She shook her head, even as she tried to form the right words. There was no denying Vittorio when he looked at her that way. She didn’t want to disappoint him, and he needed to know he was still in danger, probably more than ever now.
Vittorio didn’t speak, allowing the silence to stretch on and on for so long she was afraid she might scream. She didn’t mind silence, but the way those blue eyes moved over her face, the compulsion to tell him everything was so strong she nearly blurted the entire story out, but years of silence kept her strong.
“Haydon isn’t like other people. He won’t stop. You interfered with his plans and he won’t allow that.” Grace bit down hard on her lip to stop herself from speaking. She didn’t dare. She warned Vittorio because he deserved to be warned, but that was as far as she ventured to take a risk.
His finger slid over her lips where her teeth had sunk. Exquisitely gentle. Almost nonexistent. “You thwarted him as well,” he pointed out.
Her lips tingled. “Yes, I’m well aware.” Her gaze slid away from his to look over his shoulder at the door. She tried not to think how Haydon was going to react, but she knew him better than anyone else did. She knew all the dark compulsions moving in his mind, swallowing him.
Vittorio’s long fingers settled gently on her chin, turning her face so her gaze jumped back to his. “You’re safe with me. There are bodyguards at the door and they’re very experienced.”
He was so incredibly beautiful. Everything about him. His face was sculpted perfectly, every angle and plane. His eyes were gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. Blue. But far more than blue—indigo was the color that came to mind. With his black lashes framing that blue, he took her breath away. She didn’t want him to die and Haydon would be fixated on him now.
“We’ll find him. The cops are looking. My people are looking. He doesn’t have money and very few friends. Haydon will be found.”
Grace shook her head. She had to tell him things she’d never told anyone if she wanted him to stay alive. They stared at each other for a long time.
His thumb swept across her chin. “I know this is difficult for you, Grace. You have to trust someone. You need to talk to me about this man. You’re visibly trembling. You look frightened and I don’t want you to be.”
“I don’t know you,” she protested, but she knew she was stalling for time, trying to figure out a way to keep him safe without revealing the things she knew about Haydon Phillips.
“You know me,” he countered.
A faint smile touched his mouth, and her heart reacted with a curious flutter.
“After all, I am your fiancé.”
“Why does everyone think that?” She pounced on that.
“I told you in the parking lot when you were shot, but you probably don’t remember. In order to make certain the doctors would talk to me, I had to be your fiancé. Our top orthopedic surgeon removed the fragments of bone and repaired the damage, but you have a long road ahead of you. They’re giving you antibiotics to prevent any infection and you’ll have to be here a couple of weeks. You were in and out for a few days so we’re counting down past that first week.”
“Every time I wake up you’re here.” Grace had gotten used to seeing him there, a fixture in her room, even when the pain medication kept her sleepy. She looked for him first thing now, that quick sweep of the room while she held her breath. Then she saw him and the terror in her calmed.
“I don’t want to be anywhere else. When you leave, you’re going to need care. I’ve got your room ready for you and set up for physical therapy so when the doctor gives you the okay, we’ll have that in place.”
“Room ready for me?” she echoed faintly.
He nodded, his eyes holding hers. “With me. At my house. My sister, Emmanuelle, and my sister-in-law Mariko can go to your apartment and get whatever things you want. You can make a list.”
She shook her head. “No. Absolutely not.”
He got that look she detested. Disappointment. As if she had somehow hurt him just by saying no to him. She had to clarify. “You don’t understand. No one can go to my apartment. It isn’t safe, least of all for anyone you love or care about. They’re going to be in danger as well.”
He stared down at her for what seemed an eternity, then he shifted her casually. Easily. He simply slid his arms under her body, lifted and moved her to the side of the bed so he could sit on it fully. His arm slid around her hips. She was half sitting, and there was a thin sheet and blanket over her, but the heat of him nearly scorched her.
