Second Nature (When Seconds Count)

by D. L. Roan

  Just as he was beginning to fuss with the buttons on her pants to take a look at her busted stitches, the redheaded woman stepped up and held out what appeared to be a fresh change of clothes.

  “I brought these in case she needed them. I’m Rebecca Danes, International Organized Crime Intel.” A familiar, bitter taste soiled his taste buds as he heard the title roll off her tongue in the usual arrogant tenor of a Fed. It was nice to know his sixth sense about people hadn’t taken a hike with his common sense. Without so much as a nod, he took the clothes from her outstretched arms and went back to work removing Thalia’s blood drenched ones. When the persistent redhead didn’t retreat from her post next to the row of seats she was perched against, he paused and turned his lethal, what-the-fuck-do-you-want stare her way, a not so subtle warning to either spill what she came to say or move the fuck on. To her credit she didn’t seem to scare easily.

  “I’m not a spectator, Mr. Kendal.” She crossed her arms over her chest and Grant noticed how that one confident move seemed to add at least three inches to her five foot six frame. He met her challenge and popped to his feet, enjoying the way her face drained of color as the blood rushed toward her rapidly increasing heartbeat. He wouldn’t hurt the woman, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let her bully her way into interrogating Thalia before she’d even had a chance to process what had happened to her.

  He knew how the game was played. She needed information. Thalia was nothing but a new source, an untapped well of information she needed to access to make her next big move up the departmental bullshit ladder. She and her career could go to hell. One lean closer and he could smell her fear as she tried to swallow it back.

  “Mm…” She cleared her throat, and Grant would have been amused if Thalia wasn’t lying unconscious and bleeding on the seat behind him while this woman was wasting his fucking time. Grant watched as she quickly gathered herself back together and was mildly shocked when she opened her mouth to speak instead of turning on her prim three inch heels and running for her life.

  “Mr. Gregory asked me to come along because I’m also a victim’s advocate. I’ve helped many other girls, uh, women like Natalie. I’ve personally worked her case for the last five years, Mr. Kendal. I’ve given my life’s blood to find the evil psychopaths who did this to her and I won’t stop until I see them either castrated and locked away in a sweat box in the middle of a South American jungle or dead. Preferably both.”

  Grant considered her for a moment as they locked stares in an unspoken challenge. There was more fire in her green eyes than he gave her credit for. Maybe his sixth sense had taken that hike off a cliff after all. When she refused to look away he shrugged and gave her a smirk. “Both is good.” He nodded and turned back to Thalia, resuming his inspection of her wounds as the woman turned and gifted them their privacy.

  She stopped a few steps down the narrow aisle and looked back over her shoulder at him. “If you need my help explaining this to Natalie...I mean, she might need a woman’s perspective to see this clearly.” He nodded wordlessly and watched her retreat the rest of the way down the aisle before settling in next to his friend.

  Would he ever get used to calling her Natalie? Would she ever forgive him for not telling her sooner? Damn, this was going to be hard. A part of him, a small, completely selfish part didn’t want her to remember. Not for him. He hated the idea of awakening such morbid memories she’d so successfully locked away. To him, she would be better off not remembering, even if that meant forgetting some of the good things too. He would give just about anything but her to be able to forget his past. He couldn’t take that choice away from her though. No matter how horrid, they were her memories to command. He only hoped he still had a place in them when this was all over.

  Nearly thirty minutes after they had taken off from the small private airstrip outside Mutare, Grant tied off the last of the few stitches Thalia had ruptured in her thigh. The wound had looked far worse than it was, but her ankle was a different story. She moaned when he pushed on the swollen flesh to see if anything was broken, and he quickly moved up to see if he could rouse her.

  “Wake up for me, Thalia,” he crooned into her ear as he peppered her face with gentle kisses. Reading her movements, he gathered her wrists back into his hands, anticipating her fight or flight reaction just in time to keep her from bolting up from the makeshift bed he’d nestled her into. “Easy, fossa. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

  “Grant?” He watched as her brows furrowed in confusion and her sleepy, glazed eyes cleared of the drug induced fog.

