As Rafe neared the main house, he found himself surprised by the simplicity of the structure. Maybe it was a mansion by good old boy standards, but not by billionaire playboy standards. However, he could see where the place suited the man who had built it. Like Griff, the house was large and substantial, a true showplace in a rustic setting, and just as Griffin Powell could be described as a diamond in the rough, so could his home. Rafe grunted. He had read that description of Griff a few years ago, probably in a magazine or newspaper article about the mysterious billionaire bachelor.
He parked the rental car, got out, and before he reached the porch, the front doors opened to reveal a man who had changed very little since the last time Rafe had seen him. Damar Sanders’s dark gaze settled on Rafe, studied him, quickly dissected him. As muscular and toned as he’d been two decades ago, his head still shaved, his stance and movements military precise, Sanders came out onto the porch to meet him.
“Welcome to Griffin’s Rest.”
“Are you a welcome party of one?” Rafe asked.
“I wanted to speak to you privately before you see Griffin and Yvette.”
“Keeping secrets?” Rafe clicked his tongue. “I thought the three of you shared everything, but then I suppose three to a bed gets old after a while.”
Ignoring his comparison of their close relationship to a sexual one, Sanders closed the doors behind him and motioned for Rafe to follow as he came down the front steps. “I thought we might take a short walk together.”
“I’m intrigued by all the mystery.” Rafe fell into step alongside Sanders.
“No mystery. I simply thought it best if I explain why I sent for you.”
“You sent for me?”
“Griffin asked me to locate you. We need your help.”
“Help with what, or should I say with whom?”
“You’ve heard the rumors about Malcolm York being alive.”
Rafe nodded. “Rumors we know can’t be true. No man can survive having his head separated from his body.”
It had been a long time since anyone had intimidated Rafe, but Sanders came damn near close when he cast Rafe a virulent glare. How could he have forgotten how lethal Damar Sanders could be? While Rafe had still been in grade school, Sanders had belonged to one of the most elite military forces in the world. It had been said that the Gurkhas were the world’s most feared soldiers.
“Sorry,” Rafe said. “But I can’t believe that you and Griff are taking these rumors seriously.”
“We have no choice but to take them seriously. And no, of course we do not believe that York has risen from the dead. But we know for a fact that someone has taken York’s identity, someone seeking revenge for York’s death, someone with enough money and power to pull off an elaborate hoax.”
It took Rafe a minute to wrap his mind around Sanders’s revelation. “How do you know this? Do you have any proof?”
“Malcolm York orchestrated Nicole Powell’s kidnapping. He is holding Griffin’s wife hostage. She’s been missing for the past nine days. Griffin has spoken to her briefly and to the man who calls himself Malcolm York.”
“Holy hell!”
“We are using every resource available to us to locate Nicole,” Sanders said.
“And I’m one of those resources. Now I understand why Griff has called in my IOU.”
Yvette had spent the entire morning with her protégés, doing all she could to take her mind off of recent events. Occasionally, she had thought about Suzette York, the girl she had so hoped would turn out to be her daughter. But for the most part she had managed to concentrate on her work with the six talented young people who lived here with her within the security of Griffin’s Rest. Of all her students, only Meredith Sinclair could possibly help Griffin in his search for Nicole. But her recent journey with Ben Corbett to Shelter Island had not garnered any new information that could help them locate Nicole. As gifted as Meredith was, she had yet to harness her remarkable psychic energy enough so that she could control it instead of it controlling her.
Barbara Jean had shown up unannounced shortly before noon and invited Yvette to join the others for lunch. When she had declined, Barbara Jean had insisted.
“I will not take no for an answer.”
Yvette had allowed the woman to influence her decision for several reasons, the least of which was because Barbara Jean Hughes was her only female friend in Griffin’s household and among his agents. Not that she had ever chosen sides nor would she. Barbara Jean was also Nicole’s friend.
“All right, but only because you asked me.” And because she knew that Griffin wanted her there.
