The boy was fierce, Joe thought. Well, who could blame him? He had grown up in a den of voracious wolves. “We can’t have everything.” He turned to Eve. “Did you see Rakovac?”
She shook her head. “But Czadas told us earlier that he was supposed to be coming. He might be here.”
He waved at Venable, who had pulled the car alongside them on the road above. “Then by all means, let’s go see if he is.”
Catherine stared at Rakovac’s gun pointed at her heart. It was now or never. Czadas was chasing after Luke and wouldn’t be a problem. Luke, Eve, and Kelly were not on the scene to worry about. She had only to contend with Rakovac.
He was enough.
“I didn’t mean that I thought I had a chance to get out of this alive,” she said. “But what about my son and the others? I thought perhaps I could persuade you that they could live.” She stared at him, not hiding the fear that was always with her. Let him see her desperation. It could be a weapon to help her get close to him.
Rakovac shook his head. “Wrong.”
“You want me.” She moistened her lips. “Oh, I know it’s all twisted in your mind. But you do want me. Why not do it now? Let me convince you that you’d be better off keeping me as a toy than killing my son right now. You could always do that later. Let him live until you get tired of me.”
He was silent, his expression arrested. “Interesting.” She had reached him, tapped into the perversity that was an essential element of his character. “I wasn’t expecting this, Catherine.”
“Why not? You know that I’ll do anything to save my son. Maybe if I delay it long enough, it will be like Scheherazade telling her tales every night. It won’t happen.”
“You wouldn’t live past the first night, Scheherazade.”
“Yes, I would. You said I was strong. I am strong.” She stared him in the eye. “You liked your hands on me when you were searching. I could make you like everything about me. You mentioned that house in Istanbul. I grew up on the streets of Hong Kong. Do you think there’s anything I don’t know about the ways to please a man? You want to hurt me? I can endure and bring you to heights you’ve never reached.”
“And try to kill me after you’ve done it.”
“You’re a strong man. Keep me from doing it.” She could see that he was fascinated by the idea. Why not? She was offering him the kind of submissive sex that he adored. Clinch it. Show him.
She reached up and took down her dark hair and shook it about her shoulders. She took off her shirt and dropped it on the floor.
“Before they find Luke, let me show you,” she whispered. “You won’t be sorry.”
“You’ll take anything I do to you?”
“And beg you for more.” She started toward him. Hold his eyes. She knew about seduction. Draw him. Arouse him. Make him look at her eyes and her naked breasts. Glow, shimmer with sexuality. He might be a monster, but he was a man. “Will you let me try to please you enough to save Luke?”
“It won’t work. I’ll break you.”
“I’m not afraid. I know I’ve got a chance to change your mind.” She was standing in front of him so close the muzzle of his gun was pressed against her bare stomach. “And you want to do it.” She could see the pulse leap in his temple. “Do what you want, Rakovac. Anything you want.”
“Whore.” His cheeks were flushed and his lips full and slightly parted. “Oh, I’ll do what I want. You’ll scream for me, Catherine.” His hand closed on her breast. “And it might as well start here and now.”
Ignore the pain. Watch the gun in his left hand. He might have a second to respond.
“How do you like that?” His teeth sank into the lobe of her ear and brought blood.
Good. Perfect. His movement had brought her mouth to press against his neck.
Her tongue ran quickly over the back of her front teeth.
“You’re not answering, bitch.” He was panting, gnawing at her like an animal. “Tell me: how much of this you can stand for your son?”
She had the cap off the tooth. She opened her mouth, and her teeth sank deep into his neck!
He jerked away from her. “What are—” His hand lashed out at her.
She had to get the cap back over that tooth quickly. Done.
Now it would take three seconds.
The gun. She blocked it as he started to raise the weapon.
Three seconds.
He only made it to two seconds.
Rakovac’s eyes glazed over, the gun dropped from his nerveless hand. He was staring at her in horror.
