Full Exposure

by Diana Duncan

  She nodded. “Absolutely.” This was his territory, and she didn’t want to endanger either of them.

  “Follow me inside, then stay hidden in the pantry. If it is intruders, strike first, strike hard.” His low voice was lethal. “Do not stop until you immobilize your opponent. Otherwise, you will be hindrance rather than help. Capisci?”

  Her hands on the crowbar grew clammy. Suddenly hiding in the murky cellar didn’t sound so awful. She’d seen Dante’s ruthless side before, but was darned glad he was on her team. “I can do what I have to.”

  “It is not too late to change your mind, Ariana.”

  “No. I’ve got your back.” Her fingers tightened on the cold metal. Had someone come for them? If it was the Greek and Russian, they were in for a fight. Megaera’s hired thugs had almost succeeded in killing Dante before.

  He eased open the door and they crept inside the darkened kitchen. She’d barely ducked into the pantry when she heard Dante’s exclamation. “Ariana, come out.”

  “Who is it?” She rushed to the living area.

  The wind had hurled a pine bough through the living room window. Four intruders ran around raising havoc amidst the wind and rain and broken glass. She giggled in surprise at the chickens who had sought shelter. “I don’t think you’ll need the ax.”

  Dante smirked. “Our chickens have come home to roost.” He grabbed at the cocky young rooster whose life he had spared, and the chattering bird evaded him and flapped up to perch on the candelier. Dante climbed onto a chair. “This is the gratitude I receive for not making you into dinner.”

  The rooster shrieked as Dante carried him to the window and tossed him out. Ariana chased a squawking hen who leapfrogged furniture, scattering pillows and white feathers in its wake. “What a foul job,” she yelled at Dante over the clamor.

  He shoved another wriggling, protesting hen out the window, then shot her a droll glance. “I need to get supplies from the shed and board up that window.”

  “How can I help?”

  “You can stay out of my way. Per favore,” he added at her loud huff.

  “Carpentry isn’t my forte, anyway. I’ll go back to the cellar and examine our find.”

  “Be careful.” He was already striding out the door. “I will meet you there when I am finished.”

  She ventured into the storm once more. Only forbidden treasure could lure her down the shadowed stairs and into the spooky old cellar alone. One kerosene lamp on the workbench and another inside the secret chamber spilled two small puddles of light crowding back the oppressive darkness.

  Ariana used the crowbar to pry open a crate. She sifted through shredded excelsior and lifted out a Villanovan spike-handled vessel. The cup dated to seventh century B.C. and was worth eight grand. Everything in the crate was Etruscan, and extremely valuable. The Etruscan period was one of her father’s specialties, which enabled her to identify the pieces and gauge the cost. She reverently extracted each artifact and set them on the floor. Two hundred thousand dollars in merchandise from one crate.

  Really curious now, she picked up the lid and read the shipping label. The postmarked date was eighteen months ago.

  A cold chill crawled up her spine. The recipient was the Greek culture minister. His address wasn’t the official one. Her breath panted out in short, choppy rasps.

  It matched the address in her father’s notes.

  She examined labels on nearby crates. Different dates going back several years. Postmarked Milan. Barcelona. Istanbul. Cairo. All addressed to the Greek culture minister at the secondary address. All cities her father had visited in his business travels around the same time periods.

  Nobody would suspect artifact shipments to the Greek culture minister were anything but legitimate. Then why were they hidden here? Dizziness assaulted her. No. This was circumstantial. There had to be an explanation, a paper trail. She needed to find insurance receipts. Customs forms.

  Ariana shoved aside crates and found a locked metal file box in a corner. She smashed the lock with the crowbar, uncaring when she also smashed her knuckles.

  She opened the box, leaving a red smear on the lid. Letters. Dozens of folded letters on scarlet linen paper, sans envelopes. Trembling, she unfolded the top sheet. It was written in Greek, and like the postmark on the first crate, dated eighteen months ago.

