Capturing Victory (Driven Hearts Book 3)

by Nikita Slater

  Ndari sighed heavily and reached behind her, into her back pocket. “Then this belongs to you.” She handed a phone to Jaya. Specifically the phone Jaya had lifted from the guy at the mall right before hotwiring the Maserati. She gaped at it for a second before looking up at Ndari. “I thought I’d dropped it while I was running!”

  Ndari shook her head. “You shoved it down the front of your shirt. Ivan put you on my lap while we were waiting for his men to arrive in the garage. He was pacing back and forth like a madman, not paying any attention to me, just watching for them. I felt the phone while I was checking your pulse and put it in my purse when he wasn’t looking.”

  “And you’ve had it ever since and haven’t said a word.” She tried to keep the accusation from her voice, but she had trouble imagining someone as open as Ndari keeping such a big secret.

  “I’m sorry,” Ndari said, her own voice anguished. “I needed it close, like a security blanket. It was going to be our out if you decided you wanted to leave or if he did anything else horrible, like putting a gun to my head again.”

  Jaya felt like a terrible friend at the reminder. “Of course you wanted it,” Jaya replied, softening her tone. “And so you should have a phone. I’ll talk to Ivan about getting you a legitimate one of your own now that he’s decided we’re going to try the trust thing. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Really?” Ndari said, excitement shining through. “Because I’ve been dying to call the palace. I can’t even tell you how boring that place is when I’m not around to shake things up. I need to make sure my half-sister, Alissa, stays out of my closet. That skank has terrible taste in clothing, yet she still borrows my shit.”

  “Wow, I’ve missed you,” Jaya laughed and reached out to hug her friend, ignoring Haty’s outraged protest when she ended their game and sent the kitten scampering. “We’ve been much too serious this week.”

  “Agreed,” Ndari said, squeezing Jaya back.

  Once they settled back onto their opposing sides of the bed, Ndari studied Jaya with a calculating twinkle in her eye. “What?” Jaya demanded, becoming quickly acquainted with her friend’s penchant toward mischief.

  “Well… you know how our last shopping trip got interrupted?” Ndari said. To her credit she didn’t say it in an accusing tone, as if she didn’t blame Jaya for reigning chaos down upon Ivan and therefore everyone in his vicinity. Jaya rolled her eyes, nodded and twirled her finger, as if to say get on with it. “Anyway, I was thinking we should try the shopping thing again! Your man still has the big bucks that need spending and, honey, not that you don’t look adorably quaint in that never-ending parade of saris you keep wearing, but it’s time to update your style.”

  Jaya giggled and defended herself. “Okay, the saris aren’t my choice. Ivan saw me in one once at a ball and was smitten! Can I help it that I’m gorgeous in traditional gear? I’m usually a T-shirts and leggings kind of girl. In fact, I’m a hacker, I’m usually a pyjamas-unless-I’m-absolutely-forced-to go-out-in-public kind of girl.”

  Ndari made a face and shook her head. “No girl, we definitely need to work on your style then. You’re about to become the wife of one of the world’s most notorious businessmen. Legit or not, Ivan Vogel is known internationally. You need to look the part.”

  “This conversation is pointless anyway. He might trust me a little more now, but I doubt his trust is going to extend to another shopping trip the moment he stops threatening to murder everything I love.”

  Ndari gave her a pointed look. “You’re pretty thick for a genius. Did he not just give you access to an entire world of online shopping and a princess who has spent her entire life as a professional shopper?”

  Jaya’s mouth fell open.

  “Exactly,” Ndari said smugly. “Do you suppose he has limits on his personal credit cards or do you think he’s one of those super rich guys like my brother who has unlimited funds?”

  Jaya barely noticed when a shadow fell across her, blotting out the intensely bright sunlight. After a moment she forgot about the distraction and continued to pound away on the keyboard, her brand-new laptop perched precariously on her crossed legs where she sat on one of the pool lounge chairs. She wore a bathing suit and a pair of shorts. It had been a long, hard fought argument with Ivan to wear even this little out on the pool deck with his men around, but she’d finally won him over by promising to purchase a modest swimsuit, which she did.

