“Enver?”
“Yes, il mia amore?”
Padme pulled his head down to kiss him. “I love you. There isn’t a way to tell you how much, there are no words. You are my life.”
“And you are mine, cara mia…the only thing in this world I care about. The only one I will ever want…”
As the rain lashed down outside, they forgot about it, forgot about eating or sleeping, or the rest of the world and made love long into the night until exhausted and sated, they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Dale opened the door but then shut it as quickly. He turned to Severin. “I’ll ask one last time. Are you sure?”
Severin was pale, her usually radiant dark skin almost gray. “I’m sure.”
Dale led her into the mortuary and checked the number on the door. He pulled out number three, balking again at the cover on the body – or what was left of it. He looked up at Severin who nodded and took a deep breath in. Dale lifted the cover and heard Severin’s gasp of distress. The headless torso was badly mangled, but now the medical examiner had cleaned it, the stab wounds in the abdomen were obvious, crisscrossing across the center of the belly, slicing through the navel. Dale had seen the same pattern of wounds on Chaley Saunders’s body. Vicious, brutal and merciless, inflicted to cause maximum pain. The body’s limbs were crush but intact, and slowly Severin picked up the right hand and cradled it in hers. For a few minutes, she studied it then closed her eyes, her lips moving in a silent prayer.
“The doctor did say he thought she was already dead when she was thrown in front of the train. They interviewed the driver who said he just saw a flash of something being pushed out. He had no time to stop, he’s pretty destroyed, poor guy. Doc said her abdominal artery was severed in the stabbing; she would have bled out in minutes.” Dale swallowed the bile in his throat. “Sev?”
“This isn’t my daughter,” she said quietly. “It isn’t Padme.”
“Sev…”
She opened her eyes and smiled sadly at him. “When she was shot by Brian Dedalus, I spent weeks at her hospital bedside holding her right hand. Weeks, Dale. I got to know that hand very well. She had a mole on the joint between her finger and thumb. Next to it, so small you would never know if you hadn’t seen her hand up close, was a small strawberry birthmark. This poor young woman doesn’t have the mole or the birthmark. It isn’t Padme, and now I’m wondering why Henry Jones is so convinced it is.”
Dale stared at her. “You’re sure?”
“Never more so.”
Dale chewed over this information in his mind. It had been Henry who had told him the DNA was Padme’s, Henry who had spoken to the medical examiner without him. Henry who had questioned then released Ingles without charge. All of which was fine, and above board…except this wasn’t Padme. Dale believed Severin with all his heart. Another thing suddenly occurred to him. “The bullet wounds.” He gestured to the torso. “Where Padme was shot, there’s flesh taken from those sites externally, but then there’s no mention of internal scar tissue from the bullet path. Jesus…Jesus.” He felt his body begin to quiver. “None of this makes sense, Sev. Why would Henry be so eager to pronounce this body as Pad’s?”
Severin was studying him. “Maybe he helped her leave the country. Hell, that’s what I would have done…he’s been her mentor, her friend since she was a teenager. If anyone could get her safely out of the country, it’s him. Do we say we know?”
Dale shook his head. “If he arranged this body to look like Pad’s, it may be to throw Ingles off her scent, so I think our best plan is to keep the status quo. Devastated mother and friend. Sev…we need to have that funeral, even if the casket is empty. Jesus, yes, that’s why Henry said a close casket, it all makes sense now. Shit, why didn’t I think of it?”
Severin smiled, the light back in her eyes. “She’s alive, Dale. She’s alive and safe and happy with Enver, I know it with every bone in my body.”
Dale nodded, a hopeful smile on his handsome face. “You’re right, Sev. Padme’s alive.”
Dale didn’t feel as happy on the day of the funeral. Severin played her part almost too well, utterly distraught, but it was Padme’s friend, the ones who didn’t know she was alive, that he felt for. Harpa Malhotra was inconsolable, sobbing openly, her beautiful elder sister Cosima trying to comfort her through her own sadness. Mikah Ray looked shattered; Arlo Forrester’s face was stone-liked, gray with distress. Beth, Padme’s employer at the bookstore, held Severin’s hand, looking older than her age, grief making her seem bent and elderly. Dale read a small poem, his voice breaking before Henry took the podium.
