by Linda Ladd
Black could not take his gaze off that door, afraid to blink his eyes, afraid something else would go wrong at the last minute. He had closed the hotel to everyone except the wedding party and his guests, had surrounded the entire property with security guards. But he was still afraid. Afraid that Marcel Soquet would find a way to disrupt the wedding and kill Claire with a bomb or a grenade thrown in her path. But then the doors opened wide, and Harve Lester rolled out in his wheelchair and took his place to escort the bride down the aisle. The bridal music started, and everyone stood up.
Then Claire was standing there, framed inside the threshold. She stepped out into the room and took the hand that Harve held out to her, just the way Black had always envisioned. His breath actually caught inside his throat. He couldn’t believe his eyes at first. And he knew instantly what her surprise was and exactly why she’d chosen to do it.
Claire looked absolutely gorgeous, and elegant, and beautiful, despite her bandaged hand and bruised, sunburned face. She had chosen to emulate the wedding dress that the actress Grace Kelly had worn when she was very young and marrying the Prince of Monaco, way back in the 1950s. And he knew why Claire had wanted to wear that particular gown. Black had told Claire numerous times that she was every bit as beautiful as Princess Grace was back then, and she would scoff and said, “Get real, Black.”
Black was amazed that the dress seemed identical down to every tiny detail, the same long veil that trailed behind her, the same blond hair swept back into an elegant chignon, and the same small bouquet that the princess had carried. Nancy had copied the design so completely that it looked like an absolute duplicate of the royal gown.
Hell, Claire could be Grace Kelly in that moment. On the other hand, nobody else could be Claire. Not ever. She was one of a kind. And she probably hated every single thing about the way she looked and the way she was dressed and all the hoopla going on around her. Not to mention, being the center of attention. She had gone to all this trouble just for him, and it touched his heart, as nothing else ever had.
Claire continued slowly down the aisle, very different from her usual brisk stride, between about a hundred white folding chairs. Harve was beaming with pride, and Claire was smiling at Black the whole time. She also appeared a trifle flushed and embarrassed by the fancy getup and all the eyes now focused solely on her. But the guests were watching her in awe, some gasping aloud at her transformation. Black grabbed her good hand the minute she got to him and brought it to his lips. She looked embarrassed by that, too, but he wanted her to know how pleased he was with her surprise. He remembered how they’d argued once about choosing her gown, and now he realized why she had gotten so defensive about it.
The priest was waiting, and they turned together and faced him. He spoke for a while, and then the lovely young girl named Rebekah Northern sang the songs that Claire had chosen for the ceremony. The priest spoke some more, about life and love and honesty and fidelity, but Black was hardly listening to him. He kept looking down at Claire and thinking it was really going to happen this time. More songs were sung, more verses were read, and then he was repeating his vows and then Claire was repeating hers, and they were exchanging the diamond-studded wedding rings that he had chosen the day after Claire had finally agreed to marry him. And then finally, at long last, he slid a ring on her finger, and they were really, truly, legally married. The crowd behind them applauded, and Claire laughed at the expression on his face and whispered to cut it out because he looked really goofy. Then he laughed, too, but he had never been this happy, not ever in his life. They walked down the aisle and over to the next ballroom where a magnificent reception was set up.
A huge dinner had been prepared by the chefs in Cedar Bend’s restaurant, Five Cedars. They sat at long, white, linen-draped and candlelit tables and ate and listened to all their friends congratulate them and enjoyed the evening and more of Rebekah Northern’s romantic music, especially when she sang “Truly, Madly, Deeply,” which was Claire’s song dedicated to him. When the magnificent fireworks display started, they watched from the terrace with their guests, and the champagne toasts followed, and Black just kept smiling, because they were both still alive and now man and wife. But they grabbed Jules Verne and took their leave as soon as they could, and flew out on Black’s brand-new, bigger and better private Gulfstream jet, wanting to spend their wedding night alone and on their way to their new honeymoon destination.
