by Emmy Ellis
Guilia fine and happy with her parents, under no threat whatsoever.
Thinking of her gave me the mad urge to scream at Sutton to hurry up, but it would be pointless and a waste breath and effort. If he put his foot down on the accelerator, we’d be skidding everywhere within seconds. I had to bite my tongue and accept that we’d reach town when we reached it.
I had to concentrate on being calm and collected.
“I really was waylaid,” he said.
So much for calm and collected. Those words spiked irritation in me. I didn’t want to entertain him at the moment. I couldn’t trust myself not to say something horrible to him. Yet I opened my mouth anyway.
“Waylaid. So you said.” I gritted my teeth and clutched the handle of the gun tighter.
“I told you Guilia was safe, otherwise I would never have left the school.” He sighed.
Sighing, like my daughter’s safety and me worrying about her is a drain on his soul? Why, the cheeky—
“I told you,” he went on, “that she was all right.”
“And I just had to trust you on that, did I?” I laughed bitterly. It was raspy from where Rick had gripped my throat. “Oh, right. Sutton says she’s okay, so she’s okay. Even though those two men turned up, and you were waylaid elsewhere. Well,” I turned my head to glare at him, “if she’s still safe, it’s no thanks to you. I offered myself to go in her place when Rick and Jan turned up. Those men were at the back of the bloody school to kidnap her.”
I blew out a hard stream of air through pursed lips. “And where were you at that time? Off having a beer in the local pub, were you? Congratulating yourself on a job well done in making sure she was safe? I mean, very stupid of me to think that you’d even consider warning her parents so they could collect her and take her somewhere that actually was safe. While those men were busy taking me to the cabin, and you were off doing whatever the hell you were doing, other men could have got into that school, making Guilia not safe.”
He frowned. Shook his head.
“What,” I said. “Is something not making sense? Are you having trouble processing what I just said?” All the anger I’d been feeling was tumbling out, being directed at Sutton, but I didn’t give a shit. He deserved it. He was being paid to do a job, and several times already he’d messed it up. I was doing better at it than he was. Maybe I ought to ditch the idea of owning Blooms and join the bloody SAS instead.
“You’re just being silly now,” he said.
Oh. He really shouldn’t have said that. “So I’m a silly little woman now, is that it? I’m telling you, the second we get to that school, we’re parting company. I never want to see you again.”
And it was true. Nothing good could come out of a relationship with him. I’d been mad to think things would turn out okay, that in the future Guilia wouldn’t be anywhere near the hands of murdering scumbags, and I could walk off into the sunset. His seemingly bumbling ways were back. Maybe he’d just had a lapse when he’d acted like a mature spy instead of what’s-his-face, that inspector from The Pink Panther.
“I didn’t mean to say that,” he said. “That you’re silly. What I meant was—”
“What you meant was, that I should just shut up, do as I’m told, and let you handle business. Yes, that’s what you meant. Well, that’s where you’re wrong. I won’t shut up, not when my child is in danger, and if you can’t show her to me so that I can actually see her with my own eyes, then afterwards prove she’s been taken somewhere out of that mad fucker’s, that Fabian Emmanual’s reach, then—”
“How do you know his name?” He slammed on the brakes.
I lurched forward, my brow almost meeting the dashboard. My gun toppled down into the footwell. “That’s it, you just go ahead and kill me now. Murder by forehead dent. Cave my bloody head in, why don’t you, because I—”
The hard grip of his hand on my wrist stunned the hell out of me.
“You’re becoming hysterical, Claudine.”
I stared at him while he stared back at me. I was spitting nails, ready to claw his eyes out. Our breaths came out in rough gusts. He took hold of the back of my neck and drew me close, holding me against him so I couldn’t move. I struggled to free myself, frustrated and so very angry at him that I opened my mouth to bite him somewhere—anywhere. No flesh was available, so I managed to get my free hand up between us and pinch then twist one of his nipples. He didn’t spring back with a yelp of pain as I’d hoped, just held me and my wrist tighter.