  “More packages’ve arrived.”

  Jaya jumped and barely managed to grab her laptop before it took a nasty spill off the end of the lounger and into the pool. Her head swivelled up and she found herself staring at an amused Keane who stood towering over her. She wondered how long he’d been standing there. Now that she was back online she noticed that Ivan’s men seemed to enjoy sneaking up on her more and more often. She frowned. Maybe she should tell Ivan to put bells on them.

  “The princess is opening them in her private quarters. Says she’ll put your stuff away in your room for you.” He drawled the word princess like it was offensive. Jaya wasn’t exactly sure what was going on between Keane and Ndari, but the tension between the two was becoming explosive. They came from two completely different worlds and though there was a definite attraction, Jaya didn’t see how any kind of relationship could be possible.

  “Thank you for telling me,” Jaya murmured, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. There was absolutely no need for him to interrupt her to tell her about the packages. “What do you really want?”

  “What’re you doing there?” he asked, nodding toward the laptop.

  She eyed the computer then glanced back at him. After a moment she decided to tell him. “I’m locking a certain dictator who’s slowly starving his people and inflating the currency in his country out of his personal accounts so he can see what it’s like to go hungry. I mean, I’m sure he’ll gain access to funds somehow, but he’ll be uncomfortable for a few days.”

  Keane chuckled. “Bravo, canary.” He shook his head. “Dangerous though, if you get yourself caught.”

  “They won’t catch me,” she said confidently.

  “We caught you, canary. And put you in a cage.” His blue eyes turned serious, piercing her with a warning.

  She nodded and closed the laptop, setting it aside. “Yes, and now I have you and Ivan to protect me. Trust me, Keane, I won’t do anything stupid.”

  “Like keep an unauthorized phone on the premises,” he said coolly, his gaze flattening.

  She gasped, shock hitting her. She could feel adrenaline rushing through her limbs, screaming at her to run away. She had to force herself to sit still. She wasn’t under threat, not yet. If Keane had told Ivan about the phone, this would be a very different conversation. Why hadn’t he told Ivan about the phone? First though, she needed to know how. “How did you know?” she asked, her voice quivering.

  “Saw you in the security feed at the mall,” he answered easily, dropping to his haunches beside her, his head now level with hers. “Boss asked me to see if you’d knocked them all out when you assaulted the system back at the jewellery store. It looked like you had. Wasn’t until a few days ago that one of our tech guys found a camera in the food court that hadn’t gone down.”

  “Wh-why haven’t you told Ivan?” she asked breathlessly, her mind racing ahead to every possibility. Keane could still tell Ivan. Ivan could still freak out and decide to punish her through his worst threat, murdering someone she loved. She had to warn Ndari!

  “Have to be honest here, canary. If I’d seen that tape a week ago you’d’ve been up shit creek. I’d would’ve handed you over to the boss and let him sort it out. But I only saw it two days ago. Which means you’ve had the phone for a week and haven’t done shit with it.” His voice was low. He didn’t want their conversation overheard. “I’m curious about your intentions, if you have any at all. Could be, you took it in the heat of the moment and now you don’t know what to do with it.”

  Jaya took a deep breath. She didn�
�t want to drag Ndari into this mess, but she needed to be completely honest. She needed Keane to trust her. She believed it was going to keep the two women safe in this situation. She told him exactly what’d happened with the phone from start to finish. She also promised to give him the phone, relieved that she wouldn’t have it hanging over her head any longer.

  When she was done telling him her side of the story, he nodded and said, “Good girl. I’ll be having a wee chat with the princess to make sure she corroborates what you’re saying. If she does, then this need go no further than the three of us. I’ll make sure the tech guy forgets what he knows as well.”

