In Enemy Hands (13 page)

Some chance at happiness.

At that moment, she hated him worse than she could ever hate Gary Vandergriff.

“Nadia, don’t,” he pleaded, and touched his lip.

His fingers came away wet with blood. It streamed down his chin, and Nadia felt a cold satisfaction.

But it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

“How much did he pay you, Dante? Or is that even your real name?” she screamed. “How much was my life worth to you?”

“Nadia, what are you talking about?” Dante reached to touch her, but she slapped his hand away.

“She’s confused.” Vandergriff interrupted, his voice smooth and controlled. “And no wonder. No telling what kind of lies they’ve told her about me. Nadia, honey, it’s all right. You’re safe here. You’re safe with me.”

Nadia glared at Gary Vandergriff and wondered what kind of game he was playing. He was the only thing she could ever remember fearing. He was the boogeyman in her closet, the monster under her childhood bed.

A murderous demon with a lying tongue.

“I only wanted you to be safe,” Dante said, holding out his palms. “Your father was afraid that Nick couldn’t keep you safe, so he hired me to bring you to him.”

Nadia whipped her head around. “What are you saying?” she demanded. “You think
he’s
my father?”

“Did they tell you I wasn’t?” Vandergriff asked. He moved closer to her and Nadia took a step backward. He grabbed her wrist.

“Don’t touch me!” Nadia jerked away from him, and inadvertently stumbled toward Dante. He reached out his arms to steady her and, God help her, she wanted to hurl herself in those arms.

“I’m sorry you had to find out like this,” Dante said softly. “And I’m sorry I lied to you. I never wanted to hurt you. I swear, all I ever wanted to do was protect you. The money doesn’t mean anything to me now.” He stared over her shoulder at Vandergriff. “You can keep it. All of it. The only thing I want is your word that Nadia will be safe.”

“His word!” Nadia spat.

She was shaking, and she tried to force herself to calm down. To remember what she’d been taught.

Show no fear. Look for a way out.

But there was no way out. Not this time.

“He’s lying, Dante,” she said desperately. “He is
not
my father.”

Vandergriff frowned and snapped his fingers. His butler stepped forward and gave a slight bow. “Yes, Mr. Vandergriff?”

“Theo, will you take Mr. Giovanni into my study? I would like to speak to my daughter alone. I can try to clear up some of this mess.”

Abruptly, Nadia’s fury was washed away by fear at the thought of being left alone with Vandergriff. “Don’t leave me, Dante!” she cried when one of the men from the boat took his arm and started to lead him away.

Her breath caught when Dante yanked his arm from the man’s grasp and stalked back in her direction.

Vandergriff moved quickly to stand between them.

“Please, Mr. Giovanni,” he begged. “Just give me a few minutes alone with my daughter, that’s all I ask. You’ll be right in the next room. And you know what I’m saying is true. I know you had my story checked out. Now, let me convince Nadia.”

Dante hesitated and shifted his eyes back to hers. He studied her for a long moment and sighed.

“Nadia, try to hear him out. I’ll be in the next room.” He pointed at Vandergriff. “You have fifteen minutes. If Nadia still doesn’t want to stay, I’m taking her with me.”

Nadia watched helplessly while he walked into the next room. As the door swung shut, she shouted, “My father was protecting me—”

A jolt of electricity arced through her body. Nadia’s legs collapsed, and she crashed to the floor.

Vandergriff squatted beside her, watching her face. Nadia opened her mouth to scream, but she couldn’t make a sound.

As if he were reading her mind, he said, “Scream all you like. He’s in a soundproof room.”

He seized her by her hair and dragged her to the overstuffed sofa.

It didn’t even hurt.

The only thing she felt was her wildly contracting muscles, and it took her several minutes to clear her head. To realize what had happened.

A stun gun. The jerk had used a stun gun on her.

Dazed, Nadia realized she was sitting on the sofa.

Vandergriff leaned toward her. His mouth was moving and she realized he was talking. She tried to understand what he was saying.

“You’re not my … father,” she managed, and Vandergriff laughed.

“Of course not, but you do belong to me now.”

He stroked her cheek, but Nadia couldn’t feel his touch. She was numb except for a weird tingling sensation underneath her skin. Then her shoulder started to burn.

