“Ah! You. My husband, my love, my lover. Please!” She thrust her hips upward, trying to rub herself against his pelvis. She was in a whirlwind of frustration, pleasure, and tormented need.
“You’ll come just from taking me deep.”
Heat flooded Sophia and her thighs began to tremble. She moved back in desperation, craving release. Her mind filled with images of them making fierce love in the middle of the maze; Alistair all fiery and tense above her, his back and buttock muscles bunched and corded with exertion and damp with sweat. She was on the edge, feeling the explosion of bliss so close and yet a step away. She braced her forearms on the ground and pushed up, shamelessly pumping herself in tandem with him and urging them both toward ecstasy. “Ah, that’s good. Harder.”
“You are so fucking hot,” he murmured, as he speeded up his plunges.
In an upward spiral of frantic desire, her nails scorched his back and dug so deep in his shoulders that they drew blood, but he was so immersed in the ecstasy of their heated lovemaking that he didn’t feel it.
She whispered in his ear, “You are mine, Alistair Connor.”
“And you are mine, my beautiful wife,” he grunted, loosening the leashes of his desire as her small bites on his earlobes and neck brought him close to climax. His breath hot against her neck, he ordered, “Let go, I’ve got you.”
Cries of pleasure tore from her throat as pressure coiled inside her body and shudders coursed through her. She threw her head back and cried his name to the sky, “Alistair Connor!”
The feelings overwhelmed him before his shout shook the air as he came long and hard inside her. Gasping, aftershocks of powerful desire and release traveling downstream through his veins in an idyllic labyrinth of pleasure, Alistair rested his forehead on hers. “Tha gaol a agam ort.”
Tendrils of his long hair clung to Sophia’s cheek and she ran her fingers through it, savoring the silky sensation.
They lay there sweaty and panting for a moment before he withdrew and rolled onto his back to pull up his boxers and jeans.
It was then that Sophia turned her back to him, curled into herself, and burst into a keening cry and huge sobs.
Thank Christ! He didn’t say anything. Gently, he brought her onto his chest, cradling her in his arms, his broad hands roaming over her back soft and tender. Cry, my love, cry.
A relief so great welled in his chest that it brought tears to his eyes too, and he was powerless to stop them.
Her hands gripped his shoulders and wandered over his neck and face, frenzied, reconnecting, relearning, also feeling his frantic and intense emotions. She raised her head. Even through her tears she could feel his tearful gaze consuming her.
They lay there on the grass, both crying, kissing, touching, hugging. Their tears mingled and their hands pulled them tight against each other.
After some minutes her deep sobs turned into light shudders. He always makes me feel so protected and loved. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I said that,” she shook her head, whispering mostly to herself, between soft sobs. He might have lied, but his intentions were good. I could have asked him to explain himself instead of exploding in a fit of rage. “I didn’t mean to say you were a liar…and I didn’t mean to run away. I’m sorry.”
“I know, my love. I’m sorry too. Although, I realized it was an outburst and you didn’t mean what you said, you were right,” Alistair said, his hands caressing her back again.
Sophia sniffed and put her head on the hollow of his neck. “For once, you are not making any sense to me, Lord Cryptic.”
“I know,” Alistair shrugged, also exhausted. He looked up at the gray sky. “And it’s all your fault. After I started therapy, my answers are much more complicated, more unreasonable. It was easier before. Two plus two equaled four. Now…it’s not so simple anymore. It can be zero, four or a thousand. These last few days, my mind seems to contradict itself a hundred times a day.”
“Our minds will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary.”
“I shouldn’t have lied or omitted anything from you and I’m sorry for that. It’s just that I don’t have…control of anything anymore.”
She traced random designs on his naked chest, thinking about what he just said. “I’m also discovering I have no control. Should I care? Should I fight it? Should we?”
“I don’t know. It seemed I had all the answers before, but I never did.” He sighed as he stared up at the sky and the blossoming nature around them. “Look up, Sophia. Look around.”
When she gazed up, she didn’t see the gray sky, the moving clouds or the threes. There was a butterfly flying lazily a few feet over their heads.
