by Lora Leigh
They weren’t Beau’s men?
“That can’t be true—”
“I spoke to him myself.” He didn’t give her time to finish the objection. “Beau’s men were in Colorado. I left, the morning you ran from me, to meet him in Boulder to identify them. They were found in a back alley, each with a bullet in his brain. He has another team following a trail I had an agent lay back to New York. The team that’s stayed on your ass since you left here aren’t my men or Beau’s.”
She rose from the couch slowly, panic beginning to bloom inside her. Turning from him, she moved to the wall of windows once again and stared at the tumultuous waves crashing toward land beyond the cliff’s walls.
The men chasing her weren’t Ivan’s men or Beau’s as she had believed? They were sent to possibly kill her or anyone who might help her?
She could feel her stomach roiling at the knowledge and had to swallow tightly to hold back the sickness threatening to rise inside her.
Someone had possibly sent assassins after her?
“Who?” She had to force the question from her lips. “Who sent them?”
He was strangely silent, and that very silence was an answer she had to fight to accept.
“Stephen or Craig?” she asked, turning back to him, her gaze meeting his. His eyes were still a lighter blue, but his expression was somber rather than angry. Compassionate.
“Does either of them make such a decision alone?” He spoke quietly, his voice gentler.
Pity.
She hated that look, hated seeing it. She’d seen it all her life. From her mother, her sister, even Beau. They’d pitied her all her life but never enough to warn her what was coming from the men who should have protected her rather than selling her.
“No, they don’t,” she whispered, rubbing at her arms as a chill raced over her. “They would agree when the decision was made.”
They’d warned her, she reminded herself. The night they’d had her and her cousin kidnapped, they’d warned her they’d kill her before they’d allow her to escape. That warning had been followed up before she’d run from Maryland that night four years ago.
She was the daughter who had gained the Queen Mother’s favor. The only child who could have enough influence to have their imprisonment moved to England or France rather than America, where they were confined.
Once out of America, they could use their influence there to have their sentence lowered or even allow home imprisonment despite the severity of their crimes.
“It doesn’t make sense.” She shook her head, unable to understand why. “If they kill me, I couldn’t do what they want me to do. If I die, the Queen Mother wouldn’t even consider aiding them.”
“Beau’s been given directorship of the Taite holdings due to his engagement to you and his experience in running his own family holdings. He seems to be actually charming the Queen Mother. They might feel they don’t need you,” he pointed out. “Or you could know something they’re afraid you’ll tell.”
No, she wasn’t trusted with secrets, Journey acknowledged fatalistically. It wasn’t a secret she had but, rather, like her cousin, an inheritance that only reverted to the Taite family if she was dead.
How insane was that. Both her cousin’s grandfather, as well as her own maternal grandfather, had been incredibly close friends. When Benjamin Taite had locked up an inheritance for his daughter or her heirs when his daughter had been kidnapped, her grandfather had followed suit. Both his granddaughters’ inheritances were locked until marriage, or their deaths. Journey’s went a step further. If she didn’t marry before thirty, then the inheritance was released to her in full.
For thirty years the original amount had gained in interest and grown through careful stock choices. At thirty, if she wasn’t married, then she’d have it without needing to rely on a husband’s agreement should she want to use it.
“It wouldn’t matter,” she said, confused. “If they’re after my money my grandfather placed in trust as my cousin’s grandfather did, it wouldn’t do them any good. If I died, the inheritance reverts to my mother, not my father or grandfather.”
“And your mother refuses to believe your father committed the crimes he’s imprisoned for,” Ivan stated. “Perhaps he believes she’ll use it to curry favor in having him moved to France.”
A long shot, Journey thought, pushing her fingers through her hair as she frowned, still watching the water below. She’d seen her mother’s face when she’d been told what her father had done, the way she’d stared at Journey, shock and realization filling her eyes.
“She wouldn’t do it. He’d know better. Mother hated him.” And she had. She’d stayed drunk for years to escape her father’s petty cruelties.
“Then who would it benefit?” His voice harder, firmer, now. “Who would want to kill you for it?”
“No one.” Journey turned back to him and lifted her chin, pulling her pride around him as she met the pity in his eyes. “My death would only benefit the family or business as a whole. And no one in the family would buy Stephen or Craig out of death if it was imminent. You have to be wrong.”
He stepped closer, the pity easing from his expression though his eyes were no longer a navy blue but closer to a true blue.
“Tell that to the owner of that diner you were working at,” he told her softly. “The men in that van came back searching for you. Before my men could catch up with them, they nearly beat him to death questioning him. Good old Marvin Worth is fighting for his life in ICU right now. Those men aren’t playing, Journey, and neither am I. Whatever you have, Stephen and Craig Taite are willing to kill you to either ensure they possess it, or ensure your silence. And until we learn what they want and why, your life isn’t worth shit away from me. Beau can’t protect you; your family can’t protect you. To kill a monster, you need a monster.”
She trembled at the dark, wrathful tone of his voice.
“And you’re a monster?” she whispered. She hadn’t wanted to believe that. Hadn’t wanted to know that the man she couldn’t resist physically could possibly possess such cruelty.
