"There's no sign of anyone on the roof. No shells, no scrap of paper. No disturbance in the dust or dirt," the lead guard told Uri, clearly getting the information over his cell. "There was a suitcase containing a weapon, but it was blown to bits."
Lissa fought for breath, one hand going to her throat. Already it felt bruised and swollen. There was no talking to him, so she didn't bother to try. She just kept her head down, fighting to draw as much air into her lungs as possible.
Uri swore over and over, savagely, his anger raw and wild. "These men are ghosts. You aren't going to see any signs of them. But there are cameras everywhere. In the building. On the stairs. In the elevator. Out on the street. There's no way to miss all of them."
He began to walk fast again, dragging Lissa with him through the tunnel. She counted the steps to herself, still struggling to breathe properly. Her high heels clicked loudly on the paved flooring, much louder than the boots of the soldiers. From the blueprints she'd studied, she knew they were more than halfway through and just up ahead was a small room, they had been certain, for prisoners.
The tunnel was the perfect place for interrogating prisoners. No one knew of its existence. It was soundproof and they could torture their prisoner for days or even months if they desired. No one would ever find the missing person. No one would ever know. The small room had been designed solely with interrogation in mind. Electricity ran to the room. There were manacles and chains actually incorporated into the wall. She knew because Casimir had entered the tunnels and explored them, knowing she would be taken into them. She dreaded, but knew, she would end up in that terrible room.
Uri yanked the door open and thrust her inside, the hand on her back hitting her so hard she flew forward and fell to her knees. The rough pavers scraped, ripping her nylons and lacerating her skin. She didn't try to rise, frozen to the spot, afraid to move. Her body trembled and she wept continuously, the picture of abject despair and misery. She was going for both, and hoped to throw dazed and confused in there as well.
Uri didn't appear to buy into her innocence. He caught her by her hair and dragged her so that she had to crawl on her hands and knees to the chair bolted to the floor. One shoe came off just inside the door where he'd first pushed her, and the second was ripped off as she crawled. He hauled her up by her hair, slapping her viciously across the face repeatedly.
Lissa raised both hands to try to protect herself, but there was no getting away from his attack. She had to fight her every instinct to attack him, trying desperately to act like an innocent woman caught up in something she had no idea of. She had no weapons on her and that was just as well. She wouldn't have been able to stop herself from retaliating. She hadn't expected it to be so difficult to be passive, pleading and sobbing when she wanted to defend herself with every bit of training she had.
He slammed her down into the chair and pointed a finger at her. "You stay there or I swear I'll cut your throat and be done with it."
She nodded vigorously, trying to swallow a sob, cowering in the chair, staring at him with frightened eyes. Her face was swelling. She could actually see the bruise rising under her eye. Her cheek throbbed and burned. Her lip was cut and she could feel it swelling. Her fingernails were broken from clawing at his arms, and there was some satisfaction in knowing the scores on his arms and hands were deep.
There were no clocks in the room. She knew Uri would want his prisoner to have no idea of the passing of time, hours or minutes, days or weeks. They would suffer, and time would seem to stretch out endlessly.
Staring like a terrified rabbit, she studied her enemy as he gave out orders to his men. They rushed to do his bidding, leaving behind two men to guard him. When the room was empty, he turned and looked at her. Defensively, she drew her knees up, and put her hands up on top of them as if she could ward him off.
He stared at her for a long while, the cat playing with the cornered mouse, deliberately prolonging the moment, letting her nerves scream in terrified anticipation. "So, Lissa." His voice had gone gentle. His cold demeanor was far worse than his fury. He walked toward her. "You really need to talk to me. This is your one chance to come clean. I don't care about your part in this. I just want the shooter. His name. I'm not asking you for anything else. Just his name. This man killed my father."
She gave a broken sob, staring at him, mesmerized, a canary trapped by a large, hungry cat. She jammed her fist in her mouth to still the sound of her weeping. Her eyes grew bigger as he stalked across the room toward her. When he got close, she threw her hand out as if that flimsy defense could possibly stop him. As she did so, she glanced at her watch. She just had to stay alive a little longer.
Shaking her head, she hunched in on herself. "Don't hurt me. I swear to you, I came here because you invited me. Before coming here, I was in Germany, at a hotel there, and before that, one of the hotels in Italy. I didn't do anything. How could I have?" Her trembling voice rose a few notes higher as he closed in on her like a predatory animal.
"Shh." He put a finger to his lips, his voice pitched low. Very soft.
Lissa covered her mouth with her hand as if that was the only way she could be assured she obeyed his orders exactly. She didn't take her eyes from him as he stepped very, very close to her.
Bending, Uri put a hand on either armrest, leaning into her. "Take a breath, Lissa. I want you to think about this for a moment. Can you do that? Think about what I tell you before you answer me?"
So reasonable. So quiet. Keeping her hand pressed to her mouth, she nodded her head vigorously up and down. Her hair, already coming out of the loose weave, spilled down around her face in long red sheets.
