by Olivia Gates
At his barrage the man’s chagrin almost crackled down the line, reminding him again that Owen Murdock was a relic of a bygone era.
Richard had always thought he’d be more at home in something like King Arthur’s round table. He did treat Richard with the fervor of a knight in the service of his liege.
He’d been the first boy Richard had been given to train when he’d first joined The Organization as a handler...six years old to his own sixteen, making Murdock Rafael’s age. He’d had him for six more years before Murdock had been taken from him and Rafael given to him instead.
Murdock had refused to accept anyone else’s leadership, until Richard had been summoned to straighten him out. Richard had only told him to play along, that one day he’d get him out. Murdock had unquestioningly obeyed him. And believed him.
Richard had fulfilled his pledge, taking him away with him when he’d left, manufacturing a new identity for him, too. But instead of striking out on his own, Murdock had insisted on remaining in his service, claiming his training hadn’t been complete. He’d actually been on par with the rest of the Black Castle chaps from day one, could have become a mogul in his own right, too. But Murdock had only wished to repay what he considered his debt to Richard before he could move on. Knowing how vital that had been to him, Richard had let him.
Now, ten years later, Murdock showed no signs of moving on. He’d have to shove him off the ledge soon, no matter if it would be like losing his right arm for real.
Murdock’s current silence made Richard regret his outburst more. His number two prided himself on always anticipating his needs and surpassing his expectations. The last thing he wanted was to abuse such loyalty.
Before he made a retraction, Murdock talked, his tone betraying no resentment or mortification.
“Very well. At first, that woman appeared to be just another colleague of Dr. Anderson’s. I ran a check on her, as I always do, and found nothing of note. But a development made me dig deeper. I discovered she’d changed her name legally five years ago, just before she made her first entry into the United States after a six-year hiatus. Her name was...”
“Isabella Burton.”
Murdock digested the fact that Richard already knew her. He’d told neither him nor Rafael about the intensely personal mission he’d undertaken, or about her.
Murdock continued, “She’s now Dr. Isabella Sandoval.”
Sandoval. That wasn’t either of her maiden names. Coming from Colombia, she’d had two. She must have been trying to become someone else when she’d adopted the new surname, after what had happened to her husband. That would also explain the changes in her appearance. And she was a doctor now.
Murdock went on, “But that wasn’t what made me wary—what made me single out her meeting with Dr. Anderson to present to you. It’s because I found a gaping thirteen-year hole in her history. From the age of twelve to the age of twenty-five, I couldn’t find a shred of information on her.”
Of course. She’d wiped clean the time she’d been Burton’s wife, and for some reason only known to her, years before that. No doubt to hide more incriminating evidence that would prevent her from being accepted by any respectful society.
“The information trail starts when she was twenty-six, when she started a four-year surgical residency in Colombia, in affiliation with a pediatric surgery program in California. It was a special ‘out of the match’ residency arrangement with the chief of surgery of a major teaching hospital. She obtained her US credentials and board certification last year. Then a week ago, she arrived in the United States and signed a one-year lease on a six-bedroom house in the Forest Hills Gardens section of Queens. She is here at the behest of doctors Rose and Jeffrey Anderson to start working in their private practice as a full partner, major shareholder and board member.”
After that, Richard didn’t know when he ended the call.
He only knew he was replaying that video over and over, Murdock’s words a revolving loop in his mind.
Isabella. She was going to be his sister’s partner.
Swearing under his breath, he almost cracked the remote in two as he pressed the off button.
Like hell she was.
* * *
Four hours later Richard felt as if the driver’s seat of his Rolls Royce Phantom was sprouting red-hot needles.
It had been more than two hours since he’d parked across the street from his sister’s house. He’d driven here immediately when Murdock had called back saying he’d neglected to tell him Isabella was having dinner there tonight. She had yet to make an exit.
What was taking the bloody woman that long? What kind of dinner lasted more than four hours?
This alone told him things were worse than he’d first thought. Isabella seemed to be a close friend of his sister’s, not just a prospective partner. And though Murdock hadn’t been able to pinpoint the events leading to this bizarre status quo, Richard was certain this wasn’t an innocent friendship. Not on Isabella’s side. She always had an angle. And obtained her objectives through deception and manipulation. Her medical qualifications themselves had probably been obtained through some meticulously constructed fraud.
Yet that was all conjecture. He had nothing solid to explain how Rose and her husband had developed such a deep connection with her that they’d invite her to be their equal partner in their life’s crowning achievement. She’d made herself so invisible, her past so untraceable she’d fallen off Murdock’s radar until now, when she was about to be fully lodged into their lives.
He’d torn over here once Murdock had informed him they’d finished dinner and coffee, expecting to intercept her soon afterward as she left. That had been—he flicked a glance at his watch—two and a half bloody hours ago.
Every minute of those he’d struggled with the urge to storm inside and drag her out.
He hadn’t stayed out of his sister’s life only to let that siren infect it with the ugliness of her past, the malice of her intentions and the exploitation in her blood.