She immediately tightened her grasp around his biceps.
“What is it?” he asked, concerned.
“Butterfly,” she whispered, her eyes glued to the insect as it drifted closer.
Not remembering her phobia, he said, “In Greek myth, Psyche, which literally translates to soul, is represented in the form of a butterfly. Befittingly, Psyche is forever linked with love, as she and Eros shared an endlessly passionate bond together, both hopelessly in love with the other. Take, for example, the butterfly’s stages of life. I can relate them to our own life-phases…growing pains, times of ravenous needs, times of vulnerability, moments of miraculous expansion. From egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis, and from the cocoon, the butterfly emerges in her unfurling glory. Overwhelmingly, cultural myth and lore honor the butterfly as a symbol of transformation because of its impressive process of metamorphosis. But was that the caterpillar’s plan? If it had any plan at all?” He laughed humorlessly. “I guess it doesn’t really matter what we control, because life will always find a way to thwart our carefully laid plans. It goes on without really caring what happen to us.”
“Thwart? You’re looking at it in such a bad light,” she whispered, still staring at the flying insect dancing above them, but not so tense anymore. It didn’t seem so menacing. In fact, it didn’t menace at all. “You must listen to the mystery it speaks in silence. I could still be inside my shell, whining that Gabriel had died. And it took me a long time to stop feeling guilty, to be free so I could be whole to love you. I still feel sad, I still miss him, but I don’t feel guilt anymore. It was not easy. But…if life hadn’t thwarted my plans, you and I would have never crossed paths. One of the main reasons we are together is that he is dead.”
No, I guess it wasn’t easy. He swallowed, imagining himself in her shoes. Propping himself up on an elbow, he stared into her hazel eyes. “Sometimes, you sound too old, Sophia. Too wise.”
“Too much pain quickly ages and teaches a soul.” It was not a sad statement, nor derisive. It was just a conclusion she had reached long ago. “I don’t believe I’ll ever understand why there has been so much pain and so many deaths in our lives.” Her fingers combed his hair back from his eyes as she talked. “But then, I’m profoundly grateful for so many miracles. I couldn’t thank God enough for Gabriela, you, and this baby.”
A smile appeared on his serious face when she mentioned the baby. “For years, Sophia, life was chaos for me. Hell on Earth, a mire that dragged me deeper and deeper into darkness until my days had no light; wherever I looked it was all cold darkness. Black and no white. But you, my private ray of sun, with your generous love, showed me the path to discover my own summer.” His knuckles caressed her face as he murmured lovingly on her lips, “You healed me.”
“Oh, Alistair Connor.” She nuzzled her face into his palm when he framed it. In a reverent tone, she breathed, “Can’t you see? You healed me first.”
He inhaled the smell of their recent lovemaking and her sweet vanilla perfume; felt the soft fresh grass under his back; listened to the chirping of the birds around them. And marveled, “This doesn’t feel like chaos. This doesn’t feel like Heaven. This, my love, is my happy, earthily reality, the only place where I ever want to be; beside you.”
Peace had s
ettled around them as the cherry blossom flowers rustled and fell to the ground, white soft petals raining down on them.
Chapter 9
6:01 p.m.
Alistair had informed everyone that Sophia was safe, but that had been before they made love again.
They decided to enjoy their moments of love and happiness and only talk about what he had omitted and she remembered, before dinner, when everyone gathered in the library. That way they could work out all the minute details together, so as not to miss any information that could be vital.
Alistair and Sophia glimpsed into the Game Room. Finding the room empty, they made their way through it, thinking they were being stealthy, only to run into Leonard and Alice, who were in the Great Hall.
Speechless, Alistair cleared his throat and pushed a giggling Sophia behind his back. “Hmm…er…we had—we were—”
Leonard eyed Alistair from head to toe and chortled.
Alistair had given his sweater to Sophia and was only wearing his dirty jeans. Sophia’s shirt and scarf, not white anymore, were in one of his hands.
