“I got it, Calista.”
“Yes, but I’ve been tugging this around since fourth grade. You have your hands full.”
“Is there some personal reason you can’t follow the simplest order? If there is, I really need to know that now.”
Her eyes narrowed and she yanked the cello from his grip. “My cello, my responsibility. I’m not a soldier and this isn’t the military. And since when do I take orders from you?”
“The instant you got out of the car.” Adam took her free hand in his. As soon as he closed the rectory’s front door, Robert lifted a strand of hair off the child’s face and gasped.
“Good God. Is this Anna?”
“This is my daughter.” He drew Calista close to him. “And this is Calista Martin.”
The priest took a moment to study Calista before he raked both hands through his hair. He reached for her hand. “I’m Father Robert Anthony, but everyone calls me Anthony.” He glanced at Adam and said, “Except this guy.”
He turned toward Adam. “It really hasn’t been a good night, has it?”
Adam shook his head.
“What can I do?”
Adam handed him the keys to the CR-V. “Move the vehicle while I put Anna down.”
The priest took the keys. “Make yourself at home.” He nodded toward the second floor. “You know where the guest room is.” He turned and left the house.
Adam placed his free arm around Calista’s shoulder. A shiver raced through her body and into Adam’s heart. In his saner moments, when he wasn’t trying to stay alive, he could appreciate the misguided instincts that landed her in the middle of his hell. Years ago, that might’ve been him.
“I had my reasons for getting out of the car, Adam. I’m not a complete idiot.”
He gently pulled her into an embrace, expecting her to punch him in the gut. Shockingly, she laid her head against his chest, circled his waist with one hand, and hugged Anna with the other.
“God, Calista. I’m sorry. Your free evening wasn’t supposed to turn into… this.”
They stood quietly for several moments. It was nice, and so hard to break away, but he did. “You’re safe for the moment. We’re all safe here.”
“Your friend―a priest? I wasn’t expecting that.”
Adam chuckled. “He was my commanding officer. The closest thing to Batman you’re ever gonna meet.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Don’t let the collar fool you. He’s a one-man army when he has to be. Robert left that life behind when he entered the seminary and doesn’t like it when he has to revisit it. We’ll only stay here tonight.”
He took a step toward the staircase and repositioned Anna in his arms. “As soon as I get her settled, we can talk. I’m sure you have some questions.”
Calista followed Adam to the second floor. He opened the door at the end of the hallway and laid Anna in one of the two twin beds, covering her with the quilt, tucking the stuffed elephant in her arms.
“Rina made the blanket with some of Anna’s old baby clothes.” He stood and rubbed the back of his neck. “I have a couple of picture albums and a few odds and ends, but not much to show for her mother’s life.”
Calista ran her hand over the stitching on the bottom corner of the quilt. “It’s beautiful. Anna will cherish it. But she doesn’t need boxes of her mom’s stuff to remember her. What you’ve collected will be enough as long as you…”
Calista lowered her head and shifted.
Damn, had he been such an intimidating jerk that now she didn’t feel she could be open with him? Keeping her safe would be almost impossible if they couldn’t communicate.
He placed a hand on her arm. “As long as I what?”
She cleared her throat and swiped at a lone tear. “Share Rina with Anna. She needs to be able to talk about her mother with you. That is how she will heal―spending time with you, talking about the woman you both loved.”
Adam moved toward the window. From the corner of his eye, he watched his daughter’s chest rise and fall in a blissful sleep. Every ounce of love he had for her gripped his heart in a vise lock of regret. “That’s not possible. She’s safer away from me.”
“Well, damn it, Adam, make it possible. You’re all she has left. If not you, then who?” Calista tucked the covers around Anna’s shoulders. “She is all that matters now. She needs you.”
Adam leaned his head against the cool glass of the window, eyeing the quiet neighborhood. One way or another, he had to justify his plan for Anna to Calista. It wasn’t going to be easy. Pete shared a little of her story with him. She lost her parents at a young age. Calista’s choice to stay with him tonight was pure, heartfelt emotion. Adam functioned on reason except when it came to Anna―and apparently Calista.
He had to keep his heart out of the equation. Anna’s life depended on it. Calista would never forgive him for walking away from his own daughter. But to keep Anna alive, that was exactly what he planned to do.
“I have never lived with Anna. While I saw her as much as I thought safe, we’ve never been out of Rina’s home together. I don’t know how to help her… raise her.”
“Learn how, Adam.”
She made it sound so easy. If you want something bad enough, you can make it happen. Maybe in Calista’s normal world, life worked like that. It sure the hell didn’t happen in the one where he lived.
“I know how to hunt down the men who killed Rina. I can extract information from them and discover where Ludis is hiding. I can kill Ludis with these,” he said, lifting his hands.
“Adam…”
“No, Calista. That’s exactly what has to happen. This nightmare that’s my life has gone on too long. It’s time to end it.”
She let out a shaky breath. “Then end it. Do what you have to do and come back to your daughter.” Her eyes narrowed. “Who is Ludis? Rina mentioned another name, Vasnev.”
He never shared his other life, but now that she was in the middle of it, and what he was up against―what she was up against, it was only fair she went into this with every morbid detail.