"The Prakenskiis are killers. Every last one of them. It seems strange that you come from a very small town all the way to my country and you know one of these killers. You just happen to be from the same little town."
She kept nodding her head, never taking her gaze from his, as if hypnotized by him. More tears fell, but they were silent, as if she didn't dare weep aloud. She didn't lift a hand to wipe them away. Her face was a mask of terror. Dark mascara trickled down her face along with her tears.
"Can you understand how I might think that you helped to set my father up?"
She nodded and then shook her head violently. Vehemently. Denying his charge. Mixed up in how to answer him.
"This man. Ilya Prakenskii. When he found out you were coming here, that we invited you, he forced you to help him, didn't he? These men, these killers, they do things like that. I understand. I know when you're coerced into something, you're really not to blame. He probably threatened you. Did he do that? Did he threaten you?"
Lissa shook her head. "I've never really talked to him," she managed to get out in a small, scared voice. "I was only introduced once. He didn't know I was going to Europe. How would he? Only my family knew."
Uri straightened, and she flinched back, ducking. He shook his head at her, reached deliberately to tuck strands of her bright red hair behind her ear. "That's not the answer I want. You know that, don't you? It isn't a good idea to lie to me."
He struck then, coming at her so fast she didn't see it coming and had no way to deflect. He caught her arm, yanked her from the chair, spun her around so her back was to him, but her arm was locked very high behind her back. He wrenched it up even farther very, very fast. Hard. Twisting viciously as he did so. There was an audible crack. Lissa screamed as pain radiated up her arm to her shoulder, down through her body to the pit of her heaving stomach. She fell to her knees, catching herself with her good arm.
She tried to breathe away the pain, looking around her to get her bearings, the long sheets of hair protecting her face as she did so. She heard the beep of her watch as her alarm went off and she scrambled forward on her knees. He kicked her with his impeccable dress shoes, the ones he wore so elegantly with his three-piece suit. She sprawled out on the pavers, glanced over her shoulder to see him coming at her again and then dove for the only cover in the room. He
had a desk, a very heavy desk set up facing the chair bolted to the floor, so he could work right there while his prisoner watched him. She scuttled beneath the desk, using her left hand to depress the little tiny button built into her watch. The one that looked like it belonged on the watch to wind it.
The explosion was loud in the tunnel, rock and dirt falling with a terrible roar. She heard rocks pelting the desk and she ducked lower still, making herself as small as possible. She heard the yells and grunts of the two guards. Uri's startled yell. The sound of human voices cut off abruptly, and then someone screamed. That sound too was cut off.
She lay beneath the desk, her legs curled tight under her, cradling her arm, straining to hear anything. When no sound was forthcoming, and all the dirt and debris seemed to have settled, she crawled out from under the desk. The top was cracked nearly in two, and sagging in the middle where the split was, a large rock was resting on it. It was impossible to see the surface, covered as it was in dirt and dust.
The room was nearly filled with various-sized rocks, far more dirt, and steel bars that had been in the concrete used to hold the tunnel in place. Dust swirled in the air, forcing her to cover her nose and mouth.
She picked her way to where Uri lay, half buried under a pile of rocks. His gaze jumped to her face. Bright red blood bubbled around his lips and nose. She could see that his injuries were too severe for him to live. She sat down beside him, careful of her arm.
"All those young children your father took from their parents, the parents he murdered, those children served their country. They took orders and gave up their own lives to carry out your father's orders. You rewarded them by sending killers after them. You had to have known that sooner or later one or more of them would retaliate."
She looked around her, taking in the fallen rocks and destroyed tunnel. "You're so predictable. Kostya always preferred underground for his dirty work. He liked to have escape tunnels and little places to interrogate his prisoners so there was no chance he could be discovered. Every single one of those very skilled assassins your father had trained knew that about him."
She turned back to him with a little smile. "They study their targets. I study mine. That's all you ever were, Uri, a target. They'll work frantically to dig us out of here. You'll be dead. Your men will be dead. They'll pull me free, battered and bruised with a broken arm, but alive. I'll be a heroine for their newspapers. Of course I'll say what a wonderful man you were and how we were drinking champagne one moment and the next someone was shooting at us. I look quite convincing weeping, don't I?"
He coughed and blood poured out of his mouth.
"That doesn't look good. Your lungs are filling up with blood. Nasty way to die, although it seems fairly fitting, since you intended to bring your prisoners here to die." She smoothed back his hair. "I'm married to one of those men." She smiled at him. "I make him very, very happy. I intend to continue to make him happy. He'll be having a great life, and believe me, we won't think about you ever again."
He tried to spit at her, but he couldn't. He only succeeded in making more blood dribble down his chin. She made no move to wipe it away. Instead she stared at him just as dispassionately as he had her.
"It was so easy. You thought you were so clever inviting me here, telling me all that nonsense about how you read about me in a magazine. The truth was, Gavriil came to Sea Haven. He led you right there. You knew he settled on the farm with my sister and you figured you'd get me here, introduce me to this room and get the information you wanted about the Prakenskii brothers. I knew that's what happened the moment you sent me the invite. Still, I figured killing you would be a good thing, so here I am."
