by Tessa Dawn
Zayda didn’t take it.
Rather, she padded to the edge of the sofa and curled against the arm, relieved when Keitaro Silivasi remained standing, yet leaned against it, almost like he was hovering above her.
Protecting her.
Keeping her…
At least she was safe for the moment.
Santos seemed unfazed. He strolled back to the oversized armchair, situated cater-cornered to the couch, and sat down lazily, like a big, sleepy cat, flashing that million-dollar smile once more at Zayda.
“Go ahead,” Keitaro prompted, placing the pads of three fingers on Zayda’s shoulder as if to give her courage. “Ask your first question, Santos.”
The guy spoke carefully, like he was weighing every single word way too carefully, like Zayda was prone to break. “I understand you grew up in a large, brick building in Morrison, Colorado. A building surrounded by a ten-foot wall. You were born there…raised there…and not treated kindly. I’m sorry for that.” His eyelids lowered, and the crystal-blue prisms beneath his thick lashes faded a bit, not like the light was going out, but like the kindness was sort of deepening.
Zayda held her chin steady. “Yeah, I grew up in The Fortress.”
One of Santos’ eyebrows shot upward like he was zeroing in on a detail. “The building is like a fortress—how so?”
Zayda shrugged. “It’s not like a fortress. It’s called The Fortress. And yeah, it’s pretty solidly built, I guess.”
Santos nodded. “I’ve spoken with Keitaro’s son Nachari, and I’ve also looked at some early blueprints, building permits, and aerial satellite images. Would it be correct to say The Fortress is divided into wings…or quadrants?”
“Yeah,” Zayda answered, “but it’s more like…if you’ve ever been to a hotel, not a cheap one like in a strip mall, but the nice kind where rich people go; every wing is like its own floor, even though it’s not. But they’re separate like that—you can’t just go from one to another.”
Santos’ eyebrows creased, like he was thinking it over, picturing what Zayda had described in his mind. If he was anything like Keitaro, he was probably really smart—not like a lot of Luca’s Johns… “That makes sense.” He paused, once again, carefully selecting his words. “Zayda, do you know how many guards are in The Fortress—just a ballpark guess?”
She narrowed her eyes in concentration and tried to count from memory. “Maybe twenty. Twenty-five. Somewhere around four or five to a wing and then a few who patrol the halls.”
Her shoulders curled inward, and Keitaro placed his remaining two fingers on her shoulder, stroking the curve by her neck with his entire hand. She had to resist the urge to lean into his touch. “Take your time, Zayda,” her keeper said. “We’re not in any hurry.”
She nodded faintly.
“Do you remember any of their names?” Santos asked.
Zayda stiffened, but she tried to recall the guards. “In the eastern wing, where I used to live, there was a guard named Roberto and another named Danny—I didn’t know the others. And in the southern wing, where they moved me to, I think his name was Domenico, the head guard, but everyone called him The Reaper.” A low, gravelly sound reverberated in the room, and if Zayda hadn’t known better, she would have turned and looked for a growling dog, but she’d heard Keitaro make that noise before. It meant he would like to kill somebody, only the person wasn’t there.
If it were possible to be even more gentle, Santos softened his voice. “Any last names?” he asked.
“No,” she said quickly. “I never heard any full names.”
He nodded with approval. “So…what about Luca Giovanni? Did you ever see him in The Fortress?”
The walls in the empty gray room—in the compartment Zayda was using—seemed to close in on her, and she suddenly felt her emotions splinter, different pieces of her cornered soul scattering into different compartments. “King Giovanni came sometimes; he wasn’t always in the castle.” Her mind went blank, and that was all she could remember.
Santos bit his bottom lip. “What about King Giovanni’s daughter, Natalia? Did you ever see or meet her? Hear anyone speak about her?”
Zayda’s heart lit up, and she smiled. “Princess Natalia is going to marry Prince Oskar. That’s all anyone knows.”
