by Amelia Autin
Angelina was the first to reach Caterina, but Alec was right behind her. He lifted Caterina’s slender body in his arms, noting as he did so that for all her height, her weight was relatively insubstantial, as if she’d eaten barely enough to keep alive for years. “Where should I put her?” he asked Dara Barron.
“Probably best if you take her up to her bedroom. Let me show you.”
Alec followed her, and Angelina followed him. When he laid Caterina on top of the bedspread, Angelina was right there. She stripped off her coat and dropped it heedlessly on the floor. She took her cousin’s hands in hers, chafing them gently, trying to bring Caterina back to consciousness. Then he heard a choked sound from Angelina. Not tears. Rage. A Zakharan curse he recognized issued from her lips, and then she whispered in Zakharan, “Animals. Animals! What did they do to her?”
Alec frowned, not following. “What do you mean?”
“Look,” she said in English. She held up Caterina’s wrists, first one, then the other. That’s when Alec saw the scars. Nearly identical scars almost an inch wide encircling both wrists. Old scars, from wounds long healed. But he knew how those wounds had been inflicted. Even worse, he knew why. And Angelina’s rage was transferred to him.
* * *
Not quite two hours later, Alec quietly excused himself and made his way into the bathroom. His whole body seesawed back and forth in alternating spasms of hot and cold, and there was a churning in his belly he tried desperately to control. Then his face broke out in a sweat and he knew he wasn’t going to make it.
He was vilely, miserably sick.
Afterward he felt much better. He ran cold water over his hands and wrists and splashed some on his face and the back of his neck after rinsing out his mouth. Still sickened by what he’d heard, he could barely stand to look at himself in the mirror. Could barely stand to know he belonged to that half of the human race who could do what had been done to Caterina.
Angelina found him there. “You are okay?” she asked gently.
“Yeah.” He wiped his face and hands on a towel and looked at her in bewilderment. He would have thought she’d be as upset as he was, but she was calm. Composed. And though there was a militant light in her eyes, by no other sign did she betray she’d heard the same despicable tale he’d just heard. “How can you do it?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Remain unmoved.” He gestured toward the other room. “Hearing what happened to Caterina. How can you—”
“I am not unmoved. I want to kill him. I want to kill every man like him,” she said fiercely. “But the king is right. Killing him is easy. Bringing him to justice is not. He must be seen to face justice. Otherwise...” Her jaw set tightly. “He is not the only one, Alec. I have heard this kind of story before, when I first became a prosecutor. Not exactly like this, and not nearly as bad. But men have been doing things like this to women for thousands of years and will continue to do so until good men—men like you—stand up and say, ‘This stops here!’”
He put his arms around her and held her tight, feeling her heart beating in sync with his own. “This stops here,” he said, fighting the unexpected restriction in his throat. “I promise you, Angel, this stops here.” He vowed to do everything he could to stop not only Vishenko, but the trafficking of women everywhere. Thank God it’s included in my job description, he told himself fervently. Thank God fighting human trafficking is part of the DSS’s mandate. Even when I’m transferred, I’ll still be—
A sudden realization deluged him like a cold shower. If he resigned from the DSS, if he took a job in the private sector, fighting human trafficking would no longer be part of his job description. If he left the DSS, those women who were counting on him to help them—women like Caterina Mateja and thousands more just like her—would look in vain for help. Not just from men like him, but from him.
He’d joined the DSS for a reason. A damned good reason. He wanted to make a difference. How could he have forgotten? “‘I am only one, but I am one,’” he whispered to himself.
Angelina stirred in his arms. “What did you say?” she murmured.
“Nothing.” He couldn’t tell her. His dreams were dissolving before his eyes—dreams of her, of them, of having a child with her, of being a family—because he couldn’t not do what he could do to save the world, or at least his little corner of it. Edward Everett Hale’s words came back to him in all their stark reality, reminding him of who he was.
