Chay nodded at Sanchez.
“Thanks, dude.”
“And the Epstein kid… Take a look at him too.”
“Because?”
Sanchez shrugged. “There are lots of blank spaces.”
“Yeah, well, he’s young.”
“Nineteen. Nothing too remarkable in blank spaces, but you check what I gave you and if you want, I’ll go deeper on him and on the Vitali dude tomorrow.” Sanchez cleared his throat and shot Bianca a quick look. “Speaking of tomorrow… Are we on?”
“Yes,” Chay said.
“No,” Bianca said. “Because if this is about baby-sitting…”
“It’s about you being safe. We’ve been all through this.”
“We most certainly have, Chayton. And I am going east with you.”
The men exchanged looks. Chay sighed and told Dec he’d call him later.
They said goodnight. Chay tucked the printouts into one of the Harley’s saddlebags and he and Bianca rode back to his cottage.
The weather had changed.
Clouds obliterated the moon and stars. A chilly wind was blowing in off the ocean. Bianca gave a little shiver as she got off the bike.
“It’s so dark,” she said. “And cold.”
Chay dismounted and reached for the saddlebag. “There’s a storm coming in.”
She moved closer and kissed his jaw. “We seem to be destined for storms.”
“Maybe this one won’t be so bad…”
Roar!
As if this were a stage set and a backstage technician had just been waiting for his cue, thunder roared over the ocean. Half a dozen zigzags of hot white lightning arced from the sky.
“I told you,” Bianca said, laughing, but her laughter turned into a shriek as rain came pouring down.
Chay handed her the keys. “Run for the house,” he shouted, “while I get this saddlebag off. We don’t want to lose the stuff Dec gave us.”
She gave him a quick kiss and raced for the front door.
It took Chay a few seconds to release the saddlebag. It was already wet and slippery, and he sure as hell didn’t want to drop it.
Then he took off for the cottage.
Bianca had already gone inside.
He clambered up the three steps to the small porch, grabbed the doorknob and flung the door open.
The living room was pitch black, even darker than it was outside, and he stood still, his eyes adjusting to the lack of light.
Without warning, the hair rose on the back of his neck.
He had a bad feeling. A sense of something evil.
“Bianca?”
Nothing.
Chay could feel his muscles tightening, his conscious thought narrowing and focusing on the room ahead and the yawning darkness.
Quietly, carefully, he eased the saddlebag to the porch floor.
“Honey,” he said, trying to sound casual. “Turn on the lights.”
Silence. A silence broken only by the patter of the rain, and then he heard a small voice.
“Chayton?”
Chay stepped forward.
“Bianca…”
“Don’t come in,” she screamed. “Chayton! Don’t—”
She gave a muffled cry just as the lights blazed on.
For a second, Chay was blinded.
Then everything inside him turned to ice.
Bianca, his beloved Bianca, stood ten feet away.
A man stood right behind her. He had one arm wrapped around her throat.
A knife was in his hand, a long, curved, vicious-looking knife.
The blade rested right across her jugular, and a single drop of blood gleamed like a ruby against her skin.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jesus Christ!
Chay had been trained in hand-to-hand combat. Well-trained. Trained to be deadly, but not like this, not with all the odds against him.
Not with the woman he loved as a maniac’s captive.
Bianca’s attacker had everything he needed.
The element of surprise. The light blazing into Chay’s eyes. A weapon that could do fatal damage in one single swipe.
Bianca’s eyes were wide with fear.
And she was gasping.
Her attacker had dragged her onto her toes. Her hands were clutching his arm in a desperate effort to gain breathing room, but her assailant wasn’t about to lessen his hold on her.
Just the opposite.
The more she struggled, the higher he lifted her.
Her gasps became pants.
She needed air.
If she passed out, if she sagged onto that blade, it would slice through her flesh.
Chay worked at sounding calm.
“Easy, baby,” he said softly. He raised his gaze to her attacker’s face. “I’m sure this—this gentleman doesn’t really want to hurt you.”
The guy laughed.
Chay knew he would remember the chilling sound of that laugh forever.
“You’re a fool, Lieutenant Olivieri. Of course I want to hurt her—or do you think saying something so banal will soothe me?”
“Who are you?”
“I am the man Dr. Wilde spurned.”
“No,” Bianca gasped, “I never…”
A quick movement of the blade. A second drop of scarlet blood. Chay’s vision blurred. Focus. Focus. Giving in to rage might cost Bianca her life.
“She could have helped me,” the man said. “She could have accepted me as her patient. But she refused.”
“I’m Ms. Wilde had a good reason for turning down the chance to treat you.” Carefully, barely moving, Chay shuffled forward an inch. “Why don’t you let go of her and we can all sit down and discuss this?”
“She didn’t have a good reason! She said it was because she wasn’t a doctor yet. But I know the truth. She just didn’t want to help me.”
“I never…”
Bianca gasped as the arm around her neck tightened. It took all of Chay’s self-control not to rush the guy and to respond, instead, in a steady, calm voice.