Suddenly the front door of Rose’s two-level, stucco house opened and two figures walked out. Isabella first, then Rose. His every muscle tensing, he strained to decipher the merriness that carried on the summer night air through his open window. Then they kissed and hugged and Isabella descended the stairs. At the bottom she turned to wave to Rose, urging her to go in, before she turned and crossed the street, heading to her car.
The moment Rose closed her door he got down from his car.
In the dim streetlights, Isabella’s figure seemed to glow in a light-colored summer coat unbuttoned over a lighter dress beneath, its supple material undulating with her brisk walk. Her hair was a swathe of dark silk swinging over her face, her eyes downcast as she rummaged through her purse.
Then feet before he intercepted her, he stopped.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Isabella Burton.”
Her momentum came to a startled halt, her alarm a sharp gasp that echoed in the night’s still, humid silence. Then her face jerked up and her eyes slammed into his.
A bolt struck him through the heart.
His sudden appearance seemed to have hit her even harder. If a ghost had stopped her to ask her the time, she wouldn’t have looked more shocked...or horrified.
“What...where the hell did you...?”
She stopped. As if she found no words. Or breath with which to say them. He was almost as shocked as she was...at his reaction. He’d thought he’d feel nothing at the sight of her. He didn’t know what he did feel now. But it was...enormous.
And it wasn’t an overwhelming sense of familiarity. It was her impact as she was now.
She’d changed. Almost beyond recognition. It made it that much stranger he’d recognized her in that video so instantaneously. For this woman had very little in common with the younger one he’d known in total, tempestuous intimacy.
Her face had lost all the plumpness of youth, had been chiseled into a masterpiece of refinement and uncompromi
sing character. If she’d been irresistible before, even with shock still seizing her every feature, the influence she’d exuded had matured into something far more formidable.
But her eyes had changed the most. Those eyes that had haunted him, eyes he’d once thought had opened up into a magical realm, that of her being. They looked the same, glowing that unique emerald-topaz chameleon color. But apart from the familiar shape and hue, and beneath the shock, they were bottomless. Whatever lay inside her now was dark and fathomless. And far more hard-hitting for it.
Her lids swept down, severing the two-way hypnosis.
Gritting his teeth at losing the contact, his own gaze lowered to sweep her body. Even through the loose clothes, it still had his every sense revving. Just being near her had always made him ache.
Then a puff of breeze had her scent inundating him and his body flooded with molten steel. That was the one thing about her that hadn’t changed. This distillation of her essence and femininity that had constantly hovered at the edge of his memory, tormenting him with craving the real thing.
And here it was at last. What he’d once thought an aphrodisiac nature had tailored to his senses. That belief was renewed in full force.
Hard all over, he returned his gaze to hers, eager to read her own response. She poured every bit of height and poise into her statuesque figure, made him feel she was looking him in at eye level when even in three-inch heels, she stood seven inches below his six-foot-six frame.
“Richard.” She gave a formal nod as if greeting a virtual stranger. Then she just circumvented him and continued walking to her car.
He let her pass him, one eyebrow rising.
So. His opening strike hadn’t been as effective as he’d planned. She’d gotten over her shock at seeing him faster than he had and had decided to dismiss him.
Surely she considered anyone who knew her real identity a threat to her carefully constructed new persona. But if there were levels of danger to blasts from the past, she must think his potential damage equivalent to a ballistic missile. She couldn’t end this “chance” meeting fast enough.
Which proved she hadn’t tied him to Rose, wasn’t here because of anything concerning him. But that changed nothing.
Whatever she was here for, she wasn’t getting it.
He stared ahead, listening to the steady staccato of her receding heels, a grim smile twisting his lips.
In the past he’d been the one who’d walked away. But it had been her who’d made the decision. It now entertained him to let her think the choice remained hers. He’d let her strike his presence up to coincidence, think it would cause no repercussions for her. Then he’d disabuse her of the notion.
Last time, he hadn’t been able to override her will. This time, he’d make her do what he wanted. And right now, all he wanted was to taste her once more. He’d postpone his real purpose until he satisfied the hunger that had roared to life inside him again at the sight of her.
He’d much prefer it if she struggled, though.
The moment he heard her opening her car, he turned and sauntered toward her.
She lurched as he passed behind her and murmured, “I’ll drive ahead. Follow me.”
He felt her gaze boring into his back as he reached his car two spaces ahead. Opening his door, he turned around smoothly, just in time to witness her reaction.
“What the hell...?” She stopped, as if it hurt to talk.
He sighed. “My patience has already been expended for the night. Follow me. Now.”
Her eyes blazed at him as she found her voice again. Not the velvety caress that had echoed in his head for eight endless years but a sharp blade. “I’ll do no such thing.”
“My demand was actually a courtesy. I was trying to give you a chance to preserve your dignity.”
Her mouth dropped open. His own lips tingled.
Then his tongue stung when hers lashed him. “Gee, thanks. I can preserve it very well on my own. I’ll drive away now, and if you follow me, I’ll call the police.”
