Her Enemy Protector

by Cindy Dees

  But deep inside, Cari knew Joe was no crime lord. He was one of the good guys, and her father—as much as she loved him—was definitely one of the bad guys. Joe had put Rico back together; Eduardo would have fed him to the sharks.

  It occurred to her that this was what unconditional love was all about! Loving someone no matter what he did or who he was. Like her father, like Joe. But loving them didn’t mean you had to like them or respect them or be loyal to them. Those things had to be earned. And from everything Cari had seen, Joe had earned them, her father had not. In fact, the part of her that didn’t love Eduardo loathed and hated him and was filled with a blackness so deep she didn’t know if she’d ever find the bottom of it…. Until she’d met Joe.

  Suddenly, Cari wasn’t scared at all. She loved Joe, not knowing the identity of his master but knowing that whomever it was, it was a positive. Julia wouldn’t have sent him to rescue her if it wasn’t.

  Never in a million years would she have guessed she’d meet a man she could love enough to accept no matter what he did or who he was. So this was what unconditional love was all about! She’d heard people talk about it, but now she finally grasped what they were talking about. Go figure.

  She reached the bottom of the sweeping staircase and headed for the dining room, her heart immeasurably lighter at having made peace with her feelings for Joe and her father.

  The long table was full tonight. Eduardo was already seated at the head of the table. The place on his right was empty, presumably for her. Joe sat at Eduardo’s left. Gunter sat in the seat to the right of hers, and the rest of the table was lined with Eduardo’s primary lieutenants.

  She frowned. Was this going to be a working supper? She couldn’t believe her father planned to talk business in front of Joe. Had the way Joe handled himself today made that big an impression on her father? Had Joe passed some sort of unspoken test out there by the pool?

  Cautiously, Cari sat down at the table. One of the maids placed a salad in front of her and she picked up her fork.

  She looked up at Joe, who was staring fixedly at her, clearly trying to figure out her mood. She smiled shyly at him, glad she didn’t have to talk to him just yet. Even if they had been alone, without a camera or bug in sight, she wouldn’t have known where to begin with him. It wasn’t like she could just blurt out a proposal to him; they were already married.

  Joe smiled back, more with his eyes than any change of facial expression, but it was enough. His gaze spoke volumes to her, silently communicating that they were still okay, that he cared for her in spite of her earlier outburst, that he forgave her for her doubts and hoped she forgave him for the fight and for scaring her.

  Her gaze softened even more and she let her eyes fill with all the love she was feeling for him.

  His eyes widened in turn, and then a full-blown smile broke across his face.

  Jubilation erupted in her belly. She didn’t need words to know he loved her back. No man could look at a woman like that and not be in love with her.

  Sudden, overwhelming impatience to get out of there, to be alone with him, to tell him everything in her heart overcame her. She ate faster, speeding the moment when they could make their exit, go upstairs and fall into each other’s arms.

  The candles flickering down the length of the table seemed to burn brighter, and the food even tasted better. Everything was going to turn out right. They might just get a shot at happily ever after together.

  Even Eduardo was in a jovial mood tonight. He talked and joked with his men freely. Over the platters of fresh fruit the maids carried out next, he even told a couple of stories about his boyhood in the streets of Gavarone. The moral of his misspent youth usually had to do with needing to be tough and smart to survive, and tonight was no different.

  A plate of succulent prime rib was placed before her, and she cut into it with relish.

  “Cari.”

  She looked up, surprised at her father.

  “I got you something for your help at my meeting yesterday. You earned it. Vasily said he’s looking forward to doing business with me again and is especially looking forward to working with you. I apologized for your hasty retreat last night but assured him you’d be more accommodating next time.”

  She froze, the smile on her face as rigid and fragile as handblown glass. Disbelief at what Eduardo was saying swept over her. He was blatantly trying to pay her off to sleep with that disgusting pervert. And he had the gall to do it in front of her husband! What a gigantic… She couldn’t think of a horrible-enough word to describe Eduardo. And, oh God, Joe. What must he be thinking? She couldn’t bring herself to look over at him, afraid that if he saw the panic in her eyes, he would attack Eduardo on the spot.