Since it was such a lovely day, an unseasonably cool breeze diluting the sun’s warmth just enough to keep the temperature in the low eighties, Yvette decided to walk from her home to the main house. She appreciated the beauty as well as the serenity she found here at Griffin’s Rest. The estate grounds flourished with summertime maturity, rich and lush, brimming with verdant life.
As much as she loved living here, she often wondered if she had made a mistake moving from London to Tennessee. In the early days of Griffin’s relationship with Nicole, Yvette had hoped that she and Nicole could become friends. They both had tried. But Nicole had sensed there was far more to Yvette and Griffin’s past relationship than either had admitted. In retrospect, she wished that she had encouraged Griffin to be totally honest with his wife. If she could, she would change so many things.
Less than halfway to her destination, Yvette spotted two men coming from the opposite direction, each walking leisurely along the path. She paused when they stopped and faced each other, apparently deep in conversation. She was too far away to identify either man, but certainly had no reason for concern. They were probably two Powell agents assigned to duty at Griffin’s Rest.
When she drew nearer, she recognized the shorter man as Sanders. He had his back to her as he spoke to his companion. She could hear his voice, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. And then she looked at the other man, really looked at him. She had seen that face only once before, sixteen years ago at Royal London Hospital.
Rafe Byrne was here at Griffin’s Rest. Had she conjured up the image of his surgically reconstructed face and transposed it onto the man talking to Sanders? If so, why was it Rafe’s sharply chiseled features she saw and not Raphael’s youthful beauty?
She closed her eyes and reopened them in an effort to erase the image. But the man talking to Sanders really was Rafe Byrne. Not the twenty-year-old she remembered. Rafe would be thirty-six now. No longer a boy. His shoulders were wider, his chest thicker, his arms and legs more muscular, though still lean. His dark hair, chopped in a shaggy cut, fell loosely over the left side of his forehead and grazed the collar of his casual, long-sleeved shirt.
She had known that this might happen, that Rafe would learn Griffin Powell wanted to see him and simply show up at Griffin’s Rest out of the blue. Hadn’t she agreed that if anyone on earth could help Griffin find Nicole, that person was Rafe? Wasn’t this what they had all wanted?
So why did she want to turn and run, to get away as quickly as possible?
While she stood there staring at him, Rafe undoubtedly sensed her presence. He stopped talking and looked directly at her. His stare was hard and cold. Unfeeling. And in that moment, she knew without a doubt that there was nothing of Raphael left inside this man.
Chapter 25
After what seemed like a half-mile walk, Linden escorted Nic through a set of wide-open, twelve-foot-high wooden doors and into a thatch-roofed, block building that reminded her of a barn. The structure stood in a clearing surrounded by jungle, thick with tangled vegetation and vine-draped trees. Midmorning sunlight poured in through the two massive open doors on either end of the building. Rising three rows along the wall, old, wooden, bleacher-style benches covered the entire left side of the interior. The remainder of the forty-by-thirty-foot area was empty—except for a ripcord lean man with tattoos covering his bar
e chest and arms. Nic suspected that beneath his tight jeans, his legs were similarly decorated. His long brown hair, slick with oil, hung in a ponytail between his shoulder blades.
Nic paused halfway into the barn. Linden allowed her to stay there as he walked over to the tattooed man she assumed was her trainer. While the two men talked in hushed tones, too quietly for her to hear, she examined her surroundings as thoroughly as possible. That was when she saw the assortment of weapons, consisting of half a dozen knives in various sizes, a machete, three handguns, two rifles, a shotgun, and what looked like a number of billy clubs.
“Come and meet Vartan.” Linden motioned to her.
His command gained her full attention as she forced her gaze away from the weapons and directed it at the two men. Hesitating for only a moment, she stiffened her spine as well as her resolve as she approached them.
“Nicole, this is your trainer,” Linden told her. “You will be spending a great deal of time with him over the next few weeks.”