His eyes clouded over and more blood bubbled around his lips. He coughed, spewing blood, and then his head turned slightly and his staring eyes went glassy. She waited a heartbeat before checking his pulse. He was gone. She checked the other two soldiers, found them dead and settled back to wait for her rescuers.
Her arm hurt like crazy. It was difficult to breathe the air in the small room. There was also the terrible feeling of claustrophobia, knowing more rocks could fall at any time, but that didn't matter. Her family was safe. Her sisters. Casimir's brothers. She was still alive, and somewhere out there, her husband waited for her.
20
Casimir pushed open the hospital door, his heart thudding so hard, his chest hurt. Two days of hell. Pure, fucking hell. He was done. Finished. He didn't give a damn what Giacinta thought. He'd give her the moon if that's what she wanted, but not this. Not ever again. She had done her last job and she was going to be glued to his side where he could see her twenty-four hours a day and ensure she was alive and well.
The hospital room was small, the bed dominating the interior. Instantly his gaze was caught and held by the small figure lying there asleep. He drew in his breath, feeling the raw, hideous terror that had gripped him for those endless hours when she was trapped in the collapsed tunnel with Uri Sorbacov.
Killing Uri Sorbacov with the tunnel collapsing seemed a good idea. They both knew Uri would take Lissa to the interrogation room. He might not know Gavriil Prakenskii was residing in Sea Haven, but it was known worldwide that Ilya was. Every tabloid and gossip magazine happily reported his every move. The moment Casimir had pulled the trigger and taken out Kostya Sorbacov, the man who had ordered his parents murdered, they knew Uri would turn on Lissa.
Casimir pressed his fingertips to his temple, still frozen, his feet refusing to move to cross the space to her side. Stupid. Stupid idea. When they conceived of it, both thought it brilliant. A perfect plan. And then the tunnel collapsed and Giacinta was caught in it and Casimir had no idea if she was dead or alive. For hours. Long, terrible hours of absolute terror. The seconds took hours. The minutes did. He was sick with the need to know if she was alive.
He'd tried to use their connection, pressing his thumb time after time into the center of his palm, but that had failed him as well. And that's when the terror rose to such a level he nearly lost every vestige of control and discipline he'd acquired with his years of training and practice.
He saw them pull her out of the wreckage of the hotel, her body limp, on a stretcher, rushed to the hospital. He couldn't get near her. She was under heavy guard, an American caught in the collapse of one of their hotels.
Casimir forced his body to move. He knew he didn't have much time. There were guards outside her door. His credentials had been put together fast. The American Embassy had sent him to check on one of their citizens. He took a breath, forced it through his burning lungs and stepped up to the bed.
She was asleep, her long lashes covering her eyes. One eye was swollen, her face covered in bruises. There was a cast on her arm. Each breath she drew in seemed labored, as if her body hurt. His eyes burned. His throat clogged. He took her hand and stroked the back of it, bending down to brush his mouth over her temple.
Immediately the lashes fluttered. "Casimir." She whispered his name, her voice drowsy. "I knew you'd come."
"Shh, moya lyubov, you need to sleep."
She tried to smile, and then winced when the movement pulled at the cut on her lip. He felt the wince like a punch in his gut. Hard. Painful. Taking his air. "You got these injuries from Uri, not the cave-in."
"I'm all right now." Her voice was low. She tried again to open her eyes, the lashes fluttering again, but she didn't succeed. "You're free. That's all that matters."
It wasn't all that mattered to him. He pressed her fingertips to his mouth. "You have to know something, malyshka. I would give you the moon, anything you ask me for, I'll do my best to make it yours, but not this. Never again. I won't let you do this again. You have to know something about me, Giacinta. You have to learn this right now. My woman doesn't take this kind of risk again. It's not going to happen."
This time her eyes did manage to open. The sight of her one eye so swollen and black and blue made his stomach lurch. He kissed her fingers while her gaze drifted over his face. She w
as looking at a very distinguished gentleman with graying hair, wearing a suit. His identification hung from a clip off the pocket of his vest.
"I'm not trying to be a dictator, malyshka. It's in my nature to be one, I won't lie about that, but I will never go through this again. You're going to be glued to my side twenty-four hours a day where I can make certain you're alive."
"I love you, Casimir," she whispered, and her lashes drifted down over her eyes.
She was alive. That was all that mattered. But he was dead serious. It didn't matter if she took him that way or not, his woman would be safe. Hell. She wasn't going outside her home to rake the leaves off the ground without him.
Casimir hadn't known it was possible to be terrified. Emotions like fear had been beaten out of him years ago. He always believed that his instructors had done the worst to all of them so anything that happened after that was nothing to them. There was no way to prepare for having someone you loved with every breath you took be in danger. He just knew he couldn't go through that again. Those minutes and hours where he didn't know if she was alive or dead. That time when she was out of his sight, in danger, with men who had no respect for life.
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