Dante's Angel (11 page)

She remembered
the shock she’d felt when he’d dragged her into a private corner, gripping her
arm so tight, he had left bruises. He’d told her to stop being a whiny bitch,
and to do what she was told. It was as if he’d become a different person.
Someone who had terrified her.

“I didn’t know
what to do, so I went straight to Ashley. She never liked Paul, and she was
furious for me. I called my father, but he wouldn’t listen. That was it for me.”

“What do you
mean?”

“Ashley and I
had been talking about moving and getting a place of our own. Somewhere we
wouldn’t have to deal with either of our families. So, we did. We found a place
close to the accounting firm she was working at. Since I was going to start
composing again, location wasn’t really an issue for me. I had a performance a
few days after the gala, and I announced that the wedding was off. I thought
that would take care of it…”

She paused for
a moment to drink her wine. “It was about two weeks after we’d moved when Paul
showed up at our apartment. Ashley had just left on a business trip. I’d gone
shopping that afternoon, and when I got home, he was just…there.”

“In your
apartment?”

“Yes,” she
answered softly, then turned to stare at the flame of the candle on the coffee
table. “He hit me, knocking me out before I knew what happened. When I woke up,
I was tied to my bed. He…he said that I was fucking up all of his plans, and
that I had to learn my place.”

Dante wanted
to tell her to stop, that he didn’t need to hear anymore. But he did. He needed
to know exactly what happened to her so he knew what she was running from and
how to protect her. His emotions felt as wild and turbulent as the storm raging
outside. Forcing himself to remain still, he waited for her to continue.

“He didn’t
love me. It was never about that. You see, Paul needed to marry me. He needed
the access I could give him to move his shipments when I traveled to perform.”

“His
shipments?” Dante’s mind raced. “Jesus, you’re talking about Wei Auctions.
Fuck, I remember hearing about this. The Wei family was accused of using their auction
company to smuggle artifacts, diamonds, and other shit on the black market.”

“That all came
out later, but at that point, I didn’t know about any of it. Paul had traveled
with me a few times when I thought he was my friend, but his mother and mine
had been close and she’d joined us on our trips several times a year when I was
young.”

“So, they’d
been using you for years,” he stated softly.

She nodded. “I’d
always been quiet and shy, so Paul thought he could force me to do what he
wanted. But I had embarrassed him and his family, and he said I had to pay for
that.”

When she
remained silent for a few minutes, Dante guessed what was coming next. His
hands clenched into fists as he said, “He raped you.”

“Yes,” she
whispered. “I’d never been with anyone before. It hurt. I never knew I could
hurt like that. He beat me, too. Not on my face. I had to be presentable in
public, but he kept hitting me until I wished I would just die. He knew Ashley
would be gone all week, and he said after the week was up, there was somewhere
he could take me if I needed more convincing. He left after a few hours to meet
some of his friends because he wanted to get high. He’d kept me tied and
stuffed a gag in my mouth so no one would hear me. I tried to get free, but I
couldn’t move.”

Dante let out
a low vicious curse.

Zoe couldn’t
feel the tears streaming down her face as she looked back over at him. “I
prayed for a miracle, and I got it. Ashley’s flight had been delayed, and as
she was waiting for it, she ate something that made her sick. She came home and
found me. God, she was amazing. Sick as hell, she cut me loose and called the
police, then stood guard by the door with the biggest kitchen knife we had in
case he came back before the police got there. May I have some water?”

He got up and
came back with two bottles of water. Dante opened one and handed it to her,
then opened the other one and drained half the bottle. “You’re in witness
protection, aren’t you?”

“I was.” When
she’d woken up in the hospital after having surgery, she’d told the police
everything. After a few days when they couldn’t find Paul, they’d told her that
he was on the run and her only chance of survival was to go into the program.

“So, you
became Zoe.”

She shook her
head. “No, I became Claudia Chen. When I joined the program, Ashley agreed to
go with me. I didn’t want her to give up her life, but she was in danger too
since Paul was still out there and she knew what had happened. Because no one
could find him, Paul’s family blamed everything on him, but I knew they were
searching for me, too.”

“Their
operations were under scrutiny now. That had to piss them off.”

“Oh, yeah.
Ashley and I were handed off to the U.S. Marshals, and we were given new IDs
and moved to Portland. Ashley hacked into my bank account and moved some of the
money from my trust fund into a new account. She’d always been good with
computers, and she’d done something similar for herself, since her family was
always after her trust fund, too.”

“Damn, she was
smart.”

“She really
was. She’d connected with some hackers online, and found a way to create both
of us new identities that even the Marshals didn’t know about. She’d moved our
money to those secret accounts, and we had paperwork to back it up.”

“She didn’t
trust the Marshals?”

“At that
point, we didn’t trust anyone.” She hesitated for a moment before saying, “And
she was right. Things were fine for about a year until someone in the Portland
office leaked our location to the Wei family for money.”

God, the hits
kept coming. “Someone sold you out?”

“It was the
only way they could have found us. I’d called my father from the hospital after
I was attacked, but I was sent straight to voicemail, and he never got back to
me before I was moved. I was told he tried to get in touch with me later, but
we weren’t allowed to contact anyone from our old lives after we’d been given
our new identities.”

Even though
she shrugged, Dante could see it still hurt her.

“I was working
in a small, all-night diner as a waitress about a block away from our
apartment. We didn’t need the money, but we needed something to do, so Ashley
got some work online, and I chose to work at the diner. One night, I looked out
the window and saw the street flooded with police cars. Paul Wei and his men
had found us, and Ashley was dead.”

