The Mark of Cain (10 page)

“Yes, sir.” When Inac stood up and began ripping out
his IV, Santoni asked, “Sir?”

“You didn’t think I was going to send you alone?”

“Of course not, sir.” Though it was obvious that he
had. “But what about the girl?”

“She’ll still be here when I get back. After all,
we’ll only need a day at most to convince Aviv.”

“And if we don’t? Even after killing his family?”

Inac couldn’t believe what an idiot Santoni was
being. He’d been with Inac for two decades. He should know by now
exactly
what Inac would do.

Grabbing the studs for the facial piercings that had
healed over in his few days here so he could re-pierce them on the plane, Inac said,
“I’ll do what I always do. We’ll kill him and anyone else we have to before
‘electing’ a more willing individual.”

***

“What do you mean he’s
gone
?!” Hara demanded
of the haggard-looking nurse.

“I mean that he up and left. And without the
doctor’s authorization, too.”

“Do you know where he went?”

“Honey, if I knew where he went, he wouldn’t have
gotten away, now would he?”

The nurse seemed stressed. She had probably been
yelled at for losing a patient.

Flashing her an appreciative smile, Hara said,
“Okay. Thanks anyway.”

But the nurse was already stalking down the hall,
her white tennis shoes squeaking along the sparkling white tile floor.

Hara turned to go back home, the black gift bag in
her hands swinging from her momentum. She’d spent days knitting Inac a black and
gray beanie as a thank you gift for saving her life.

She would try to get his number or address from
Vinnie so that she could take him the gift, but she didn’t want to seem like a
stalker. She just hoped that, wherever Inac was, he was alive and well.

***

“Nice of you to join us,” Inac hissed from the
shadows as the prime minister stepped into his fancy home office. He spoke in
Hebrew, the native tongue of the prime minister, figuring that doing so might
make it easier to get him to behave.

Suddenly a light blazed overhead, illuminating Inac,
who was sitting with his feet perched on the grand white marble-topped desk and
his hands clasped together in his lap.

“How dare you break into my house!” the short and
slender prime minister yelled back in the ancient language, glancing between
Inac at the desk and Santoni behind him. Like most every language, Inac spoke
it fluently, to the point where it sounded as though it was his native tongue.
When in a country, he always took on their language, style of dress, and
accent; it helped him to blend in so he could go about his seemingly anonymous
life.

Inac couldn’t help but be impressed with Aviv’s
spunk, seeing as how Santoni had closed the door behind him, trapping Aviv in
here with two hostile men who both towered over him.

“
Your
house?” Inac hissed as he brought his
feet down and leaned forward in the leather chair, placing his hands, still
together, on the desk where his feet had been. “This is
my
house, and
don’t ever forget it.
I
was the one who fixed the election. You knew
what that meant. That made you, and everything you do, subject to
me
.”

“That was before I knew who you were and what you
have done. I know you’re responsible for the slaughter of my people.”

Inac stood up straight and walked over to Aviv.
Doing so made his shoulder kill, but he wasn’t about to show any weaknesses.

“I just gave it a little push.”

“So you don’t deny it?” he asked, looking down his
large Jewish nose at Inac, even though he had to look up to do so.

“Hitler was an angry kid who didn’t know where to
aim his hatred. I just nudged him in that direction. I didn’t know how obsessed
he’d become.”

“But you didn’t stop it!”

“Actually, I did.”

“When?” Aviv scoffed. He was acting tough, but Inac
could see the sweat beading at his hairline, as well as he could smell the fear
emanating from the other man.

“When I had the President of the United States drop
atomic bombs on Japan. He didn’t want to, but I can be quite persuasive,” he
said with a smile he hoped would scare the little man.

“I don’t believe you. You don’t care about anyone
but yourself. You especially don’t care about God’s chosen people.”

“And who says I did it for anyone else? I never
pretended anything different.”

“Then why
did
you do it?” he asked as he took
a small step backward.

Taking a step forward into Aviv’s personal space
since the man was obviously trying to distance himself, Inac said, “Because
Hitler was out of control. He got greedy. He thought that he could own some of
this planet for himself. What he didn’t realize is that I’ll do
anything
to remain in control of it.”

“Is that why you’re here? You’re afraid to lose
Israel?”

Inac couldn’t help but laugh; a laugh that caused
the prime minister to flinch.

Ceasing his laughter as quickly as it had come, he
said, “I
won’t
lose Israel. If I can’t convince you to jump back on
board and beg my forgiveness, then I’ll just get rid of you like I did your
predecessor.”

“I would rather die a martyr’s death than work for
such an unholy beast!”

“And what about your family? Do you want them to die
as martyrs for a cause they know nothing about?” he asked in a venomous
whisper. He was bored with this. And when he got bored and lost his patience,
he could become cruel. It wasn’t that he cared whether or not Aviv died. It’s
just that it would take too much time and energy to replace him, and Inac had
other projects to devote himself to at the moment.

The prime minister’s blue eyes opened wide. “You
wouldn’t!”

“And why not? You know exactly what I’m capable of
and who I really am. I’ve done worse things than kill a couple of innocent
people to keep a servant in line.”

He wasn’t bluffing. And he knew Aviv knew it.

Aviv divided his attention between Inac and Santoni
for a moment before his gaze turned to one of defeat. “Okay. I’ll do what you
want.”

Inac’s grin was from ear to ear when he replied,
“Music to my ears. All I ask for is your loyalty.”