“Ludis is my uncle, my mother’s brother. The other man, Emil Vasnev, is my grandfather. My mother hid me from her family to protect me from their world. But like me, she couldn’t stay away from her only child.”
He cracked open the window. The cool evening breeze and the scent of the salt water from the harbor filled his lungs, but did nothing to slam the door to his last moments with his mother. Annija Vasnev had brought him into the world, and then sacrificed everything so his life would be different than hers. But their lives weren’t different, and tonight, they mirrored each other.
“I was fortunate to have two amazing mothers. My birth mother I knew as Aunt Annija, my favorite person in the world. I had no idea she was my mother.” He let the silence soothe him a moment. “My grandfather controls the most brutal crime syndicate in Eastern Europe. His hand reaches into every major government in the world. There isn’t anything he hasn’t done. Ludis, his only son, is his right hand. If my mother gave birth to me under her father’s roof, Emil Vasnev would have owned me. So she ran, found a couple to raise me as their own. After all that planning and sacrifice, she, in the long run, led my grandfather and uncle right to me. And, I somehow repeated the same mistake tonight.”
“Maybe we better take this conversation into the hallway…”
“Anna sleeps very soundly.”
“Okay, then finish your story. I would really like to understand what is so important to keep you away from that sweet girl.”
She moved closer to him. He didn’t stop her; her gentleness was calming. But it wasn’t easy sharing something he kept secret for so long. Rina had to know what being connected to him could mean to her. But they were from the same world, worked together, trained together, and experienced the effects of pure evil. Tragic events touched Calista’s life, but what he had to share was from a different plane entirely.
“My parents were a kind, so
ft-spoken couple who spent their days unearthing lost cultures. They never had a bad thing to say about anyone.”
He twisted toward the window as Calista stood directly behind him. She didn’t touch him, and he didn’t want her to.
“To live their last moments on earth with a man like Ludis Vasnev, it’s damn unthinkable. The only reason I hadn’t put a bullet between my uncle’s eyes years ago was because Rina stopped me. She believed there was a right and wrong way to bring about justice. She also believed I was a better man than that.”
Her hand rested on his arm. “You are the better man.”
Fuck being a better man. He should have killed the bastard.
“Ludis must have tracked Annija’s numerous visits. The day my parents and Annija died, I had just turned eighteen and was clueless to the secrets surrounding my birth. I have no doubt she did everything in her power to save my parents, but failed. She then intercepted me on my way home from school, tossing me a backpack just like this one.” He lifted Anna’s pack off the floor and then let it slip from his fingers as if it weighed a ton. “She told me to run and I did. She drove away, drawing Ludis away from me, and ended up at the bottom of a canyon.”
“My God, Adam. Why?”
“Evil breeds evil. My grandfather wants me. I’m a Vasnev, his to control. He sent his trusted son to find me. My mother betrayed her family, and he ordered her execution.”
His hand curled into a fist, but at the same time, Calista’s hand covered his. That simple gesture eased the revulsion crashing through him. He sucked in a breath through his clenched teeth and let it out slowly before he spoke.
“I’ve kept track of Emil Vasnev. He’s sick, dying. Ludis has just been biding his time until the day he takes control of his father’s empire. My mother…she was in his way.” He took a moment and watched his daughter sleep. “Anna and I are now in Ludis’s way. Rina knew all of this. That’s why we gave up our lives, faked our deaths, and hid Anna.” He raked both hands through his hair. He wanted to rip it out by the roots, anything to escape the pain.
“Ludis won’t give up. I know his next move and I have to warn them.” His hoarse voice fell to a whisper.
“Them?”
“My father’s family.” He shoved his fisted hands into his pockets. “He’ll go after them next. Like my adoptive parents, they will be caught completely unaware.”
“I don’t understand.”
Adam faced Calista. “My father’s family… I know who they are and even spend time with them, helping them out when I can. They don’t know who I am.”
“Wait, your father knows you, but doesn’t know you’re his son?”
“My mom never contacted him when she discovered she was pregnant with me for the same reason she gave me up.”
He raised Calista’s arm, traced his finger over the phone number he wrote on her skin. “But that last day, she gave me his number just like this, and told me if ever I needed him, he would help.” He fixed her with a stare. “Rina and I chose to live in this area so I could be close to my father. I wanted to look out for him and his family in case they ever needed me.”
Adam leaned both hands on the windowsill. His fingernails bit into the old wood.
“Now I have placed his entire family in the line of fire.”
“His family? You mean you have brothers… sisters…?”
“Four half-brothers and one half-sister. And I’m about to rip their world wide open.”
Five
Adam stood at the window, his body tense, and a hard tightness around his eyes. The walls of the small, sparsely furnished guest room appeared to close in on him.
Anna moaned and shifted slightly in her sleep. It was as if she could feel her father’s anguish. After the bizarre evening Calista just lived through, she didn’t doubt the telepathic connection also gave Anna access into Adam’s emotional state―a lot for a four-year-old little girl to deal with.
Calista knelt by the twin bed and placed her hand on Anna’s shoulder. An instant later, Anna’s breathing slowed, and she settled back into a deep, restful sleep.