“Maybe you’ll bear me an heir. Replace the one your mother and I would have had if it hadn’t been for your father. Wouldn’t that simply kill them both?”

Tears stung Nadia’s eyes when the hopelessness of her situation sank in. She’d always been so flippant about her father’s warnings, so sure that Gary Vandergriff could never get to her. Now, she was at his mercy. No one could save her, not even …

“Dante,” she whispered.

“Yes.” Vandergriff smiled and glanced at his watch. Raking his hand through his hair, he leaned back into the brown sofa. “How amusing. What happens to the bounty hunter is entirely up to you. I really have no quarrel with him. He did an excellent job.”

Nadia found herself unable to look away from those icy blue eyes.

“So … it’s up to you, Nadia.” He paused, wrinkling his brow. “One, you can pretend I’m your long lost daddy, and let him walk out of here. Or two, you can tell him what a bad man I am.” He twisted a lock of her hair around his finger. “And I’ll have his heart cut out and prepared for your dinner.”

“Go to hell,” she rasped.

“Been there, babe. Thanks to your parents. But things are definitely looking up.” Vandergriff grinned at her when the study door opened.

Dante stepped through the doorway, and the worried look on his face shattered Nadia’s heart into a million pieces.

Out of concern for her, he had done what he thought was best.

Out of love for him, she would too.

“Nadia, are you okay?” he asked, and crossed the room to stand before her.

Slowly, she nodded. “It was just such a shock.”

Vandergriff’s grip tightened on her arm, and she realized what she’d said. She dropped her head and tried to figure out what to say. Dante looked so strong, so invincible. But he was only one man against an army.

If she blew this, he would die.

Dante jerked his head at Vandergriff. “Do you believe him? Do you believe he’s your father?”

“Yes.” Nadia swallowed hard, hating the taste of the lie on her lips. “I believe him. He has … proof.”

She wished there was something she could say. Some way she could tell him to go quietly, to get her father to help him. But her mind was still foggy, and she couldn’t risk getting caught by Vandergriff.

Dante rubbed the back of his neck. “So, what do you want to do? We can leave right now. I can take you—”

“I’m staying,” she interrupted, and Dante looked at her in surprise.

“I’ll stay here with you then. I can help guard you.”

“No. I need time to sort this out. I need time alone with my … father.” She mustered what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’ll call you when things settle down. When I work things out.”

“You don’t hate me?” He gave her a hopeful smile that melted her.

She wanted to tell him she could never hate him. That she thought she might even be falling in love with him. But that would give Gary Vandergriff too much ammunition to use against her.

All she said was no.

“Well, here. Write down my number and call me whenever you need me.” Dante picked up a pad of paper lying on the coffee table and held it out to her.

“You write it,” she said.

She still felt jittery from the shock she’d taken and doubted she could grasp the pen.

Dante wrote down the number and tore off the page. Folding it carefully, he crouched beside her and tucked it in her hand. She somehow forced her slack fingers to clutch it.

Nadia’s heart froze when he hugged her, enveloping her in his strong arms. The scent of him and his damned Diesel Green surrounded her. She wanted to hold him, to pull him close to her one last time, but she still couldn’t lift her arms.

All too soon, he let her go.

He brushed a kiss on the top of her head. “It’s going to be all right,” he said. “I promise.”

She managed a nod and looked away before she burst into tears.

“I’ll have one of my men take you back to your vehicle,” Vandergriff said, standing to shake Dante’s hand. “Thank you, son, for bringing her to me. The money—”

“I don’t want the money,” Dante said again.

“It’s already been wired to your account. I authorized the transaction as soon as the boat docked outside. Do with it what you will.” He smiled at Nadia. “You’ve earned it.”

Vandergriff walked Dante to the door. Before he went outside, Dante glanced at Nadia.

“It’s going to be okay,” he repeated.

“I know,” she said, even though she knew nothing would ever be okay again. Vandergriff shut the door behind him and turned the lock. He peered out the peephole a moment before turning back to her.

“Good job!” he said. “But I should have known that any child of Maria’s would be a born liar.”

He crossed over and flopped back on the couch beside her. Snatching the paper out of her hands, Vandergriff shredded it and tossed the pieces over his shoulder. He rubbed his hands together gleefully, like a child at Christmas. “I bet your daddy is going nuts right now. Can you imagine? Maybe we’ll call him later.”

