Cat's Lair (49 page)

She knew Rafe could hear the ring of truth in her voice, she could see it in his eyes, in the way he looked at her. His thumb slid over the back of her hand.

“Don’t stop, Catarina. I need to know everything. I need to understand. If I understand what happened, what drove you away from me, it will help determine how all this ends and if that man will live out his life safely or not.”

Her stomach muscles clenched. Hard knots formed. It took a lot of control to breathe normally and not give in to the desire to jerk her hands away. The worst of it all was she felt sorry for him. He seemed so alone and she’d hurt him. She didn’t want to see that, but she did.

“Do you remember the dinner you had with the Lospostos family? I was so careful. I wanted you to be proud of me. More, I wanted you to look good to them. I chose every dish so carefully and prepared it. It took me hours. Even the bread was made from scratch. Everything was perfect. They loved it. They loved the dessert. And then you forced me to read that poem. You knew I couldn’t read. You wanted to make fun of me. Worse, you wanted them to make fun of me.”

The memory brought heat to her face. She would never be able to look back on that night without feeling the embarrassment of her lack of education. Rafe had done it on purpose, and no matter what he said now, he could never take the moment back.

“You said I was good in the kitchen, but not good for much else. I heard you. You laughed. They laughed. You implied I had a subpar IQ and couldn’t learn anything in school.”

She allowed her lashes to lift because she knew he’d see genuine pain there. She didn’t want to show it to him. The only person she trusted enough to see her that vulnerable was Eli, but this was for Eli.

Rafe’s fingers tightened around her hand. “I had no choice, Catarina. None. They had noticed you. They asked too many questions and they wanted to meet you. I couldn’t have them speculating on whether or not you meant something to me. That would have put you in danger.”

“You want me to believe you humiliated me in front of your friends because somehow that would keep me out of danger?” Catarina poured incredulity into her voice.

She kept her gaze from shifting toward the kitchen door through sheer willpower. She’d have to check on Eli soon. She couldn’t stand not knowing if he was all right or not. There had been something in Rafe’s look when he’d directed his men to leave Eli alone. She didn’t believe that Eli was entirely safe.

“They aren’t friends,” he said, leaning toward her, his eyes steady on hers. “They are dangerous people I’m forced to do business with. I have one weakness. Only one. You make me vulnerable. If others know it, especially a crime family as dangerous as the Lospostos, you can be used as a weapon against me. What that means, Catarina, is they may take you and torture you. They may send you back to me in pieces. I wasn’t willing to risk you for your pride.”

She heard the truth in his voice and she didn’t want to. Her heart already bled for him – this man lost to his past – to the parents who abused and corrupted him. There was no redemption, no going back from what he’d done.

She licked her lips, forcing her mind to stay on Rafe and away from Eli. She knew Eli had a plan and she had to trust him, although what he could do hanging from chains with three male leopards who obviously hunted humans with Rafe in the swamp was beyond her comprehension.

“Rafe, I grew up in your home.”

“It’s your home too, Catarina.” His tone, still low, was very firm and decisive.

“I’m quite a lot smarter and more observant than you ever gave me credit for.”

“I’m well aware of that, although I’ve always known you were intelligent. I just underestimated you. I thought if I kept you from school, it would slow you down a little. Instead, you accelerated. That was my mistake and one I won’t make again with you.”

She didn’t know if that was praise or a warning. “The point is, I used your computer for my education, not my own. I hacked you. I know your business. I know what you do.”

“I’m very aware of that.” Now he did sound proud of her.

That pride made her heart ache all the more. “I know the arms deals. The drug deals. The prostitutes and even contract kills you arranged. I know where your money is. I’m a danger to you and to every business partner you have.”

“I’ve been aware of that for some time, Catarina.” He sat back, for the first time letting go of her. “You never once cooperated with law enforcement. You didn’t go to them. You refused to give them anything this time, even when you knew I would find out where you were the moment they brought you to a police station. You knew I would come after you. And you knew I’d find you. Still you didn’t take their deal. That’s not fear, Catarina. That’s loyalty. I’ve never once had anyone loyal to me. Anyone looking out for me. Not unless I paid them. You gave that to me.”