With a blushing Alice by his side, and a huge smile on his face, Leonard asked, “Wrestling in the mud, were you?”
“Who was wrestling in the mud?” Tavish’s voice came from the elevators behind the stairs and his booted feet sounded on the marble closer and closer, as he stepped into the hall, until he halted beside his sister.
Incapable of resisting, Sophia bent sideways to sneak a peek at them.
It was then that Tavish saw her. “Jesus, Alistair Connor! You are so irresponsible!”
“Sorry, doctor.” Alistair put his hands up in the air and sheepishly looked at his brother.
Tavish didn’t find the joke funny and ordered, “Up with you, Sophia. Shower now! I have to change these dirty bandages.”
“Aye, sir, General Doctor Lord Arrogance of Sophia MacCraig’s Army,” she teased too.
But when none of their siblings moved, rooted to their places, gaping at them, Sophia whispered to Alistair’s back, “What now?”
He shrugged and pulled her to his side, snaking an arm around her waist. As they walked past them to the elevators, Sophia’s face flamed as she heard Alice’s gasp, Tavish’s amused curse, and Leonard’s loud and hearty laughter.
“That was quite some wrestling you did,” said Leonard. “I hope she won, Alistair.”
Alistair’s voice was full of pride when he replied, “Don’t worry, Leo, she did. She always does.”
In the Laird Library
8:17 p.m.
Sophia gasped. The surprise turned into outrage. “And no one knows where he is?!”
“Nae,” Alistair answered. “Isabel wanted to question you, but both Dr. Kent and Dr. Colton agreed it would be better to wait until next week.”
“Alberto is a very cunning and pro-active man. He has dual nationality. He is Brazilian, but he is also Polish. He used it just as a…guarantee, though. He’s not lying low, waiting. By now, he would have left the country. Probably, in a rented jet, using a small airport or even a private airstrip.”
“So, he is in Poland?” Lachlann asked.
“No. I don’t believe so,” Sophia stood up and walked up to an old map that hung on the wall. Alistair followed, incapable of staying away from her.
Leonard was staring at her, trying to follow her line of thought. “Would he return to Brazil?”
“No, we have an extradition treaty with the UK,” she shook her head and bit her lip, thinking. “Maybe Argentina. His grandmother was Argentinian, but he hated Argentina.”
“We have an extradition treaty with Poland. As part of the EU, it’s under category one. With Argentina also, under category two.”
“What exactly are the differences between these categories?” Sophia turned away from the map.
“Simply put, there are two categories and they differ from where these territories are located and how the extradition is handled. There are even a few countries that are exempt from providing prima facie evidence in support of their extradition request, such as the US, Canada, Switzerland, Israel, South—”
“Wait!” she exclaimed, surprised. “Israel. You said Israel. He could have gone there for sure. He is a Jew.” Sophia gripped Alistair’s hand, excited. “Alberto always bragged that every Jew in the world had the right to Israeli citizenship and that Israel was a sanctuary in the event of persecution.”
“Exactly, Israel is a haven in the event of persecution, not in the event of a crime.” Leonard’s angelic smile opened on his face. “Israel amended their Extradition Act in 1999 specifically so they would not be a haven for criminals. It still leaves a few loopholes but if Alberto has never been a resident in Israel before, he can be extradited, judged, and serve his time here.”
It was Sophia’s turn to grin. “Alberto has never lived anywhere besides São Paulo.”
Leibowitz Oil Building
Monday, April 11, 2011
10:31 a.m.
Since her family had left, all Alistair had been doing was pampering and taking care of Sophia and Gabriela as if they were precious porcelain dolls.
As Sophia had predicted, Alberto had left the country on the same day of her kidnapping. The police immediately issued an alert to the authorities in Argentina, Brazil, Poland, and Israel. He had been caught trying to enter Israel by car at the Jordanian border two days later and instantly handed over to the British authorities and the hearing of his case had started.
As a stroke of luck, the prosecutor assigned to the case was a very close friend of Alistair’s and Leonard’s and knew most of Sophia’s story. When Uó’s attorney argued he had never been part of organized crime but his was a revenge plot against what Sophia had done and that everything had been set against him, the prosecutor had sought their cooperation as protected witnesses and secret informants.
