“What cartel?”
“Los Zetas. Which supposedly has ties to—”
“Hezbollah,” Dom supplied, his jaw working. “And through them to Iran.”
Hissing, he spit out something in Hungarian that whipped the duchess’s head around. She said nothing, however, as he continued in a low growl.
“The Iron Triangle of Terror. And Zia got caught in the middle of this?”
“One of Danville’s associates—a woman by the name of Elizabeth Hobbs—evidently became suspicious and contacted the authorities. Danville’s suppliers got wind of it somehow and...”
A muscle worked in the side of Mike’s jaw. He had to force himself to continue.
“According to Danville, his pals took care of Hobbs. At that point he panicked. He knew the authorities had to be on to him, tapping his phones, tracking his finances. He planned to skip the country but needed cash. And, apparently, another fix.”
The grim account didn’t get any easier with telling. An iron band seemed to tighten around Mike’s chest as he finished in short, terse bursts.
“Danville contacted Zia. Arranged to meet her around three this afternoon. He pulled a gun on her, then forced her to drive to an underground garage. He intended to parlay her engagement ring into cash and coke. She used it instead to put out the bastard’s eye.”
The silence this time ranged from stunned to incredulous to furious. Gina broke it by pounding a clenched fist on her thigh. “I wish she’d jammed it down his throat!”
“Zia’s face,” the duchess put in. “The blood on her clothes. She was injured?”
“Danville got off a couple of shots at close range. One hit a concrete pillar mere inches from Zia’s face, and her ears are still ringing from the percussive impact. The doc at the ER diagnosed the ringing as tinnitus but wants her to schedule an appointment with an audiologist for a more thorough check.”
The family looked from one to another, still stunned, still processing the incredible information.
“Why didn’t you call me?” Dom wanted to know. “Or Jack?”
“There wasn’t time.”
“The hell there wasn’t. You just told us my sister went missing in midafternoon. You had hours to get hold of us. Unless...” Dom’s eyes narrowed. “What aren’t you telling us, Brennan?”
The razor-edged question brought Jack Harris out of his chair. Frowning, he stood shoulder to shoulder with his wife’s cousin. “Cut the bull, Brennan. What do you know that we don’t?”
Tension raced like a tsunami through the room. The force of it stiffened the duchess in her high-backed chair and caused her to rap out an imperious command.
“Sit down!”
She enforced the order with a vigorous thump of her cane. The solid whack pivoted the men around. Three bristling males who’d stormed or stolen their way into her heart. Jack so tall and tawny haired and sophisticated. Dominic, her great-nephew, the grand duke, so dark and dangerous looking. And Michael, with his wide shoulders braced for battle and his green eyes refusing to yield so much as an inch.
Charlotte couldn’t have asked for a more impressive set of genes to infuse the St. Sebastian family line. She wouldn’t admit that to them, of course, any more than she would permit them to behave with such a lamentable lack of manners in her presence.
“I must ask you not to ruffle your feathers and scratch the dirt like fighting cocks in my sitting room. Sit down. Now, if you please.”
They obeyed. Slowly. Reluctantly. Charlotte tipped her chin and waited until they were seated to pin Mike with a cool stare.
“I, too, would like an explanation of why it took so long for Zia’s family to be apprised of the danger she faced from this...this Danville person. Why didn’t she tell us?”
“She didn’t know the full extent of it until he abducted her this afternoon.”
“But you knew?” The duchess’s snowy brows arched. “You must have, to have enlisted the FBI’s aid so quickly.”
“An agent contacted GSI yesterday,” Mike admitted, his jaw working. “I met with them this morning.”
“A fenébe is!” Dominic shoved to his feet again, his eyes blazing. “You knew about Danville, and yet you let Zia walk into his trap?”
“I didn’t let—”
“What was she?” His fists balled. “Bait? A lure to bring the bastard crawling out of the woodwork?”
“No.”
Mike understood the man’s fury. The same anger boiled in his gut. He should’ve told Zia about the call from the FBI last night. Failing that, he should’ve insisted she accompany him to Havers’s office this morning. Instead, he’d kept his damned mouth shut and she’d ended up fighting for her life. He’d never forgive or forget that monumental error in judgment.
Neither would Zia’s brother. St. Sebastian moved on Mike, ignoring the duchess’s gasp and his wife’s quick word of warning.
“The FBI needed her, didn’t they? To help nail their terrorist. You needed her, to recover your quarter million.”
The charge was absurd. St. Sebastian knew that as well as everyone else in the room. Yet Mike didn’t argue. Just waited for the punch he would have thrown if it had been one of his sisters in that dim, cavernous garage.
St. Sebastian ached to deliver it. Mike saw the primal urge in the man’s bunched shoulders, read it in the flared nostrils. Then Dominic’s dark eyes shifted to the right.
Mike followed the look and saw Zia standing in the arched entrance to the sitting room. She’d scrubbed her hands, combed back her hair and changed into sweats. Confusion and disbelief chased across her face.
“Did I hear right? The FBI contacted you yesterday? And you didn’t tell me?”
