Page 49

CHAPTER 49

This was not the writhing malice she’d felt reach for her as the knife slashed down. This was Jack, a man so cool in his concentration she felt his grip on her like ice in her veins. Yet something linked him to the masked and camouflaged figure who had stepped back against the wall opposite, a collaboration so ugly Benoit Arundel himself seemed to have risen from his grave.

Jack pressed with enough force for the sharp tip to pierce her skin.

She jerked, trying to get away. “Don’t,” she whispered. Warm blood slithered down her throat.

In that scarily instructive tone, Jack said, “Maarja, scream. Scream for all you’re worth. For years, I’ve been groomed to kill Dante.”

His phrasing caught her attention. “Been groomed? By who?”

“By my mother, of course.” He laughed as if he told a great joke.

“I don’t believe you.” She wanted to shout, but she kept her voice low. In case she survived these next few minutes, she wanted the information only he could give her. “Béatrice doesn’t have it in her.”

“My mother hides in plain sight. Haven’t you realized that’s possible? You’d better wise up in a hurry, Maarja, or you’ll die young.” He mocked her without a trace of mercy. “Oh, wait…too late. You’ll die before the sun rises.”

She couldn’t help it. She looked out the window, wanting to see a lightening in the gloom, but the tendrils of fog clung to the house and shriveled all hope. If she screamed, as he wished, she would bring Dante to be stabbed from behind by…Béatrice? “Béatrice is cruising to Alaska.”

“Thank you for that information.”

He’d been lying. Fishing for information. She’d been a fool to give it up.

Yet if the figure against the wall was not Béatrice…who was it? Not his mother. Then who? Maarja strained to see that other being in her room—what person had been willing to stab her while she slept?—but in the dim light she could see nothing but a tall figure wearing a mask and cap and dressed in desert camouflage up against the wall beside the door. “What do you hope to accomplish? You and…that person?”

“I’ll take control of the Arundels. The moment is now. We know that. Soon everyone will know that.” He pronounced each word like a directive. “We’ll be feared again. We will be great again.”

The knife tip sank a little deeper. “Scream and live another few minutes,” Jack said again.

This was not the same man who had publicly thrown a temper tantrum. This was the real man; it hadn’t been meth that caused his outburst to Dante, but the need to publicly misdirect his intentions. She remembered how Dante had watched Jack as he left; he had doubted Jack’s performance.

Smart man. Had he maintained his vigilance over the last few days? Where was Saint Rees? Where were Dante’s precautions?

Jack’s preternatural calm sent the right message. So did her own swift intelligence.

She was not alone in her home. She drew breath to shriek—

Dante leaped through the door and flooded the room with white light that blinded her and, by the way he staggered, Jack, too.

Dante’s wedding present to Maarja was opportunity. Sightless, and in perfect sequence, she performed the moves her self-defense master had taught her.

Pull your head back. Tuck your chin. Slide it under his elbow.

Left hand: slam his junk with your fist.

Right hand: grab his wrist and twist until his elbow breaks behind him and his grip opens. Catch the knife and—

Jack’s elbow cracked, a horrible sound that made her want to vomit.

She took possession of the knife and—

Dante cut the light.

Jack swiveled in a move that too clearly told her he’d had the training to match Dante’s—and unsurpassed pain resistance.

She lost her grip, but gained the first vestiges of her sight.

So did Jack, for he grabbed at her again.

She held the knife in both hands, a maneuver designed to make her look like an amateur.

He watched her through cool eyes, so different from his previous behavior. He had been camouflaging his true self, using a feigned reckless rage to hide his true intentions. He intended to hold her hostage—or kill her.

She intended to survive.

Like an amateur, she went easily into his arms and, when he grabbed for the hand with the knife, she punched him in the sternum with her right fist. She used the knife she gripped in her left to shove it up under the soft part between his jaw bones, into the flesh, placing the sharp point into his mouth and sinuses and brain.

Jack’s eyes bulged in surprise.

His grip on her loosened.

He gave up his death rattle.

Dante snatched her back against him, leaving his cousin to crash to the floor. He pulled her toward the door, away from the corpse.

Maarja’s knees collapsed, but she shouted, “The other one. Get the other one.”

Footsteps tapped as the accomplice fled along the corridor and toward the stairs.

She pushed at Dante. “The other one!”

Dante let her go. He dashed out, following the sound of footsteps.

She slipped to her knees.

Then—

Alex’s shout. Octavia’s cry of terror. A slam. A thump. Another burst of adrenaline brought Maarja to her feet. Grabbing her robe, she raced down the stairs after Dante.

Dante’s commanding voice yelled, “Halt!”

A gunshot.

Maarja stopped in her tracks.

Breaking glass.

Dante shouted again, his voice strong, calling for Saint Rees’s security force to join the chase. He gave commands and Maarja could breathe again. That gunshot had not injured him.

Yet from the thunder of feet and the yelling outside and in, it was obvious the knife wielder had not been apprehended.

Maarja found Alex and Octavia in the hallway helping each other to stand, and both wore the shocked, dazed expressions of people who had been wakened into a world of unexpected violence. As Maarja assisted them back into Octavia’s big bed, she babbled stuff like, “Are you badly hurt? I shouldn’t have come home. Let me get ice and a pain reliever. I shouldn’t have involved you…”

Octavia interrupted to say, “Shut up, Maarja. This is your home. All we need to make us feel better is a few of the apple fritters from La Patisserie and some hot coffee.”

“Really, Maarja, since when won’t apple fritters fix all our problems?” Alex teased.

Which made Maarja burst into tears. She crawled on the bed with them, cried and cuddled and gave them the rundown on what had happened upstairs in her bedroom. Amid their exclamations of horror at Jack’s intentions and their admiration for Maarja’s actions, Alex used her own rolls of gauze that rested on the end table to blot the cut on Maarja’s chin and reassured her that she needed only a few stitches.

“A few stitches are of little importance,” Octavia decreed.

“She can’t see the blood,” Alex said to Maarja. “And the pain isn’t hers. That’s why she’s so sanguine. You can cry if you want.”

Predictably, Maarja laughed. With tears on her cheeks, she laughed.

Determinedly upbeat Octavia declared, “We were knocked down. You were cut. But the only bad omen we needed to worry about on Maarja’s wedding day was the fear that the bride and groom would be married and buried within a few hours. Now due to our own darling Maarja’s fighting skills, she’s defeated the enemy.”

“Someone got away.” Maarja wiped her nose on the tissue Alex handed her.

Outside, sirens approached, their wails muffled by the fog.

“We don’t know that yet,” Octavia said. “They might be captured.”

From the doorway, Dante said, “So far, we haven’t apprehended him.” He strode in, took Maarja’s hand, pulled her close, and with gentle fingers tilted her chin. He peeled off the bloody gauze to see what had been done to her, then replaced it. “When I do, they’ll pay.”