“Is the pain starting?” She was panting as she took another step back and gazed up at him with glittering ferocity. “Hu Chang promised me that it would be excruciating. He said, ‘Don’t worry, my friend, it won’t be as long as you would like, but for him, it will seem forever. A fitting prelude to the hell where you’re sending him.’”
Rakovac was looking at her in bewilderment. He tried to speak, “Hu…Chang…”
“As I said, an old friend from my days in Hong Kong. He made his living concocting very lethal poisons and undetectable delivery systems for them. I did a favor for him once. When I went to him four years ago and told him I needed his help, he was happy to oblige.”
Rakovac suddenly moaned and staggered back.
“Ah, now it’s hitting. It’s mamba venom mixed with one of Hu Chang’s more painful additives. At first, he didn’t want to use it. I told him to replace one of my canine teeth with a hypodermic containing the poison, then cap it. He was worried that the cap might break and loose the poison into my system.” Her smile was tiger bright. “But we worked it out.”
He was trying to stagger toward her throat.
She took a step back. “I knew that you’d be searching every orifice if you ever got your hands on me, and it had to be a part of the tooth and completely hidden. I had to promise to come back to him and let him replace it with something a little more stable right after I’d used it.”
His face was growing red, livid. He was starting at her with hatred…and fear. “Hurts…hurts…stop…it.”
“Did you stop?” she asked through set teeth. “Did you stop the taunts and the torture? You took my son, and you hurt him. I don’t even know all the ways that you hurt him yet. When I find out, I’ll probably want you to live for a hundred years so that I can keep you writhing with agony.”
He was panting, his eyes bulging from his swollen face. “Stop…it.” “The venom attacks the respiratory system, Hu Chang’s additive adds heat to the mix. He promised you’d feel as if your lungs and every nerve in your body were on fire. Is that how it feels, Rakovac?”
He groaned, his hands reaching for her throat.
She took another step back. “Yes, I can see it does. Do you feel helpless? That’s how you like your victims to feel. I wanted you to feel helpless.”
He was sinking to his knees. Tears were running down his cheeks from eyes that were almost bulging from his face. “Please…”
“Please what? Please forgive you for taking and hurting my son? Please stop punishing you for doing it? No way on earth, you bastard.”
He was reaching blindly for the weapon he’d dropped to the floor.
She put her foot on the gun. “In five minutes, it will be over. But those minutes will seem like a millennium. Hu Chang promised. I could have made it quicker, it would have been safer for me. But I had to have at least this much time.” She bent down and looked into his eyes. “You’ve lost everything. I’m going to ruin all your fine plans. I’m going to take back everything you stole from us. I’m going to make my son’s life so good that he’ll never even remember what you did to him.” He understood, she could see that realization through the twisted agony in his face. “So suffer, Rakovac. Suffer…”
Chapter
18
Catherine was still standing over Rakovac’s body when Eve ran into the room.
Eve stopped short, her gaze flying from the dead man on the floor to Catherine
. She looked…barbaric. Half-naked, her long hair lying half-over her breasts, a trace of blood on her lips. No, more like pictures she’d seen of the ancient goddesses in battle.
“Catherine…?”
“He’s dead,” Catherine said regretfully. “I wanted it to last longer.” She shook her head as if to clear it. She picked up the gun on the floor and turned to Eve. “I was coming after you. Are you hurt?”
“No.” She picked up Catherine’s shirt, which was lying on the floor, and crossed the room. “We’re all fine. Czadas is dead, too. Joe and Venable are right behind me. Joe was cursing a blue streak when I ran up here ahead of him.” She shrugged. “I made Venable give me a gun. I had to make sure you were safe.”
“Joe? How did he—Later.” She lifted her hand to her head. “I can’t seem to think right now.” She slipped into the shirt Eve was holding for her. “My son is alive?”
“Yes, Luke is alive. Kelly says he’s a survivor. He’s with her now.”
“Then it’s over, isn’t it?”