Hostility was the last thing he’d predicted her reaction would be, considering the last time he’d seen her she’d wept as he’d walked away as if her heart were being dragged out of her body. But it only made his blood hurtle with vicious exhilaration. She was giving him the struggle he’d hoped for, the opportunity to force her to succumb to him this time. And he would make her satisfy his every whim.
He gave her the patented smile that made monsters quiver. “If you drive away, I won’t follow you. I’ll knock on your friends’ door and tell them whom they’re really getting into business with. I don’t think the Andersons would relish knowing you were—and maybe still are—the wife of a drug lord, slave trader and international terrorist.”
Two
Isabella stared up at the juggernaut that blocked out the world, every synapse in her brain short-circuiting.
When he’d materialized in front of her, like a huge chunk of night taking the form of her most hated entity, her heart had almost ruptured.
But she’d survived so many horrors, had always had so much to protect, her survival mechanisms were perpetually on red alert. After the initial brutal blow, they’d kicked in as she’d made an instinctive escape. That didn’t mean she hadn’t felt about to crumple to the ground with every breath.
Richard. Here. Out of the depths of the dark, sordid past. The man who’d seduced and used...and almost destroyed her.
That he hadn’t succeeded hadn’t been because he hadn’t given it his best shot. Ever since, she’d been trying to mend the rifts he’d created in the very foundations of her being. She’d only succeeded in painting over the deepest ones. Though she now seemed whole and strong, those cracks had been worsening over time, and she was sure they’d fissured right to her soul.
But she’d just reached what would truly be a new start. Then he’d appeared out of thin air.
It had flabbergasted her even more because she’d just been thinking of him. It had been as if she’d conjured him.
Yet when had she ever stopped thinking of him? Her memory of him had been like a pervasive background noise that could never be silenced. A clamor that rose to a crescendo periodically before it settled back to a constant, maddening drone.
But there was one explanation for his reappearance. That it was a fluke. An appalling one, but one nonetheless. What else could it have been after eight years?
Not that time elapsed was even an issue. It could have been eight days and she would have thought the same thing. She’d long realized he’d left her believing he’d never see her again.
After all, he must have known what he’d done would most probably get her killed.
Believing their meeting to be a coincidence, she’d run off, thinking the man who’d once exploited her then left her to a terrible fate would shrug and continue on his way.
But just as she’d thought she’d escaped, that he’d fade into the night like some dreadful apparition, he’d followed her. Before she could deal with the dismay of thinking this ordeal would be prolonged, he’d made his preposterous demand.
Not that it had felt like one. It had felt like an ultimatum. Her instinct had been correct.
She hadn’t forgiven him, nor would she ever forgive him, but she’d long rationalized his actions. From what she’d discovered—long after the fact—he obtained his objectives over anyone’s dead body, figuratively or literally. She, and everything he’d done to her, had been part of a mission. She only had theories what that had been or why he’d undertaken it, according to the end result.
But what he was doing now, threatening with such patent enjoyment what he must know would destroy everything she’d struggled to build over the past eight years, was for his own entertainment. That man she’d once loved, with everything in her scarred psyche and starving soul, had progressed from a cold-bloodedly pragmatic bastard into a full-fledged monster.
“Don’t look so horrified.”
His bottomless baritone swamped
her again, another thing about him that had become more hard-hitting. The years had turned the thirty-four-year-old demigod of sensuality she’d known into an outright god, if one of malice. He still exuded sex and exerted a compulsion—both now magnified by increased power and maturity. But it was this new malevolence that now seemed to define him. And it made him more overwhelming than ever.
But that must have been his true nature all along. It was she who’d been blinded and under his control. She hadn’t even suspected what he’d been capable of long after he’d gotten everything he’d wanted from her, then tossed her to the wolf.
“I’m not interested in exposing you.” His voice had her every hair standing on end. “As long as you comply, your secret can remain intact.”
Summoning the opaqueness she’d developed as her greatest weapon against bullies such as him, she cocked her head.
“What makes you think I haven’t told them everything?”
“I don’t think. I know. You resorted to extreme measures to construct this St. Sandoval image. You’d go as far to preserve it. You’ll certainly give in to anything I demand so no one, starting with the Andersons, ever finds out what you really are.”
“What I am? You make it sound as if I’m some monster.”
“You’re married to one. It makes you the same species.”
“I’m not married to Caleb Burton. I haven’t been for eight years.”
Something...scary slithered in the depths of his cold steel eyes. But when he spoke, he sounded as offhand as before.
“So it’s in the past tense. A past full of crimes.”
“I never had a criminal record.”
“Your crimes remain the same even if you’re not caught.”
“What about your crimes? Let’s talk about those.”
“Let’s not. It would take months to talk about those, as they’re countless. But they’re also untraceable. But yours could be easily proved. You knew exactly how your husband made his mushrooming fortune and you made no effort to expose him, making you an accessory to his every crime. Not to mention that you helped yourself to millions of his blood money. Those two charges could still get you ten to fifteen years in a snug little cell in a maximum-security prison.”
