by Dee Palmer
“So you waited until now.”
“I waited, yes. I didn’t have a fucking choice, Cass.” My emotions are bubbling out of control, and I have to check myself before I lose it. He’s hurt, I’m hurt, and the one person who should be hurt is probably sipping champagne, oblivious, or more likely just not giving a shit about the destruction she’s caused.
“Why take the money? It’s all yours. You may not have physical proof without the Will, but you could still—”
“I never wanted the money, Cass; you should’ve known that. I wanted you. I wanted us. I trusted you. The only other person who could’ve helped died. If your grandfather had found out about me sooner, none of this would’ve happened.” My voice picks up speed and pitch as my frustration and anger tint everything a volatile shade of red.
“He did know sooner. He’d always known.” Cass wipes the fury from my breath with this revelation.
“What?” I gasp. Cass nods slowly, sadness transforming his face. My voice falters. “Why not tell me sooner? Why wait until he was dying? Why keep it all in the dark like I’m some dirty little secret. It’s so cruel.”
“Yes, yes it is.” Three strides and he drops to his haunches. He takes my hands in his, and once again, my body sucks up every drop of comfort from the contact like a sponge. Tears prickle behind my eyelids, and I fight to contain all this hurt swelling inside. I can’t believe Oskar would be so cold, so calculating, how he could be just like the woman he claimed to despise.
“Did you know?”
“No.” He shakes his head vigorously. “I only found out a few days ago. I didn’t even realise that the Will I signed wasn’t his last, and I didn’t realise signing it meant I was never going to be a beneficiary. Mother knew, and that’s—” He blinks and hesitates. I easily finish his sentence.
“When she put me in jail.”
“Yes.”
“You believed her…over me. You believed her. I trusted you, heart and soul, remember? And you never came.” There’s so much to be hurt over, yet this is what keeps me awake at night. This is the one thing that gives me the nightmares, leaves me soaked in sweat and screaming the house down until Logan wakes me. Until Logan saves me.
“Grandfather died before I could ask him, and then there was the fucking recording. You never returned my calls, and you never answered a single fucking letter!” He pulls out of my hand, stands, and turns away from my accusation, levelling his own at my feet with a mix of fury and loss in his eyes.
“What recording? What letters?”
“Mother had—” I bark out a bitter laugh, stopping him before he utters anything more ridiculous.
“Oh please, let me stop you there. Your mother told you what exactly? Did what exactly? The woman who realized I was the one true heir gave you a recoding of me doing what? Fucking someone else? Telling someone else I loved them? A recording of me planning to rob the Kraus fortune?”
“Something like that.”
“And you believed her?”
“I didn’t know you were a threat. I didn’t know you were the heir then. I didn’t know shit, Tia.” He drags his hands through his hair, huffing with exasperation as the pieces click into place. “I was fucking heartbroken, Tia. I thought you’d betrayed me. You hurt me more than I thought possible. To me, that meant one thing and only one thing: You didn’t love me because you don’t hurt people you love, remember?
“You told me that. I was fucking broken, but I gave evidence in your defence. I paid for your lawyer, and I still tried to contact you. You ignored me.”
He makes his plea as though it’s tearing him apart. It’s more fucking lies.
“There was no fucking defence, Cass. I had a useless court appointed lawyer who was friends with your fucking mother, and—” I stop myself, shaking the futile fury away with sharp twist of my head. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. It’s done, all of it, done. Your mother is an evil bitch. Your grandfather was the Devil for hiding the truth, and you’re a fucking idiot. No, that’s unfair. We’re both fucking idiots.”
“I’ll take the hit, Tia, but for the record, I did make a statement and…” He lets out a heavy sigh, and I feel its weight. He drops his head back and stares up to the heavens, taking a long, silent moment before raising his head and staring at me. His eyes are dark and cold enough to make me shiver. “Like you say, it doesn’t matter now. I was in the dark. More so actually, because I never knew any of this until a few fucking days ago. None of that fucking matters. I need the money or—”
“Or what?” I interrupt with a hollow, incredulous laugh. “Please tell me your mother is in danger because that will just make my day. No, that will make my year.”