  Eduardo reached carelessly into his sports coat and pulled out a long, flat jeweler’s box. He set it on the table beside Cari’s plate. “I guess you can still be of some use to me.”

  Her face felt hot. Surely, the mask of ice would melt off any second and she’d be able to move again. To open her mouth and scream her outrage at this humiliation. The only thing that kept her in one piece was the knowledge that soon she and Joe would be out of there, and her father would have no more control over her life!

  “Open it,” her father snapped. “It cost a lot. You should at least look at the damned thing.”

  Woodenly, she reached out and picked up the box. She lifted the lid. Inside lay a necklace made of twin slashes of gold, each nearly as long as her finger. They crossed asymmetrically in the middle. From one of them hung a row of teardrop-shaped ruby pendants that increased in size until the final thumbnail-size drop, which trembled from the very tip of the golden rod.

  How very appropriate. The rubies looked just like drops of blood hanging off a big stick.

  Blood money.

  How many times had she accepted gifts like this from her father and thought that they were a sign of his esteem for her? How many times had she misinterpreted these bribes as a show of affection? Why was it that only now she finally saw them for what they really were—payoffs for silences kept or services rendered? It made her ill to even look at the row of red droplets.

  “Well?” Eduardo demanded.

  She closed the lid carefully. Set the box back down on the table. Pushed it away from her toward her father’s plate. “I can’t accept it.”

  “Why the hell not?” Eduardo’s eyes narrowed in displeasure.

  “I’m not planning to earn it.”

  Eduardo stopped eating. Stared. And his brows drew together like twin thunderheads. Daddy didn’t like it when people didn’t fall in line like they were supposed to. “Hmm, well, perhaps you will change your mind,” he mumbled softly before picking up his fork again.

  Cari finally gathered the courage to glance over at Joe. Undisguised pride in her shone in his dark gaze. He got it. He knew what that necklace represented, and he definitely knew what her refusal of the necklace meant.

  And then a strange thing happened. Of all people, Gunter reached beneath the table and gave her hand a quick squeeze. It happened so fast she didn’t even really register the slight pressure on her fingers until it was gone.

  She’d done it. She’d made the break with her father. She’d finally seen him for what he was and rejected the notion of being used by him any longer. She’d grown up.

  And she owed it all to Joe. Without him, she might never have seen her father clearly, might never have known what real love acted like. She smiled brilliantly across the table at her husband, her gratitude for his lessons in love boundless. He nodded infinitesimally in return, a smile playing around the corners of his eyes.

  Dessert was served: crepes stuffed with flambéed plantains and fresh pineapple. The whole thing was smothered in a sinful pecan-caramel sauce and topped with whipped cream. And tonight, she was going to eat every last bite of it!

  Her spoon bit into the delicious confection, and the first sticky, tempting bite was halfway to her mouth when she heard a sudden disturbance fr
om the direction of the front door. Someone—a man—was talking excitedly, demanding entrance and claiming to need to see Eduardo immediately.

  Every head turned toward the noise. The bodyguards at the far end of the table, closest to the commotion, reached under their coats for their weapons.

  Cari frowned as the South African information broker from the day before burst into the dining room, accompanied by two very agitated guards.

  “Señor Ferrare, I apologize for coming to you this way, but it is a matter of greatest urgency.”

  Eduardo frowned. “I’ve already gotten the information I was looking for from another source. The money has already been collected.”

  The South African waved a hand impatiently. “It’s not that. In attempting to acquire that information for you, I ran across something much more important.”

  Cari’s frown deepened as Eduardo leaned forward, alert and eager. “What did you find?” her father asked aggressively.

  A horrifying thought overwhelmed Cari. Had this guy figured out that Charlie Squad had a man inside Eduardo’s house, eating supper at his table at this very moment?