  “Yeah, it’s me. You’ve had one hell of a night.” He coaxed her back into a prone position and pulled the blanket further up her naked body.

  “Ugh, tell me about it. I had a terrible nightmare.” She closed her eyes and he could feel her muscles coil beneath his palms as her memories broke through the haze from the sedative. He braced himself just as she shot up again and began to fight his hold on her. “Oh shit! It wasn’t a dream! Where the hell am I? Who were those people?”

  “Shh, fossa. Don’t get up yet.” He waited patiently as she marginally relaxed back into the seat, her eyes wild as she tried to catch up. “We’re on a plane to Mozambique. Can you tell me if anything other than your thigh or ankle hurts?” Her eyes squinted shut as she rotated her ankle, a muted moan escaping her lips. “I don’t think it’s broken, but you won’t be running anywhere for a few days.”

  “Grant, they knew my name.” He pulled the shirt from the pile of clothes Rebecca had given him and gathered the hem in his hands as he moved to help her put it on. “I can do that.” He smirked as she snatched it from his grip and feebly maneuvered it over her head and worked her arms through. That’s my girl. “Did you hear me?” She pulled the shirt over her bare breasts and then pushed herself up to lean against the seatback. “Ugh, why does my head hurt so badly?”

  Careful not to snag her ankle, he worked her legs halfway through the soft material of the slacks, effectively trapping them from kicking out at him before he answered her. He was sure he was going to need all the advantage he could get. “Yeah, about that,” he sighed. Unable to procrastinate further he stood, resting his hands on his hips, every molecule in his body preparing for the coming fight. “That would be the sedative I gave you.”

  He flinched when she moved, his hands rushing out to catch thin air instead of her flying fists as she lethargically pushed further up into the seat and shuffled the slacks over her hips. Christ, had he overdosed her? He expected her to at least throw something at him.

  “The rounds I fired off attracted too much attention. And the way you were fighting Daniel…” He crouched in front of her and pushed her tangled hair behind her ears. The look in her eyes held more fear and confusion than anger. He hated seeing her like that. He’d never been one for apologies, but he’d beg her forgiveness if that’s what it took to rid her of that look. “I thought I’d lose my mind when I saw you drop from that balcony. I’m sorry, but you were frantic when Daniel finally got to you, and I had to—”

  “Who’s Daniel?” Her voice wavered with the same fear he’d seen in her eyes. “Who is Daniel, Grant? How did those people know my real name? I haven’t even told you.”

  His heart froze inside his chest as every word in his vocabulary evacuated his brain. Dammit, what had he done? He wasn’t ready for this. He’d thought of nothing else during the long drive to Mutare but how to tell her. For a man who had been trained to plan for every contingency possible, this was a complete fail. How could he even begin to explain that her entire life had been a lie? That she had been kidnapped from a loving family and sold into a world in which one would rather die than endure? He knew what had been done to her. He wasn’t naïve enough to think she’d escaped being raped and beaten. Her body bore the scars of her forgotten nightmare. Truth was, it didn’t matter. Not to him. She’d survived and that was all that was important to him. She was strong and beautiful, inside and out. She was perfect in ways h
e would never deserve.

  He swallowed back the bile that had gathered in the back of his throat and tried again to say the words. They twisted in his gut, clawing their way up his throat until he nearly gagged in another mute attempt to spit them out. He couldn’t do it. Four simple words and he couldn’t fucking say them.

  “Grant you’re scaring me. What the hell is happening?” With limited grace, she pushed out of her seat, stumbling with the first bit of weight she tested on her ankle.

  “Thalia, please. You’re going to make it worse. Sit back down and I’ll try to explain!” His arm snaked around her waist and locked her against him, her hands frantically working to pry herself loose from his hold.