For just a moment he raged against his better self. Raged against a conscience that wouldn’t let him do nothing. And by doing nothing, have his heart’s desire. His arms tightened around Angelina, as if by holding her he could hold back the dictates of his conscience through the dictates of his heart.
He couldn’t do it. But he couldn’t tell Angelina, either. Not now. Not when she was still reeling—as he was—from Caterina’s story of the two years she’d been Vishenko’s prisoner. Not when they were both so emotionally ravaged by a reality far worse than they could have imagined. A reality it would always torture them to know.
Angelina was right. The king was right. Vigilante justice—so tempting, so enticing, especially in this case—wasn’t the way to go. They had to take Vishenko down, but legally. Publicly. They had to put him away for life, making sure life meant life.
Which meant Alec had no choice. Despite what she’d been through, despite what she’d survived, despite his protective instincts kicking in and wanting him to take Caterina someplace far away where she’d never have to be afraid again, he had to convince her to testify against Vishenko. Had to somehow get through to Caterina that her evidence and her testimony were crucial to putting Vishenko away so he could never do to anyone else what he’d done to her.
Somehow.
* * *
Cate lay back against the pillows, physically and emotionally exhausted. She’d been running on adrenaline ever since she’d been brought here, and she had no reserves of physical energy left.
But it was the emotional drain that had really done her in. Telling her story—haltingly at first, then gaining momentum when neither Angelina nor Alec seemed to judge her—had brought every detail back. Details she’d hidden away from herself, just as she’d hidden away the evidence she’d stolen from Vishenko when she escaped. Details she’d sworn she’d never remember.
And yet...now she had. The memories her brain had successfully blanked out for years had returned to her as if they’d happened yesterday. And as she recounted them, she relived them. Every single one.
But she hadn’t cried—she’d sworn more than eight years ago she’d never cry again, and she hadn’t. Neither had Angelina. Oddly, it was Alec whose eyes grew damp as her story unfolded, Alec whose throat had worked as if he was fighting emotions he didn’t know how to handle. As if he suffered as he learned the horror she’d lived through. As if he would have taken her pain if he could.
Such a good man. The kind of man she’d dreamed of all those years ago back when she’d still dreamed. But she wasn’t blind. Alec loved Angelina. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice when he said her cousin’s name. And Angelina loved him. Not quite as openly—Angelina had never been demonstrative that way—but it was obvious to someone who knew her as well as Caterina did. The years had fallen away, as if they’d never been apart. While a small part of her was envious of her cousin, most of her rejoiced. Angelina was so good! She always had been. She’d been the older sister Cate had looked up to. Adored. Wanted to emulate. She deserved a man like Alec.
Cate glanced up when Angelina reentered the room, followed by Alec. She didn’t know why it was, but telling Alec her story had been easier than telling Angelina. She’d looked at his face more often than her cousin’s as she’d confessed everything that had happened. Everything she’d done. Maybe because Alec hadn’t known her before, hadn’t loved her before, as her cousi
n had once loved her and—as impossible as it seemed—loved her still, despite the shame Cate had brought to their family. Despite knowing the truth. All of it.
Angelina crossed the room, leaned over and kissed Cate on the cheek and then gently cradled Cate’s face in her strong hands. In Zakharan, she said softly, “Alec needs to talk to you, dernya. Alone. Is that okay?”
Cate blinked and caught her breath at Angelina’s pet name for her, a nickname from her childhood that meant little treasure. No one had called her that in more than eight years. She’d been no one’s treasure since she’d left Zakhar.
She nodded quickly, agreeing before she could change her mind. Angelina turned to gaze at Alec, and Cate could see the question in her cousin’s eyes—a question that was silently answered by the tall man who somehow had won Angelina’s heart. That meant he had to be a good man. Angelina wouldn’t love him if he wasn’t.
Then Angelina kissed Cate one more time and left the room.