Adam hadn’t moved. He continued to glare out the window with his back to her. If a simple gesture of a hand on a shoulder helped Anna, maybe it would help her dad.
Calista took a calming breath and approached the window. Again, she dared touch him, her hand on his arm. When he didn’t yank away from her, she eased closer, bringing both hands around his waist. She then rested her head against his back, hugging him close to her. With her ear against his back, his heartbeat raced, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do but hold him tighter.
He gave up a relationship with Rina, his daughter, his father, and his family. What other sacrifices had he made?
“Are you wishing I’d never walked into Pete’s diner?”
“No, of course not.” Calista reached inside Adam’s sport coat and removed the photo she’d seen him take from Anna’s safe room. “Who took this picture of Rina and Anna at the zoo?”
He didn’t respond at first. “I did.”
“But you didn’t go with them or meet them there. Instead you watched over them, alone, out of sight.” She stopped, trying to find the right words.
“This photo tells a story about you, Adam, about the kind of man you are. Just like in the photo, you stand on the outside looking in, taking care of everyone. You feel you’re responsible for the people you love, responsible for taking down the evil who threatens them.” She let out a heavy sigh. “Well, there must be a way to remove Ludis’s threat and still be able to live a normal life with your daughter.”
“It doesn’t work that way. There are no Pollyanna solutions that will fix everything.”
She couldn’t help grinning. Pete called her Pollyanna all the time. But the mood shifted fast. There was little to grin about at the moment. “Maybe I do live in Pollyanna world, and I have no doubt you searched every solution before you gave up so much. It must have ripped your heart in two. Anna has no one but you now. Leaving isn’t an option. You gave Rina your promise to be there for your daughter. There has to be someone who can help you, someone you trust to have your back. I’ll have your back if you let me.”
“You’re not going anywhere near those bastards, Calista.”
He kept his hands pressed on the window, his muscles so tight, they stretched the seams of his dress shirt. Her mind screamed to let him go. Instead, she eased her body closer, drawing him into her.
“I have no desire to meet that white-haired bastard.”
“How in the hell do you know what Ludis looks like?”
Adam’s voice turned hard as if all the emotion drained from him and only cold fury filled the void.
“I saw him.” She quickly counted to ten and lifted her chin, meeting his glare. “When he burst out the front door.”
This time Adam did grab hold of her, his dark brown eyes morphing into pools of black. He wasn’t hurting her, but she could sense an incredible control in him.
“Did he see you?”
“No. I hid behind the boxwood on the left side of the porch the instant the door opened.” She massaged the tense vein above his left eye. “He didn’t see me, Adam. He was moving at a fast run, holding his shoulder and bleeding badly. The whole upper right section of his shirt was beet red. Once he reached his car, he never glanced back. I waited to enter the house until after he drove away. I didn’t get the license number, but it was a rental tag.”
Adam released his hold and paced the small area near the window, his entire body one tense muscle.
“This is not your fight.”
“And it’s not all yours either, Adam.” Maybe she should have kept her opinion to herself, but she acted on emotion, shot from her heart. And that child sleeping in the bed deserved her heart.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“The way I see it, it became your father’s fight the second you were conceived.” She was sticking that heart into an area she had no business, bu
t she couldn’t stop now. “Yesterday, even a couple hours ago, you could have gone after Ludis and maybe not cared if you came out alive. Everything has changed.”
“My father doesn’t even know I’m his son.”
“Then tell him and then let him help you.”
“What makes you think he even has the skill to help me go after Ludis?”
“You can’t be like you without your father being just as capable as you are. And your brothers… you said you help them when they need it. Well, damn it, it’s their turn to step up and help you.”
Push harder. Calista turned toward the bed. The moment Anna opened her eyes, when the reality of last night came crashing down over her, it would forever be the worst day of her young life. Adam’s game plan changed, and he had to come to grips with it. That sweet child wasn’t going to lose both parents if Calista had anything to say about it.
“You’ve had a rough road that I can’t possibly understand.” She clamped her hands in front of her and said a quick prayer that her next words wouldn’t erect a wall between her and Adam that they could never tear down.
“Anna needs you more than you need revenge. Your grandfather is dying, and if Ludis is as bad as you say he is, law enforcement agencies around the globe must be looking for him. Let them have him, and you take care of your daughter.”
He didn’t walk out. Instead he moved closer but kept his hands to his side. “I can’t do that, Calista. There isn’t anyone in the world I love more than that little girl. But… it’s my fight. Not my father’s, not my brother’s. Mine.”
Calista hated that her eyes filled. She had witnessed what Adam’s uncle was capable of tonight. He would never survive on his own against Ludis and his army of killers, and he knew it. He didn’t care, as long as he got rid of the threat to Anna.
“Calista, say something. Say you understand.” He reached for her clenched hands and held them like they were delicate porcelain.
The first tear fell, and she wiped it away on her shoulder. While she couldn’t stop the tears, she sure as hell wasn’t going to let them sidetrack her from trying to convince Adam where his priorities lay.
In the Shadow of Malice Book 3 Page 5