“Get your hands off of me,” I said through clenched teeth. “This is not the moment to have a cuddle! My child is hopefully still in that school, and you’ve stopped…bloody…driving. Get out and let me take the wheel. Come on. Out.”
He didn’t budge. “Calm down. Deep breaths. She’s not in the school.”
“What?” I shrieked. “What do you mean she isn’t in the school?”
I fought him, wild and crazy, my heart hammering, my brain whirring with dreadful scenarios, all of them resulting in Guilia being dead. I saw her pale face against the snow, blood splattering it beside her head like it had with Kolya. I saw her drowned in a huge vat of water in some desolate farm barn. I saw her…I saw her—
I screamed, frustration at being held like this prodding me to kill Sutton. My love for Guilia was so strong, so all-consuming, that I thought I might be sick.
“She’s at The Zigarrengeschäft.” He stroked the back of my hair. “With Mr Summer.”
Oh, dear God. She was with one of Kolya’s allies, but did that mean she was okay to be with him? Was this Mr Summer a nice man? And if he was, what about Mr Winter? What if he wasn’t nice and he turned up and decided to do away with Guilia, to use her as a bargaining tool because even though they wanted to stop that Fabian man just as much as I did, they needed a bargaining chip, a lure?
“Enough with the panicking,” Sutton said, irritatingly continuing to stroke my damn hair. “I won’t speak to you further until you stop imagining the worst. I promise you, you daughter is fine, do you hear me? Fine. Mr Summer would never—never—allow her to be hurt. You have to trust me on that until you see him, speak to him for yourself. And you absolutely will not be doing that until you stop hyper-bloody-ventilating.” He tightened his grip even more.
I understood that tone of voice. Father used it on occasion. Nothing would get done if I didn’t obey. Or pretend to obey, at least.
Do as he says. Calm down. Get to The Zigarrengeschäft. See this Mr Summer.
See Guilia.
The idea of that had my heart soaring. I would see my girl, my baby. I might get to hold her hand, to speak to her, to let her see my smile and hopefully know, sense how much I loved her just by the movement of my lips. We surely had some kind of bond even though she couldn’t remember me. There had to be something, didn’t there? We were mother and daughter. That link could never be erased. A primitive thing, that was what the bond was, easily recognised even though we were strangers.
Wasn’t it?
I relaxed against him.
“That’s better,” he said. “Now, prepare yourself for seeing your child. You don’t want to scare her by having a red and blotchy face, do you?”
“I’m going to see her?” I whispered to myself, not him. Then reality came crashing down. I’d see her through a two-way window or something. Or through the crack between a door and the jamb. But that would be better than not seeing her at all, wouldn’t it? I assumed her mother would be there—the one Guilia called mother—and possibly her father. They wouldn’t allow me to swan in and risk me messing everything up for them. But I wouldn’t mess it up. I wanted her with her parents. I wasn’t here to snatch her away. I just needed…just needed to see for myself that she was out of harm’s way. To hear that she was going to be taken somewhere far from here so that no one but her parents knew where she was.
Sutton released his hold on me. I eased back, calm as you like, so he didn’t suspect I wasn’t quite as tranquil as he imagined. I lean
t my head on my seat and concentrated on breathing. Eyes closed, I silently begged the butterflies in my tummy to stop flittering around in there. In my head I saw Guilia as a baby, before she’d been taken away. So tiny, so mine.
Slipping my hand into my pocket, I curled my fingers around the Russian dolls. Good, they were still there. They hadn’t met the same fate as Kolya’s phone.
I opened my eyes and turned down the sun visor so I could check my face in the mirror. I looked wild, like someone who had no business being anyone’s mother. My eyes held the remnants of the fear I’d felt in the cabin—the fear I’d felt all the other times since this mad shit had begun. Wrinkles had appeared beside them, lines no amount of collagen filler was going to erase. And I wouldn’t be getting an injection of Botox when I returned to London, either. I wanted those wrinkles there as a reminder of what I’d been through. To show myself each and every day when I stared in the mirror that those lines were there from my efforts to make sure my child could live her life without having to check over her shoulder.
