Fate Book Two

  The next part, however, was beyond difficult. My mom had to send her own flare to my father so he could locate us. I still didn’t know what I’d do if I saw him again, despite having had plenty of time to think this past week. If my father had taken my fiancé, then good old Dad was my only link to finding him. That meant I would have to pretend I didn’t suspect any wrongdoing and play the part of the grieving, unsuspecting daughter until I figured out what to do next.

  “Dakota!” my mom screamed excitedly from the bedroom. “Get in here!”

  I rushed from the living room, hoping she might’ve seen an e-mail response from Paolo pop up on my laptop.

  “What is it?” I stood in the doorway of her room and spotted her sitting on the bed, her back against the headboard, laptop in hand.

  She waved me over, grinning. “Come here. Come look.”

  I sat next to her and saw a transcribed voice mail from her answering service. She had two set up, one in Paris and another in Mumbai, under the name Toni Galligan. Anyone knowing her fake name could call and leave a message with the service, which would convert the message to an e-mail and forward it to her Gmail account. Oh, the joys of staying hidden but keeping in touch. So inefficient.

  My mom’s blue eyes scanned the message. “It’s from your father. He says that he hopes we are okay, and he’s found Paolo.”

  “What?” Holy shit. “Is he okay? Where is he?” I leaned over her shoulder to read the message, but it said nothing more other than for her to send a flare with her phone number and location, that he’d see us in two days “alone.” As in, he would be coming alone.

  Alone. I tried to keep breathing, but it wasn’t easy. The obvious thought going through my mind was whether or not my father had truly found Paolo or if he was simply playing the role of helpful father. After all, my mom would never forgive him for something like this. My second thought—way more important—was if my father had found Paolo, why not bring him?

  He doesn’t want to.

  As I mulled over options—panicking, screaming, or continuing to fake calm—my mom began placing her online classified ad in the Miami Herald.

  Broken pink lawnmower for sale. $300. Cash. Owner moving to Chicago. Must sell.

  She added her prepaid cell and paid with a credit card under a fake name. Meanwhile, I stared at the screen, my mind trying to come up with a way to corner my father. There had to be some sort of leverage I could use to persuade him to undo this horrible nightmare.

  What if you pretend to be someone who wants Paolo? Someone who’s been hunting Paolo for years. His family. Paolo had told me they’d been looking for him, and not because they missed him. But that would mean I’d have to be the leverage, kidnapping myself and demanding Paolo in exchange for my freedom. The idea was lame enough that it might just work.

  “Dakota?” My mom stared with deep concern.

  “Yeah?”

  “If anyone can get Paolo back, it’s your father.”

  I smiled shallowly and nodded while staring down at my laptop. “Sure.”

  ~~~

  June 21

  I dreamed about you last night, Paolo. You were standing in the church, wearing your tux, your thick, almost-too-long, now sun-streaked dark hair combed back. You looked like one of those iconic, happy men from the bride magazines Mandy always had lying around. I used to hate those magazines until I met you. Until the moment our eyes locked, and I felt the breath pulled from my lungs. You are so beautiful, Paolo. Especially when you get that look in your eyes, filled with reassurance and affection. Nothing ever made me feel safer.

  I paused and thought deeply about the image in my head. Paolo’s confidence had always been like a beacon of light, but really, it was more than just a look in his eyes. He exuded an inner strength that gave a certain squareness to his shoulders and produced a sort of swagger in his step. Even the way he lifted his unshaven chin said, “I got this.” And by “this” I meant making sure nothing bad would ever happen to me. An illusion.

  I continued writing: But you were wrong, Paolo. So, so wrong. Because while you were off planning contingencies, thinking through how to protect my life, you forgot the most important thing: you. You forgot that I need you. You forgot that my staying safe means nothing if I end up without you.

  I took a deep breath and glanced up at the clock in my room. It was almost three in the afternoon, and my father would be arriving any minute, so I needed to finish my journal entry. I didn’t know what would happen next, because I was about to open a can of giant, ugly worms. With fangs. Possibly machine guns, too.

  Paolo, whatever’s happened to you, wherever you’ve gone, please don’t give up hope. I will find you. I love you. Forever. —D

  I closed the book and placed it in the large floral tote I used as a purse. Like my other journals—the ones that my father had used to spy on me—it was made from a special paper. Anything written would be transmitted via very sophisticated Trojan horse software that attached itself to any nearby cell phone signals like a tiny hitchhiker. The message then went to a server where it could be downloaded. Yeah, so in other words, anyone with access to that server could read my journal. Ironically, and as rude and intrusive as it was, my journal saved my life once. I had been taken by my high school English teacher of all people. Psycho a-hole. Only, he wasn’t really a teacher, but my father’s disgruntled ex-employee. Not knowing my journal was really a tool used by my father to gain access into my private life, my entries had left the necessary bread crumbs for him and Paolo to track me down. The damned thing, my little “fate book,” saved my life.

  Now I hoped this journal I’d set up for Paolo, and only Paolo’s eyes, would deliver a final message to him should anything go wrong.

  I grabbed my purse and sunglasses and headed out to the living room, where my mom was watching Ellen. I knew she hated television, but needed to keep her mind off of worrying. Been there.

  “Hey, Mom. I’m going to run a few errands and pick up some groceries for dinner tonight. Need anything?”

  “I think we’re almost out of coffee,” she said.

  “Got it. Be back in an hour.”

  “Dakota, be careful, honey.”

  I slipped on my hat and sunglasses and then gave her the thumbs-up. Once outside, I felt my pulse spike. Betraying my mom would be the hardest part of all this. She would think I’d been taken, and it would break her heart. I could only pray she’d forgive me.

  I took the elevator down to the lobby of my apartment building, circled the block, and entered the office building directly behind where we were staying. From the small office space I’d rented under yet another alias—Penny Prentise—I had a view of my safe house, which I’d now bugged.

  I had only an hour or so to set up camp and start the ball rolling, beginning with having a message delivered to my parents, routed from Italy: Give us Paolo, and you’ll get your daughter back in one piece.

  I felt the sweat trickle down my spine as the elevator made its way up to the nineteenth floor. Could I outsmart my dad? Could I put my mom through hell to get back the guy I loved?

  “You can do this,” I whispered to myself and pushed open the door to the nearly empty office.

  “Hello, Dakota.”

  I blinked several times, wondering if I wasn’t dreaming. “Dad?”