  She interjected, with desperate calm, “Daddy, why don’t you and your associate adjourn this conversation to somewhere more private, like your office?” Maybe that would give Joe a few minutes to make a run for it. Give him a fighting chance to get out of here alive.

  Her father slashed a decisive hand through the air. “No, I want to hear it right now.”

  The South African gulped. Took a big swallow. Not good. Not good at all. He was getting ready to reveal something bad. Something that would make her father angry. It had to be Joe. Frantic, she glanced over at Joe, willing him to excuse himself from the table. To pretend to go to the bathroom or something. To get out of here!

  But Joe just sat there, a faint frown between his eyes, staring at the South African. If the table hadn’t been so wide, she’d have kicked his foot under the table to get his attention. Heck, she all but threw her napkin at him to get him to look at her so she could motion him to flee.

  The South African cleared his throat. “My…sources…intercepted this message less than an hour ago. It was transmitted from an operating location in the north-central United States to the Pentagon Operations Center. It’s a very classified message.”

  “And what did this message have to say that sent you flying in here in the middle of dessert?” Eduardo prompted the man.

  “Ahh, well, yes.” The South African cleared his throat nervously. “It was a transmission from Charlie Squad. That’s why it was brought to my attention right away. They were reporting…” He looked down at the top piece of paper clutched in his hand. “Let me read it to you: ‘Charlie Squad commander regrets to inform ops that the primary target of Operation Moneybag has met with a most unfortunate accident and has died. Photographic confirmation to follow.’”

  A sick feeling started at the bottom of Cari’s stomach and began to worm its way upward as Eduardo growled, “What the hell is Operation Moneybag?”

  The South African cringed a little as he answered, “It’s not what. It’s who. Operation Moneybag was your daughter, Julia. Charlie Squad has killed her.”

  Chapter 17

  Cari leaped up out of her seat at about the same time as Eduardo did.

  “What?” her father bellowed.

  “That’s not possible!” Cari cried out at the same moment.

  “I’m afraid it is very possible,” the South African replied regretfully. “I have the pictures right here if you’d like to see them, sir….” The guy advanced down the length of the table, holding out the bundle of photos in his hand like a talisman to ward off evil—or, in his case, a swift death to the messenger.

  Eduardo snatched what turned out to be several eight-by-ten photographs, and Cari moved to peer over his shoulder at the grainy black-and-white images.

  “Those were taken with a long-range camera, so the quality’s not the best. But they’re good enough to identify the, uh, victim and the men with her.”

  Cari stared down in horror. There was no doubt about it. That was Julia, all right, sprawled on the snow-covered ground with a huge black stain discoloring the snow around her. A blossom of black stained her coat, as well, directly over her heart. Her eyes were closed, her face a ghostly, ghastly white in the picture.

  Two men crouched down beside her, both brandishing pistols in their hands. The legs of a third man were visible just entering the frame of the picture. But what riveted Cari’s attention was the man at Julia’s right, his face clearly visible. It was the driver who’d delivered her and Joe to Judge Cabot’s house and then driven them here two nights ago. The man that Joe had called Tom. The man she’d believed to be Colonel Folly, the commander of Charlie Squad.

  Eduardo stabbed a finger at the same face she was staring at. “That’s Tom Folly!” he snarled. His voice rose in a roar. “That bastard killed my baby!”

  Joe craned his neck to look at the pictures. Panic ripped through him. No way had Charlie Squad killed Julia! Hell, Dutch was planning to marry her. This message was a hoax.

  Unable to see the incriminating photographs, he finally half stood and snatched one of them off the table.

  Son of a bitch. That was Julia lying on the ground, all right. And that was the colonel beside her, and that was Julia’s blood all over the ground. There wasn’t a whole lot of background in the photograph, but he recognized that rise of rock behind Julia. Montana.

  He remembered the night well. Julia had set up a meeting with her father, and Charlie Squad had staked out the site to catch the bastard. Except Eduardo had set an ambush of his own. Shooting had broken out and Eduardo had pulled a gun and aimed it at Dutch, the man Julia loved. She’d dived in front of Dutch and taken a bullet from her father’s own gun.

