her space now felt less like a victory and more like stepping into the mouth of a predator who had been waiting for him all along.

His fingers flexed at his sides, restless, as he took in the details—the half-empty wineglass abandoned on the side table, the silk shawl draped over the back of a chair as if discarded in haste.

A floorboard creaked behind him.

Bedelia emerged from the dim hallway like a specter, her steps silent on the parquet floor. She was dressed in a slip of ivory silk, the fabric clinging to her hips before cascading to the floor, the neckline dipping just low enough to draw the eye without surrendering anything. Her hair was down, platinum waves spilling over one shoulder, slightly mussed as if she had just risen from bed—or hadn't yet bothered to go. The red stain of her lips stood out starkly against the pallor of her skin, and when she smiled, it was slow, deliberate, the kind of expression that might precede a knife sliding between ribs.

"Agent." Her voice was like smoke, curling around him. "I was starting to think you'd never find me."

The Agent didn't return the smile. His jaw tightened, his grip on his composure as tenuous as the threadbare patience that had brought him here. "Cut the act, Dr. Du Maurier. Or do you prefer Lydia Fell these days?"

Her laugh was a soft, breathy thing, barely audible over the distant hum of the city. She drifted past him, close enough that the hem of her slip brushed against his trousers, the scent of her perfume wrapping around him like a noose. "Names are so tedious, don't you think?" She picked up the abandoned wineglass, swirling the remaining liquid idly before lifting it to her lips. A pause. A deliberate sip. "Besides, we both know why you're really here."

He didn't move, didn't flinch, but his pulse spiked anyway, betraying him. "This isn't a social call."

"No," she agreed, setting the glass down with a soft click. "It never is with you."

Her gaze raked over him then, slow, assessing, lingering on the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers twitched as if itching for his cuffs. She stepped closer, the warmth of her body a tangible thing in the scant space between them, and when she spoke again, her voice dropped to a murmur, intimate as a blade slipping between ribs. "But you didn't come all this way just to talk, did you, Agent?"

The silence stretched, thick with unspoken things. Bedelia's smile sharpened.

"No," she answered for him, her fingers brushing the grip of his holstered gun before trailing upward, over his chest, his collarbone, coming to rest at the base of his throat where his pulse hammered.

"I didn't think so."