Thirteen
Mike had only himself to blame for Zia’s close brush with death. He couldn’t escape that burden and didn’t try. It sat like a stone on his chest as he related the sequence of events that had led him to the FBI.
First, Rafe’s discovery of the overpayment of indirects. Then their suspicion funds were being diverted to a blind account. Mike’s abrupt decision to fly to New York to discuss the discrepancy with Zia. Rafe’s call relating the grim news that his probe had resulted in a call from the FBI. The request for Mike to meet with the agent this morning in New York.
His audience listened in stony silence. Zia, the duchess, Dom and his wife, Gina and her husband. The St. Sebastians had closed ranks, protecting their own, shutting him out. Mike’s family would have done the same.
“I could have told you about it last night,” he said to Zia. “I started to. Then...”
“Then?”
The single word was edged with ice.
“Then I played the odds,” Mike admitted with brutal honesty as she entered the room. “I figured they had to know your background. I figured they’d also know yours,” he said, meeting Dominic’s stare head-on. “Europe’s newest royal. Cultural Attaché to the UN. Former undercover agent. You think the Bureau didn’t consider the possibility Interpol might come crashing down on them?”
His gaze shifted, pinned Jack Harris.
“Then there’s you, Ambassador. Doesn’t take a genius to grasp the political fallout if word leaked that the FBI was asking questions about your wife’s cousin. And you, Duchess. You’ve become a celebrity. Again,” he amended as her chin tilted.
“What has my aunt’s status or that of anyone in my family got to do with your decision to talk to the FBI and not me?” Zia asked coldly.
“I thought they would talk to me more openly without all the heavy guns your family could bring to bear. The plan was to scope out the extent of the threat before I told you about it.”
“Would you have told me if Danville hadn’t abducted me and forced your hand?”
“Yes! Hell, yes!”
“How do I know that?” The frost didn’t leave her voice, thick now with her native accent. “How do I know you do not think to protect me always? How do I know you won’t shield me from everything that is dangerous or cruel or merely unpleasant?”
He opened his mouth, snapped it shut again. He wanted to assure her that he was modern enough, mature enough, to respect her as both an adult and a professional. Yet he couldn’t deny the instincts imprinted in his DNA. Or was it RNA?
Hell, who cared? All Mike knew was that he was driven by the same need to shield his mate as every other living creature. He’d be lying if he denied it, so he pulled in a breath and spoke straight from his heart.
“I love you, Zia. I respect your drive and can’t even begin to appreciate your intelligence. But I’ll always, always, try to protect you from harm.”
That was met with dead silence. Mike thought he detected a glimmer of understanding in Jack’s eyes, maybe even Dom’s. The duchess looked cautiously noncommittal. But Zia had heard enough.
“I can’t speak more about this now.” She lifted trembling fingers to her bruised and cement-pitted cheek. “My face hurts and I still hear tinny cymbals in my ear. I’ll call you, yes?”
When she turned away, Mike stretched out a hand. “Zia...”
“I’ll call you!”
She whirled and left the room. To Mike’s surprise, Dom rose and crossed slowly to where he stood. His dark eyes, so like his sister’s, held marginally less hostility than they had before.
“I understand why you did what you did. I don’t like the results, but I understand.”
Mike snorted. “Can’t say I’m real happy with the results, either.”
“I know my sister. She won’t be pushed or prodded. Give her time. Wait for her to call.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Then I would advise you to go back to Texas and forget her.”
Yeah, Mike thought as he gathered his stained leather jacket and made for the door. Like that was going to happen.
* * *
Zia emerged from her bedroom into the stillness of the night, enveloped in the familiar comfort of her sweats and fuzzy slippers. An unfamiliar and unrelenting sense of loss sat like a stone on her chest as she negotiated the darkened apartment and shuffled into the kitchen. She flipped on the lights and filled the teakettle. While she waited for the water to heat, she rested both palms on the counter and stared blindly at the backsplash.
Her parents’ death had shattered her. If not for Dom, she might still be mired in grief. He’d been her anchor then, and again during those long days after she’d nearly died herself. He’d buried his pain to help her work through hers. Brought her slowly, inevitably back to an appreciation of the joys life had to offer.
Yet Zia sensed—she knew—she couldn’t turn to her brother to ease this hurt. He wouldn’t understand how deep it cut. He couldn’t. Although Dom would never admit it, he was every bit as possessive and territorial as any of their sword-wielding ancestors. Luckily he’d married a woman with the smarts and humor to tame those atavistic tendencies.
But Zia didn’t want to “tame” her chosen mate. She wanted an equal. Was sure she’d found one. The realization Mike regarded her as someone to be coddled and protected blasted crater-sized holes in that erroneous assumption.
“Are you making tea?”
Lost in her thoughts, Zia hadn’t heard the duchess’s cane tracking toward the kitchen or the gentle swish of the swinging door. Her great-aunt stood on the threshold. She was wrapped in the fleecy blue robe Sarah had given her for Christmas and leaned heavily on her cane.
“I’m so sorry. Did I wake you?”
“Unfortunately not,” Charlotte replied drily. “Sleep becomes extraneous when one reaches my age. May I join you?”
“Of course. The water’s about to boil. Shall I make a pot of decaffeinated Spiced Chai?”