A curious look—maybe anger or disgust—swept over Santos’ striking features, but then he looked handsome again. “I see. Does Prince Oskar have a last name?”
Zayda frowned. “Oskar is his last name. His first name is Prince.”
Santos exchanged a curious glance with Keitaro, and if Zayda hadn’t known better, she would have sworn the two were talking to each other—only without using words. The subtle expressions on the security guard’s face registered like fine ripples in an otherwise still pond, and when Zayda glanced over her shoulder, Keitaro’s pupils narrowed. After a few awkward moments, Santos spoke again. “So you never met Natalia—you never saw her in The Fortress?”
Zayda licked her bottom lip. “Once, when I was just a little girl, I think the princess snuck into The Fortress. I don’t remember much, except…she got caught…her father caught her, and the king was really, really angry. He said so many bad words, I couldn’t even count them, and then he snatched her by her arm and dragged her away. But…but there was like this moment when everything stopped, and she stared right at me. Her eyes locked with mine, only hers were so incredibly beautiful. She looked like a big kid, maybe nine or ten, and she just couldn’t stop staring…into my eyes. She was crying then. She was so, so sad, but I don’t think it was because the king had caught her; I think it was because she was looking at me. And I remember knowing for the very first time that I must be in a really bad place. She never came back again. At least I never saw her after that day.”
Keitaro Silivasi was leaning over Zayda then, brushing his thumbs across her cheeks.
She thought she heard him say something to Santos like “that’s enough” or “she’s not ready to do this,” but the words seemed far away.
Keitaro swiped her cheeks again, and his thumbs were really wet, like he had just washed them under the faucet, or like her face was covered in tears.
But that wasn’t what had happened.
Princess Natalia had been the one who’d cried.
Santos Olaru climbed into the front seat of his Porsche Cayenne, slammed the door shut, and laid his head on the leather steering wheel, trying to collect his thoughts.
Shit.
Just shit.
He’d never seen anything like that.
Zayda had gone from twenty-one years old—according to Keitaro, she’d just had a birthday a few months back—to three or four years old in a matter of minutes. She’d simply regressed right before their eyes. Santos had left a handful of documents with Keitaro in hopes that Zayda could fill in the blanks—satellite images of the compound, as well as a black-and-white duplicate of The Fortress blueprints. Maybe Zayda could mark X’s for the guards; estimate the number of female prisoners; and recall some of their names. Perhaps she could describe a few of the captives…the Johns…or Giovanni’s associates.
It was probably a long shot at best.
Still, Keitaro had said he would work on it, depending on how Zayda felt.
How Zayda felt…
Holy hell.
Santos could not stop considering how Natalia must have felt at only nine or ten years old. Assuming Zayda’s story was accurate, he wondered what Luca’s daughter had seen, what she’d heard, what she’d witnessed. For some reason, the thought of that beautiful, intelligent woman being dragged away by her father, weeping at the sight of a baby Zayda, made Santos want to rip out someone’s throat with his teeth.
He clutched the steering wheel and tried to get a handle on his irrational emotions.
None of this made any sense.
Growing up in Dark Moon Vale, Santos had seen everything under the sun: every cruelty, every devious plot, every size, shape, and type of enemy. And being one of Napolea
n’s sentinels, a warrior inside the king’s inner circle, Santos understood the law. He got the delicate interplay between vampires and humans: The former were predators; the latter were prey. They lived in different worlds and worshipped different deities; hell, they came from completely separate origins, and never the twain shall meet.
Yeah, he got it…
The celestial gods had not created the ancestors to act as superhero crusaders, interfering in human madness. They were a separate species, distinct and independent, and outside of their chosen destinies, they lived a life apart.
It wasn’t Santos’ job to police Luca Giovanni, despite the fact that the human’s crimes were unconscionable, and his sins were numerous. The Dark Ones, the Lycans, Napolean Mondragon’s enemies were more than enough to contend with.
