Page 11

CHAPTER 11

Heartbeat.

Heartbeat.

Heartbeat.

Shocked deep breath.

“Two years? Two years someone has been trying to—” Words failed Maarja.

Dante nodded. “A runaway vehicle. A random street shooting that came too close.”

“Crap.” She twisted the sheet between her fingers. They didn’t feel as nimble as usual. They felt big, clumsy.

“A dinner out that ended in the hospital with lifesaving measures.”

“Food poisoning?” she ventured.

“Simply put, a poisoning. My cousin Jack Arundel is a police detective—”

And didn’t that say every damned thing about his family?

“—and he said unless we could figure out who, they were going to get better at planning, while we would inevitably fail in our protective measures, and the killers would finish the job.” For a guy who was as attached to his mother as Dante had appeared to be, he’d been amazingly stoic.

She put her hand on his arm. “You can cry, you know. She was your mother.”

He shook his head. “I can’t cry. I need to discover who wanted her dead.”

“Who do you suspect?”

“Traditionally, I’d suspect you.”

She had to unclench her teeth to speak. “Can we dismiss that suspicion?”

“Yes. You’ve exonerated yourself.”

She touched the still-warm skin on her face. “Gee, thanks.”

“And put yourself into the path of the killer.”

“What?” He looked serious. “Why? Because I saved her?”

“That, certainly. An assassin wanted no body to remain, no trace of Raine Arundel left on this earth.”

“Obliteration.”

“And a move back to the old ways.”

“Will they kill you next?”

“Not easily.” He smiled chillingly. “I do hope they try. That would simplify the task of finding the traitors, but it seems unlikely.”

“Why wouldn’t they try to kill you?” She answered the question herself. “Because they believe your mother’s death will serve as a warning, make you reconsider the move to the legal and moral. Which is not as profitable?”

“Not as easily profitable. Not for people who want to break the rules.”

“Maybe they think the move to respectability was made on your mother’s insistence. Now you’ll be out from under her influence and—”

“They can influence me instead.”

“Have they met you?”

“I assume. There’s a good chance they’re related to me, although that’s not one hundred percent. If that’s the case, it means they hate you because you’re a Daire. Romani. We’re back to the blood vendetta and yet another reason to end your life.” He was such a straight talker.

Why? She’d lived with this her whole life. She knew the ugly facts. “Did your mother recognize me the first time I worked for her?”

“She suspected.”

“Why?”

“You have the look of the Daire Romani. And to…” He hesitated.

Now he was being delicate? “To who?”

“You have a striking resemblance to that old portrait of Vlad Tepes.”

Vlad Tepes. Vlad Dr?culea. Romanian prince of such cruelty and fame he inspired the fictional character Dracula. “I have never impaled anyone.”

“Nor have I, although I cannot promise that in the past some Arundel has not.”

For safety measures, she had changed her appearance, but the complexion, the eyes, the mouth—nothing could be done to disguise them. Not that she should want to. Not that she should need to. But something about knowing that how she looked could result in explosions and gunshots, execution and bloodshed, made her think cutting her distinctive dark red hair was no great sacrifice. Wearing reading glasses she didn’t need was a subtle subterfuge. Attracting no attention had been her goal…and now she had flung herself into the forefront of the blood vendetta by attempting to rescue Mrs. Arundel…and sleeping with Dante Arundel.

She put her hand to her forehead. What she’d done over the past twenty-four hours had been nothing but events in her life…and they would possibly end it. How had a few hours managed to gain such importance?

She looked up to see Dante watching her, his somber expres sion telling her all too clearly he knew what thoughts possessed her. “What convinced her that I was…the little girl?”

“She had me watch the security video. I remembered you.”

“I remembered you, too.”

“You knew me at once.”

She sighed. It wasn’t something she wanted to admit, but… “Yes. I recognized you. It’s all in my mind in flashes of memory. Except at night, in my dreams, it’s a video. My mother had told me what to do. She had instructed me over and over, but I was…stupid, young. We came into that magnificent room. That man with the mean face laughed at me and I cried. Then I was playing and I glanced up and you were watching. You were frowning. The nice man gave me lemon candies.”

“Our butler, Andere. He was injured in the blast.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” She was. She’d eaten one candy, slipped the rest into her pocket, and that night they were all she and Aunt Yesenia had to eat.

“We did look for you,” Dante assured her.

“I never doubted that.”

“Not to kill you.”

She had nothing remotely civil to say to that.

“The family is legitimate now. The deaths and chaos caused by…your mother convinced my mother it was time. According to Arundel tradition, she should have retired to a convent and worn a widow’s veil to mourn Benoit until the end of her days.”

“Medieval,” Maarja muttered.

He stroked her fingers as if to give her strength. “If she was going to remake the organization in her vision, if she was going seize control from among the contenders, her sight needed to be omniscient, her reach had to be far, and her justice had to be swift and brutal.”

Again her perception of Raine Arundel shimmered and shifted. “Yes. I understand. I think.”

“I have a number I want you to memorize.”

“Number?” Where had that come from?

“A phone number. In case you need me for any reason.”

“Like if someone is trying to kill me?” She really hoped that wasn’t what he meant.

He kissed her fingers. “Or you’re pregnant.”

She also really hoped he didn’t think that. “Listen. If I am, you don’t have to worry about it. If there’s one thing I know from my upbringing, it’s how to raise a child alone. You don’t have to be involved.” She was trying to be reassuring, but found herself pressed into the pillows, a big angry, broad-shouldered man leaning over her.

“Do not even—” he separated the words into individual threats “—think that’s going to happen. My child will have two involved parents who love and guide him or her or them .”

“Okay.” She hadn’t been afraid of him before, but this made her wonder what trigger had been tripped. “But we don’t have to—”

“Live together? Yes, we do.” He shook her a little. “You understand?”

She got a panicky, trapped feeling. “Calm down. We’re not talking about a child, we’re talking about a supposition.”

“You’ll call me if you’re pregnant.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” She looked around. “My phone—”

“Is being replaced.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t thought, but somewhere along the line, when the emergency room personnel had removed and discarded her clothes, her phone had vanished. “Was it…?”

“Broken. I’m surprised you’re not more broken.” He leaned back, but he watched her as if he was ready to pounce—again—and recited the phone number.

She recited it back to him. Several times. Until he pronounced himself satisfied, tucked her in, and rose to start his day. “Sleep as long as you can. My mother says it’s the best way to heal.”

His mother didn’t say anything anymore. She was dead.

But Maarja felt no urge to remind him. She didn’t even want to remember that herself.