“She’s still my mother, and yes, she’s in danger, but so are you.” His tone is deadly serious.
“How exactly?”
“You’re the motherfucking heir to the Kraus fortune, Tia. How does that not put you in danger?” These people want money or blood, possibly both.” He’s yelling, his words laced with fear, and it makes my stomach drop. Cass isn’t afraid of anything.
“My blood?” He holds my wide-eyed gaze and nods. I swallow the thick lump in my throat, feeling the full portent in his words. A timely dark shadow passes across the room as clouds race across the sky outside, blocking the sunlight. The temperature in the room plummets, and I find I’ve wrapped my arms tight around my body, rubbing some warmth into the goosebumps.
“Kraus blood, its a matter of honour,” he adds as if he needed to clarify the seriousness of the situation. He didn’t.
“You know this would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.” I shake my head with a mix of amazement and disbelief. A fortune I never wanted is going to cost me my life if I don’t give him what he wants. The silence is thick as I mull my limited options. I look up to his expectant expression and quell the warm feelings that the concern etching his handsome features is for my life. I can’t be a hundred percent on that; after all, giving him the money saves more than just my arse.
“It’s the company pension, Cass, and I’m not handing it over so you can cover your mother’s mistakes, and she can carry on in her ivory tower as if nothing happened. It’s no more your money than it is mine. It belongs to your employees. I can’t let you ruin people’s lives like this. It’s their safety net, not yours or your mother’s personal piggy bank to plunder. I’m sorry; it’s just not going to happen.”
“They’ll kill you!” His tone is shocked and pleading.
“And her yes? They’ll kill her too?” I need to be sure, really sure.
“Yes, but you!”
“You seem to be stuck on that notion, Cass.” I dismiss the concern in his voice. I can’t quite trust it, not anymore. “You broke something in me. It will never be fixed, and in my need for revenge, I hurt the one person I loved so much I couldn’t even see it for what it was. I think I loved him more than you even. So you see, I’m actually okay with dying.”
“You don’t mean that.” He bites out his response like the very thought tastes so vile in his mouth.
“Which bit, Cass? That I love Logan more than you or that I don’t care about dying?”
“Both.” Crystal blue eyes pierce me to the core, his expression a lethal mix of possession, passion and fury.
“Try me.”
She’s lying. She has to be lying. I hate I have even a shadow of doubt. I know what we had few people experience in a whole fucking lifetime. It was rare and beautiful, and I fucked it up. So perhaps it’s not so shocking she fell in love with someone else. The notion rocks my foundation and makes my guts twist in agony. I believe our connection is undeniably strong. Her body wouldn’t react the way it does. She wouldn’t be wrestling with her conscience at all if she didn’t still feel something for me. Something more than the stubborn defiance sparkling in her eyes, that is.
“You changed the code.” I know this statement is redundant. I tried to open the safe yesterday and thought for a misplaced moment I’d forgotten the seq
uence of numbers. I knew I hadn’t. It took all of a second to connect the disturbed dust, Tia’s throwaway comment about visiting the place just once, and put two and two together. She’s smart, resourceful, and clearly learned a particular set of skills to help in her quest for vengeance.
“I did,” she says in a sweet, self-satisfied tone. Her lips quirk to one side in an openly shameless smirk.
“What is it?” I reply flatly.
“Twenty-one left, forty right, seven right, three left and eighteen right.” She recites the numbers so efficiently I’m a little stunned.
“Really?”
“No dumbass, of course not.” Her head snaps to a low level shuffling noise in the darkness and she shifts around in her seat, her arms set to help her move.
“Sit back down!” I boom and she shrinks back against the cushion, fear colouring her pretty green eyes. “Stop playing around, Tia, and tell me the fucking code.”