  Though Jaya was relieved she also desperately wanted to run to Ndari and tell her to tell only the truth when talking to Keane. She suspected Ndari was going to either clam up or spout off at the unpredictable, potentially violent man and either scenario wasn’t going to be in her best interest. As if reading her mind, Keane stood up and grinned down at her. “Oh no you don’t. You best be leaving her royal highness to me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Weeks passed and the trust between Ivan and Jaya grew. Jaya was seeing Ivan as a different man than the one who kidnapped her and kept her locked in cages. A different man than the one she’d spent half a lifetime hearing described to her in gruesome detail. But at the same time, Ivan was still the same man she had been attracted to from the very beginning. He was cool, in control and completely, unbearably dominant. He only warmed for Jaya. He only unbent for the woman he loved. If anything, his newfound love made him more unapologetically vicious to the world around them.

  Jaya tried to point this out to him, tried to get him soften his approach to others. Especially his poor secretary, Anna, who flew in from Athens for a three-day business meeting. But he would not be swayed. He simply looked at Jaya as though she should know better and carried on with business as usual; murder, mayhem and arms dealing on an international scale. Or so she presumed. He didn’t involve her in his work and she was glad he chose not to.

  Ivan had given Jaya a few restrictions when he’d given her a laptop and access to the internet. If she wanted to work, then she had to run her contracts through either Ivan or Keane before she agreed to them. She could shop at will and she had to keep a low profile while chatting. Under no circumstances could she tell anyone where she was or who she was with. Ivan was to have access to her internet and chat history at any time if he chose to look.

  So when she finally felt brave enough to contact Father, she had to do it completely in code and she had to strike a perfect balance so she wouldn’t tip Ivan’s tech people off. She decided to contact him in a chat room on the dark web, which would automatically arouse Ivan’s suspicion, but could be easily explained once he read the transcripts. She thought it might arouse too much suspicion to try a regular web connect given that most of her work was conducted through the dark web. If she put the suspicious stuff right out in the open, Ivan would most likely sink his teeth into that instead and ignore the deeper subtext. Or so she hoped.

  As usual, Ivan left early that morning, kissing her on the head before rolling out of bed and leaving for his morning workout. She knew she likely wouldn’t see him again until that evening and felt safe in pulling out her laptop and settling on the balcony to their room. There was no point in wasting a gorgeous morning breeze while planning subterfuge. She turned the laptop on and quickly got to work, bringing up the restricted site she used to contact certain clients. It came up with a notice saying it had been shut down and users were to contact the administrator for further information. She clicked on the unhappy face icon which brought up username and password boxes. She filled them out and was taken to correct site; simply called Buy and Sell Web Services. But it was so much more than that. This was the website, where the world’s elite hackers convened to bid for jobs. Or if they were really good, like XSourse, the clients vied and bid for her attention.

  Jaya grinned in relief when she saw exactly what she was looking for, an ad looking for a specific hacker. Her. She saw that the ad had been put up repeatedly every week since she went off the grid. It said:

  Daddy is looking for his lost cat. The cat is small with dark hair and sticky paws. He’s good at getting into spaces he shouldn’t. Contact me if you’ve seen him, I just want to know that he’s safe.

  Jaya wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes at the ‘Daddy’ reference, but they’d agreed that Father should place a lost cat ad, so she was pretty sure it was him. She supposed he didn’t want to call himself Father because she and his other foundlings called him Father so maybe it was too recognizable, but still… she glanced at Haty who was lolling on her back on the warm paving stones.

  “That just sounds dirty,” she told the cat. “And I’m so not going there with a man that’s actually like my father figure. Ugh, nope, need some mental bleach.”

  She replied to the ad:

  XSource: Found your lost cat. He’s fine and looking for work.

  She brought up another tab and began searching other sites, checking in with friends, expecting it to take time for Father’s reply. She was surprised when a chat window popped up right away.

  Daddy: Glad you’re good. I have a job for you.

  XSource: Drop the ‘Daddy’ bullshit and I’ll think about it. Can’t work while choking on vomit.