“Ten years,” he began, coughing to hide the break in his voice. “Ten years ago, I met a young eighteen-year-old woman. She almost ran into my car on her bicycle and she, well, she cussed me out. The sight of this beautiful young Indian American girl angry with me…that day, it just made me laugh especially the salty language coming out of her mouth. I started to laugh – I can’t even tell you why. She just stared at me for a long moment then burst out laughing too. We were fast friends ever since that moment. I saw in Padme something I rarely see – joie de vivre, a joy of life. Given her upbringing, the abandonment by her birth parents, she could so easily have gone to the dark side, but she never did. When she found her true mother, Severin, something was set off inside her – a spark. A spark, a will to better herself, to become what her intelligence her street smarts, her warmth promised. She exceeded all of that promise. She found great happiness with a remarkable man, and it is a tragedy that they were torn apart and that they were not reunited before this terrible ending.”
Dale closed his eyes, trying not to focus on the pain in his chest. It’s not real, it’s not real. She’s alive, somewhere. He wanted, desperately to believe it entirely, but until he could confirm that she was still alive and not being held against her will, he had to hold back his excitement. If Ingles still had her, Dale was sure that he was inflicting great torture on her – and that he had no intention of letting her go alive.
Which meant only one thing. Dale had to go and find out for himself. He had to find Ingles.
Harpa Malhotra didn’t have any tears left. She moved around the empty kitchen of her restaurant, closed ‘due to bereavement’ and wondered if she would ever feel normal again. Padme was dead. Harpa and Padme had been as close as sisters and now…Cosima knocked at the open door.
“Hey, sis.”
She wrapped her arms around Harpa. Harpa leaned into her older sister, breathing in her clean, comforting scent. “I can’t believe she’s gone, Cos.”
“I know, Harp. It’s unreal.”
Harpa wiped her eyes. “God, I feel like I did when you got shot. Hopeless. Directionless.”
Cosima nodded, her lovely face creased with concern. “I wish I could say it gets better.” She glanced at her watch. “Sweetie, I’m so sorry, but I have to get back for the kids. Want to come with me?”
Harpa smiled but shook her head. “Mikah’s coming to get me in a half-hour. Kiss the kids for me.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you too, sis.”
It was eerily quiet after Cosima left and Harpa wondered if she shouldn’t just call Mikah to come get her early. She decided to take the trash out of the back door and wedged it open with a block of wood. She dumped the bag in the dumpster and turned to go back inside.
Two men, huge, were behind her and she started in alarm. One of them grabbed her, the other twisted a rope around her neck.
“No,” she croaked as the rope tightened and he began to choke her. “Please, god no…”
“Shut the fuck up, bitch. This ain’t personal…it’s to send a message to your whore friend.”
Harpa was unable to struggle against the sheer bulk of her captors began to pass out. As she fainted, she heard a shout, a familiar voice. “Mikah,” she gasped, then everything went dark.
When she awoke, she was being cradled in Mikah’s arms in the back of Arlo’s SUV.
She blinked and drew in a deep breath. “Mikah?”
His face was drawn, pale, angry. “It’s okay, sweetheart, we’re taking you to the emergency room.”
“No,” she struggled and sat up, touching her bruised throat. “I’m okay. What happened to those animals?”
“We’re going to the E.R. even it’s just to check you out,” Arlo said from the front seat. Cosima was next to him, and she turned to take her sister’s hand. Harpa saw her face was tear-stained.
“Mikah and Arlo and some guys from the street managed to grab them. We called the police, and the guys said they’d take care of it. Oh, sweetie, if only I hadn’t left you.”