“Maybe it was a misunderstanding.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“No,” Chay said quickly, “no, of course not. I’m just suggesting that sometimes people get confused—”
The man’s eyes flashed with rage. “You sound just like my mother! Have you been talking to her? To my mother? Ms. Wilde talks to her all the time. And that’s why I know precisely what happened. Mother told me.”
“Look, friend. I bet if you put down that knife and let go of Ms. Wilde…”
“Please,” the man said coldly. “Don’t try that nonsense with me. I’m smarter than you. I’m smarter than all of you.”
“Maybe, but—”
Bianca made a strangled sound as the arm around her neck pressed even harder. Chay knew it had to be close to choking off her air supply.
“Did you hear what I said? I am smarter than everyone. That’s the reason you’re all against me. You’re jealous of how smart I am.” His face twisted. “Mother was always against me. I should have known she’d turn Bianca against me, too.”
Fuck. “Your mother is Marilyn Epstein.”
“Doctor Epstein,” David Epstein said. “Doctor Epstein. You must not forget that title. Doctor Epstein is the success in our family. Not my father. Not me.”
“David.” Chay raised his hand and carefully moved another inch forward, slip. “Easy, son. I’m sure Ms. Wilde can help you if you’ll just—”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? I told Mother that I wanted Ms. Wilde to be my doctor. Mother said she would ask, and she did, and Ms. Wilde said no.”
Chay’s gaze flew to Bianca. She was standing so high on her toes that her feet were almost off the ground.
She was panting. Still, she managed to give her head a tiny shake that said No.
Chay looked at David Epstein again.
“Well,” he said evenly, “here’s your chance talk to Ms. Wilde yourself. I bet if you put down that knife, let go of her…”
Epstein laughed.
“You’re wasting your time, Lieutenant. See, I’ve got past that. The nonsense of wanting Ms. Wilde—of wanting Bianca to take me as a patient.” His head tilted; his expression went from angry to sly. “I know a lot about psychology. And psychiatry. And I know that doctors shouldn’t have intimate relationships with their patients. And when I had time to think about it, I realized that the true reason Bianca wouldn’t treat me was because she wanted to have sex with me.”
Ah Jesus! Chay felt the bile rise in his throat. They were finally getting down to basics.
“She told me so, over and over. She found a secret way into my head and I could hear her saying it, saying David, I want to fuck you. And for a while, I said no, we couldn’t do that. Mother would have been so angry, so angry…”
“David,” Chay said softly. “Let go of Ms—Let go of Bianca. You want to have sex with her. Fine. I understand that, but if you frighten—”
Shit! Another prick of the blade. Another drop of blood.
“You’re right. I don’t want to kill her. Not yet. Not before she gives me what I need.”
“David. Listen to me—”
“She was going to be mine,” David Epstein snarled. “She told me so, at night, in my bedroom. She said so each time I touched myself. She whispered it to me after I learned how to get into her apartment.” The snarl became a beatific smile. “She said she wanted me to be with her all the time, despite Mother’s interference, and that it was up to me to figure out how to do it. So I sent her an email, a silly kind of ad, and when she opened it, a wonderful little worm ate its way straight into the heart of her cellphone.”
He giggled like a teenage boy with a crush on a girl, instead of like a lunatic with a knife at a woman’s throat.
“After that,” Epstein said, “I was with her all the time. All the time. I considered walking up to her some evening, or waiting for her in her apartment—I wanted to surprise you, Bianca,” he said, for the first time directing his conversation at her, “but then I decided it would be more romantic if I left you a gift. “ His voice hoarsened. “A gift to show you how much I wanted you.”
The condom, Chay thought. God, that condom!.
“Oh, it was going to be so exciting! I stood across the street, waiting for her to come home and find my present.” A look so cold, so ugly that it made Chay’s gut twist flashed across Epstein’s face. “But she didn’t come home alone, did she, Lieutenant? She brought you with her, and anyone could tell you were fucking her. The way you looked at her. They way she looked at you.”
Chay took another small step forward. Every instinct, every sense he possessed warned him that Epstein was just about all talked out.
“When the police came, I knew she’d found my gift and that you’d made her call the police because you were jealous. Because you wanted her to be your whore. Your vessel. And that was when I realized she was not the pure virgin I thought she was and I phoned her and you took the call, you made it clear you were claiming her for your own.” Spittle appeared in the corners of Eptstein’s mouth. “You—called me a sick bastard. And—”
Chay was no longer listening.
He saw David Epstein begin to tremble, heard Bianca gag as Epstein’s arm tightened around her neck, saw the knife blade began to move.
Years ago, one of Chay’s martial arts instructors had concluded an already dangerous training session in Krav Maga with a move so lethal it could have resulted in death.
Pain, bruises—even an occasional torn ligament or broken bone—were always possibilities in serious balls-to-the-wall martial arts training.
A session that might have ended in death was not.
Even the STUD recruits, accustomed to Silat and Muay Thai and half a dozen other forms of the most dangerous martial arts, had been stunned.
“Here’s the bottom line, gentlemen,” the instructor had said. “Sometimes, the stakes are so fucking high that a man has to risk everything for a chance at winning.”