  Daddy: Do you want the job or not?

  XSource: It’s. Just. So. Wrong.

  Daddy: …

  XSource: Dude, you’re really going to make me call you daddy? Fine. Where, when and how much?

  Daddy: That’s Big Daddy to you kitten.

  XSource: I hate you so much.

  Daddy: The job’s in Atlanta. Tomorrow. Four million. Will send the exact job details once you’ve accepted.

  Jaya gasped and sat back in her chair with a thump as the image of his words burned in her brain. He’d answered all three of her questions quickly and succinctly, unwittingly piercing her heart in the process. She actually rubbed a hand over her chest, trying to soothe the ache within. Atlanta meant he knew where she was and he was extracting her tomorrow. Four million meant he was bringing a team of four. Reading between the lines she would guess it wasn’t an entire assault team, since four men against Ivan’s entire well-trained army wasn’t going to end well for Father. So, he must have a different plan for her extraction.

  Still, the thought of anyone on either side getting hurt because of her stole her breath and made her feel faint. Some of the men that Father might bring were people she’d practically grown up with. He’d always been careful to maintain distance between the talented children he collected. But lonely kids, starving for affection found ways of being together. She’d lost her virginity to one of those boys at the age of sixteen in a mango grove behind the barracks. Thank goodness she hadn’t become pregnant. Father, while occasionally benevolent, was overall a brutal leader, especially with the men he conditioned to follow him. Jaya had been special, his intelligent genius pet. The weapon he might one day use against his greatest enemy.

  She set the laptop aside and stood, taking two restless steps away from the chair and then back. If she was honest, it was mostly the thought of anything happening to Ivan that nearly brought her to her knees. She knew on an intellectual level that Ivan could take care of himself, but the thought of a bullet finding his flesh, the thought of Father finally winning vengeance, and all because of her… it gutted her. She blinked back tears and dropped back into the chair, lifting her hands to the keyboard and typing.

  XSource: Job rejected. Not enough time to plan.

  Though she knew it was just her overactive imagination, she swore she could feel the heat of Father’s anger through the laptop. She knew what he was probably thinking. Betrayal. It was what she would be thinking in his place. Standing up, she began pacing again, guilt eating at her. This man had tried to raise her after her family died. He’d rescued her from the streets, an ugly situation that had been rapidly deteriorating for a vulnerable young woman. S
he owed him better than to turn her back on him. But did she owe him her entire life, her happiness? Did she owe him the life of the man she loved?

  She heard the message box pop up again. Tears pricked her eyes because she already knew what it was going to say. She turned on her heel, grabbed the edge of her skirt and sat. She narrowed her eyes at the screen.

  Daddy: Unacceptable. You are needed for this job to go forward. Be ready.

  She shook her head and lifted her hands to the laptop, about to refuse again. But then dropped them. What choice did she have? Somehow Father had a lock on her location. Probably the jewelry store thing. It had her signature all over it. From the outside it would look like a regular heist gone wrong. But anyone looking closer would see the necessary skill involved in the way she’d manipulated the security and fire systems. Father probably had an algorithm running the world over searching for her digital fingerprints in hopes of picking her up somewhere. He would be coming to Ivan’s Jakarta penthouse tomorrow, with or without her cooperation. Perhaps if she agreed to go with him, there would be less of a chance of anyone getting hurt.

  XSource: Alright. I want 6 million, wired to my Bahamas account. Half now, half after the job. Give me the details.

  Daddy: Five million. Check your account, 2.5 transferred now.

  Jaya checked her account, knowing there was an excellent chance Ivan’s people were monitoring her chat. Sure enough, two and a half million dollars had just been transferred to her account. She sucked in a quick breath. Father meant business. He wasn’t messing around in his intention to get her back. Or to kill Ivan. She just hoped she could prevent one of those from happening. Actually, she hoped she could prevent both. She was beginning to think she’d finally found her place in life. She was cautiously optimistic that the Ivan thing was going to work out for her.