“We’re back to Haydon, il mia bellissima gattina. Don’t you think it’s time you told me why you’re so afraid of him? The thought that he might try to harm any member of my family is . . . unsettling. I’ll warn them, of course, but if we all are targets, I need to know why.”
“Because he’s seriously ill. He isn’t going to stop, and no one will ever catch him. You won’t. The cops won’t. He can find his way into someone’s home and live in their attic and they never know he’s there. He watches them. He watches me. He knows everything I say and do. If he knew I was talking to you about him—” She broke off, shuddering. “He does horrible things, and no one knows it was him.”
“You know.”
She nodded, wishing she could control the tremors running through her body. “I’m not really a coward, but he makes me feel like one.” She didn’t want Vittorio to think she was a weakling, although she was letting him take over her life. She told herself she didn’t have many choices, she certainly couldn’t go back to her apartment until Haydon was found—and she knew he wouldn’t be. She was never going to be safe again, but then she hadn’t been for years.
“I met him in one of the homes I was sent to. I’m not very big, so it was easy for other kids to push me around.” She didn’t know if she prefaced her story with that because she was ashamed she hadn’t been able to fight back or that she wanted him to understand how grateful she’d been, at first, to Haydon.
He nodded, those dark brilliant blue eyes fixed on her. His thumb stroked tender caresses along her inner wrist, right over her pulse, soothing her. There was something innately gentle about him and that got to her. He radiated calm, his energy peaceful, surrounding her in a cocoon of tranquility. He made her feel safe, wrapped up in their world together, even though she knew neither one of them was.
“Grace, keep looking at me and breathe. Once you tell me, Haydon is my problem, not yours anymore. You’ve been carrying him far too long on your own.”
Grace studied his face. Trusting him was huge. She didn’t trust anyone, certainly not with what she knew about Haydon. A part of her wanted to protect Vittorio, but another part wanted to share the burden of her knowledge.
If she admitted the truth to herself, she also wanted to please Vittorio, see that look on his face when those blue eyes lit up. She wanted to give him back something when he’d already given her so much by seeing her through the gunshot wound when so many others would have left her alone. If she’d been alone, she would have been vulnerable, and Haydon would have struck. She was terrified Vittorio really would try to hunt Haydon, and that would be such a mistake. He had to know the truth.
Vittorio didn’t say another word, not prompting her one way or the other. He was patient, still stroking her wrist with the pad of his thumb, that movement hypnotic, his gaze spellbinding. She made up her mind and just blurted the truth right out.
“Haydon Phillips is a monster, one so terrifying and so invincible, no one will ever be able to stop him.” She’d stated it out loud. Giving the actual fact to another human being was freeing. She felt as if she’d been breathing shallowly for a lifetime, but now she could take a deep breath and fill her lungs to capacity.
Vittorio, to her astonishment, leaned in and brushed a kiss on her temple. “He’s not going to be able to ever hurt you again, Grace.”
“Do you believe me?” she challenged. Most people looked at Haydon and saw an addict, someone weak. He was thin and looked
used up. He was so much more.
“You know him better than anyone else. I’ve done some investigating and it appears that since that first foster home the two of you have been tied together in one form or another. So, yes, if you say the man is a monster, I’m inclined to believe that he is.”
Relief swept through her. The first time she’d tried to tell the cops, they’d quietly investigated Haydon and come back stating there was no evidence whatsoever and he didn’t come across in the least bit violent. After they left, she’d had to face Haydon’s wrath. She’d never tried to convince anyone again.
“He terrifies you.” Vittorio stated it as a fact.
“Because I know what he does, and worse, he knows I know.”
Again, he waited. He didn’t try to hurry her. If he felt impatient, it didn’t show on his face, nor could she feel it in the energy surrounding her. She only felt as if he had woven some kind of a safe cocoon around her. That made it easier to share the things she knew about Haydon.
“When I first got to the foster home, Haydon already was there. The couple, Owen and Becca Mueller, had a son, Dwayne. He was a horrible boy and would shove our plates off the table when his parents weren’t looking, although they knew it was him. Immediately we were beaten for it and forced to clean up the mess with his mother or father kicking and punching us. He would do nasty things, like pee in our beds, and that would earn us a trip to the ‘punishment’ room.”