“When I have to be,” he assured her. “When I want to be, Journey, I can make Stephen and Craig Taite very, very afraid. If I didn’t have the power to do that, they would have already killed Amara before killing me. And I’m the one person guaranteed to make them insane with rage at the thought of you in my bed. Trust me, my little Syn, I’m your only chance at living now.”
Journey could only shake her head. God, how had her life become such a chaotic mess?
“How long have you known who I was?” She had to focus on something other than her imminent death or she’d go crazy.
The look he shot her was knowing.
“I’ve known since about two hours after I brought you into the estate,” he scoffed. “Really, baby? Did you think that once you were there I didn’t do a thorough background check? The identity you were using was good. It was damned good. Until you got to the part where Crimsyn Delaney disappeared at age twenty. An orphan with no family but a few cousins she’d never met? Then she pops back up a year after you disappeared? Of course, the DNA sample I managed to acquire and run against your cousins only helped. You should have been more careful when you nicked those pretty legs shaving, I guess.”
Shit.
Dammit.
She ran through a litany of curses as she remembered the blood on the towel. She’d meant to rinse it out, but Amara had shown up at her door and distracted her. The towel had slipped her mind. Something that should have never happened.
“Does anyone else know?” Did her cousin, her family know? Beau?
“Now, why would I tell them?” he grunted. “They’d be here so fast you’d hear the sound barrier break. No one knows but myself and Ilya.”
“Well, there’s that at least,” she sighed, pushing her fingers through her hair as she fought to figure out exactly what she was going to do. “For now.”
God, she had no idea what to do. She h
ad no idea how to handle this. She was drowning in the sudden shift of her reality and had no idea how to even hold her head above water.
“Journey, you will never be safe if you turn and fight. Running will only weaken you now. You know that,” he warned her as she turned away from him and walked from the room.
It wasn’t running that weakened her, she told herself. It was need. A need she couldn’t run from and, it seemed, she couldn’t escape either.
chapter six
She could play Beau’s whore or she could be Ivan’s. Well, wasn’t that a hell of a choice, Journey thought as she wandered around the gardens next to the pool area several hours later. Night had fallen, but the walkway was well lit, the lush grass well maintained.
Ornamental trees, flowering bushes, and beds of blooms scented the air, providing a peaceful setting for the grounds. She found very little peace amid it though.
She was too old for this. God, she should be happily married with several kids or knee-deep in the landscaping design career she’d dreamed of. She shouldn’t be running, still stuck in some ways at twenty-six and fighting for freedom.
She should have fallen in love by now, had her heart broken at least once, matured in her dreams, and have a plan for the rest of her life. Instead, she was trying to decide which was better, sleeping with a man who only wanted to use her for revenge, saving her life, it seemed, in the process, or marrying a man who had already informed her that he couldn’t be faithful. That she wasn’t woman enough to fill his sexual needs.
She was Beau’s path to a title. She was Ivan’s path to vengeance against her father and grandfather. And she had no idea who she was to herself.
The fact that she ached for Ivan wasn’t lost on her. Lately, her need for him had only grown, her flesh becoming more sensitive by the day as dreams of that night haunted her. Her breasts were swollen, her nipples sensitive. And her sex ached, becoming moist and ready for him at any given thought of him.
The things he’d done to her, had encouraged her to do to him, were carnal, explicit. And he was a very vocal lover. His dark voice would deepen, his accent slipping further, and sometimes he spoke in Russian. He’d made her wild, made her forget her normal shyness, her uncertainty. As the night closed around them and he extinguished the lights, she’d felt a part of herself she hadn’t known existed come alive.
She was paying for it now. As she wandered through the gardens she wondered how much more she’d pay for it. Because she knew the choice she’d make between him and her former fiancé. There was really no choice to make. The thought of having Ivan touch her again, take her, filling her senses with such pleasure that she couldn’t resist it, made the choice for her.
It was dangerous, she knew. She’d no doubt end up dead. He didn’t love her, she wouldn’t be his first priority, and that was okay. She didn’t want him to die for her. He had a child who loved him, family who depended upon him, and even if he was perhaps a criminal, she knew he loved his family.
And who did she have? The one time she’d called her family they’d only wanted her to come home, to return to Beau. Get married. She’d deserted them. They needed her to honor her promises. Even her brother needed her to honor her promise despite her objections to being nothing more than a road to the title he so wanted.
According to Ivan, going back was no assurance of safety though. If it were, the men sent after her wouldn’t be coming to kill her but to kidnap her and return her.
Pausing, she moved into a small vine-covered area and curled into the heavily padded swing there. The gas firepit next to it lit automatically, the low flame casting flickering shadows around her.
Evidently, crime really did pay. Despite Amara’s belief that her father wasn’t really a crime lord of some sort, Journey imagined such a reputation came honestly. If “honesty” could be applied. And he was right; he was perhaps the only man her grandfather and her father had ever feared.
Her cousin Tehya had spent several days explaining Stephen and Craig Taite’s past to her after their arrests. The years spent as the masterminds of a terrorist and white slavery business. The buying and selling of titled and blue blood girls and young women to men with enough money to purchase the bloodlines they wanted.