“It’s over.” Eve buttoned Catherine’s shirt. She couldn’t blame Catherine for being dazed. She had obviously gone through hell in the past hours, but no more than the hell she had endured for the last nine years. “Or it’s the beginning. It depends on how you look at it.”
“Yes, that’s a good way to look at it. That’s what I told Rakovac.” She looked down at Rakovac’s face, still twisted with agony. “He ruined the last nine years for Luke and me. I can’t let him take anything else from us. He’d win. I can’t let him win.”
Eve gave her a quick, hard hug. “Not you. That’s not going to happen.”
“I didn’t want this to happen to you and Kelly. I thought I was going to keep him away from you.”
“It didn’t happen. You couldn’t know. Don’t think about it right now.”
“How is she?” Joe stood in the doorway.
“Good enough.” Eve nodded at Rakovac. “He’s dead.”
Venable pushed Joe aside and strode into the room. “I checked the car out front. There was a computer, but I didn’t see—” He was searching Rakovac’s pockets. He pulled out a keychain. “Thumb drive! This has got to be it. I’ll go to the study and check it out on his computer.” He jumped to his feet and ran out of the room and down the stairs.
“You didn’t find what you needed at Rakovac’s house?” Catherine asked.
“It was purged. Venable says we can get it eventually, but we need it now.” Joe crossed to look down at Rakovac. “You got him. How?”
She smiled faintly. “I struck him with my fangs. Mamba venom.”
“A fitting end. I thought you’d have made preparations. You wouldn’t have just gone in without a plan.” His glance shifted to her face. He reached out and took both her hands in his and looked into her eyes. “Did it feel good, Catherine?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Then forget about the bastard.” He squeezed her hands and turned away. “I’ve got to go down and check with Venable on that thumb drive. Eve, why don’t you take her down to see her son?”
“I was planning on it,” Eve said. “As soon as I get the blood off her. Neither of you appear to have noticed it.”
“From what I saw of Luke out there, he wouldn’t have noticed either,” Joe said as he left the room.
“Luke…” Catherine said. “I didn’t think I’d feel like this. I’m scared, Eve. All the things I meant to say to him have flown out of my head.”
“They were probably the wrong things anyway. You can’t comprehend what Luke has become.”
Her eyes widened in alarm. “What’s wrong? Why do you say that?”
“Calm down. I didn’t mean anything is wrong.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. Catherine had been looking forward to this reunion for nine years. How to warn her, without dashing that hope? “You’ll have to decide that for yourself. I didn’t have enough time with him to judge. Luke is going to be difficult. You may have a long way to go. There’s no way around that.” She paused, feeling her way. “But he’s like you, Catherine. That’s a very good start.”
She smiled shakily. “Then heaven help him. I was always so glad that my baby wasn’t like me.”
“But he’s no longer a baby, and he has many of your qualities.”
“You’re being so gentle,” Catherine said. “That’s scaring me even more.”
“Then it’s time I shut up and took you down to see him.” She took Catherine’s hand. “Come on. He’s with Kelly, and she’s not always patient with him. I don’t want him walking out on her.”
“They don’t get along?”
“I didn’t say that. They may be good for each other. They’re just…young.”
Catherine pulled her hand away from Eve’s as they reached the stairs. “You don’t have to treat me like a child. I’ll be fine.” She started down the steps, her gaze searching the foyer below. “Where is—” Her breath left her as she saw Luke standing beside Kelly by the door. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “He is beautiful, isn’t he, Eve? Just like that progression you did.”
“Yes, I did a good job. But I only did the computer rendering; you’re responsible for the actual creation.” She watched Catherine go slowly down the steps. She was so vulnerable right now. Please don’t let him hurt her.
As if he felt her gaze on him, Luke suddenly looked up with that wary instinct that seemed such a part of him.
He tensed as he saw Catherine on the stairs.
His expression closed, became even more shuttered.