He made a move like he was going to kiss her and Nadia turned her head. Vandergriff seized her chin and whipped her face back around.

“Don’t you ever turn away from me,” he growled, and crushed his mouth to hers.

Nadia squirmed, horrified by the feel of his kiss. She bit his lip.

With a howl, he shoved her backward. She never saw the slap coming, but it rang in her ears, rattled her throbbing head. His face swam before her eyes, and it was a moment before she was able to focus on him again.

Vandergriff touched his lip gingerly. Then he smiled. A bloody, maniacal smile that made him look like a cannibal.

“My dear … didn’t your mother tell you?” he said. “I
like
it rough.”

Angry tears stung Nadia’s eyes. She wished she could wipe her mouth. “She didn’t talk about you … at all,” she managed.

It was true. Her mother never mentioned Gary Vandergriff, like he was a curse that could be avoided if she never uttered his name aloud. Whenever anyone else spoke it, she would get up and leave the room.

Anger simmered in Vandergriff’s cold blue eyes, and his mouth tightened.

You can’t stand it, can you? she thought.
You can’t stand to think that she survived you, that you aren’t the focus of her life
.

“Well,” he said casually. “I can’t believe she didn’t mention how we’d met. It was such a memorable encounter.”

Nadia felt sickened by the gleam in his eye, even before she heard what he had to say.

“I bought her services for six hundred dollars,” he said.

“Liar!” she spat. “My mother is not a whore.”

Vandergriff grinned. “Maybe not at first, but she was a quick learner. My father owned a tobacco farm in Kentucky. Maria worked in the field, along with her father and brothers. I think her mother died giving birth to one of them or something.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Anyway, she wasn’t around.”

“You’re lying again,” Nadia muttered. “My mother was an only child, just like me.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, with a wink. “Are you absolutely sure about either of those things?”

Confused, Nadia lapsed into silence. What was the point of all this? Did he really think she was going to believe a word he said?

Vandergriff rubbed his hands together. “The first time I saw her, I knew I had to have her. All that long dark hair, and those green eyes … I’m really glad you look like her instead of Andreakos. He’s such an ugly bastard. This makes things much more pleasant for me, almost like a walk down memory lane.”

“Who is Andreakos?” she snapped.

Vandergriff chuckled. “My, my … haven’t they told you
anything
? Andreakos is your father’s real name. But he hasn’t called himself that in all these years that he’s been hiding from me like a cockroach in the walls.”

Nadia opened her mouth to deny it, but then frowned as a tinge of memory intruded. Hadn’t she heard that name once? Hadn’t she even written it?

Suddenly, she pictured herself at a school desk, painstakingly writing the name across a sheet of big ruled paper. It had been a real pain to try to fit it on that little black line. Was that a true memory, or was her dazed mind accepting Vandergriff’s fabrication as truth?

It didn’t matter. So what if her father had changed his name? Her parents had had ample reason to fear, and to hide. She closed her eyes, and Vandergriff grabbed her shoulder to shake her. The movement made her eyes feel like they were marbles rattling loose inside her skull.

“Hey, no fading out on me. We have so much to talk about. Don’t make me zap you again.”

With some effort, Nadia opened her eyes once more. Nothing he said mattered. His words, she could endure. His touch was something else entirely.

“What was I saying? Oh, yes … your mother. Maria was beautiful. All that long, dark hair. I spotted her in the field, and tried to get her to go into the barn with me. She wouldn’t speak to me. She kept shaking her head, no, no, like a freaking mute. Nobody tells me no. I grabbed her arm and she pulled away. She spat on my shoes.” Vandergriff laughed. “I threw her on the ground— It didn’t make much difference to me if she wanted it rough and dirty.”

Bile rose in Nadia’s throat and she started singing a song in her mind, trying to block out the vileness she felt was coming. Maybe she couldn’t endure his words, after all.

“Her father and brothers were working in the rows behind her. They came running when she screamed. She looked so grateful to see them that I decided to teach her a little lesson about who I was and
what
she was. I dug out my wallet. I still remember exactly how much money it had in it, six hundred twenty dollars.” He shrugged. “Not a bad sum back then. I flashed it at her old man. It was probably more than the old drunk made in a month. ‘Half an hour,’ I said. ‘This money is yours if you give me half an hour in the barn with your daughter.’ One of her brothers lunged at me.”