It wasn’t altogether a lie. There was more truth in his statement than she wanted to believe. He’d killed, and still there was a part of her that protected him and she didn’t understand why. She kept thinking she could find a way to save him. He’d grown up in what could only have been a nightmare world, but so had Jake Bannaconni. Jake had found a morality, lines he would never cross; Rafe had turned to killing to ease his own pain.

“What about those people you allow your leopard to hunt in the swamp, Rafe?” she asked quietly.

His eyes flickered, darkened. She saw the threat of his leopard there. The focused, piercing stare of the hunter. “I don’t kill those people, Catarina. My leopard does. It’s the only way I can restrain him. Every one of them was an enemy.”

“You brought women to our home to sleep with you. You hunted them. How could they be the enemy?”

“You go too far,” he hissed. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this conversation is for you?”

“I want to understand the things I didn’t as a child. The things about you that scared me. I’m giving you all the reasons I ran from you, Rafe. You were everything to me. My whole life. There was no one else. Only you. You didn’t hold me. You didn’t reassure me when I needed it. I tried to hold on. I tried to understand. But I knew what you were doing and it frightened me, especially when I felt her. My leopard. I was afraid she would hunt with yours. That she was a killer.”

He studied her face. He reached out and touched her hair gently. So gently. His fingers slid through the silky length and then he tucked it behind her ear. She realized he really thought he could persuade her to leave Eli and go back with him. To do that, he had to know he’d have to kill Eli. Eli would never let her go, and if there was one thing Rafe was good at, it was reading other men. He’d know that. Somewhere in Rafe’s mind, he believed he could make her see that it was the right thing to do. The thought that Rafe was that far gone saddened her.

“You don’t understand about leopards, sweetheart. They need freedom to be who and what they are. They’re at the top of the food chain. If I don’t let mine run free and hunt the way he was meant to, his mood affects me and I become dangerous. Better a prostitute than some innocent woman.”

“Did your leopard hunt my mother?”

“She wasn’t your mother. She intended to use you for prostitution. She told me so herself when she came back demanding more money for you.”

Her heart stuttered in her chest. She couldn’t help herself. She wrapped her arms around her body and rocked herself gently back and forth. “I need a drink of water, Rafe.”

“I’ll get it for you. This is a lot to take in.” He stood, his eyes on her just in case, and walked to the sink.

She waited for him to fill a glass with water before feeling quickly under the table for the weapon taped there. The moment her fingers found it, she dropped her hands to her lap, twisting her fingers together. She knew he would focus on that. He hated that she couldn’t keep still when she was nervous or agitated.

Rafe set the water in front of her. “You were born for me. Every leopard has a mate, and you’re mine. I’ve always known it. This man who came into your life, I can understand why you would think you needed him, but he isn’t for you. He was never for you. Still, I do understand that you care for him.”

“Rafe, you’ve killed too many people I care about. David Belmont and Bernard Casey didn’t know a thing about me. They’re dead. Some stranger was murdered as well. I didn’t even know his name.”

“Some things are necessary, Catarina. You’re old enough and intelligent enough to understand that. You’ve got your explanations. It’s time to come home now.”

“And if I won’t go?”

“You’ll go. You’ll go because you belong there. You’ll come with me, because if you don’t, that man out there is going to die.”

“We both know he’ll come after me.” She said it quietly, watching his face.

He hit her. He hit her hard, open-handed, across her face, knocking her right out of the chair. Stars burst across her eyes. Pain radiated from her cheek to the top of her skull and down across her jaw. She hit the floor so hard it knocked the wind from her so that she couldn’t get air.

Rafe had often exploded into violence, one moment absolutely cold and controlled and the next, cold and vicious, capable of murder. He was on her so fast she didn’t have time to even roll away from him. He slammed the toe of his shoe into her side, kicking her several times.

Pain blasted through her body. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t rise. Couldn’t get away from the savage attack. It was so fast, so unexpected, all she could do was curl into a ball and try to protect her stomach and ribs. Instinctively, both hands covered her abdomen as her knees drew up for added protection.

