Page 17

CHAPTER 17

For three of the longest days of Maarja’s life, Alex hovered on the brink of death while Octavia and Maarja spoke to her, held her hand, cried silent tears, and prayed for a miracle.

Peripherally, she knew Dante had hired a firm of trusted private nurses to monitor Alex’s care, and she suspected he’d hired guards to mingle with the staff. She didn’t ask why. She knew why. If the hospital administration was not happy, and she suspected they weren’t, he would have no one “interfere” with Alex’s continued survival.

Maarja wholeheartedly endorsed that.

When, on the fourth day, the private nurse announced, “She’s made an improvement,” and Alex’s eyes fluttered open, Maarja burst into tears, which brought Octavia off the cot where she slept. As she had learned to do, Maarja swiftly controlled her outburst to explain to Octavia they’d turned a corner, and Octavia held Alex’s hand and cried on Maarja’s shoulder, and Alex seemed to recognize them and respond to their joy.

Within moments, the room was full of doctors and nurses and Dante. He stood with them, against the wall and out of the way, but he watched with that cold judgmental air that grated on Maarja’s nerves like a metal rasp.

Within moments, Alex was scheduled for an MRI, and within hours, for her first surgery. From now on, all procedures would be aimed to secure and hasten her recovery.

That was the news Maarja and Octavia had wanted.

Dante waited until Alex was asleep once more, then he came to Octavia’s side and asked, “I have a two-bedroom suite in a nearby hotel. Can I coax you to go there and sleep in a comfortable bed?”

“No. I’ll stay with Alex, but you must take Maarja.”

“Mom!” What was Octavia thinking? Maarja didn’t want to go with him.

Octavia paid her no attention. “Maarja is still recovering from that explosion and every time I ask her, she says she’s fine. I can tell by her voice she’s exhausted.” Before Maarja could object again, Octavia turned to her. “Please remember I spent months in a hospital and rehab environment. I’m used to this bustle. I can sleep through the comings and goings. Strange people make you twitch, and you need your rest.” She put her arm around Maarja’s shoulders and walked her toward the door. “Go with Dante, dear. You trust him.”

Dante took over from Octavia so smoothly Maarja knew they’d discussed this. He guided her through the labyrinth of corridors to an elevator, his hand resting on the small of her back in that proprietary gesture that made her want to smack him. He murmured in her ear, “Your mother’s always right, ma petite amie , or so my mother always told me. Octavia has been caring for Alex. You’ve been caring for them both. If you don’t rest, you’ll collapse and frighten Octavia and perhaps set Alex’s recovery back.”

As they descended to the first floor, he maintained that contact, as if he thought if he didn’t stay close, she’d faint or run away or…or she didn’t know what he thought, but she knew he irritated her.

He walked her through the lobby and out to the hospital’s portico. “The car’s right here.”

She blinked at the sunshine. She hadn’t been outside, she realized, for days.

Nate waited beside a black sedan. Dante helped Maarja into the rear seat and slid in after her, and as the car drove off, he pulled her close to rest on his shoulder.

She wanted to ask what he thought he was doing, handling her like this, but the harrowing days and nights caught up with her and she was asleep before they got to the hotel.

* * *

When she woke, she was alone and ensconced in a lovely king-sized bed with fluffy white linens that smelled faintly of lavender, and she felt better than when she’d arrived. That was to say, better than dirt. She wore her panties. Huh. She didn’t remember removing clothes, but she might have. Or Dante might have. Or he might have hired someone to… Naw. No matter what he thought of her, and she was confused about that, he’d do that himself.

Outside, the sun was shining, so it was either later the same day or the next morning, and she was pretty sure it was later the same day because she didn’t think she could have blacked out for so long, not with all that was on the line.

Sitting up, she reached for the phone, but found a note propped up that said in black ink, Alex is through surgery. The doctors are congratulating themselves. Octavia is rested and well-fed. Sleep more or find me in the sitting room.

Dante’s handwriting. She knew without even having seen it before. She was no expert, but she could read his character in the sharp scrawled edges. The words themselves seemed to offer her a choice: Sleep more or find me in the sitting room . But she noted this was not a choice of freedom, not an offer to return her to the hospital or provide a meal. She could sleep. Or she could speak with him.