And this, Chay knew, was that time.
He thought back to Krav Maga, thought back to high school football…
“Bianca,” he shouted, lowering his head and charging David Epstein.
Epstein, taken completely by surprise, loosened his grip just enough so Bianca could sink her teeth in his arm.
He screamed.
The blade rose, but Chay was already there, smashing his shoulder into David Epstein.
Epstein staggered back, but not before the blade flashed. It nicked Bianca’s throat, slashed Chay’s arm.
“I’ll kill you both,” he shouted.
Chay kneed him in the balls. Then in the ribs. Cartilage cracked. Epstein screamed again. He doubled over but he came up still holding the knife. Chay smashed it aside with his elbow and took Epstein to the floor.
This time, Epstein’s shriek was high and girlish.
Chay’s fists moved with lightning speed.
Epstein’s nose shattered. His blood spurted.
Chay saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing except that this man had tried to kill Bianca.
“Chayton!” Bianca grabbed his shoulders from behind. “Chayton, stop! Stop!”
She was screaming, but Chay was deaf to her screams. She was tugging at his shoulders, but he didn’t feel her hands on him.
“You fuck,” he gasped. “You sick, crazy fuck!”
“Chayton, you’re killing him!”
Yes. He would. He fucking-A would…
A shudder went through him.
He pulled back.
Epstein was a bloody mess. So what? Bianca. That last flick of the knife…
He turned around, still on his knees.
Bianca’s throat was bleeding.
“Oh God! Bianca…”
“I’m all right.”
“You’re bleeding, honey. Jesus, you’re—”
“It’s superficial. But you…”
Her gaze flew to his arm. His gaze followed hers. Shit. Blood was pouring from his upper arm. Epstein must have slashed his brachial artery.
“Honey. Get me a towel. Then call the police.”
Bianca shot to her feet. Ran into the kitchen. Returned with an armful of of dish towels. She pressed one to the slash in Chay’s arm. She held it there for a few seconds, then lifted it.
GodohGodohGod!
He was still bleeding. Too much. Much too much blood. Blood that was spurting from the wound.
“My artery,” Chay gasped. “He must have—”
She leaned forward. Pressed a hard kiss to his lips.
Working quickly, she folded another towel. Pressed it against Chay’s arm. She tried ripping a towel in half, but she couldn’t, so she yanked off her T-shirt, used her teeth to tear into one end of it, then tore it lengthwise.
Good. Excellent. It made a perfect tourniquet.
Epstein began to groan. He tried to sit up.
Bianca swung towards him. She kicked the knife away and sent it spinning across the floor.
“You move one inch,” she hissed, “and I’ll finish the job the lieutenant started. Understand?”
When Epstein tried to sit up a second time, she muttered something short and ugly in Sicilian. Then she said, “You’re sick, and I’m a shrink, and I understand that you’re sick…but I swear I’ll kill you if you move again.”
The third time, she didn’t say anything. She simply balled her hand into a fist, slammed it into Epstein’s middle and and nodded with satisfaction when he fell back onto the floor.
Chay was laughing.
/>
The sound was weak, but it was laughter.
“You’d better not give me a hard time, either, Lieutenant,” she said, and she kissed him again, her face wet with tears.
Then she dug into Chay’s pocket, found his phone and dialed 911.
Dio, his face was pale! And blood was seeping through the improvised dressing.
Bianca sank down beside Chay, wrapped her arms around him and pressed one hand, hard, against the tourniquet.
“Do not die on me, Chayton Olivieri,” she said. “Do you hear me? You are not, repeat not to die!”
“Wouldn’t…dare,” he whispered.
She laughed. And cried. He lost consciousness, and she held him until the cops and the medics arrived, and even then, they had a hard time getting her to let go of him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Chay needed a blood transfusion and what he laughingly referred to as a lot of fancy stitching, but the doctors all agreed that in a couple of days, he would be fine.
Bianca needed little more than a couple of Band-Aids.
Epstein needed lots more than that.
A wired jaw. Three new teeth. Ten stitches over his eyebrow and, as Declan Sanchez joked, Epstein’s prospects at fatherhood were up for grabs.
It turned out that David Epstein was sick.
Very sick.
And he had been sick for a long, long time.
His mother knew it. Her unwillingness to admit he was sick had been the underlying cause of Marilyn Epstein’s divorce. The “blank spaces” Dec had found in David’s background were the times his mother had taken him out of elementary school, out of middle school, out of high school to have him institutionalized.
Somehow, she saw her son’s mental illness as a negative reflection on her as a psychologist. She was ashamed to acknowledge his sickness and she’d managed to use her influence to suppress his medical records.
All of that came out over the next couple of days, while Chay was in the hospital. He hadn’t wanted to stay there, despite the pleading of Bianca and the doctor, but his CO dropped by and gave him a flat command.
“You don’t leave this place until the doctor says you can leave,” James Blake said.
Bianca, who hadn’t been sure whether or not she liked Chay’s captain, decided she liked him a lot.
Privilege: Special Tactical Units Division: Book Two Page 25