  ~~~

  My dad.

  Where to start?

  The man was a mystery even to me. On the outside, he was the sort of man you might see walking through an airport—briefcase in one hand, cell in the other—and assume he was an uptight executive who’d lost his ability to smile. Tall, athletic, with broad shoulders, short silver hair, and a serious expression, he’s the sort of person people noticed and easily forgot. Unless you pissed him off. Then you never forgot. Scary.

  When I was little, I used to think everyone’s dad was like mine: distant both emotionally and physically, only making an appearance when schedules permitted. But on those rare occasions when we’d spend time to
gether—a random vacation to Disneyland, a weekend in Palm Springs, dinner in San Francisco—it was the best feeling in the world. Because for those few moments, I felt important. Dad had pushed aside whatever was on his plate to spend time with me.

  As I grew older, though, I began to see him in another light. While on an unauthorized shopping trip with Mandy during school hours, I’d spotted him in the city with another woman. That was the day I realized my father wasn’t who I thought. Nor was he like the other dads. Mine was a man with secrets, and later, I would discover I was one of them. Officially, he held the title of CEO for his modeling agency based out of the UK. He had a wife (a.k.a. “the other woman”)—a decoy who worked for him—and no children. Privately, however, he ran the world’s most powerful underground organization with a handful of trusted men. He answered to no one but himself, operating outside the confines of any laws or international treaties, gathering information for the “good guys.” (A subjective term, depending which side you were on.) Privately, he was married to my mom and had a daughter.

  One might say the man lived a life only heard of in Hollywood spy flicks. Only, there was no glamour in this crappy version. My life had been permanently disfigured by his choices, and I knew I would forever be looking over my shoulder, because his enemies would always see me as a way to get to him. And that was why Paolo meant so much to me; he was my safe haven in all this.

  “Sit down, Dakota.” My father’s light-gray eyes flickered with annoyance, and he pointed to a lonely office chair in the corner that had been abandoned by the previous occupants along with the beat-up desk.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, still frozen in the doorway.

  The look on his face indicated he was about to start yelling. “Close the door. And sit.” He wore his usual tailored dark-gray suit, which was atypically wrinkled today, indicating he’d just flown in from somewhere far away.

  I slowly did as he asked with the door, but leaned against it. I wasn’t a child any longer, and mentally I’d already revoked his “dad card.”

  I crossed my arms. “What are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?” The deep lines in his forehead scrunched together, and his lower lids were lost in a sea of dark shadows. He was tired and on a short fuse.

  Stay strong, Dakota.

  “Clearly this is an office. And I’m standing in it,” I replied.

  “With a view of your own safe house? Were you planning to spy on yourself?” he asked.

  “How did you find this place?” I asked bluntly.

  “The rental agency you used ran a credit check on Penny Prentise.”

  A testament to my father’s powerful connections, he had secret access to every agency and database imaginable. I’m sure he had standing alerts set up—credit, INS, CIA, police reports, etc.—anytime my name (or one of my aliases) popped up anywhere. After all, if he could find me that way, then so could someone else—something he didn’t want. All that said, the question begged, “How did you know about my alias?”

  My father’s harsh gaze softened a bit, and he loosened his black silk tie. “Why don’t you sit?”

  “If I sit, will you start answering my questions?”

  “Why do you think I’m here?”

  Oh, the possibilities were endless. However…“I’m guessing to lie to me. But that would be crazy. You’d never lie to me, would you?”

  He tilted his head to one side, his patience hanging by a thread.

  No. I didn’t care. But I did want answers.

  I strolled across the stained brown carpet over to the computer chair with one missing armrest and sat, never breaking eye contact with my father. I wanted him to know I wasn’t afraid of him. “Start talking.”

  He took a slow half breath, half grumble. “Paolo is the one who gave me a list of your aliases.”