“Oh, baby. I’m
so sorry.” He’d known it was coming from her use of past tense when she spoke
of her friend, and his heart ached for her when she confirmed it.

 
“I ran. We’d stashed bags in a storage unit we
paid for in cash in case we ever had to leave. I took off from the diner and
went straight there. I saw it on the news later. They’d beaten Ashley to death.
I didn’t know where to go, or who to trust. I just knew I couldn’t stay.”

Dante couldn’t
even imagine how terrified she’d been after discovering that her best friend
had been murdered. Ashley had been her only ally, and when she’d been taken
from her, Zoe had been all alone. “No, you couldn’t stay,” he said. “I wouldn’t
have trusted anyone either, but the police and the Marshals must have been
looking for you?”

“Everyone was.
They weren’t sure if I’d been taken, or if I was dead somewhere. I knew I
should let someone know I was still alive, but I just couldn’t do it. I bought
a car and I left Portland. I slept in my car some nights, then I stayed in different
motels for a few weeks, in places that had no surveillance and where I could
pay cash.” Her lips curved in a small self-deprecating smile. “It was about a
week after I’d left that I just broke down. For days, I hid in the corner of my
motel room crying, barely able to function.”

She remembered
the immense grief and the frantic panic she’d felt, but talking about it felt
cathartic. She’d never really been able to tell anyone her story, and she
wanted Dante to know the whole truth.

“You were in
shock,” Dante argued. “There are very few people that could have gone through
what you did and still be able to get themselves out of the city without being
caught. Survival mode is tricky shit. Some people have it or they don’t. You’re
a survivor.”

“Well, I knew
I wouldn’t survive long without a plan. Ashley would have expected better from
me. I didn’t want to go back to Portland, but I remembered something I heard
one of the agents say when we were in the New York office waiting to be relocated.
One of the men had just gotten back from Arlington, where a Chief Deputy
Marshal was being commended for exemplary service before he retired.”

“You’re
talking about Jessup Carter,” Dante assumed. After she nodded, he added, “My
father and Jessup served in the Rangers together. They’ve stayed close over the
years, even with the distance. He’s the one who asked my dad to hire you.”

 
 
“I
recalled what the men had said about him. Even though his wife was a scientist
that had created some new adhesive that had sold for millions, he’d continued
working. But it was more than that. They spoke of Jessup like some sort of
icon, like a role model or an ideal measure of what kind of agent they wanted
to be.”

“Jessup is a
good man. His sons own a large ranch out near Billings in Montana. He and his
wife moved out there to be closer to their grandkids. I hear he’s coaching
little league now.”

“He is,” she
confirmed with a small smile. “It took me awhile, but I was able to track him
down from the information I remembered. When I did, I drove out to Billings.”

She’d been extremely
nervous about meeting Jessup Carter. From everything she’d learned, she thought
he might be the only safe agent she could speak to about her situation. He had
money, so the likelihood of him turning her over to the Wei family was minimal.
Still, she’d watched him for several days before approaching him. He seemed
like a nice man, but he’d had a hard edge underneath the surface that had made
her wary.

“Every day—when
he wasn’t working with his sons or with his wife—he’d go sit on this big wooden
bench near an apple tree on the edge of his property. Sometimes he’d eat lunch
there. After he’d left one day, I snuck over and saw that the bench had been
carved as a memorial for all the friends he’d lost. Seeing that helped convince
me to speak to him.”

“He knew you
were there,” Dante said. It wasn’t a question.

She laughed a
little. “He did. When I finally approached him, I was still several feet away
when he said, “You ready to talk now, little lady?” without even glancing over
at me.”

It had been
difficult, but she’d sat down on the bench next to the older man, and told him
everything. He’d listened without interrupting, then he’d simply said, “Well, you’ve
got yourself in some situation, alright. Now, we just need to figure out how to
fix it.”

She’d offered
him money to help her—which had offended him greatly—and she’d told him he
could check out her story. She’d tried to keep her emotions contained while
she’d spoken to him, but then he’d just put an arm around her and invited her
to dinner.

The invitation
had been so unexpected, she burst into tears, sobbing all over him. It hadn’t fazed
him, though. He’d just wrapped an arm around her shoulder and let her cry. Then
he led her back to his house, where his wife had taken over caring for her.

“They said I
could stay. They offered to help me get settled in Billings, but he wanted to
let the Marshals know I was alive, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near there
when he did.”

“So, he sent
you to us?”

She nodded.
Her hands had stopped shaking enough for her to pick up her wine glass again. “He
contacted one of the men he used to work with in Virginia—someone he said he
trusted completely—and reported what I’d told him, but he said that I’d left and
he didn’t know where I was going. We wanted that in the report so anyone who accessed
the file wouldn’t send anyone after Jessup. He didn’t like lying, but I was
firm on that.”

Dante
understood. She had lost Ashley—the one person she’d trusted—and it was obvious
that she still felt guilty about it. It wasn’t hard to figure out that she
would have done anything she could to protect Jessup Carter for helping her.

“He drove out
to the middle of nowhere one day and called your father to say that he knew
someone who needed a job. Your father never hesitated. Just said to send me on
over.” She blew out a breath. “So, I became Zoe Lang…a woman on the run, but
living by my own terms.”

There was a
long pause before Dante said, “You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

Her cheeks flushed
at his praise and she blinked at him, unsure what to say to that. “I’ve tried to
be the sort of woman Ashley would be proud of. I wanted to make sure I honored
her by doing what I want, and not being afraid.” Her smile faltered and her
voice lowered to a whisper. “Moving to Breakers, working at the bar, that was
intimidating at first, but I did it. But I’ve been afraid. Since I met you,
I’ve been afraid.”