But this shit was foul.
The Fortress…
A human slave-trade that made sport of little girls, and one that was coming just a little too close to home.
Zayda was half Lycan.
Xavier was the house of Jadon’s enemy.
And Natalia had followed an HOJ sentinel around the World Wide Web…for years.
To Santos’ way of thinking, that was enough to warrant crossing some lines: enough of a coincidence, enough of a threat, enough of a reason to continue digging deeper. And should the gods be merciful, it would be enough of an excuse to burn that insidious fortress to the ground and murder every living soul involved in the trafficking and the prostitution.
Enough of a reason to set the females free and punish Giovanni for putting his hands on Natalia…enough of a reason to rip out his heart.
“What the hell, Santos?” he murmured beneath his breath.
He sat upright, rolled his shoulders in a few loose circles, and tilted his head back and forth to each side, releasing some stress from his neck.
He would have to run this whole thing by his brothers and Saber, perhaps bring Julien on board since they often worked side by side with the tracker, but he needed more information first. The more dots he could connect the better. The more likely Napolean would be to approve the destruction of The Fortress—to give the sentinels carte blanche to ruin Giovanni, Inc.
The one thing that needled him—because it made no damn sense—was how Luca had pulled it off all these years. Hundreds of women, housed in broad daylight: kidnapped, kept, and sold. Where the hell was the FBI or Homeland Security? Hell, Johnny-fucking-lawman from the local county jail? How had Giovanni pulled this shit off without ever getting caught? Without mind-control, the ability to alter records…and memories…the talent to compel neighbors, officers, even Luca’s enemies to never speak a word, the feat was damn near supernatural.
And having seen Zayda…
He pinched the bridge of his nose and glanced out the windshield to observe the sun. Santos rarely wore a watch, but as a descendant of celestial beings and humans, he didn’t need one to tell the time—he had three more hours before he met Natalia.
Before he showed up, uninvited, at her massage…
Hopefully, the meeting would be fruitful, because he needed something…anything…to compel his king to allow the house of Jadon to annihilate Luca Giovanni, once and for all.
Chapter Six
Later that evening
Natalia Giovanni snuggled beneath the lightweight sheet on the padded massage table and rested her head in the pillowed cradle, luxuriating in the warmth of the heated blanket beneath her. She hadn’t enjoyed a two-hour massage in almost six months, and she could really use the relaxation, the inevitable release of pent-up tension. She relished getting lost in the pleasant sensations as her taut, tense muscles gave way to the therapist’s gentle manipulation, if only for one evening.
When the door to the dimly lit room creaked open, she took a slow, deep breath and tuned into the soothing sounds of nature—wood pipes and trickling water—streaming through the surround-sound speakers. Hopefully, this therapist was a good one, and he could work magic on Natalia’s uptight body. “Full body rub,” she murmured, familiar with the routine. “Medium pressure is fine, but not too deep. Oh, and light on the thighs—they’re always kind of sensitive. If you don’t mind, I would also appreciate a little extra attention on my neck and shoulders; I’m unusually tense tonight.”
“And why is that?”
The deep, dark tenor that reverberated through the room played across Natalia’s skin like silken, icy fingers reaching through a winter’s wind, and Natalia shivered all the way to her bones.
Why is that?
It was none of his business.
She chose not to answer his question, waiting anxiously instead as he sauntered to the head of the table, lowered himself onto the stool, and placed two strong hands on the elegant curve between her shoulders and her neck. A current of pure heat and electricity surged from his fingertips and flowed into her body, as two firm, commanding hands began to work her muscles. Surprised by the strength and the surge of the energy, Natalia arched her neck and tried to raise her head, but he met the subtle lift with counter pressure, gently pressing her back into the cradle.
“Shh,” he whispered, languorously. “Just relax, and tune into my voice.”
Her heart nearly leaped from her chest.
Something wasn’t right.