  “Natalie?” Her head snapped up at the raspy voice calling her name, halting her struggle as she took in the stranger who stared back at her from a few feet away. “Natty, honey?”

  Her hands fell away to her sides, her body shifting lifelessly in Grant’s arms as she stared at Daniel in confusion. His heart ached for her, for both of them. He couldn’t let them suffer in silence any longer. The words that had been impossible to say flew from his thoughts, rolling off his tongue with such little effort it shocked even him when they were uttered next to her ear.

  “Daniel is my friend, fossa.” He turned her in his arms and tucked her into his chest, resting his chin on top of her head as he looked over at Daniel. “He’s also you’re father, Thalia. He’s been looking for you for a very long time.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “You should eat something.” Thalia reached for the tablets Grant handed her, completely numb to his touch as his fingers lingered on her hand before he hesitantly let them fall away. She closed her eyes, shutting out the pity she saw in his worried expression. She threw back her head and popped the antibiotics to the back of her throat, ignoring the sharp sting as they slid like razors into her empty stomach. She didn’t care. It was an inconsequential pain compared to the breathtaking ache that filled her chest and threatened to tear her in two.

  Periods of heavy silence filled the too cozy hotel room, everyone watching her every move each time she dared take a deep breath, making the tangled web of voices in her head scream louder against the quiet darkness invading her thoughts. Voices she barely knew mingled with the haunting ones of her past, of people she thought she knew. People she’d trusted. How could Issa lie to her...about everything?

  “I don’t understand.” Her fingers twined together so tightly she could feel the icy sting when the lack of circulation began to takes its toll. “My family died in a car accident when I was seventeen. Issa told me…they…but…why would he lie?” Relaxing her cold, numb fingers, she reached out and traced the edge of one of the photographs lying on the table in front of her. It was a photo of her, standing in an outdated kitchen, her silver eyes crossed in a funny pose, her tongue sticking out as she licked peanut butter from a piece of toast. Behind her was this man, Daniel, holding a cup of water over her as if he were about to pour it over her head, a devious, quirky smile on his much younger face. She looked like the girl in that kitchen. She searched inside herself for any recognition, but felt nothing. Nothing that would tell her she deserved to feel as happy as the girl in that photo looked. She found nothing that said she had ever owned that life.

  “That’s not what happened, Natalie.” She flinched away when a warm hand caressed her shoulder and Rebecca slowly slid into the space next to her, pulling her further away from the perfect scene in the picture. “You grew up in Maryland. Daniel raised you after your mother left. You had just turned sixteen and gotten your driver’s license when you disappeared. Daniel had let you drive to school and…you never came home. Another girl who had gone missing managed to escape. She couldn’t identify the men who took her, but she remembered you. She picked out your photo, along with four other girls who had been held with her. We don’t know who Issa is or why he would lie to you, Natalie. Maybe if you told us a little about him we could figure it out.”

  Tell them about Issa? Where did she start? How would hearing about him teaching her how to cook or playing Romeo against her horrible rendition of Juliet when she was having trouble staying focused on her studies help them understand why he’d lied to her? Or the time he took her to France and visited every cheesy tourist trap with her when she finally graduated? Or all the times he helped her focus and breathe after her lungs seized in one unexplainable panic attack after another when she first awoke in Mumbai to a world she didn’t recognize. He always made time for her, even when she was acting bratty and spoiled.

  A hard lump she couldn’t swallow formed in her throat when one of her most treasured memories of him floated into the chaos of tattered thoughts in her mind. Her favorite time with Issa was when he was on one of his boats, large or small. His smile beamed with pride and freedom, his nearly white hair ruffled by the heavy sea breeze that always kept the costal air cooler and cleaner than the stuffy smog in the overcrowded cities. The memory was so clear her fingers twitched with the desire to reach out and trace the fine lines that formed at the corners of his eyes as he laughed, throwing out orders to his men to get underway. He loved the smell of the sea and the sounds of the birds as they flocked the loading docks. He was like a small boy with a shiny new toy each time he bought a new ship. She could feel the tug on her hand as he raced up to the bridge, dragging her behind, excited to show her how everything worked. All the new bells and whistles his other ships lacked. He never kept secrets from her. Anything she ever asked him, any question or interest, he was always ready with an answer or instruction. How would knowing about any of that help them understand why he’d lied to her?