Once they were aloft and lay facing each other in bed with their little dog snoring at their feet, Black had never felt the kind of contentment he felt in that moment. He really hadn’t thought that their marriage was ever going to happen. He really hadn’t. They lay looking at each other, quiet now, just smiling.
Claire finally said, “So are we headed back to the Amalfi Coast?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think I ever want to lay eyes on Italy again. No, we’re headed straight to Hawaii and a very private estate on the island of Kauai. It is unbelievably beautiful there, with the most breathtaking views you’ve ever seen. Just wait until you see it.”
“Please tell me that it’s not hanging on the side of a cliff. I can’t take the thought of any more cliffs. And I am not jumping into any water ever again, not anywhere, anytime.”
“Actually, a good friend of mine owns it. And it’s very secure. Very remote and private, and he’s got guards that patrol the property night and day.” Black knew they were both worried about Marcel Soquet still being on the loose with an even bigger grudge against them now. But he didn’t mention it, didn’t want to think about it, not now. Instead, he told her about the estate. “There’s an infinity pool right over the beach, and he’s got stables, and we can ride horses down on the beach, or up into the hills where there are the most beautiful tall waterfalls pouring down into pools of the clearest water you’ve ever seen in your life. You’re gonna love it.”
“That does sound very good to me. But what friend? Not some crime lord?”
“No. Just a good friend of mine.”
“Who?”
“He’s not a criminal, believe me, but he likes his privacy. Nobody knows he’s got this place except for a few close friends. I’ve been out there a couple of times before I met you.”
“Well, good. What I need now is some major relaxation, Black. I really need that more than anything else. Trust me on that. And bring on those guards, the more the merrier.”
“He said we could have it for a year. Forever, if we want.”
“Oh, that’s not superextravagant. What’d you do, save his life?”
Black didn’t want to answer that, and luckily Claire didn’t push it. “We deserve some pampering and privacy. You deserve it, Claire.”
“Yes, I do. I sure do. I wish Rico could have come along, though.”
“He’ll be fine with Harve. They really hit it off, didn’t they? And Joe’s gonna bring Lizzie down to play with him a lot, too.”
“Yeah, I know. Harve’s gonna take good care of him. And I guess a honeymoon is no place for a kid his age. Especially since we’re after lots of peace and quiet.”
“Yeah, I plan to make this really special for you. But give me a couple of weeks alone with you, and then, if you want, we’ll fly Rico and Harve over there. There are plenty of rooms, plenty of everything. It’s so beautiful up there, such a relaxing place. I wanted someplace really special for you.”
“Sounds good. And don’t you dare ever forget how special I am.”
He smiled. “Not likely.”
“I hope they allow weapons on this property because I am never taking my weapons off again. I even had one strapped on my ankle under that big silk skirt and all those petticoats.”
“Yeah, I noticed that when I undressed you. Not to worry. We’re in a safe place.” He kissed her gently and then he leaned back and gazed into her eyes. “You happy?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“I like the song you picked for me. Did you mean all that stuff?”
“Well
, everything but the standing on the mountain part. Not gonna happen. Huh-uh. No cliffs in my future. Nope, never again.”
“So you love me truly?”
“Yep.”
“Madly?”
“Yes sir.”
“Deeply?”
“You bet.”
“Well, good.” He grinned, thoroughly pleased to hear it. “So, tell me, sweetheart, what was your favorite part of the wedding?”
“Other than both of us not being dead on that godforsaken island?”
“Yeah, other than that.”
Claire pretended to think. “Well, I do believe that it was probably when you ripped off that big heavy wedding gown that I had to drag around all night. It felt like I was wearing an anchor or a giant albatross around my waist, maybe.”
Black laughed softly. “I rather liked that part, too. And what came after.”
“Oh, yeah. What came after was definitely a highlight in my wedding book.” She snuggled in closer to him. “What was your favorite part of the wedding?”