Vartan sized her up and smiled. “Yes, I see why Mr. York has chosen The Amazon Queen for your name.” He turned to Linden. “She seems to be in excellent physical condition. How old is she?”
“Midthirties, I believe,” Linden replied.
Again focusing on Nic, Vartan grasped her shoulders. She jerked at the unexpectedness of his touch. But when he ran his calloused hands down her arms, then over her rib cage and waist before tightening his grip as he clutched her hips, Nic didn’t move. She barely breathed.
Releasing her, Vartan took a step back, ran his gaze over her from head to toe, and then without any warning, he slapped her hard across the face. Reeling from the blow, Nic struggled to stay on her feet. Stunned by his actions, she couldn’t think straight. Then the taste of blood inside her mouth and the burning ache in her jaw shot her quickly from astonishment to awareness. She reacted purely on instinct, years of training coming into play, as she prepared to retaliate.
Wrong move. Think before you act.
Only seconds after going into attack mode, she reversed gears and positioned herself defensively for another hit.
“Excellent, excellent.” Vartan clapped.
Alert to whatever he might do next, Nic glared at him. Never again would she let her guard down around this man.
“I’ll leave her with you,” Linden said. “But remember that Mr. York doesn’t want her permanently damaged in any way during your training sessions. Do whatever you need to do to prepare her, but don’t forget what a priceless commodity she is.”
“I understand.”
“Still don’t want to ask me any questions?” Linden mocked her.
“No, thank you,” Nic said. “I’m sure Vartan can fill me in on everything I need to know.”
“Yes, I’m sure he can.”
Nic looked at the tattooed man. “I assume my training began with the slap.” Combining saliva with the blood on her tongue and lips, she cleansed her mouth by spitting on the dirt floor. “I need to always be on my guard, right? Lesson learned. So, what is lesson number two?”
“Hello, Yvette,” Rafe said, his gaze raking over her with casual interest.
“Hello.” She hoped her voice sounded calm. “Did you just arrive?”
“Yes, I just got here. Sanders waylaid me at the front door so he could fill me in on why Griffin sent for me.” Rafe grunted. “Damn shame about his wife. I was looking forward to meeting the woman who finally tamed Griff Powell.”
“We are all extremely concerned about Nicole,” Yvette said.
“So this guy who’s passing himself off as Malcolm York kidnapped her, huh?”
“Yes.” Sensing that Rafe was testing her, Yvette forced herself not to break eye contact. “This man is doing an excellent job of mimicking my late husband, not only by his actions, but apparently he has undergone facial surgery to make himself look like Malcolm.”
Rafe cocked an eyebrow. “You’ve seen him?”
“No, but ... we have an eyewitness, someone who knows him quite well. When given photographs of eight different men and asked to identify the man she knew as York, she chose an old photograph of the real Malcolm York.”
Rafe grinned. “That must have made you three wonder, if only for a few seconds, whether or not you had really finished off York the way you thought you had.”
“The real York is dead,” Sanders said emphatically. “We have no doubt about that nor should you. You saw him, didn’t you?”
“I was in and out of consciousness when Griff rescued me, but yeah, I vaguely remembering catching a glimpse of what was left of York’s body and his severed head perched on the end of the machete that Griff had plunged through his heart and used to pin him to the ground. Slight overkill, wasn’t it? But I understand what drove Griff to do it.”
“I imagine you do,” Sanders said. “By all accounts, almost all of York’s old friends have met untimely deaths, each killed in a gruesome manner.”
The sound of Rafe’s soft laughter unnerved Yvette, reinforcing her fear that this man had become as viciously inhuman as the men he had hunted down and killed.
“Yves Bouchard is still around,” Rafe said. “And so is Harlan Benecroft. But Sir Harlan is relatively insignificant. Besides, he isn’t going anywhere. He’ll always be easy enough to find.”
“But not Bouchard?” Yvette asked.