  She could feel the hurricane of emotions brewing inside her, confusion controlling its path of destruction. She stared at the pictures, dozens of them, of her with this man Daniel. None of them made sense. Surely if he was her father she would remember something about him. The weathered burly man standing on the other side of the large hotel room, now engaged in what looked like a silent argument with Grant, looked nothing like the pictures of the man Issa had told her was her father; the father who had died with her mother in India in a car crash that had apparently never happened.

  The images of her life, of what she thought she knew to be true, were now blurred with lies and irrevocably twisted with the images of a stranger and a man she loved like a father she never knew she had. It was beyond confusing. Everything spun together and played on a never ending loop in her mind until nothing but white noise filled her senses. Another wave of nausea crashed against her soul, making her wish she could run away from it all and never look back. Out of sheer desperation she tried again to stand, but it was useless. Her ankle was braced but still had no chance of holding her weight. She was back to being weak and useless again, completely dependent on Grant.

  Grant. She closed her tired eyes. Again, she was assaulted with his haunted expression as they stood on that plane and he told her she was someone she wasn’t. The things he’d said about the scars on her back came rushing back, bringing with it a violent reality that challenged everything both familiar and new in her life. If any of it were true, how could Issa ever love her? How could Grant still want her? Why would he? He looked at her differently now, a sad sort of sympathy in his eyes every time they hesitantly met hers. Dammit! She didn’t need his goddamn pity! None of it happened! None of it!

  Digging the heels of her palms into her eyes, she tried to force some sort of order into the chaos waging war on her mind. She wanted to scream at them all that it wasn’t true! They were all liars. She couldn’t accept that Issa would make her believe such a lie. Why? What purpose did it serve? He wasn’t the monster they were trying to make him out to be. She would know, dammit, if he was! He never, not once, touched her or asked her to do anything that was…was...

  Her shaking hand flew to her stomach as burning bile churned in another nauseating wave. Even thinking about Issa as a man capable of such horrid things was impossible. He was my father.
The only father she could remember having. He was a good man. He loved her when she had no one left to love. How could she ever doubt him? Blinking back the burning sting of threatening tears, her blurry gaze caught again on the pile of photos lying on the coffee table, mocking her memories. The evidence in front of her was irrefutable. How can I not doubt him?

  Overcome with shock, she had barely cried when she found Issa slumped over the center console of his car at his Mumbai mansion, the driver’s door glass shattered around his lifeless bloody body from the single bullet that had pierced his skull. Even days later, after flying his body home to Mozambique Island, her tears were stubbornly absent at his funeral. She’d been too scared out of her mind for the first year to really mourn him, too set on revenge for the last six months to allow herself to feel the pain of his loss. The closest she’d come was the first night she’d told Grant about him.

  Time and place ceased to exist as the pain clawed at her chest, no longer willing to be denied. The once impenetrable wall she’d built around her heart weakened and crumbled, falling in jagged pieces to the ground at her feet, and her insides began to quake with uncontrollable sobs. Issa! In an instant her weary mind took her back to that fateful day, kneeling in the broken glass as she cradled Issa’s cold, dead body to her chest. No! Oh God. Issa, no! No! You can’t die! You can’t! Forbidden tears fell unchecked from her eyes in wistful streams of overpowering sorrow. Calming numbness surrendered to a searing burn, like a thousand tiny flames dancing beneath her flesh as her mouth opened on a silent cry, her lungs unable to release the scream of injustice she so desperately wanted the world to hear. You can’t leave me, not like this! Issa, please! Please don’t leave me! The room began to spin around her, her body clinging helplessly to the strong arms that carried her into the darkness.