  “What?”

  “He never really stopped working for me.”

  “I thought you retired,” I said.

  “I’ve had to remain involved in a few last projects.”

  So he’d lied to my mother. Why wasn’t I surprised?

  “Well,” I said smugly, “Paolo wouldn’t lie to me.”

  My father cocked one silver brow. “He would do anything I told him if he believed it meant keeping you safe. At least, that’s what I thought.”

  Oh no. I felt it coming. My father was getting ready to sell me a lie. A big lie.

  “So you asked him to spy on me, and he agreed.” It wasn’t a question, really. More of a statement to convey my complete and utter disbelief.

  My father leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “You don’t believe me.”

  “No.”

  “Krasmira Ivanova, Judy O’Dell, Amy Bingham, Kristy Harris, Ann Ellis, Blythe Kuykendall…” My father went on to list every alias I’d come up with, a list only Paolo knew; after all, he’d helped me get the matching passports, credit cards, and…

  Click! Oh crap. My father had been helping him. Paolo had told me he’d used his own, “very trustworthy” contacts to get passports and credit cards, but now that I thought about it, that had been too easy an answer.

  I’m such an ass. On the other hand, I’d had no reason to doubt Paolo. He’d put his life on the line for me multiple times.

  “Fine,” I said, “so Paolo kept working with you because he felt it was the best way to keep me safe. I don’t see the crime.”

  My father reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a stack of folded papers. “Dakota, I know I’ve lied to you, and you have no reason to trust me, but I need you to believe me when I say that Paolo is not the man you thought.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He fooled us both. He used you to keep tabs on me. He fed the information back to his family.”

  My blood ran thick with anger. “You know what I think? You just didn’t want me to be with Paolo. I think you were mad at him for leaving your stupid little organization.”

  My father placed his hand on his waist and looked at the floor. “You’re right. I’m not going to lie. But I gave you both my blessing, and I meant it.”

  “Then why did you take him?” I asked scornfully.

  “I didn’t. The truth is that a few minutes before the ceremony, I received a message confirming that information had been leaked—our apartment in Paris was ransacked while we were away in Costa Rica with you. I asked Paolo about it, and he ran.”

  This can’t be possible. Paolo and I were the only two who knew about my parents’ apartment in Paris.

  I stood, unsure if this was the truth, and praying to God it wasn’t. “You let me believe he’d been taken.”

  My father held out his hands. “I had no idea what Paolo might have told his people; I needed you and your mom out of there. That was my only concern.”

  “So where did you go after that? Where the hell have you been?”

  “Getting proof.” He held out the tri-folded stack of papers.

  Hesitantly, I took them and unfolded the nail to Paolo’s coffin. The first page was a printout of Paolo wearing sunglasses, unshaven, his dark hair cut short and slicked back. He stood on a street corner, wearing a very stylish black suit and talking on a cell. From the buildings around him and the parked cars in the picture, he looked to be somewhere in Europe.

  “Is this a photo shoot?” I asked. Because, seriously, Paolo looked like he was posing. And as odd as that sounded, my father once had professional modeling portfolios made up for some of his men as part of some cover. In a roundabout way, it was how I met Paolo—a long story.

  “Afraid not,” my father replied.

  I flipped to the next page to see Paolo standing with open arms. On the following page, he hugged a blonde woman. The page after that, the two kissed passionately.

  “When were these taken?” I asked.

  “Yesterday. I took them myself.” My father didn’t blink.

  “You’re sure?”

  He nodded. “If you care to see the other
photos I took through the bedroom window, I’m more than happy to—”

  “No.” Was it possible to die from a broken heart? Because I could swear mine wanted to stop beating.

  “I also,” my father said, “have pictures of him dining with the Abelli family.”

  I nearly threw up right then and there. “The…the…Abelli family?”

  “Paolo is the second son of Giuseppe Abelli.”

  Oh dear Lord of infamous criminals. Paolo had never told me his real last name because he’d said it was best for both of us. He had shared, however, that his family was part of the Mafia. But that was a lie. They were the Mafia. The family who’d been connected to Mussolini in World War II and had escaped war crimes tribunals. The family who’d laundered money in the ’90s for terrorists who’d later use the funds to attack the United States. Please, oh please, dear God. “Not that Abelli family.”

  “Yes. That Abelli family.” My father’s face still showed no signs of emotion. Of course, he lived and breathed this crap his entire life.

  I sat in the broken-down chair and suddenly felt a sort of cosmic camaraderie with the thing. “Who’s the woman?” I asked, completely in shock, completely unaware I’d made my lips move.

  “Nikki Hunt. The heiress to the Hunt shoe empire.”

  Oh God, the universe hates me. Really, really hates me. I hadn’t been able to see her face in the pictures, but I knew who she was. There was hardly a person who went grocery shopping who didn’t. She repeatedly showed up in the tabloids, linked to one scandal or another, kind of like an Italian Paris Hilton. Only on naughty steroids. And with a giant rack. And a bank account, arrest record, and shoe collection to match. She was every bad boy’s fantasy and everything I was not.