Rafe’s gaze connected with hers, reminding her that he, too, remembered the night Bouchard had chosen them for his perverted ménage à trois. “I recently saw Le Ravisseur again, for the first time in more than sixteen years.”
“You’ve seen Bouchard?” Yvette hoped to never see the man again as long as she lived.
“Where did you see him?” Sanders asked.
“London. At a dinner party Sir Harlan hosted at the Savoy.”
“You are mingling with a rather unsavory group these days, aren’t you?” Sanders said. “By any chance, did either Benecroft or Bouchard happen to mention Malcolm York?”
“No. But why would they? It’s not as if I’ve managed to gain their complete trust. Not yet.”
“But you will,” Sanders said. “And the sooner the better.”
“Some things can’t be rushed. They require patience.”
“Not when Nicole Powell’s life is on the line,” Sanders told him. “Bouchard was York’s friend and business associate, and Benecroft is his cousin. It stands to reason that in trying to assume York’s identity, the pseudo-York would find a way to associate with both of these men.”
“Interesting theory,” Rafe said. “And if it proves to be true, it could be quite profitable for me.”
“Profitable for you how?” Yvette asked.
While Rafe simply smiled at her, Sanders, who apparently knew exactly what Rafe meant, explained. “Rafe is willing to use his social connection to Harlan Benecroft to help us locate Malcolm York, for the right price.”
“You would ask Griffin for money to help him find York so he can rescue his wife?” Yvette stared at Rafe, her disbelief quickly fading as outrage rose to the surface. “What kind of man are you?”
“I’m the kind of man my experiences on Amara made me, the kind of man you think I am—one without a conscience or a heart or even a soul.”
After putting her through an hour of what amounted to a series of basic exercises from stretches to push-ups and crunches to squats, Vartan offered Nic a bottle of water and invited her to take a seat beside him on the bottom row of wooden bleachers. She accepted the water and the invitation. After uncapping the bottle and downing several deep swigs, she wiped her mouth. Then she poured water in her hand and splashed it on her flushed face.
The routine he had put her through had been strenuous. If she hadn’t been in excellent physical condition, she would be greatly concerned about herself and her baby. But her child was safe, cocooned within her. As long as she was well fed and well rested and didn’t receive any severe physical attacks, she and her baby should be fine. At least for now. But once her pre
gnancy progressed, what then?
Sensing Vartan staring at her, she turned and studied the tattooed man as thoroughly as he was scrutinizing her.
“One warrior recognizes another, eh?” Vartan said.
Although his command of the English language was almost perfect, Nic detected a hint of an accent. Eastern European? She wasn’t sure.
“Is that what you are, Mr. Vartan, a warrior who trains warriors for York?”
“I am simply Vartan,” he told her. “And yes, that is what I do, train warriors for Mr. York.”
“Mind if I ask how long you’ve worked for York?”
“Two years.”
“And exactly what do you train York’s captives to do?”
He shrugged. “Some I train for The Hunt. Some I train for The Ring. Others I train for The Execution. Some, like you, I train for all three.”
All three? Damn! How lucky can you get? But then, I’m special to York. I’m Mrs. Griffin Powell.
“I know what The Hunt is. But what’s The Ring? And what is The Execution?” Nic was sure she was not going to like his answers, but she needed to know exactly what she would soon be facing.
“In The Hunt and in The Ring, you will be paired with a male partner. You must learn to work together in order to survive.” Vartan grinned, revealing a set of uneven teeth, the top center incisors gold-capped. “The Ring is nothing more than two couples fighting, sometimes to the death. Sometimes it is like gladiators fighting. And sometimes it is a gun battle, old west-style. It depends on what the clients want.”
No doubt these “clients” were like the ones the real York had brought to Amara, men who could pay a high price for their perverted pleasures.
“And The Execution, what is that?” she asked.
“It is an exhibition for a very select clientele. Men and sometimes women who take pleasure in watching a reluctant executioner take the life of a condemned person.”
Had she heard him correctly? “Which part are you training me to play—executioner or one of the condemned?”
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