Vittorio’s eyes turned dangerous. His energy did as well. She felt the difference in him immediately, although she couldn’t see it on his face.
“Keep going, bella.”
There was that low, compelling tone again. She was fairly certain he could hypnotize an entire roomful of people into doing anything he wanted them to do.
“I was terrified, and all three, Becca, Owen and Dwayne, hit and kicked us repeatedly. The longer I was there, the worse the beatings got. Haydon began stepping in, distracting them, when they were punishing me. He took horrible beatings, sometimes so bad he couldn’t get up. I’d bring him water and food, but I had to sneak it to him. Dwayne suspected and would lie in wait for me, and he’d beat me in front of Haydon and taunt him. It was a pretty horrific life.”
Vittorio nodded. “The social worker didn’t check on you?”
She shook her head. “I think she was too overworked, and she thought they were good people. They appeared to be. I don’t know if Haydon was born the way he is, or if they created him, but he is a planner and doesn’t care if anyone ever knows he got his revenge, as long as he does get it.”
The throbbing in her shoulder was increasing to straight-up agony. She glanced at the clock. It was getting close to the time she should take more painkillers, and she wasn’t going to be able to wait if the radiating pain was anything to go by.
“Are you hurting?” Vittorio was reaching for her machine before she even answered him, but he didn’t deliver the dose of morphine, just kept his hand there.
“I was trying to stretch out the time between taking doses. For some reason, it makes me feel drowsy and I want to stay alert.” But she wasn’t going to make it by more than a half an hour at the very most.
“There’s no need for that,” Vittorio said, his voice as gentle as always, but there was a note of absolute command in it. “There’s no need for you to be alert, because I’m here to watch over you. The surgeon explained that you had to stay on top of the pain meds, Grace. He said there was no danger of you becoming addicted, and I know that’s your greatest worry. The doctor knows what he’s talking about. I promised him you’d follow his plan to the letter.”
He gave her that faint smile, the one that turned her inside out. “You wouldn’t want to make a liar out of me, would you?”
Grace shook her head and watched him release the dose that would take the pain away and have her floating away soon.
“Thank you, gattina bella, I appreciate that although you have a difficult time taking the pain meds, you do it anyway.”
She was taking the pain medication because Vittorio had asked her to. Had it been anyone else she would have balked. “I’m going to fall asleep soon. I know some people have clarity and aren’t in the least sleepy, but morphine makes me a little loopy.”
“That’s all right. When you sleep, you heal. Do you want me to lower the bed for you?”
A part of her wondered how Vittorio Ferraro knew how to lower a hospital bed. She had watched the Ferraros at countless events and read about them in magazines. They seemed like irresponsible playboys. She might lust after one of them, but she felt a little sorry for the women in their lives. Here she was, wishing she was one of those women.
“I don’t need you to do that yet. I want you to understand about Haydon, so you can get your family to realize they’re in real danger.”
He nodded, once more taking possession of her hand. This time he brought it to his chest, pressing her palm over his heart. She was acutely aware of the play of his muscles beneath the thin material of his shirt. She took his nod as a go-ahead.
“A few days after Dwayne beat me, they found his body in a ditch about eight miles from the house. He was naked, and he’d been tortured. I overheard the cops talking with his parents and they said every bone in his body had been broken. He was only a few months older than Haydon, a big boy, like his father. Very husky and strong. You’ve seen Haydon. When he was a kid, he was very thin. He looked almost frail.”
“He was never charged?”
“No. He never said a word to me. I tried not to be happy Dwayne wasn’t there, but secretly, and I’m ashamed to admit it, I was. I didn’t like the way he died, and the cops were always coming around investigating, but we were afraid to talk to them and they didn’t come near us. At first, the beatings stopped and then one day Becca went after me in the kitchen, throwing dishes at me and saying she wished I was dead the way Dwayne was dead. I think that was the signal to her husband that it was okay to take out their frustration, grief and anger on the two of us.”