Harpa felt Mikah stroke her hair. “It’s okay, really. I’m okay, just a bit sore. They said they were doing it to send a message to my ‘whore friend’. What the hell? I’m assuming they mean Pad, that they worked for Ingles but he killed her. Why is he sending goons after me to send a message?”
Mikah and Cosima shook their head, but Harpa caught Arlo’s eye in the rearview mirror. He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Harpa struggled to hide her gasp. Arlo knew something. Was Padme alive?
Harpa changed the subject. “I really don’t need the E.R. I actually don’t think they meant to kill me, just hurt me enough to send a warning.”
“E.R.” Mikah said firmly, and she acquiesced. The more she complied, the more chance she would get to ask Arlo what the hell was going on.
Despite her happiness, Enver knew Padme still felt pain. Pain at missing Severin and her friends, pain at leaving Dale behind. Enver would catch her staring out at the sea, pensive and sad. He wished he could do something to ease it for her. She had asked him about the lack of phones and laptops in their home and Enver had been honest.
“Firstly, because any internet supply can be hacked and we could be traced. Secondly…it’s to stop you brooding. I know you want to know how your family is, and it’s understandable, but it will drive you crazy. I know this for a fact because I was going crazy all the time we were separated. It was Lisa who eventually took my stuff away. She left me with the camera feed for a couple of hours each week and I would watch you. I know, that sounds so creepy but that’s why I only had the one camera in your living room. No, it still sounds creepy,” he said with a laugh and she had to join in.
“It’s okay – I was just glad it was you and not Ingles. Once I knew it was there, it was a comfort. Did you see me telling you I loved you?”
Enver nodded, smiling. “A couple of times.”
Padme thought back and laughed. “I had this plan – because we didn’t know if Ingles had bugged the place after Dale had checked – that I would ‘read’ certain books with titles that spelled out a message. I bought bagful’s, but I never got around to doing it.”
“Inventive.” Enver was grinning at her, and she threw a pillow at him.
“What about you? That whole money and lotto ticket thing? I have to say, it took me a while.”
“Not really, after you got the lotto ticket, you pretty much figured it out.”
“Why the delay between the two? I mean you transferred the money in almost the day after the shooting and then waited for six months?”
Enver rubbed his hands on his head. “The money was genuinely to help you. In fact, I almost just put a set amount money into your bank account until the idea came to me. The only person I told was Lisa and she advised me to wait to give you the other co-ordinate because you were being watched. Also, Pad, you needed to heal.” He was looking sick again, thinking about her shooting.
Padme pulled him down onto the couch with her and wrapped her arms and legs around him. “You’re trapped until you smile,” she nibbled at his ear with her teeth, and nipped his bottom lip. Enver smiled but she didn’t release him and he slid his hand down to her groin. “Sexy times.” She grinned at him then gave a sigh of pleasure as his fingers made contact with her clit.
“I’ll never get tired of touching you, beautiful girl,” he said, and kissed her, his tongue caressing hers. She smiled up at him, her eyes alive with desire and mischief.
“Good. Now put that huge cock in me, soldier…”
Dale backed into the door of his apartment, carrying the pizza box and six-pack of beer. He needed an evening of not obsessing over Padme, a night to himself. Damn, he hadn’t even been on a real date in years. He knew some of his friends thought it was because he was in love with Padme, but the truth was, no, he wasn’t. He loved her, obviously, as his partner, his best friend, but he had never thought of her in that way.
He turned on his t.v. to watch the game, and ate his body weight in carbs. Just after eleven p.m., he was napping when he heard the door being kicked in. He reached for his weapon but was too late. The man with the tire iron made contact with Dale’s head just as his fingers touched the grip.
Padme felt a lurch in her stomach and slid from the bed. It was just before dawn and Enver was asleep beside her. The house was silent as she padded barefoot to the bathroom.
She felt another lurch as she reached it, and dashed for the toilet. She threw up, feeling a sweat break out on her skin. God, please don’t let me be sick. She dry-heaved a couple of times, but it soon passed. She brushed her teeth and splashed water on her face, then sat on the edge of the bath. Maybe she was due for her period - she always felt feverish the few days before. She tried to work it out, when she had last had her cycle and then she gasped. No. No way.