But before she could struggle in earnest or protest more emphatically, the mysterious therapist continued: “You will not struggle or try to leave this room. You will not scream or call out for help. Be at ease; I am not going to harm you. When I give you the command, you will sit up on the table, wrap yourself in the sheet or the blanket, and answer all my questions truthfully. Do you understand me, Natalia Antoinette?”
She gulped, every instinct inside her wanting to rebel and protest.
Hell no, she didn’t understand him!
And hell no, she wasn’t going to sit up and answer all his questions, truthfully or otherwise.
But something involuntary, something stronger than her will—something deep inside her subconscious mind, like an invisible thread connected to her soul—felt like it was tethered to a wire, and this therapist was a puppeteer. Her resistance turned liquid and malleable: clear, obeisant, and calm. “I understand,” she whispered.
“Very well.” He removed his hands from her shoulders and slowly rose to his feet. “Sit up, Natalia.” He sauntered to the other side of the dimly lit room and sank leisurely, once again, into a waiting, empty chair, the paltry piece of furniture far too small for his large, muscular frame. As Natalia rolled into a seated position, he crossed one leg over his knee at a ninety-degree angle and leaned back like he owned the entire universe.
Dazed and confused, Natalia gathered the sheet above her breasts and dangled her legs over the side of the table. She was acutely aware of her nudity, the fact that she was wearing nothing beneath the thin cotton barrier other than a pair of white lace panties. She tightened her fist around the bunched material and raised her chin to stare at the stranger—and that’s when she gasped in both alarm and recognition.
She would know those perfect features anywhere.
That divine, sculpted nose; those haunting, crystal-blue eyes; those full, perfect lips; and that unusual black-and-blond hair, with scatterings of snow white, mussed at the front above the slightest widow’s peak.
Holy Mother of Mercy, Natalia was staring at Santos Olaru.
The ghost from her machine.
“Hello, Natalia,” he drawled lazily, and there was something almost primal in the sound. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
She gulped again. “Santos…” It was all she could push from her throat.
He smiled, and God bless the sun and the moon, because his radiance outshined them both.
The man was positively decadent.
Divine.
Dangerous.
And he was staring at Natalia like a wolf gazing at a helpless sheep.
She pursed her lips together and let out a slow, reedy exhale of air. “W…w
…where is the therapist?” This man didn’t give massages for a living. Maybe he hunted dangerous prey; maybe he dispatched enemies for some foreign government; or maybe he was a sniper—or an undercover agent—but he sure as hell wasn’t anyone’s massage therapist.
He raised one shoulder in a dismissive shrug, his head tilting ever so slightly to one side. “He’s taking a break for a while, nothing to worry about. I wanted the two of us to have sufficient time to get acquainted…and to talk.” He glanced upward at the plain, sterile clock affixed to an otherwise blank wall, and Natalia’s stomach clenched in wariness: Oh lord, she’d booked a two-hour massage. No one was going to enter this room before ten o’clock.
Her lips felt suddenly dry, and she swiped them with her tongue.
And true to that palpable, animal nature, Santos’ discriminating eyes followed the movement like a hawk’s. He stirred restlessly in his chair. “You’re beautiful,” he said softly. “Exquisite, actually.” He uncrossed his leg, leaned forward in the chair, and braced his forearms on his thighs, studying Natalia more intently.
And heaven help her, she wanted to run: to get up from the table, dash to the door, and sprint through the salon, screaming bloody murder. This man was dangerous in a way she’d never known—raw, intense, and innately sensual, unlike anything she had ever encountered.
More powerful than her father.
More dominant than Oskar.
And she didn’t know how she knew, but she was absolutely certain…
Natalia was staring into the eyes of a timeless predator.
Santos didn’t know what was up.
Blessed Delphinus, he was a seasoned sentinel, and this was a clear, clean-cut mission: slip into Natalia’s massage room, take control of her mind, and regulate her reactions. Ask a dozen or so questions, then scrub her memory and get the hell outta the room.