She was shaking, remembering those days, going without food, being locked in small, confined spaces. She wasn’t claustrophobic, and neither was Haydon, but it wasn’t pleasant with no bathroom. Haydon made a tiny doorway at the floor on one side and they snuck each other food and water when they could.
Vittorio brought her knuckles to his mouth, pressing a kiss there, all the while his eyes on hers, holding her captive so she felt like she was falling into him. Instantly, she was distracted. Her stomach did a slow roll and a million butterflies took wing. She should have jerked her hand away, no one had ever done such a thing to her before. She couldn’t have moved even if she wanted to, not when he was once again pressing her palm over his heart with his thumb rubbing caresses in a soothing, hypnotizing way, back and forth across the back of her hand. He had a way of compelling her to want to let him do anything to make him happy—and she liked him holding her hand. It made her feel as if they really did belong together and he would keep her safe from any harm.
“Keep going, gattina.”
“One day Owen came home from work pretty drunk, and got into a terrible fight with his wife. I heard Becca screaming, and knew he’d hit her, and when I said I was going to check on her, Haydon wouldn’t let me. We both heard Owen coming down the hall. Haydon opened the window for me, but he got us before we escaped. He beat Haydon so bad. I tried to stop him by hitting him with a chair. It was the only thing I could think to do. He dropped Haydon and started on me.”
“This man deserves a hell all his own,” Vittorio said in that same low tone that felt calm and peaceful. “I’m sorry you had to experience that kind of evil, Grace.”
Something in Vittorio’s eyes told her there was a lot more going on below the surface that she couldn’t see, but he continued to give off that soothing energy she had come to associate with him.
“Owen was a bad man, but not evil. I’ve seen true evil. That’s Haydon. Two weeks later, our foster father came home drunk again an
d Becca locked him out of the house because when he was drunk, he smacked her around. He’d been getting drunk more and more since Dwayne died. He went out to the garage to sleep in his car. They found him the next morning under the car. He was still alive, but the car had fallen on him, crushing his leg and groin. He’d lain there most of the night suffering.”
“Not an accident?”
She shook her head. “The investigators said someone had put something in his drink at home that night just before he went out to the garage. They found a glass from the kitchen tipped over and there were remnants of a sleeping aid mixed with whiskey in it. Becca took sleeping pills and they thought she’d done it, but when they were talking, I looked at Haydon’s face.” Dread crept down her spine. She would never forget that look as long as she lived. “He did it, but there was no way to prove it. It would have been easy for him to sneak Becca’s pills and get Owen a drink. The car was dropped hard to do the most damage.”
“It’s difficult to have much sympathy for Owen when he was beating two children who were in his care.”
“I might not have had sympathy if he’d died outright, but he was made to suffer for hours. I’m not certain that can be called justice. Haydon didn’t kill him outright, he wanted Owen to suffer. He chose a way to make it happen and he executed his plan. I had no proof, and who would I ever say anything to? Owen beat us all the time. Haydon defended me. I was scared of all of them and didn’t know what to do.”
Vittorio nodded. He laid her hand, palm down, on his thigh. That felt . . . intimate. The morphine had already kicked in and she could feel herself drifting. She didn’t understand, when she’d been so leery with every other single person in the world, why she felt so connected to Vittorio. He was leagues out of her world.
“Becca told the social worker she couldn’t take care of us any longer. She didn’t suspect Haydon at first, but he sat around staring at her, and once when she lifted her hand to him, he said he hoped nothing happened to her the way it had her son and husband. She began watching us. I think she was afraid at that point, and she wanted to get rid of us. Before they took us out of the home, they finished conducting the investigation and she was arrested and charged with abuse. She was sentenced to two years with time served; unfortunately for me, another very kind foster mother who had been told we were close took us both in.”
Shadow Warrior Page 6