Who would want to kill her? Who would go to such obvious expense as to hire a team of assassins to do the deed? They couldn’t be a very good team, because she’d managed to stay one step ahead of them for four years. Because she knew damned good and well, both fate and Lady Luck weren’t exactly on her side.
Four years of running, of fighting to find a life for herself, to find a place where she could put down roots, an identity that couldn’t be tracked, and instead, she found herself here. In the arms of a man who considered her the enemy.
Yeah, she’d really done a good job there.
Hell, she’d thought she was just running from Beau’s thugs, not assassins. And she’d believed she could have one night of pleasure before just disappearing again. She’d had the pleasure, and now it seemed she couldn’t escape it, she thought mockingly.
But what pleasure it had been. Pleasure bordering on pain, carnal and intense and so very wicked. He’d taken her several times through the night, moving tirelessly inside her, driving her from one plateau of ecstasy to another.
She’d cried his name. She’d screamed it. She’d begged him to make her orgasm. And through the past weeks, she’d awaken from restless dreams of him, those pleas whispering into the night as she reached for him.
As she sat there, immersed in the flickering flames and her own thoughts, she was aware of one of the bodyguards, Elizaveta, pausing at the entrance, watching her silently.
This woman had just as much reason to hate her as Ivan did. She’d been targeted along with Amara all those years ago, to be taken and sold for profit rather than raised as the beloved children they were. Though in Elizaveta’s case, her parents had died in their fight to save her from that fate.
Lifting her gaze, she stared at the other woman. She was a weapon, she’d heard Amara say. Highly trained from childhood, and taught to fight, to kill. She and her twin brother always worked together, watched each other’s backs, and ensured their survival.
“Ivan asked that you come inside now,” the bodyguard stated, her accent heavier than Ivan’s. “It is growing rather late.”
And he was no doubt ready to be serviced by his whore.
Anger spread through her like a living stain she couldn’t escape despite her need for him. She ached for him as she’d never ached for anything, but at that moment she almost hated him for the choice he’d given her.
“So he sent you?” She managed to keep her voice polite despite the anger. “I should have come in before he asked that of you. I’ll go in now.”
Elizaveta had suffered enough; she didn’t need the daughter and granddaughter of the men who had destroyed her life disrespecting her.
The other woman tapped her ear softly. “Grisha and I are on duty in the gardens tonight. He merely asked that we request you come back in when you were seen.”
Elizaveta’s voice was low, polite, but there was an edge of a sneer on her pretty lips. And she was a very pretty woman, Journey thought. She might be a weapon, but she was a beautiful one.
“Thank you for letting me know,” Journey said, knowing there was nothing that could ease Elizaveta’s hatred for her. “I’ll go in.”
She rose from the seat and moved to step for the opening.
“You should have told him who you were in Colorado,” the accented voice said softly. “It would have saved him much trouble.”
No doubt it would have.
“I didn’t mean for him to follow me.” She shrugged, uncomfortable. “Or to cause him any trouble. I wanted to help Amara…”
“Or yourself?” Elizaveta questioned her coolly. “Is that not more the truth? That is why you targeted Amara, to ask her father for help.”
Journey held her gaze despite the weariness that mixed with the ange
r.
“At first,” she admitted. “Because I was scared. I was tired. But after Amara and I became friends, I changed my mind. I decided I didn’t want to die if his hatred extended to me.”
She hadn’t wanted to die at the hands of a man she’d already begun dreaming about. One who fascinated her as Ivan Resnova did.
Elizaveta frowned at that. “How could our hatred not extend to you, Ms. Taite? You are the daughter, the granddaughter, of the men who have killed his mother, raped his aunt, and nearly killed her. Because of your family he has lost many who he loves. Who we all loved.”
“But not because of me!” Journey snapped back, the weariness evaporating in the face of such caustic regard. “And don’t imagine either of Craig Taite’s daughters felt any softness for him or from him, because I assure you, we didn’t.”
Elizaveta’s lips curled in a mocking sneer. “You were a virgin when Ivan took you to his bed, were you not? I saw the stains on the sheets when he and Ilya raced to Boulder to find you. Sophia will not be able to say the same. Ivan’s uncle, Gregor, still suffers the scars that cover his body because of your father and grandfather. Amara still suffers her nightmares. All you suffered was the lack of a father’s love? Poor little girl. I weep for you.”
“And I’ve wept for you,” Journey whispered, realizing how it must seem to this other woman. “I’ve wept for you, Amara, Ivan, his aunt, and his uncle, and everyone else I’ve learned they nearly destroyed. I’ve wept for all of you. And if I personally could change it, take that hell from your lives, then I would. But I won’t be punished by you for it either.”
A frown struck between Elizaveta’s eyes, the sneer fading to more somber lines.
“May I go in now, or would you like to grind what little pride I have left into the dirt while we stand here?” she asked when the bodyguard said nothing more.
She didn’t speak, but Elizaveta moved back from the entrance just enough for Journey to pass her. Keeping her head high, she moved along the path back to the patio entrance of the house and refused to look back.