* * *
Alec stood by the window gazing out into the gathering darkness, watching the snow fall in a blanket of white, as he marshaled his thoughts. For a moment he wished he hadn’t asked Angelina to leave. Maybe it would be easier with her there. But then he knew he’d been right to insist on doing this himself. Angelina was too close to her cousin. Too attached. She couldn’t be objective, not on something like this, despite being able to listen calmly, quietly, to Caterina’s story—Cate’s story, he reminded himself. Angelina’s cousin had told them she went by Cate now, and he had to remember that.
But without Angelina’s assistance, that meant it was all on him to figure out what to say to a woman who’d been to hell and back to convince her she needed to go back into hell.
Cate made it easy for him. “It is best to just say it, straight out, whatever it is.”
Despite everything, Alec couldn’t help laughing softly. “You sound just like Angelina,” he told her, unexpected humor lightening the heavy burden on his heart as he paid her the highest compliment in his book. And that’s the key, he realized suddenly. The key to the woman Cate was, the way to reach her. Despite her waiflike appearance, she was strong inside, where it counted. Just like Angelina. Determined not to crumble where a lesser woman would have. Tough enough to survive the hell she’d survived and fight her way out. Hadn’t he told McKinnon Angelina would testify because it was the right thing to do, no matter the risk? And hadn’t he said, If Caterina’s anything like her cousin, she’ll do it. She’ll testify?
“I want the evidence you’ve got against Vishenko and everyone involved in the trafficking and prostitution ring,” he said straight out. Not harshly, but a demand. “Not just that—I want anything and everything you’ve got on Vishenko. And I want you to testify against him. Against them.”
She paled. “Why?” she asked through lips that barely parted enough to get that one word out.
Pain slashed through him, but Alec knew he couldn’t soften. Knew there was a time for gentleness and compassion. This wasn’t it. Cate didn’t need tenderness right now. She needed to remember how strong she really was. “Because you’re one,” he told her in no uncertain terms.
Her head tilted to one side, and her brows drew together in a question. “I don’t—”
“Edward Everett Hale wrote it more than a hundred years ago,” he said before she could finish. “My parents thought it was so important they made sure every one of their children understood the concept. ‘I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. And by the grace of God, I will.’”
He paused to let that sink in. “You’re one. Just as I am. Just as Angelina is. All we can do is the best we can do. Each time. Every time. And we can never give up. We can’t. Because if we give up, if we say, ‘Let someone else do it, let someone else take the risk,’ then people like Vishenko win. Not because they’re smarter than us, or better than us, but because they can make us afraid. Because we let them make us afraid.”
“I am afraid,” she said faintly. “Why me? Why do I have to testify?” She stumbled over her words in her haste to explain. “When...when you left the room, Angelina told me that even if Vishenko never faces justice here in the US, he will be tried in Zakhar for attempting to kill the crown prince. One of the men he hired has already confessed. So you don’t need me to put him away—he will end his days in a Zakharian prison.”
Alec shook his head again, wondering what else he could say to convince her she was strong enough to do this. “It’s not just Vishenko. If it was, you’d be right, but it’s not. We have to bring all the men in the conspiracy to justice—from the men who lured the Zakharian women with false promises, to the men at the US embassy who provided the fraudulent work visas for the trafficked women, to the men from the Bratva who forced the women into prostitution. We can’t do it without you.”
She drew a sharp, shuddering breath and gazed at him from wounded eyes. “But he will be there,” she whispered, almost in despair.
“So will I,” he promised her. “So will Angelina. We’ll be there. You can’t let him win—not this time. Not ever again.” He reached down and touched a finger to the scar on one of her wrists. “You fought him before, Cate—this proves it. Fight him now with everything in you. We’ll help you. Your cousin and I will do everything we can to help you.”
His jaw tightened, and he knew in his heart of hearts he had only one final argument to put forth. If it didn’t work, if he couldn’t convince her... He held her gaze with his intent one. “If I could fight this battle for you, I would,” he said, meaning every word. “But I can’t. Only you can do it. Only you can stand up to the evil these men represent and say, ‘This stops here. This stops now!’”