He crouched down beside her, gripping her hair and yanking her head toward him. He slapped her three more times, the sound loud, the blows hard. When she managed to look at him, his eyes were all cat, his leopard close.

“You let him fuck you, right here. Right in this room where you cook him meals that should have been mine. Did you think I wouldn’t smell the two of you? You let him touch you. You knew you belonged to me. You had no right allowing him to put his hands on you let alone his dick in you. You allowed his leopard to claim yours. Your leopard belonged to mine. Did you really think for one moment, I’d leave that man alive?” He snarled the questions at her, but his expression didn’t change.

She didn’t move. She didn’t dare. He was too far gone into his world of violence and madness. She reached for air, prayed that Eli had somehow executed his plan and had gotten away from Rafe’s lieutenants.

Rafe reached under the table to find the gun taped there. He pulled it out and showed it to her. “Were you looking for this? Were you planning to shoot me, Catarina?” He slapped her again. Hard. Once, twice. His expression never changed.

She’d seen him deliver this kind of punishment to those who worked for him, but he’d never laid a hand on her. She knew why everyone was so terrified of him. The viciousness when he appeared so remote and cold was worse than any anger he could display.

She felt her leopard rise close to the surface, fur pushing at her skin as the animal tried to save her.
Not
yet.
Not
yet.
She tried to soothe the little female. She needed just a few more minutes. Rafe wasn’t going to kill her. He planned on killing Eli, probably in front of her, that would be the only way he’d be satisfied. She would take whatever punishment Rafe gave her in order to give Eli the chance he needed to escape.

Rafe dragged her up by her hair. “You’re coming home with me. That bastard is going to die, and it will be a very long time before I forgive what you’ve done. Don’t you ever threaten your own life again, Catarina. I can hurt you in ways you can’t even imagine, and I will if I have to. There are other people you don’t want dead. Think about them before you ever do something like this again.”

Pain crashed through her. She could barely think. She allowed him to shove her toward the screen door, keeping her hands wrapped around her middle, her fingers settling on the side zipper of her camisole. She’d practiced. She was fast. Very fast. Eli had been relentless, making her practice stripping and shifting on the run over and over for hours each day. She had thought he was a little overboard but now she was grateful.

Rafe kept his fingers around her upper arm. Hard. Digging into her flesh. A vise she knew she couldn’t just yank away from. But her leopard could. She just had to figure out a way to rid herself of the camisole.

He opened the screen and thrust her outside, coming right behind her, never losing contact. Dawn had spread light through darkness. Her gaze went straight to Eli, his body still hanging, battered and streaked with blood. For a moment her heart pounded. She thought he was dead. She bit back a scream of denial.

Rafe shoved her toward the end of the porch. She stumbled, keeping her gaze on Eli. When she stumbled, Rafe let go of her. She tore the zipper down and ripped the camisole over her head, shoved the skirt from her hips and kicked it away as she leapt past one of Rafe’s lieutenants who was sitting absolutely still in the chair on the porch. He hadn’t even registered in her vision before.

Already she was shifting, catching the scent of blood, of death. She took one leap and landed on the wide wooden railing just in front of Eli. Only it wasn’t Eli hanging there. It was another of Rafe’s lieutenants. She saw that in an instant and knew the one sitting so still was also dead.

Elation swept through her as she leapt from the porch and streaked across the open yard for the trees. She knew every inch of the way between their property and Jake Bannaconni’s. She also knew Eli had to be battling the third leopard, which meant her female would have to outrun Rafe’s male.

She didn’t look back. The little female valiantly ran for the fence that bordered the two properties. She knew where Jake’s men, all three shifters, had been working to repair a broken fence line so their cattle would remain on their land. She headed for that spot, hoping the men would get an early morning start and they would help her.

She ran full out, but she hadn’t counted on the damage Rafe had inflicted on her body. Every step hurt. She had to fight to breathe. He’d definitely hurt her ribs, and she felt each vicious kick he’d inflicted on her. She wasn’t nearly fast enough and she knew it. With a little sob, she pushed the female harder.