They were the proof that I loved someone more than I loved myself.
“I’m ready,” I said, not looking at Sutton.
“Right. Do you want me to explain what happened?” he asked.
“If you like.” I sounded sulky and childish so thought I’d better remedy that by acting grateful. Which I was, but still… “I mean yes. Please tell me.” I smiled—a tight smile, but a smile just the same.
He started the engine and continued driving. “I got word that those men were on their way. I had to make a quick decision. Wait for you or get Guilia out. Guilia won—as I thought you would expect. Mr Summer went to the school and took her out. He needed backup, and that was my job.”
What? “How is that even possible?” I gawped at him then. “He’s no one—he’s just a man. What sort of school is it where they’d let some random man come in and remove a child? I thought there were processes in place these days. Is he the local policeman, is that it?”
“You’ll understand soon. Mr Summer took Guilia to The Zigarrengeschäft, while I went to the cabin after checking the tracker. I prayed I’d get there in time. I knew what kind of men they were, but I had to see to Guilia first. I knew you’d never forgive me if I didn’t.”
He had that right.
“No, I wouldn’t have.” I swallowed, my throat so sore and scratchy. “So what happens next? What do her parents think of her being removed from school like that? Do they even know? Please tell me they know. It isn’t right for their daughter to be at The Zigarrengeschäft without their knowledge.”
“It’s okay. They know.”
The village was coming into view. My stomach lurched, and I felt sick.
“Are they there with her?” I asked.
“No. They’ll be reunited with Guilia after you’ve seen her.”
“Do they know I’m coming? It wouldn’t be right if they didn’t.”
“Yes. They wanted you to see her before…before they take her away for good.”
I swallowed again. I’d said goodbye to Guilia once and I could say goodbye to her all over again now. I had to. I had no business being in her life. The fact that I was her mother had got the poor child into this mess in the first place—or the fact that she was my father’s granddaughter. She didn’t deserve this, and her parents didn’t deserve to live in fear of losing her, the daughter they’d longed for and never thought they’d have.
“Has my father sorted things out for them? Will he be helping them with a place to go? It’s the least he can do for them.”
Of course he has. He won’t want any loose ends.
“Yes.” Sutton slowed as he entered the town. “New identities, the works.”
Again, I wondered just what kind of man my father was that he had so many strings at his fingertips, ones he could pull to his advantage. It was clear, from the shocking information about arms deals, that he was in a shady business with shady men. It stood to reason he’d be able to make people vanish at will. I held myself rigid to stop a shiver from streaking through my body.
“I’ll park here, round the back of The Zigarrengeschäft. We’ll go inside, you’ll get to see Mr Summer then Guilia.”
I climbed out of the car and dug my hands into my coat pockets. I was warm from the car, but I shivered, probably from apprehension. Sutton walked to the rear door of The Zigarrengeschäft and knocked on it. Someone opened it—hard to see who it was in the gloomy interior—and ushered us inside. We were led to another door, and Sutton knocked on that, too, then stood aside, leaving me as the sole person standing in front of it. Those butterflies were back.
The door opened. Inside the room was a pine desk, and the black padded chair faced away from me, its back hiding whoever was sitting in it. Sutton pressed a hand to the base of my back and gently pushed me farther inside. He came in with me then closed the door, and I waited for Mr Summer to show himself. If he didn’t hurry up, my legs would give way.
The chair began turning.
I stared at the man lounging in it, anger rising from the tips of my toes, straight up to my head. I was filled with it, barely able to contain it. If he said one wrong thing, I’d bloody kill him.
“Hello, Claudine,” he said.