Black pulled back where he could look into her eyes, very serious now. “I know exactly when it was. It was the moment I saw you walk down that aisle and I knew you were coming straight to me. That you were going to be mine. My wife. That was definitely the best moment for me. In fact, I think that’s the best moment I’ve ever had in my entire life.”
Claire stared at him and then laughed at his sentimentality. “Black, that sounds just so proprietary. And you’ve just got to be the sappiest guy I’ve ever met up with. That little speech just then was so super syrupy that it could go straight into an Aunt Jemima bottle. In fact, it was beyond description, saccharine even. You ought to be embarrassed to even say something like that, you being a big, tough guy, and all that.”
“But you love me, anyway. And what I said is true. Every word of it.”
“Oh, yeah, I do love you, too, since you’re now my husband and everything. So what are you gonna do about it? Just let your new wife lie here, waiting for something good to happen to her?”
Black knew exactly what to do about it, and he turned over until he was lying on top of her. Claire laughed softly as he threaded his fingers through her hair but then she moaned when he started kissing her. She was his wife now and he didn’t plan to stop kissing her for at least a month, maybe more. Oh, yeah, his life was looking pretty damn fine right now, despite all that had happened to them in Sicily. And he was going to enjoy every minute of this time they spent alone, starting right now. Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Black. Claire Morgan Black. Oh, yeah, he really did so like the sound of that.
Epilogue
Around the end of the first week of the new Mr. and Mrs. Black’s luxurious Hawaiian honeymoon trip, Marcel Soquet sat in an isolated country house outside the small town of Bellac, just north of Limoges, France. He was alone there, and he was depressed to the depths of his tortured soul, so overwhelmed with grief and sadness that he could not function properly anymore. He had lost everything. Everything that meant anything to him. His only son. His beloved daughter. His men. And he still suffered physically from the heart attack he had had upon discovering Max’s mangled, destroyed body.
Goddamn Nicholas Black! And his woman. God, she was even worse than he was. Claire Morgan had murdered Max. Oh, God, he missed his boy so much. And poor defective little Jaxy. They were both dead, and he couldn’t even claim his daughter’s body without being arrested by Italian authorities. He was so full of rage and despair and grief that he could barely stand to stay hidden in his safe house and let his body heal. He wanted them dead. Both of them. Now. No waiting. No planning. Just shot down like the dogs they were.
Soquet had already put out feelers among his friends and colleagues in his criminal spheres, trying to find out where they went on their honeymoon. Then he would get a contract killer easily enough and make sure they didn’t live long together as a married couple. He didn’t care how he did it. But a grenade launcher might be the best thing, shot into their car or into the window of their honeymoon suite. It could be done and that would be fast and easy and deadly.
Soquet had heard all about their wedding. He had seen photographs in the tabloids that the paparazzi had managed to get from inside that big hotel on the lake in Missouri. He had seen pictures of the woman in her bridal gown and read all about how she looked like Grace Kelly had looked on her wedding day in Monaco. How beautiful she was. How handsome he was. What a lovely power couple they made. It was all over the news, and he cringed at the commentators’ delight that Black had survived his abduction by terrorists and was safe and sound and able to go through with his wedding. Even more reason that Soquet should make them one extremely dead newlywed couple. And if it happened while they were still on their honeymoon, all the better.
He poured himself another finger of whiskey and drained the short glass, then poured himself another. The pain in his chest was awful. His heart was bad. He might not live much longer. He wanted to stay alive long enough to see Claire Morgan and Nick Black dead. He wouldn’t let himself die until he did see that. Shifting in his chair, he grimaced and held his chest, and he caught a glimpse of the framed family portrait sitting on his desktop. He and Lorraine and their two children. All dead now. All but him.
Oh, God. They were all dead because of Nicholas Black. Marcel’s pain, his despair, his despondence, all of it was because of him, and he had never been filled with such utter hatred and thirst for revenge. Even before, when he went to such great lengths, such detailed planning to find Black and end his life, to make him pay for Lorraine, never had he felt this degree of bitterness and determination to get him, and now it was that way for both of them. He wanted them shot down and then their bodies burned.