“What I don’t understand until now is: How did Uó find me?”
“According to Isabel, Washington—” Leonard tried to correct his pronunciation when he noticed Sophia’s amused smile, “Awchinton—Ohwa—Ah, Sophia, whatever!”
“Sorry, Leonard. He’s so pathetic that even his name is wrongly written. And to think he thought himself Uó do Borogodó.” Her laugh twinkled in the room, lessening the tension. “So, how did he find me?”
“Well, he offered a reward for detailed information on you once. No one answered it but still it was there, online, a skeleton for someone to discover. The hacker stumbled upon him by chance and Ghost had all the information he needed thanks to Devon bugging Atwood House.”
It was Alistair’s turn to answer and Sophia could hear the rage in his voice. “When Devon unplugged the TV’s and computer’s devices, he swore he forgot to take out the one on the telephone lines.”
“Their defenses have come up with a few different scenarios for each one, but there is no way they can make it seem not an organized crime. Luckily, this isn’t a trial by jury. It will be technical and there is no way to escape the hard proof.” Leonard turned serious. “Unfortunately, Ghost’s security program had overwritten most of the information before the IT team had gained access. Anyway…there is proof that Alberto’s company had rented and paid for Ashford’s property and obtained working visas for Uó’s team, employing them in his company. He even lent them his luxury yacht to transport the weaponry and the drugs, to be delivered to a dealer here in UK. He cannot say he didn’t know about it. Nonetheless, your marriage to Gabriel is going to be dissected, as is your relationship with Ashford and your marriage to Alistair. His defense can try to make you into a greedy woman, a siren who seduced men and sold herself to the highest bidder—”
She gapped at Leonard. “I wouldn’t put it past him. Alberto is capable of anything.”
“This is where Rose Leibowitz comes in. She’s siding with us,” Leonard said. “She didn’t even take a lawyer with her when she went to talk with me yesterday. Only her sister, who offered to testify on Sophia’s behalf too. She told us she has al
ready received the court notification. She is the prosecutor’s hidden ace. Rose can also testify that when her son’s kidnappers invaded the slum they started a war between drug lords. This will brush off any argument Uo’s defense could create. Besides, he kidnapped you, asked for ransom, was consuming cocaine, carrying heavy armament, and so many other crimes that it would be impossible for him—or for Alberto, for that matter—to avoid being sentenced to life in prison.”
“Thanks for the good news, Counselor.” Sophia exhaled, relieved.
“There is still Emma, Leo. How about her?” asked Alistair.
“Emma is playing the poor victim role. Her defense is coming after both of you at the same time. She has already alleged that she was being coerced into participating because the hacker had invaded her computer and downloaded explicit photos of Alistair…er…forcing her into having sex with him, and she was just trying to protect his good reputation. The thing is, the IT team hasn’t found any photos. She will also say Sophia got very enraged when she discovered the forced relationship and demanded the photos she didn’t have anymore. Her team is good, very good. She must have amassed loads of money to be paying such expensive defense lawyers. The prosecution can’t have you two looking like demons.”
“If there are no photos on the hacker’s computer, she is lying. No one will ever find those photos,” Tavish said serenely. “All her photos, videos…I have everything with me. She is not paying her lawyers. Some else is. If you manage to discover who is being blackmailed to finance her defense, let them know they are free. I took all her proofs in a thorough search I did in her apartment.”
Tavish couldn’t help but smirk.
“Also, I did a little trip to Switzerland and closed her safety deposit box there, with her approval, of course, destroying all the contents. But to deliver the contents of her pen drives and notebooks to the police, it would be a scandal out of any proportion we have ever known, Leonard.”
Leonard looked seriously at Tavish for a moment, weighing the news. “The prosecution is already checking her bank accounts. It will be interesting to see if she had made a transfer to that hacker. If she did, life in prison for her, too. We don’t need to deliver anything to the police yet.”