She bent over, covering her eyes with the heels of her hands. At first he thought she was crying as she dragged one ragged breath after another into her body, and his resolution was shaken. How the hell can I ask her to do this after what she’s been through? he thought. And how the hell can I judge her if she refuses?
But when she finally raised her face to his, her eyes were dry. Dry, but with a determined light in them that reminded him poignantly of Angelina. “You’re right,” she said. “‘I am only one, but I am one.’ I will testify. And I’ll give you all the evidence I have. I’ve kept it hidden for six years, thinking someday I might find the courage to use it against him.”
Cate glanced down at her hands for a moment, at the scars on her wrists, and her mouth trembled. But then her lips tightened into a firm line. She breathed deeply, and Alec watched as her slender, patrician hands formed into tightly clenched fists. Somehow he knew she was remembering—and fighting the fear that memory created. Then she looked up and beyond him at something only she could see. “Someday is today,” she whispered. Then her eyes met Alec’s—blue-gray eyes that were so like Angelina’s—dauntless courage reflected in their shining depths. “Someday is today.”
Chapter 18
Five weeks later, Alec stood at the window of his office in the embassy, hands in his pockets, staring out at nothing. Would they ever have all the answers? Probably not, he admitted to himself. You almost never got all the answers.
They still didn’t know who’d killed the king’s cousin. The investigation into his murder inside the prison was ongoing. The Zakharian police were relentless, and he knew they weren’t giving up anytime soon. The working theory was that Vishenko had ordered the hit. They just didn’t have any evidence. Not yet.
What they had found—and Alec couldn’t believe the Zakharian investigators at the time had missed it—wasn’t really evidence in Prince Nikolai Marianescu’s murder. But there had been a connection between the prince and Aleksandrov Vishenko dating back to the assassination attempts on the king and the woman who was now Zakhar’s queen. The prince had been arrested, tried and convicted wit
hout anyone knowing that Vishenko could very well have been involved in that plot. Even if he hadn’t played an active role, he’d probably given it his blessing. And if Prince Nikolai had succeeded in taking the throne, Vishenko would have owned him—something a career criminal at Vishenko’s level would have wanted.
Another thing they didn’t have all the answers for—not yet—was the connection between Vishenko and Sasha Tcholek. Angelina was adamant that Sasha just wasn’t the kind of man who was motivated solely by money. So there had to be something else involved—maybe some kind of blackmail involving his family, Angelina theorized—to make him turn traitor. That investigation was still ongoing, too.
And the four gunmen arrested in the sting at the safe house where Cate hadn’t been? They’d been Vishenko’s men, no question. The FBI had identified them as members of the Bratva, all with long criminal histories. But none of them were talking. Surprise, surprise, Alec thought cynically. Frustrating, but only to be expected, as all four had lawyered up immediately so they couldn’t even be questioned.
But that didn’t matter, because one slight woman with more courage than all the men who worked for Vishenko combined was going to bring him down and put him away for life. The joint DSS–agency task force was combing through the documents Cate had turned over, and they were dynamite.
Alec glanced at his watch and realized he was going to be late meeting Angelina for dinner if he didn’t get a move on. He had a table booked for six o’clock at Mischa’s—their restaurant—and he couldn’t be late, tonight of all nights.
Because tonight, after dinner, he was going to tell her. His conscience had been bugging him for weeks, practically since the day they returned from the States. But yesterday had been the final straw. Angelina had taken him to the royal cemetery, to the tomb of the first king and queen of Zakhar. He’d seen the movie, King’s Ransom, so he knew the story. He even knew the English translation of the Latin inscription carved on the tomb. But he hadn’t known just how much those words meant to Angelina until she’d whispered, “Two hearts as one, forever and a day.” Then she’d turned to gaze at him, her heart in her eyes. And his heart had shredded.