When his cell phone suddenly buzzed and broke the extreme quiet of the room, Soquet jumped in the chair, startled. Now, after all that had happened, he was always filled with nerves and the fear of the unknown. He quickly punched On. “Yes.”
A voice he knew very well spoke softly. A trusted American cohort with whom he often did business. “We found them. They’re in Hawaii. At a private estate on Kauai. Hard to get to but not impossible.”
“You will be well rewarded for providing this information.”
The line went dead, and Soquet ended the call and placed the cell phone down on the desk. He smiled, quite pleased, and then he searched through his mind for which of his preferred hit men would be the most suitable for a double murder. When he heard a slight noise out in the hallway, he looked up quickly, the phone back in his hands. That’s when the small black hole opened up right in the center of his forehead. Marcel Soquet was dead before he could form another thought. He fell back into the chair, his head leaning on the cushion. He looked as if he had simply fallen asleep in his chair.
A big man dressed in dark clothes and with dark greasepaint smeared all over his face walked out of the shadows in the hallway and stood in the threshold. He waited there for a few seconds, listening for any sounds. Then he walked with light and silent footfalls into the room and over to Soquet’s desk. He raised his silenced .45 and put two more quick slugs into the man’s heart. Will Novak relaxed and let his gun arm hang down against the side of his leg. He stared down at Marcel Soquet’s open and very dead eyes.
“Nobody tortures my friends the way you did and gets away with it,” he said to Soquet’s staring corpse. “Not ever. Not while I’m still breathing.”
Novak turned and headed outside. He walked out into the cool night air and found the deep shadows and looked up at the starry night sky. His mind returned to that day not so long ago when they’d finally located and stormed the old fortress in Sicily. That’s when they had found the tapes that documented Black’s torture sessions. The films had been hard to stomach, especially for his friends to watch, and they had not shown them to Nick. Not yet. But Booker kept them, just in case Black ever wanted to analyze the techniques they used on him. Novak didn’t think he would, not for a while, anyway. Black was gonna nee
d time and space to get over the hellish ordeal. As a shrink, he would know what he needed. Claire would help him. They would help each other. As bad as those tapes had been, however, Novak hadn’t seen the worst until he cleared the tunnels under the fortress and found Max Soquet’s cell phone, the one in which Claire had made her desperate call to them for help. Novak had stood there, alone, in that dark, cold place, and recharged the cell with the portable charger he always carried.
Novak had found Max’s video of his cowardly and vicious assault on Claire. He had watched in utter disgust what the big psychopath had tried to do to her. He had seen with his own eyes how hard Claire had fought to stay alive, how desperate she’d been. As hardened and jaded as Novak was now, the video actually turned his stomach. He had heard the threats, seen the attack that Claire had gone through while locked inside that room with Max. And he had seen the intimidation, and he had seen how she reacted after she had killed Max in such a terrible and brutal way. He had watched, sickened, as she scrabbled back away from the bleeding corpse, panting and horrified and cradling her butchered hand. But she had done it. She had gone through virtual hell to get herself and Black out of that prison.
But now, after tonight, Claire was safe, thank God, but she would probably never be quite the same again. He had taken Max’s cell phone and kept it, without telling Booker and Holliday what he had seen. He didn’t think Claire would want anybody to see it, or ever want to see it again herself, or even think about it again. Novak shuddered to think what Black would do if he ever saw what that guy had put her through. But Novak knew what Black would do. He would go after Marcel Soquet with everything he had, and he would kill him, just the way Novak had done tonight. But now, all three of their tormentors were dead. None of them would ever harm Claire or Black or anybody else again. Novak had taken care of it, once and for all. He had no regrets about what he’d just done. He was happy to be the one to do it. Tonight, he had made the world a better place.