She didn’t want to do either one of those things.

Defiantly she showered. Not one of the choices—but a rebel, that was her. She dressed in the, again, new clothes she found hanging on the hook on the back of the bathroom door. Whoever Dante was consulting had great taste, for the dress clung comfortably to her, the dark red matched her hair roots and emphasized the color, and three rhinestone daisies climbed the lapel to give it pop. She brushed her teeth, fluffed her dubious coiffure, applied moisturizer and sunscreen, and went out to the sitting room—which in her world was big enough to be called a living room—where Dante sat at a desk surrounded by computers and screens.

An attractive unknown woman bent to speak to him, and she slanted a look at Maarja that clearly told her she was an intruder.

Dante flicked his fingers to dismiss his assistant. “Go, Tabitha.” When she didn’t immediately remove herself, he looked at her. She froze, her eyes widened, then she backed through the open door and into the kitchen—really this was a massive suite—and started rattling pans.

He didn’t raise his voice to say, “Tabitha, you’re no more than a temp. You can be replaced. Shut the door.”

She heard him, for the pocket door slid closed…most of the way.

Maarja knew what Tabitha had seen in his eyes; that flat black, utterly without molten gold gaze would suggest the chill of the grave. If Maarja had any sense, she would pay attention. Instead she said, “Charming as always.” She knew the basics of negotiation; she should force him to speak first. But she wanted this finished. She wanted out of here. She wanted to go back to the hospital, then return to normal life. “I’m better. Alex’s better. We’ll be fine without you. Go home. Grieve for your mother. Find her killer. Take your revenge.”

His smile mocked her dismissal. “And you—what will you do?”

“Wait with my mom. Help Alex recover. Work. Wrap and protect art objects. Watch for Serene and when she appears, kill her.”

In a voice as flat and black as his eyes, he asked, “Have you ever killed anyone?”

She looked out the window.

He took that as a no. “It’s not as easy as you think. Most people, even if they’re threatened, even if they’re attacked, hesitate before they injure the other person. If done correctly, vengeance is cold, well-planned. You use any means at your disposal: a knife, a fist, a firearm, a garrote, to end the life that seeks to destroy you and yours.”

She turned back to him and told him the truth, although she knew he wouldn’t listen. “An explosion.”

“Yes. An explosion. It’s personal, and once you’ve started, you can’t stop or the other will recover, and you’ll never be safe again.”

He’d killed people. She got it. “I understand. But brutalizing my sister and leaving her to die so horribly means I’ll never be safe, anyway. Serene knows Alex. She knows me. She knows what she’s begun.”

He leaned back in his chair, studied her as he slipped a black-and-gold fountain pen between his fingers. “You can stay here. I’ll take care of you.”

A crash sounded from the kitchen.

Maarja almost laughed. Another hope dashed, for his gaze never even flicked in that direction.

Nor did Maarja’s. All her focus remained on him. “Four nights ago—or five? I don’t know—you were all about cruel fate and unifying marriage and inevitable consequences. Now, without a hint of passion or even humanity, you’re offering me a position as your mistress.”

“Four nights ago, you rejected all that I offered. Why would you want more now?”

“I don’t want it. I’m pointing out your inconsistency.”

“Aren’t we a couple of inconsistent dupes?”

She got it. He was right. “Fair enough. But I’m not staring at you as if you had just crawled out from under a rock.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tabitha inch the door open and lean forward enough to listen. “I assume by your current judgmental behavior you still think I had a hand in the robbery? That I gladly gave my sister over to brutalization and death? Or that both of us were complicit without realizing the consequences of throwing our lots in with such inhuman beasts?”

“It’s time for you to tell me the truth. All the truth.”

Her heart stopped. Just for a moment. Just to give her a pretaste of the death he would provide for her. When her heart started again, she saw the knowledge in his eyes. He knew. Somehow, he knew. Somehow in the last few days he’d managed to pry into her deepest, most thoroughly forgotten secrets and weave them into a cloth that he would put over her face and use to smother her.

She stepped back, clasped her hands behind her, and in a formal tone said, “There are many truths in this world, Dante Arundel, and I know a few of them. To which one do you refer?”