  My Dearest Tasia, I hope this finds you well and happy. I’m sorry about the circumstances of our last parting, but you understand that I cannot leave home until everything is settled. Take good care of the latest investment I’ve sent toward our nest egg. Remember that I’m always thinking of, and living for the time we spend together, and long for the day when we’ll be together forever. I’ll phone you next week at the usual hour.

  It was signed Love Always, with one bold, looped initial.

  “D.”

  The next half-dozen letters she scanned were similar in content, bore the same initial. Her mind screamed with denial, even as nausea surged in her throat. Ariana flipped the box and dumped the contents, unwilling to believe her stinging eyes, desperate to disprove her worst fears.

  The damning letters rained down, each slap of paper on stone another spike into her heart. As the letters spilled into a crimson pool, several pictures fluttered free, and she slowly bent to pick up one.

  A laughing man lounged on a sunny veranda with the Mediterranean sparkling in the background. He cupped a full wineglass in one hand and teasingly dangled a golden bracelet adorned with bloodstones from the other. Ariana recognized both the jewelry and the man. The bracelet was the one Megaera had been wearing.

  The man was her father.

  She forgot to breathe as a memory slammed into her. Herself at twelve, balking over attending summer camp, instead accepting her father’s offer to work with him at the museum. She’d idly opened a box hidden at the back of a drawer inside his desk…and discovered the Etruscan bracelet. She’d tried it on, admiring the gleaming gold and scarlet stones. Her father’s uncharacteristic rage when he’d caught her had shocked her. He’d snatched away the jewelry and ordered her out of his office. His later abashed apology explained that the bracelet was a priceless artifact for a special client.

  Over a decade later, he’d been arrested in an unsuccessful attempt to barter a black-market deal for the matching necklace, using stolen jewelry from another dig site as collateral.

  Rage scalded her, made her shake. Her father and his mistress Megaera/Tasia, had been stealing from dig sites and fencing antiquities through the Greek culture minister to finance Derek’s plan to abandon Ariana and her mother.

  The FBI hadn’t destroyed her family.

  Her own father had.

  Moving in slow motion, she read letter after letter. The walls closed in, creating a prison of hot fury and pain. Hurt scorched her skin, and the truth writhed inside her, eating at her stomach, crushing her heart. Time ceased to have meaning, and everything blurred in the haze of grief.

  Eventually one clear thought pierced the fog.

  Find Dante.

  Ariana didn’t remember leaving the vault, but was suddenly outdoors.

  She stumbled through the darkness, through the lashing wind and stinging rain, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  Dante would help her. Dante would know what to do.

  Lost in the storm, she tried to call out for him, but the horribly familiar smothering feeling locked her lungs. Panic seized her. She could not make a sound. She couldn’t breathe.

  DANTE HAMMERED the last nail into the boards covering the shutters. He hurried around the corner, anxious to get out of the weather and back to Ariana.

  She slammed full tilt into him, and his arms automatically went around her. “Why the haste, bella?”

  Her trembling hands gripped the lapels of his coat like a lifeline. She was shaking violently. Sobs wrenched her body and harsh breaths wheezed in her throat. Fear crashed over him. “Ariana? What happened?”

  She swayed. Her fingers fell limply from hi
s coat and her knees gave way. Swearing, he scooped her up and sprinted inside. He dropped to the settee in front of the fireplace, cradling her in his arms. Her face was bleached white, and her raspy, labored breaths terrified him, and clearly, her. “It’s all right.” He rubbed her back. “Ariana, you’re hyperventilating. Slow your breathing.”

  Sobbing, she huddled against him as if she couldn’t get close enough. He stroked her hair, kissed her temple. “You must listen to me, tesoro. You need to calm down. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  She jerkily nodded.

  “Take a slow, deep breath. Can you do that for me?”

  She nodded again and her body quaked as she struggled to comply.

  “It’s all right.” He stroked her back in soothing circles. “Now another.”