  That pair of legs just coming into the picture were his as he sprinted up to render first aid to Julia.

  Where in the hell had this photo come from? He tried to picture the scene that night at a rest stop along a lonely Montana highway. The angle this was taken from set it over in the large grassy area beside the picnic tables, where Eduardo’s helicopter had been parked. There must have been some sort of surveillance camera mounted on the helicopter and this photo was lifted from the film footage of the meeting between Julia and her father.

  The rat bastard! Eduardo had set this whole scene up tonight! Joe’s mind raced. This was an elaborate trap….

  Something exploded in Cari’s brain. It was like a hundred isolated puzzle pieces of information had all suddenly flown into place and she could finally see the whole picture.

  Charlie Squad had killed Julia. Joe was Charlie Squad! He was here to kill her father and had used her to get close to Eduardo. She stared down at the gruesome pictures of her sister’s body—he’d kill her, too, if he had to!

  Oh, God, Julia. Grief broke over her with the fury of a raging avalanche, turning her world upside down, burying her completely under its crushing weight.

  And one of the men responsible for it was sitting across the table from her. He’d been making goo-goo eyes at her just moments before. She’d made love to him! God, she’d been such a fool!

  “How could you?” she cried at him.

  Joe looked startled. “How could I what?”

  “How could you kill my sister? She was gentle and kind. She’d never hurt anyone. And you murdered her!” She heard the hysteria creeping into her voice. And she reveled in it. Embraced the madness. Julia was gone.

  Joe looked up as Cari continued, screaming accusations at him. “What did she ever do to you? All we ever wanted was a normal life away from all of this!” She waved her arm, encompassing the room.

  Damn. She was going to totally blow any chance of a cover he had left! “Honey,” he said soothingly, “I didn’t have anything to do with this. You know I’d never hurt an innocent.”

  Except he could see the memory of him stabbing Rico swimming afresh in her eyes. Rico wasn’t an innocen
t, dammit!

  “Will you kill me, too, Joe? Or whatever your name is?” Cari cried out. “Or are you only here to kill my father?”

  At that, several of the men near him lurched. Dammit! She was going to get him killed if she didn’t shut her mouth!

  His heart bled for her. He ached to put his arms around her, to comfort her. To take away the grief that was eating her alive. To tell her there was no way Julia could be dead.

  If it was only his life on the line, he wouldn’t hesitate to tell her this was a hoax and take the consequences himself. But there were the other five members of his team to protect. He wasn’t about to spout off that they couldn’t have killed Julia last night because four of them were here in Gavarone, staked out around this building, and that Dutch was with Julia.

  That would send all of Eduardo’s men outside with guns blazing and land the squad in a firefight they couldn’t hope to win. No matter how much it pained him to make Cari suffer like this, he couldn’t offer her concrete proof that Julia had not been murdered. All he could give her was his word.

  Cari collapsed against her father’s shoulder, crying hysterically. Joe looked up at Eduardo, who was all but gloating over her head at him.

  He stood up. “You low-down, selfish, twisted son of a bitch. How could you do this to your own daughter?”

  Cari looked up, her eyes red and furious. “Don’t you dare say anything to my father! He makes no excuses for who he is. But you…you’re a liar!” she finished furiously.

  Joe looked her square in the eye. “Cari,” he said reasonably, desperately. “I’ve never lied to you. Ever. I swear. I’ve refused to answer certain questions, but I’ve never lied. I love you, and I’m telling you now, Julia isn’t dead.”

  “If you truly loved me, you wouldn’t have let Charlie Squad kill her, would you? So there’s the biggest lie of all! You never cared for me one bit!” Cari pushed away from her father and advanced toward him. She stabbed a finger at the picture Joe held in his hand. “He—that man—drove us to get married! You’re in Charlie Squad up to your neck! You could have stopped them from killing Julia.”