It was three weeks late. She had been here on the island for a month and she and Enver hardly ever used condoms because she was on the pill.
Except, dumbass, you’d only just started taking it again the day you found out Enver was alive and that you’d be reunited. Oh fuck. She knew in her bones that it was true.
She was pregnant.
Cold water was thrown on him, and Dale woke with a start, his head screaming with pain. He could taste blood. He opened his eyes. He was in the backroom of some sleazy club, or so he thought from what he could make out. Frederick Ingles sat in a chair, watching him.
“Good evening Agent Fortuna. I only have one question for you, and depending on how you answer it will depend on how merciful I am when it comes time to kill you.”
“Fuck you, Ingles.”
Frederick’s smile was chilly. “Where is Padme Kaur, Agent Fortuna?”
Dale spat out a mouthful of blood. “In the ground where you put her asshole.”
“I don’t think so. I’ll ask again. Where is Padme?”
“My answer is the same.”
Frederick cleared his throat, and one of his goons landed a kick to the side of Dale’s head. Dale groaned in agony but righted himself. “You murdered her, Ingles and you know it. You stuck a knife in her gut then threw her body in front of the seven a.m. to Portland.”
“Hmm.” Frederick leaned forward in his chair. “The only problem is that I know for sure the women you peeled up from the tracks wasn’t Padme Kaur. She looked like her, certainly, she was beautiful and sweet. But it wasn’t Padme. I know because I killed your stand-in. The dead girl was my practice run for how I’m going to kill Padme when I find her. Slowly. Painfully. And you’re going to help me make that happen.”
“Fuck you, I’m not telling you anything. You’ll just have to kill me.”
Frederick stared at him for what seemed an age and then shrugged. “Okay.”
And Dale waited for the killer blow.
The garbage diver moved slowly through the piles of trash, trying to pick out anything he could use or sell or eat. When he saw the young man sprawled unconscious, face-down in the stinking pile, he was certain, for sure, that he must be dead. The guy was covered in blood, for one. The garbage man looked around and poked the dead guy. The dead guy moaned, and the garbage man jumped back, then sighed.
Yesterday, a sympathetic woman had given him some change, and he’d had a hot dog and burger from a street vendor. Now he had just a few cents left. He was going to have to use them to call an ambulance,
wasn’t he?
Padme didn’t know how to tell Enver she was having his baby. It was such a bad time to bring a child into the world – as much as they kidded themselves, they both had targets on their back and Padme could not even think of her and Enver’s child being exposed to that kind of danger. She could only be pregnant a month, at most – maybe the best thing would be to get it taken care of before it grew into a human, but they were on an island in the middle of nowhere. She didn’t even know if abortion was legal in The Maldives, or where she could find out.
“Lisa is coming to see us,” Enver said, as they sat at breakfast. Padme was surprised.
“How do you know?”
“We have our methods of communication,” he said cagily, and Padme rolled her eyes and muttered something about ‘James Bond.’ Enver grinned.
“You know it. Anyway, she’s doing the decoy travel thing, but she’ll be here by the end of the week.”
Padme smiled. “It will be good to see her, I have to admit. I assume I’m not allowed to ask her about back home?”
Enver hesitated but then relented. “You can ask – doesn’t mean she’ll tell you.”
When Lisa arrived, she was grim-faced, but hugged Padme. “Your mom is fine, Pad, obviously distressed and grieving, but she’s safe. Arlo has organized some hardcore protection for everyone.”
Enver saw Padme’s shoulder slump with relief. “Thank god. Thank you, Lisa.”
“You’re welcome, Lemon.” The two women smiled at each other. “Hey, you mind if I steal Enver for a few? Business stuff.”
“Of course. Look, you must be hungry, I’ll make us some supper.” Padme threw Enver a smile then disappeared.
His Sweet Torment: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance Page 10