  Her breathing eased, and she clung to him and cried. He ran his fingertips over her, checking for injuries. She winced when he picked up her left hand. It was bloody and bruised, and her right hand was blistered with burns. Dante’s pulse ricocheted, and he stiffened. “You are injured. Did something attack you in the cellar? Tell me!”

  She shook her head. He carried her into the bathroom and sat her on the counter. “What happened down there?”

  “It hurts.” She leaned on him and wept forlornly while he gently cleaned and dressed her wounds. His gutsy librarian had handled so many traumas without shedding a tear. She couldn’t be falling apart over injured hands. His throat tightened. What had so badly wounded her heart?

  He carried her back to the settee, murmuring soft comfort. “Ariana, you’re frightening me. Tell me, per favore. I cannot leave you like this and go look for myself. And I cannot help if I don’t know what is wrong.”

  Finally, he managed to coax the information from between choked sobs.

  “It—it was all there in the letters. Their schemes and p-plans. Lists of goods they smuggled. Accomplices. M-methods.”

  The sinking feeling in his gut warned him he’d been correct all along, but he had to ask. “Who are you talking about? Who wrote the missives you found?”

  “M-my f-father. The artifacts in the cellar were sent here by…my father. Using the Greek culture minister as a fence, he was stealing. Smuggling.”

  He rested his forehead against hers. “I am sorry.”

  “It gets worse.” The anguish in her voice constricted his chest. “His mistress was Megaera. She was wearing a bracelet he gave her when she interrogated me on the boat. Her real name is Tasia. They were stealing to build a nest egg, because they planned to run away together.”

  That explained her mental and physical condition. When she discovered the truth, she must have been so distraught that she’d tripped trying to get upstairs to him and burned herself with the lamp. He hugged her tightly, let her pour out her torment.

  “He wanted to leave us.” She choked on sobs. “How could he throw our family away? How could he walk out on me and Mom?”

  He didn’t remember his own father’s desertion, and still the hurt sliced to the bone. Ariana’s suffering had to be far worse. His heart ached as he held her close and rocked her. “I wish I had an answer.”

  “We didn’t mean anything to him. Nothing was real. Our life together was a fake. Concealed by a facade of lies.”

  Dante shook his head. “I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but I believe your father loved you. You have a forgiving heart. You did not condemn me for being a thief. In time, you may be able to forgive him, too.”

  “As a little girl, I looked up to him. He was my hero. I’ve known who and what you are almost from the beginning. You didn’t hide it from me. Didn’t lie when I asked you. Didn’t pretend to be something you’re not.”

  Dante inhaled a stinging breath. He’d been lying to her from the moment they’d met.

  He smoothed a damp tendril from her face. “You’re hurt and angry now. Later, perhaps you will come to peace with this.”

  She shook her head. “I believed in my father,” she sobbed. “I defended him to everyone. I wasted nearly a year of my life trying to exonerate him.” She vibrated with hurt and fury. “How could I have been so wrong? About both of them…first Geoff and then Dad?”

  His insides wrenched. He didn’t want to be the next man on that list, the next to let her down. Yet he feared—no, he knew with a certainty that tore him apart—he would soon be forced to betray her. How could he make her understand? “Sometimes, Ariana, lies are necessary. Sometimes, circumstances force choices upon people. Sometimes lies cloak the truth, but do not invalidate what is real.”

  She jerked in his embrace. “Are you making excuses for what he did?”

  “No. I am trying to help you see that nothing is completely black or white. Good people can make bad decisions.”

  “I just don’t understand.”

  “You are upset, and you have every right to your feelings. You will need time to work it all out.”

  “Why?” Her voice dropped so low he could barely hear her broken whisper. “Why doesn’t anyone ever love me back as much as I love them? Why am I never enough?”

  His heart stopped, and then shattered. You are enough for me, Ariana. Ti adoro. You are the only precious thing I want in this world.

  Ti amo.

  But he was not free to say any of those things.

  As if she sensed the feelings burning inside him, her mouth sought his in a desperate kiss. He tried to soothe her, but hot, bright passion exploded between them. He eased back. “Not when you are so distraught.”