“And everything that entails,” Aviv mumbled to the
beautiful Persian rug that covered the floor, his nose casting a long shadow
along his face.

“Yes, and everything that entails. But you also know
that loyal servants are rewarded graciously.”

“Is this what you consider graciously?” he said,
looking up at Inac again. “Threatening me and my family?”

Inac flashed him another feral smile. “Of course. You
are all alive, aren’t you?” He then lightly pat Aviv’s cheek as he said in
English to his man blocking the door, his eyes still on the old man’s,
“Santoni, let the team know that they can stop tailing the prime minister’s
family and to get back on their jet.”

Santoni, who didn’t speak a word of Hebrew so the
entire conversation was lost on him, got on his phone and walked out the door.
Inac smiled again; a nice smile this time.

“It was a pleasure doing business with you, Prime
Minister.” When he got to the door, he turned back around, saying in a cordial
tone that barely veiled the threat in his words, “Oh, and don’t forget, you
can’t go to anyone to help you out of this because everyone of any importance
works for
me
.”

***

“So Hara,” Vinnie called as he tried to pull his
pants up around his massive waist—it was an eternal struggle that he would
never win. “You gonna help clean or just eat your weight in onion rings?”

“I
am
cleaning,” she said in her sweetest
voice from the elevated barstool she was sitting on. It always felt odd to sit
on the wrong side of the bar.

“Oh yeah? And how do you figure that?”

“I’m getting rid of all the onion rings.”

Not even Vinnie could help but smile at that.

“Well, can you at least help wipe up the tables
while you eat?”

“I most certainly can,” she said, plopping another
ring into her mouth and jumping to her feet, now clad in comfortable red ballet
flats. The moment the club had closed she’d traded her uniform heels for them,
which was the only reason she didn’t fall from such a quick movement. Crystal
and Hara always cleaned side by side, so it was actually kind of fun to wipe
down the tables and other such things.

They were trading stories from the evening, mostly
laughing at the lame pick-up lines guys had tried on them, when Vinnie and
Tracker came out of the kitchen, a few of the kitchen employees following them.
She was so jealous that the kitchen employees got to wear whatever they wanted.
So
not fair.

“Are you girls cleaning or just yappin’ away?”
Vinnie asked as he worked a comb through his greasy dark hair. He could get
so
annoying sometimes.

“Yapping,” they replied in unison, which made them
both giggle.

It wasn’t really funny, but at this hour in the
morning, things just seemed funnier.

“Mr. Adamson,” Vinnie said suddenly, looking worried
as he pushed his white dress shirt farther into his black dress pants, trying
to smooth out his large stomach as he did so.

Hara stopped dead in her tracks, a stool still in
her hands. She just didn’t have the willpower to put it on the bar as her body
tensed, her ears tuning outward to catch what Inac’s reply would be.

“Mr. Crookston,” a masculine voice said from behind
her.

Crystal looked meaningfully at Hara as she
re-stocked the glasses on the other side of the bar, though Hara barely caught
it between trying to breathe as well as willing her body into moving again.

“What can I do for you, sir?” Vinnie asked in a tone
Hara had never heard him use before. Vinnie was nervous. Maybe he just didn’t
like having someone higher up the corporate ladder now that he no longer owned
the club. Of course, it was strange for Inac to be showing up so late. Vinnie
probably thought it was a spot check to gauge how well he managed the place
since, despite its massive popularity, he’d almost run it into the ground.

“To be honest,
you
can’t do anything for me,”
Inac replied in a clipped tone. He didn’t seem to be in a good mood. That
didn’t matter to her, though. For some reason, for the first time in her life,
she really felt
angry
.

That anger caused her to turn on him, not thinking,
or caring, about any consequences as her momentum made her long hair whip her
cheek much like she wanted to berate him for turning up smug and full of life.

“Where have you been?! The hospital said that you
just up and disappeared!” she yelled as she marched into his personal space.
“Did it not occur to you that people would be worried?! You’ve got to be the
most selfish person I’ve ever met!”

Attempting a joke, he said, “You certainly didn’t
look worried just now, joking around with your friend.”

“Well I
was
! You weren’t ready to leave the
hospital. You could have died!”

A large frown hardening his face until he appeared
to be carved from stone, he said, “As you can see, I’m fine.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m so angry! I’ve been worried
and you come strutting in here like you didn’t do anything wrong. What was so
important that you had to do?” she demanded. She knew she was acting crazy—if
he’d been interested before, he certainly wouldn’t be now—but she couldn’t
control herself. All the ups and downs with her emotions since she’d met him
were coming out, making her appear psychotic.

“I had a business matter I had to take care of in
Israel.”

Israel? That stopped the next heated sentence from
making its way out of her throat.

Her eyes suspicious, she asked, “Are you lying to
me, Inac?”

“No.”

“But
Israel
?” She’d heard guys give Crystal
some pretty lame excuses before….

“My business interests are global.”

“But…I thought you were in the nightclub and
restaurant business?”

“Among other things.”

Sick of his secrecy, she said, “So what brings you
to our little neck of the woods?” She hoped that would tick him off. He was
staying too calm for someone being yelled at. Did he not care about
anything
?

“You,” he answered so simply that her brain froze.
She hadn’t expected that; especially in front of everyone she worked with. Now
her stomach was nervous again. Why did he have to give her such a roller
coaster of emotions? He was picking
now
of all times to tell her how he
felt?