Nikolas by Faith Gibson Read Free Book Online Page A

her best friend, her confidante. Were he someone else, she would allow herself to fall in love with him. Make love to him. Since he was not, she kept their relationship purely platonic. Her father kept a constant eye on her. Never would she be allowed to engage in a relationship with someone beneath their station. She found that ironic considering who her mother had been.
    “I’ve gone back to before the gates opened this morning. Nobody sat on the bench, and none of the workers stopped anywhere near it.” Sergei continued typing, searching.
    “Go all the way back to the point when I put the disk under the bench.” She squeezed his shoulder then began pacing. There had to be something there showing who took the disk. Kallisto had no idea how her father had obtained such a priceless artifact or why he would allow her to use it as a clue. Whoever discovered the disk would hold in their possession an item so rare it could land them in prison, or worse yet, in the media’s eye. The Cleopatra Disk was created in 29 B.C., a year after the pharaoh’s death. It disappeared one hundred years later and had been missing ever since. It wasn’t the only rare artifact her father held in his private collection.
    The rarity of the coin was kept a secret from all the men on her crew, including Sergei. She loved her friend, but she trusted no one. Only because she was already wealthy beyond measure did her father entrust her with the object. If it were to be discovered where the disk had been all those centuries…
    “Here!” Sergei pointed to the monitor. “It was an old lady.”
    Kallisto couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The same old lady who had snapped a picture of the leopard as Kallisto walked past was clearly the one to take the disk. “Fuck! How could I have been so careless?” She had not seen the woman until after she hid the artifact under the bench. Even then she had waited to make certain no one was in the vicinity. “This is bad. We have to find this woman and get the disk back.”
    Sergei stood from his chair and pulled Kallisto into a tight embrace. She allowed him to offer her strength. She had screwed up, and it would take a miracle to find an old woman in such a large city. “I’m on it, Sweetheart. I will not let you down.”
     

     
    “Holy mother of Horus! Do you know what this is?” Xenia turned the coin over and over, studying it closely.
    “No, but I’m assuming you do?” Sophia asked.
    “Yes, I do. This is the Cleopatra Disk. My father was an archaeologist. This object eluded him his whole life, and someone just handed it over to you as if it wasn’t one of the most sought-after artifacts of all time.” Xenia handed the disk back to Sophia.
    “ If it’s the original. I’m not up on all things ancient, but this item looks to be in pristine condition. Wouldn’t something that dates back thousands of years be a little more, I don’t know, fragile?”
    Xenia walked over to a bookcase and pulled down what appeared to be a photo album. “If it was buried under rubble for thousands of years, out in the elements, yes. If it has been kept in a private collection, in the dark so to speak, then no. Take a look at this.” Xenia placed the album on the coffee table and pointed at a picture. “This is a Tutankhamun Disk. It was buried along with the King. The detail is perfect, same as the Cleopatra Disk. This one here belonged to Ramesses the Great. It was found in a dig back in 1922. That is what your artifact would look like had it not been locked up tight.”
    “So why give me an ancient artifact that belonged to Cleopatra? Are the kidnappers telling me my parents are buried along with the ancient Queen?” Sophia started pacing. Her parents couldn’t be dead. Why would the kidnappers bring her all this way if they’d already murdered her mom and dad?
    “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Until you have proof, you need to assume they are still alive. As for Cleopatra’s burial site, no