The boat was quite peaceful after Max had finally shut up and stopped threatening to throw me in the canal. And only then, when I actually had a moment to pause and relax, did I realise how beautiful Venice really is.

"Here is as far as I can go," the man said after about an hour of gliding along the emerald coloured water.

He began tying the wooden canal boat to a mooring bank by a stone bridge. There was a small gap between it and the buildings that had been lining the canal for miles where you could step off the boat and back onto the streets.

"There they are!" I heard a voice shout as we docked which shattered the peace.

"Fuck," I cursed as I saw the three men from earlier race towards us.

Max shoved some extra euros into the boat man's hand and I breathed a word of thanks before jumping onto dry land and in the opposite direction of the men.

We pushed our way through the mid-afternoon crowd with our pursuers close behind.

A few minutes later, Max took my hand and pulled me into a quieter alleyway.

"What are you doing?"

"Going on a detour. We'll never lose them in that crowd," he replied taking a left turn and then a right.

"How do you know where you are going?"

"What makes you think I do?"

I rolled my eyes but had little choice. I was better off running aimlessly with Max than turning back right into the Mafia's grasp. As far as I could tell, they hadn't followed us into the alleyway. Max's map was of no use so instead, we just ran in the vague direction of South, where Max knew the airport was situated.

"Hey look," I said spotting a set of street signs. "Airport half a mile," I read aloud.

"Thank the Lord," Max said with a relieved smile. "Come on."

We ran for another two minutes before finally reaching a large building with taxis queued up outside and people dragging suitcases and various other forms of luggage.

I hurried inside and beelined to the ticket desk where a young woman was sat doing not much at all.

"We need two tickets on the next plane to Seattle," I said. "Please."

"There's a plane leaving in three hours but I'm afraid a man came around half an hour ago and bought up all the 25 remaining tickets," she answered in a bored tone. "Sorry."

"25? Who buys 25 tickets for the same plane? That would cost like $10,000. Who has that much money?"

"Somebody with a particular desire to stop anyone from leaving Venice for Seattle tonight," Max replied. "What did this man look like?"

"Tall, dark hair, dark eyes. A lot like you actually," the woman replied.

I exchanged nervous looks with Max.

It was Luciano. Of course.

"What about Portland? Do you have two tickets available for Portland?"

"The next flight isn't for three days."

"San Francisco?" I questioned.

"He bought up that too," she answered.

"Anywhere in America?" I asked getting desperate.

"He bought all the leftover seats for all the flights to America for the next 18 hours. Florida, New York, Boston. He took them all. And Canada for that matter.copy right hot novel pub