“Hello, Mr Summer.” I curled my top lip in disgust. “Or should that be Father?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Father tipped his head and narrowed his eyes. “You are angry with me?”
Of all the… “Yes, I’m bloody angry with you. If it wasn’t for you and your dodgy deals this wouldn’t be happening. My daughter wouldn’t be in danger and forced to run for her life. So yes, I’m angry—furious, actually.” I wanted to stamp my foot the way I had when I’d been a child, give petulance an outing, but I resisted, not wanting to allow him the satisfaction of seeing my slip of control.
“My ‘dodgy deals’,” he said, mimicking my voice, “have given you a privileged life, Claudine. You have never wanted for anything since the moment you were born.”
“Want? Want? You don’t even understand the word. There are many things I have wanted but not had. Many, many things, starting with—”
A mother.
Sutton rested his hand on my shoulder. “Perhaps you should hear your father out.”
I pulled in a deep breath and swallowed the cruel words that sat on my tongue. They were bitter and sharp, and I grimaced and clenched my fists as the words sank inside me.
Father inclined his head at Sutton as though thanking him for intervening, which was a joke. Sutton’s interventions had only ever been successful by the skin of his teeth. But even still, I didn’t shrug or shake Sutton’s hand away. It was comforting, and comfort was something I needed.
“Where is Guilia?” I searched around.
“She is safe.”
“So everyone keeps telling me. Who is watching out for her?”
“One of my most trusted men.”
“I thought Sutton was your most trusted man.” I frowned.
“He is very reliable and quick-thinking, so that is true.” Father stood, slowly, as though his back ached and he was tired. He walked around the pine desk and stood before me.
Sutton stepped away, and I missed his touch.
Father rested his fingertips on my throat. There were probably a string of bruises there from Rick’s manhandling.
“Did those bastards harm you?” he asked quietly.
“No.”
I stared up into his eyes. They flashed with concern, anger, and something else I couldn’t put my finger on. Relief at my negative answer, I presumed.
“Sutton came,” I managed. My chest tightened. The last thing I wanted to do was cry in front of Father. But my emotions were all over the shop lately. “Just in time.”
Father glanced over my shoulder. “I am very grateful.”
“Just following your instructions, sir.”
That had me bristling. So he didn’t care about saving my life. I was simply a job and a
pay packet. The threatening tears abated. Fury did that to me.
“And where are they now?” Father asked. “These vile creatures.”
“They’re dead,” I answered quickly. “Sutton saw to that; in fact, it’s kind of a specialty of his.” I thought back to Linus and Marion, innocents who’d got in our way. And of Kolya, not directly Sutton’s fault, but still, he was on the list of the dead.
“They deserved to die, those men.” Father ran his hand up the column of my neck and cupped my jawline. “Scum of the earth.”
I couldn’t remember when he’d last touched me. Years ago, when I’d gone off the rails and got knocked up, he’d stopped even giving me a peck on the cheek at birthdays and Christmas.
“They may have deserved to die, but others didn’t,” I said.
“Collateral damage.” He shook his head. “You’ll forgive me for being protective of my only daughter.” He paused. “And I’m sure you’ll understand that.”
Protective? If he was so protective, what the hell was I even doing here? Why had all this even happened?
I decided not to say that to him. Instead, I said, “And you’ll understand that I’m concerned for my daughter. Sutton said she’s here. That her family are being relocated with protection. That Fabion what’s-his-name will never be able to find her.” I stepped back, forcing Father to drop his hand. That was enough of his weak display of affection. “Where is she?” I gestured around the room.
Father once again looked at Sutton. “This is what you said?” He held out his palms and frowned.
“I had to get her here somehow, sir.”
“What?” I turned to him, hanging my mouth wide in shock.
“I’m sorry, Claudine. But my orders were to bring you here,” Sutton said. “The school is under our surveillance now, so no harm done, and you, quite frankly, were entering into a bout of female histrionics.”
I gaped at him. “How dare you. I do not have bouts of—”