“Catherine!” Kelly pushed past him and ran up the steps to her. “I’ve been scared to death. Are you okay?”
Catherine gave Kelly a hug, her gaze still on Luke over the girl’s head. “I’m fine.”
Kelly stepped back and gazed at her a moment. “Come on, I’ll go down with you.” She slipped her arm protectively around Catherine’s waist and started back down the stairs. She said softly, “He’s not so bad. You just have to take him down when he gets too full of himself.”
“I’ll remember that.” Catherine hadn’t taken her gaze from Luke’s dark eyes staring up at her.
She was now face-to-face with him.
But Kelly was suddenly standing between them. “You listen to me, Luke,” she said fiercely. “This is Catherine, this is your mother. She’s wonderful, and you don’t deserve her. But you’ve got her, and you’d better not hurt her.”
Then she whirled away and ran back up to where Eve was standing on the stairs.
Luke didn’t answer Kelly. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Catherine.
“Hello, Luke, I’ve waited a long time,” Catherine said awkwardly. “Now that you’re here, I don’t know the right things to say. Maybe there aren’t any right things. I’ve tried so hard to get you back.” She paused. It was so difficult. She wanted desperately to take him in her arms and tell him all the hurt and loneliness was over. But she had to move with such heartbreaking slowness. “I love you. If you give me a chance, I’ll try to give you a good life. Those are the only things that are important, I think. What do you think?”
He didn’t answer.
“Talk to me, Luke. Are there any questions you’d like to ask me?”
“Yes.” He asked baldly, “Did you tell Rakovac to hurt me?”
“No!” Her eyes closed for an instant before they opened to reveal them shimmering with unshed tears. “As God is my witness, Luke.”
“I didn’t think so. He lies. I don’t believe anything he says.”
“You won’t ever have to worry about him again, Luke.”
His gaze flew to the staircase leading to the upper floor. “He’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“You did it?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Good.” The ferocity was back in his expression. “I’m glad. I was going to do it if I had to.”
She flinched. “No. Don’t say that. You shouldn’t have to do anything like that to protect yourself. I’ll protect you f
rom now on.”
He stared at her skeptically.
“You don’t believe me? I love you, Luke.”
“Why should I believe you? I don’t know you. I don’t love you. I don’t love anyone.”
She drew a deep breath. “You’re right. Trust has to be earned. Will you give me a chance to earn it? You have a choice now.”
“I do?” he asked warily.
“Did you think I was going to force you?” she asked. “You can come with me and see if you like it. Everything is going to be strange for you for a while. I think we can work through it together. Or, if you don’t want to give me my chance, then I’ll find a place for you where you’ll be happy. That’s all I want. For you to be happy.” She smiled unsteadily. “What makes you happy, Luke?”
He hesitated, then said slowly, “Books. Mikhal burned them.”
“Then we’ll get you more. As many as you like. I’ll make sure you have an entire library of your own.”
Another silence. “Where? Where would I have to go?”
“We could decide that between us. I used to live in Boston, but I haven’t really had a home since I lost you.”
“I’ve read about Boston in one of my books. They had some kind of crazy tea party there.”
“Yes, they did. You used to live there, too, when you were a little boy.”
Another silence. “Would we go there right away?”
“I have to go somewhere else first. I promised a friend, Hu Chang, I’d go to Hong Kong and have a dental procedure done. He seemed to think it was urgent. But after that, we’ll go wherever you want to go.”
“Hong Kong.” He tasted the words. “It sounds…funny.”
“It’s not a funny place. Oh, I guess it could be. But where I grew up, it wasn’t. I was on my own.”
“Like me.”
She nodded. “Like you. Will you—” She stopped. “I want to push you because I want you to come so badly. But you’ve been pushed enough since you left me. I won’t do that to you.” She impulsively took a step forward, reaching a hand out to touch him. She saw his face tense, become even more shuttered. Her hand fell to her side. She whispered, “It’s so hard, Luke.”