“Why? So you can destroy the only evidence that I’m a Kraus, that I’m the only living heir, because the only thing in there is the Will.” Her eyes widen a fraction, it’s barely noticeable but I see if for the flashing beacon of a ‘tell’ that it is.
She knows about the false back.
Wow, I can’t believe my grandfather told her everything. Still, I’m done playing games.
“Oh princess, now we both know that’s not true.” I hum out an amused sound and waggle my finger in a light reprimand as I reveal her error. “But the fact you’re reluctant to tell me the code does at least confirm they are still in there.” She has the grace not to argue, and I have to concede the pride in her expression is justified. Grandfather may have given her the code, although I doubt it. Even so, my mother had all the security changed when he died. Either way, Tia has cracked the safe and reset a complicated security device. I’m torn between being impressed at her talent and incredulous at her stupidity. “You should’ve taken the contents when you had the chance.”
“The contents didn’t matter. I have a copy, and it doesn’t name me as the heir. It mentions the true bloodline several times; I assumed it was referring to you. Yes, I had my suspicions after your grandfather told me what he did. Since it didn’t have my name specifically in relation to bloodline, it just left me confused and more inclined to believe what your grandfather told me were the mere ramblings of a very sick man. Especially as it does mention me by name as beneficiary of the diamond bracelet.” She shrugs. “For me, the Will was simply proof of your betrayal. I told you before, the only thing I wanted to know was why you abandoned me. The only thing I wanted to do was make you suffer in the only way a Kraus can suffer: by loosing their money.”
“You only took the hundred million, Tia. It stings, but it won’t destroy us.” I pause as her eyes fucking widen again.
What the hell?
“You took the rest?” I roar. Fuming with rage, I step closer, and my hands slam on the arm rests, her face now millimetres from my own. Her eyes are like fucking saucers. She holds her breath as mine washes over her terrified features. “Perhaps you do want to die after all.” I hold her gaze for long seconds, trying to get a read on what must be racing across her mind. I don’t know what she knows about why I need the money or if she really doesn’t care but she has to know I’m not fucking joking. She has to know this isn’t a fucking game. I dip to keep the eye contact, and keeping my voice soft, yet deadly serious, I continue. “That was never our money, Tia. We were laundering it for some very nasty Russians. I’m going to credit you with enough intelligence to understand what that means and what the consequences are if I don’t give it back.”
“I can’t give it back, even if I wanted to. I don’t have it.”
“Stop fucking lying to me!” I thump my fists on the armrest even if shouting made her jump first.
“I’m not. I don’t have it!” she yells back. She crosses her arms defensively, and her body is rigid. I wonder if she’s trying to hide further exposure of her subconscious non-verbal cues. It’s a little late for that; she’s like an open fucking book.
“Oh really?” I drop my voice to a menacing whisper and watch her throat as she struggles to swallow at the threatening tone. Pushing myself back up, I walk over to the row of windows that stretch the length of the room. I drag each of the heavy curtains wide and watch clouds of dust swirl in large gusts in the sunlight bursting across the room. Once I have finished, I turn and kick the Oriental room divider at the far end hard enough to shatter the hinges and send it crashing across the floor. The noise is eclipsed by the sharp, harrowing cry from Tia as she stands and rushes toward the broken body of the asshole she claims to love more than me.
Logan.
“Don’t fucking move!” I yell, and she skids to stop a few feet from him. His eyes, swollen and bruised—one is barely open at all—fix on hers. Dried blood is caked on his face, flaking in his overgrown beard. His long hair is clumped in strands and hangs limply around his face. He mumbles against the gag and jerks in his restraints, but the ties are too firm to budge. The chair is solid oak, heavy, and sturdy enough not to move an inch, even as he tries to throw his considerable bulk around. A slight scuffing sound against the rug is the only audible result of a fit of pure fury and frustration.
“Let him go!” Tia cries, tears free-falling down her cheeks. Her voice cracks with emotion, and she actually presses her hands together as if in prayer.
“Give me my money.” I let out an exhausted breath, tired of the same damn question.