  “Please, Dante.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Don’t reject me. Not now.”

  He kissed the tears from her eyes. Then he gently laid her down on the rug in front of the fire and made slow, tender love to her. With his kisses, he tried to tell her the hope and longing inside his heart.

  With his body, he tried to show her the love he dared not speak aloud.

  When she shuddered in his arms and cried out his name, he clung to her, poured himself into her, and prayed their union would be enough to bind her to him through all they had yet to face.

  Afterward, he looked down at Ariana’s sleeping face and ached with the pain of loving her. He’d been ordered to kill her. Instead, he had reluctantly taken an oath to protect her. She had started out as his hostage, but now his heart was her captive, a hostage to the Fates.

  He would do anything to keep her safe.

  Dante traced her face with his fingertips, storing away the memory of each delicate feature. Ariana filled the dark, lonely void inside him with light. Her sweet generosity washed away his bitterness. Her glowing spirit vanquished his pain. He did not want to let her go.

  He gently kissed her lips, perhaps for the very last time. How he felt, what he wanted didn’t matter. If he let his motives turn personal, innocent people would die. Ariana could die. He had to do right by her.

  At all costs, he had to protect her.

  Even from himself.

  Dante buried his face in her silky, fragrant hair as the knowledge lodged like a knife in his heart. He had to follow through. He could not drop his mask of lies. His secrets had to be kept locked up, because the truth would destroy everything. Destroy her.

  And after he did what he must…she would despise him.

  DANTE WOKE before daybreak. He eased from the bed, as sore and battered inside as when he’d taken a beating on the yacht. He paused in the doorway and turned to look at Ariana’s slumbering face. Her skin was white as milk and dark circles of grief bruised her eyes.

  “Remember, amore mio,” he whispered.

  He stole from the room, quietly gathered his own clothes—dry, thanks to Ariana’s ingenuity—and then dressed. He stoked the fire and donned his coat before grimly slipping out the back, careful not to wake her. Better if she slept through this part.

  The storm had blown out, but mournful gray clouds masked sunrise in the chilly dawn. He reluctantly descended to the depths of the cellar to obtain proof of Derek Bennett’s crimes.
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  Dante lurched to a halt inside the secret chamber. The artifacts were scattered. Two blackened, empty kerosene lamps sat on the floor, their globes shattered. Where there should have been letters, there were only piles of ashes.

  Ariana had burned the evidence.

  Stunned disbelief raged inside him. Even before she came to him last night, she had already chosen.

  That made his decision both easier…and a whole lot tougher. Confused, angry, and he admitted, scared, he loped up the stairs and strode across the courtyard. He bent to pluck a crinkled paper from the mud. The photo Ariana had mentioned, crumpled by her fingers and soaked with rain. Ruined. Useless.

  Dante stalked into the cottage. She’d been writing in her notebook when he’d surprised her the night before. He crossed to the settee, knelt and flung aside pillows until he found the small book.

  He didn’t want to believe it, but there it was in her own neat script. Names, addresses, inventories. The most recent notations seemed to be brainstorming ideas for changing her identity and outwitting the Camorra.

  The blade twisted in his heart. Had he been played? How could the past few days—her anguish and their lovemaking last night—have possibly been acting on Ariana’s part?

  Why? He’d confessed his criminal past. If her feelings for him were genuine, she should have had no reservations about telling him the truth. In fact, she should be begging for his help.

  Unless she really was just about the money.

  She’d claimed her family was nearly destitute after the FBI had confiscated their assets. Was this her way of striking back at the police and regaining her wealth? Money was a powerful motivator. He’d seen people do far worse for a lot less than the stakes in this scheme.

  His glance snagged on her iPod, hanging halfway out of a fallen pillow. He snatched it up, plugged in an earbud. What sounded like Greek language lessons had to be encoded information.

  “What are you doing with my things?” Ariana’s appalled question spun him around.