“Yes, please.”
With the ease of long familiarity, Zia measured the fragrant tea into the infuser in Charlotte’s favorite Wedgwood pot and added boiling water. While the tea steeped and released the tantalizing scent of ginger and cloves and cardamom, she filled a tray with two delicate china cups and saucers, a matching sugar and creamer, napkins, spoons and fresh lemon wedges.
She carried the tray to where the duchess waited in the breakfast room just off the kitchen. During the day, the room’s ivy-sprigged wallpaper, green seat cushions and tall windows seemed to reflect Central Park at its joyous summer best. Even this late on a cold March night, the room served as a cheerful beacon in the gloom.
“There’s something so soothing, so civilized about tea,” Charlotte mused as she stirred milk into her cup. “Especially after such a brutal day.”
Zia nodded and opted for lemon instead of milk.
“Are your ears still ringing?”
“Not as badly as before.”
“And your face? Your lovely face?”
“The cuts will heal.”
“Yes, they will.” Carefully, the duchess replaced her spoon on the saucer. “Most hurts do, eventually.”
“And some go deeper than others.” Zia looked up from the dark swirl in her cup. “I’m not a child. Although Dom still tries to play the big brother, I declared my independence some years ago. I respect his concern for my welfare but I don’t need him to protect me. I don’t need any man to protect me. I thought Mike understood that.”
“Forgive me, Anastazia, but that’s twaddle.”
“Excuse me?”
“Twaddle,” the duchess repeated. “You’re a physician. You know the male of the species better than most women. Their instincts, their idiosyncrasies. One of which is the belief that they’re supposed to beat their chests and protect their females from all poachers.”
The duchess’s choice of words hit home. Mike had used the same word to describe Tom Danville after their first meeting. The noun ruffled Zia’s feminist feathers almost as much now as it had then.
“Of course I know men are driven by primal urges. So are women. That doesn’t mean we can’t control them.” She frowned, surprised by the direction the conversation had taken. “I thought you of all people would understand how I feel. You’re the bravest, most courageous woman I know. You would never let someone wrap you in cotton wool and shield you from the realities of life.”
“Oh, but you’re wrong! You can’t imagine how many times I wished for that cotton wool. For someone to block at least a little of the ugliness. And,” she added with a sigh, “share the beauty.”
“So what are you suggesting? That I should let Mike decide what to block and how much to share?”
“You must both decide. That’s what marriage entails. Learning to respect each other’s wants and needs and boundaries. It doesn’t happen overnight.”
“It certainly didn’t happen today.”
“Oh, Anastazia.” The duchess stretched out a hand and folded it over Zia’s. “I believe Michael only intended to...how did he phrase it? Scope out the threat. I also believe he planned to tell you as soon as he’d done that. Don’t you?”
“I... Yes.”
“And, my dear, I think you’re forgetting one rather salient fact.” She gave Zia’s hand a brisk pat. “You’re hardly a weak, helpless female. You didn’t sit around and wait to be rescued. You incapacitated your attacker and escaped.”
Those terrifying moments in the garage replayed in Zia’s mind. Each graphic sequence, every desperate move. Including the heart-stopping seconds when Mike lunged across the Porsche.
“That’s not entirely true,” she said slowly. “I did incapacitate Danville and managed to get out of the car, but he still had his gun. Mike wrestled it away from him before he pounded the bastard into the pavement.”
“He did that? Good for him!”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
Zia’s surprise must have shown on her face.
“I suspect,” Charlotte said drily, “he was more prepared to accept the blame for what happened than any credit.” She let that sink in for a moment, then grasped her cane. “It’s late and you’ve had a horrific day. You should get some rest.”
“I will, I promise. As soon as I finish my tea.”
“All right. Sleep well, dearest.”
When the quiet thump of her cane faded, the apartment settled into silence. Zia cradled her cup in both hands and breathed in the last whiff of ginger and cloves from her cooling tea. The final moments in the garage kept playing and replaying in her mind.
“Dammit!”
Cutting off the mental video, she pushed away from the table.
* * *
The call dragged Mike from a restless doze. He’d hit the rack an hour ago and spent most of that time with his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. After what seemed like hours, he’d finally drifted off.
When his cell phone buzzed he fumbled it off the nightstand. The number marching across the incoming display had him swinging his legs over the side of the bed and jerking upright.
“Zia? All you all right?”
“No. We have to talk.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. What’s your room number?”
“My...?” He shook away his grogginess. “You don’t need to come all the way downtown. I’ll come there.”
“Too late. I’m in the lobby. What’s your room number?”
“Twelve-twenty.”
“Got it. Now tell security to keycard the elevator for me.”
After Mike gave his okay, Zia came back on the phone with a crisp, “I’m on my way up.”
He pulled on his jeans, his thoughts grim. She’d told him to wait for her call. It had come a hell of a lot sooner than he’d anticipated. Too soon, his gut told him. She was still angry, still hurt. And very possibly suffering a delayed reaction to the traumatic events of the afternoon. He’d have to be careful, measure every word, or he’d screw this up worse than he already had.
The Texan's Royal M.D. Page 16