“I-I…” She stutters, sniffs and rubs the back of her hand roughly across her cheek. Her jaw sets, and rage eclipses her desperate sadness. Her eyes flit around the room, and I stop her before she settles on finding something stupid, like a weapon.
“Don’t even think about it.” I pull my own brand of stupid from inside its scabbard tucked in the back of my jeans. A long blade dagger, curved, with one jagged edge, unbelievably sharp, with an intricately carved silver handle. The sunlight bounces beautifully off the smooth and spotless surface of the blade, refracting light shards across the room and catching Tia full in the face, enough to make her raise her hand to protect her eyes. I’m standing close enough to Logan to stop her thinking about anything other than me, the knife in my hand, and hopefully, my fucking money.
“I didn’t want it to be like this.” She snorts and sucks in a sharp breath when I press the blade against Logan’s cheek. “Don’t be like that, Tia. I’m telling the truth.”
“Really, Cass? What did you want it to be like? For me to give you the money? Give you the code and for us to waltz off into the sunset hand-in-hand with your mother toasting our happiness?” She spews the words with contempt and bitterness.
“Let’s not go crazy, princess. Mother is never going to drink to your happiness, but yes, that’s pretty much what I wanted.” I tilt my head and raise my brow with surprise since I’m stating the fucking obvious. “Ever since I saw you in the interview room, I wanted you. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Logan…I had her.” I lean down, dropping my voice low and sensually emphasising the pertinent word so the meaning is not lost. He fights and growls against the gag, ignoring the blade at his cheek. It slices deep enough for a spurt of blood to shoot out covering the dagger with a thick, warm splash of colour.
“Stop! For fuck sake, Atticus, just stop.” Tia lurches forward, pulling back when I angle the knife to take another cut. I tut and let out a heavy breath.
“Women. The women in my life always cause the most fucking trouble,” I muse aloud the honest fucking truth to the near silent room. The only sounds are Logan’s stunted grunts of pain and the heartfelt sobs Tia fails to suppress. “I know you didn’t get the company into this mess, Tia. Unfortunately, you are the reason I can’t get us out, and I can’t let that happen.” I momentarily take the knife away from Logan’s face and wave it in her direction. “Despite what you think, princess, I’m doing this for you. I won’t let you die.”
“I don’t have the other money. I really don
’t, but I can give you the account details where the hundred million is.” She forces the offer from her tight, thin lips. I don’t much care how I get the offer handed to me.
“It’s a start.”
“I’ll need a laptop.”
“On the desk.” I nod over her head to the other end of the room, closer to the fireplace in front of one of the windows where Grandfather’s freestanding desk overlooks the rose garden. She remains transfixed, her eyes on mine, fear and loathing swirling in those emerald depths.
I move the knife to Logan’s neck for encouragement.
He moans and shakes his head at Tia, but he has the sense to stop moving when I press the serrated edge against his jugular.
“I’m doing it, Cass, just take the fucking knife away okay?” She keeps her eyes on me, my hand, the knife, and Logan.
“Money, Tia.”
“God you’re an arsehole.” She rushes to the desk. Her eyes flit from the open laptop to me. Assessing where the real risk currently is in this room, I decide I need to watch closer over what Tia is doing. I twirl the blade in my hand and casually walk over until I am towering at her side. Her fingers fly over the keyboard. Several screens open and close, passwords, codes and firewalls come and go until she has a screen with a bank account showing only one transaction. My hundred million pounds.
“There, that wasn’t so hard was it?” I squeeze her shoulder. It’s rock solid with tension under my fingers, but she shucks out from under my touch. I take the anger on the chin. It’s the least I deserve, and I know I’m not done, not by a long way. “Now if you’d just transfer it to this account.” I call out the numbers and watch her make the transfer. Her eyes keep peeking over to Logan as he fights and struggles to get free. She slams the laptop shut.
“Now let him go.”
“Not quite, princess. I still need the rest of the money.” She spins in the chair, and if intentions could kill, she fires a glare that would turn me into a smouldering pile of ash.