“Cast your mind back. Back to that moment when your mother blew herself apart to kill my father.”

“Yes. She died so that I would survive.”

“Such a careful answer. You reply without denial or affirmation.”

Her supposition had been right. This was a setup. Why, she didn’t know, but she was sure these were the last moments of her life. Her heart thumped like a bass drum, but without any rhythm, unless fear had its own rhythm. She wanted to beg, cry, remind him of the night they’d spent together, offer herself without pride or hope to be used as he wished.

She bit down on her tongue. If she was going to die, she didn’t need to waste precious breath on humiliating herself. “You’re angry in a way you weren’t when we arrived here at the hotel. What has happened?”

“Today while you slept in that massively comfortable bed, I received a video taken on that fateful day in my father’s throne room.”

“A video survived?” Another frightened breath, another heartbeat that announced her day of reckoning had arrived.

“The Arundel security videos were kept in the hopes that someday, as technology advanced, they could be recreated from their twisted remains.”

She nodded as if approving of the foresight.

“One of the things no one could ever figure out was how your mother triggered the explosion. It was suggested by our people who were there and survived that she had shoved explosives up her chatte .”

Maarja took a deep shocked breath.

“In my judgment, that was possible, but seemed risky for a woman so desperate to end my father’s life.”

“To save mine,” she reminded him quickly.

“To save yours,” he agreed as if that truth had no meaning to him. “It was suggested and most agreed that she ingested the explosive, knowing or gambling on the fact that the Arundel security didn’t include an X-ray of that kind.”

“I don’t remember what Mama did for preparation, but—”

He slashed his hand like a karate chop.

She flinched as if he’d slapped her.

He continued, “It was suggested that once she had the explosives in place, at the moment of my father’s threat, she used her abdominal muscles to detonate the bomb.”

She didn’t make the mistake of trying to interrupt his monologue again.

“On that fateful day when I saw you in my mother’s library, and identified you as the Daire child, my memories blasted me, unfaded by the passage of time. I knew they were there, waiting for me, but the events which unfolded left me with no time to explore them.”

The explosion, he meant. His mother’s death. The hospital. Her collapse in his bed. Then—

He said, “Then we fucked.”

In the past, she’d thought he used the word because he inhabited a realm where men ruled by intimidation. Now she thought— for you, it’s just a verb…and you’ve never made love in your entire life .

So yes, they had fucked.

“Afterward, I was exhausted, exalted, and while I watched you sleep, I recalled each second of that day in my father’s throne room in real time. The scene, the people, the moments are etched in my mind.” In a sudden motion that shocked and frightened her, he flung the pen toward the kitchen—and it stuck in the Sheetrock wall exactly beside Tabitha’s protruding head.

Tabitha froze, her blue eyes so fixed and wide her mascara scraped her hairline.

Maarja swallowed. It had to be a pen with a blade. No way he could do that normally. But still…impressive aim and scary as all hell.

Tabitha retreated into the kitchen.

Maarja heard a hard thump, and a retching sound. She understood both reactions.

Dante continued his monologue without taking note of Tabitha’s reaction, or Maarja’s, or even that his pen had penetrated exactly where he intended. “Your mother didn’t detonate the bomb.”

She’d spent her life anticipating this moment. Fearing this moment. “No.”

“Someone else in that room did.”

“Yes.” Oh, God, yes.

“Your mother had a conspirator.”

“Yes, she did.”

“And that conspirator survived.”

Her mouth was so dry she could barely croak out the answer. “Yes.”

“It can be only one person.”

Every muscle in her body clenched.

“Andere.”

She almost collapsed where she stood. “What?”

“Andere was hurt badly enough that no one suspected him, thus he assured himself a place in our organization.”

Feebly she said, “Wait…”

“He hasn’t been seen since the explosion that killed my mother.” Dante’s attention shifted to his phone. He picked it up and began to dial.

Maarja had only a split second to make the decision; let Andere of the French lemon candies suffer and die, or admit the truth. With all the strength of her convictions and in the belief these would be her last words, she confessed, “You’re wrong. It was me.”

He looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language.

She clarified, “I detonated the bomb. I killed your father.”