own life. It was and for ever would be more than a piece of jewellery to him. The need to part with it the first time had made him feel just as bereft then as it did now. And it hadn’t only been him. He’d felt his mother’s pain then too, and felt it echo through him now.
This time, however, the loss wasn’t voluntary. Or temporary. Yes, it had taken three long years to get it back the first time, but he’d known where the ruby necklace was every single hour of every day. The deal he’d struck with the pawnshop owner all those years ago had included weekly visual evidence that the necklace was still in his possession. That it was still safe and waiting to be reclaimed the second Xandro was in a strong enough financial position to do so. Sure, it had cost him an extra five per cent interest in the crippling loan he’d taken out but that hadn’t mattered. Whereas the necklace had represented dishonour and disgrace for as long as he could remember, he’d fully intended it to represent something else to him. He’d made that promise with his blood and sweat and his mother’s heartbroken tears. And he’d needed that visual proof that he was on the right track almost as much as he’d needed oxygen in his lungs.
He’d achieved what he initially set out to do, which was to dig himself out of an unpalatable future, and his mother out of drudgery. He’d reacquired the necklace at the very first opportunity, and while he would never be able to look at it without remembering why it was in his possession in the first place, over the years it’d come to represent so much more to him.
Every time he bested an opponent or he won a supposedly unwinnable deal, he knew he owed that success partly to the unquenchable fighting spirit of that first fierce need to succeed in order not to lose the necklace.
Except now it was gone.
A thief had taken his property from him. Someone he trusted had walked into his office and helped themselves to what belonged to him.
Since attaining the kind of power and success most men only dreamed about, Xandro had gone for a very long time without such a daring personal challenge. These days the only challenges he received, and relished, were those thrown down by his opponents in the boardroom. So he had to admit to having a hard time believing the theft had actually happened. But the empty space he was staring at was its own glaring confirmation.
As much as he hated to admit it, because to do so would be to admit weakness he abhorred, he felt as if a part of himself was missing. Not a vital part—he would never allow anything or anyone such power over him. Certainly nothing akin to the emotional distress his mother had exhibited time and again over the necklace. Or the cloak of terror that he himself had lived with for those three years, knowing one wrong move was all it would take for those with a target on his back to crucify him.
He’d crawled out from underneath that terror of being in a gang leader’s crosshairs, and he’d taken his mother away from a life of danger and drudgery.
Those hard years of his youth had left scars, he knew. He’d been accused of being ruthless. Merciless. He’d been labelled cold-hearted by the lovers who were swiftly shown the door after claiming they were absolutely fine with a no-strings relationship only to attempt to tie him down after a few rounds in his bed.
Xandro never intended to forget his past, nor would he ever pine for love the way his mother had.
Nevertheless, he admitted to himself that the absence of the box was...affecting him.
He was so intent on dissecting and attempting to subjugate that unwanted emotion that he barely heard the knock on his office door.
A heavy tread of footsteps halted somewhere near the desk in his vast office. Xandro didn’t turn around. He already suspected what was coming.
‘He’s gone, sir.’ The news was weighted with wary apprehension.
Despite the neon lights of the Las Vegas Strip flashing outside his fiftieth floor window, his world turned a very dark and stormy grey.
The heart most people questioned whether he possessed clenched, almost defiantly questioning whether he deserved it to beat again after taking his eye off his prize.
Truth be told, he’d rarely looked at the necklace lately. The legacy of hardship and heartbreak it’d brought his mother was imprinted on his heart for ever, just like the backbreaking grind he’d endured to drag himself from the clutches of the gang was stamped within his psyche.
Nevertheless, the ruby necklace was part of his DNA. Which made its loss unacceptable.
Fists clenched, he whirled around. ‘Who is he and where has he gone?’ The words felt like crushed glass scraping his throat raw.
‘A senior security guard, sir. Benjamin Woods. He passed all the security tests for senior staff and, as per the company policy, we supplied him with a pass to this floor.’
‘When did you grant him a pass?’
‘A month ago, sir,’ Archie Preston, his security chief, confirmed.
Xandro’s nails bit into his palms. ‘So he’s had a month to plan this?’
‘Yes,’ came the hesitant answer.
‘How did he do it?’
‘The cameras show him escorting the last VIP guest to their suite at four a.m. Then he took the elevator to this floor. He was seen leaving your office fifteen minutes later with a rucksack. He walked straight out of the hotel, and took one of the taxis out front.’
Xandro forced himself to exhale. And to wait. There was more.
‘We tracked down the taxi driver,’ Archie continued. ‘Woods only went three blocks before he asked to be dropped off. The driver says he took off down one of the side streets.’
‘He knew we would track the cab so he used it long enough to throw us off his scent?’
Preston nodded. ‘We’re monitoring the airports and bus terminals—’
‘Enlighten me as to how that will help in any way, Mr Preston, when he’s already had a thirteen-hour head start?’ he snapped.
‘I can only offer my profuse apologies, Mr Christofides. And my promise that wherever he’s disappeared to, my men and I will find him.’
Xandro forced his fingers to unclench. He had to or risk smashing his fist into something unyielding. Like the nearest wall. The need to check the safe again one last time pulled at him. But his need not to feel that gut-wrenching loss again was even greater.
It was gone. But he wasn’t going to rest until he had it back in his possession.
‘I don’t doubt that you will. We know how he gained access to my office but not how he knew the code to my safe. However, the most important question now is: how do we find him before he gets round to hawking my property?’
Archie frowned, and scratched his nape.
‘If you give me the green light, I’ll hire a dozen PIs tonight to start a manhunt—’
‘You can do that. Or you can find me everything you can on Benjamin Woods, and every member of his family.’
‘I...if you don’t mind my asking, what good will that do?’ Archie asked cautiously.
Xandro afforded himself a mirthless smile. ‘Because family will always remain a man’s weakness—especially a broken one.’ The threat to his own mother had nearly brought him to his knees once upon a time. It’d been the wake-up call he’d needed to turn his life around, to protect the one person most important to him. He’d never needed to use a man’s family as leverage against him the way it was done to him, but then no one had dared to take something this precious from him either.
Xandro intended Benjamin Woods to pay for his crime and he’d use whatever means necessary. Family was as effective a tool as they came. ‘A family that breeds a thief is sure to be a damaged one. So point me in the direction of Benjamin Woods’s family. I’ll take it from there.’
Archie retreated after more solemn assurances,