Chain of Title (25 page)

“She’s safe now.  No thanks
to you,” Sean answered calmly without emotion.

“When?  How?”  Frank threw
his hands up, shaking his head.  “I want to see her now!  Tell me where she is!”
he barked impatiently.

Sean moved in closer. 
“That’s not going to happen,” Sean said with an air of chilling finality.

Frank gave Sean a peculiar
look.  “What?  This is over now, Parker.  Where’s Danielle?”  He stared into
Sean’s cold eyes and stony face; a sudden realization hit him hard.  “You
were
involved in this all along, weren’t you?  Planned it out so you’d look like the
hero.”  His stomach clenched.  This couldn’t be good—
unfinished business
and all that.

A crack of thunder seemed to
emphasize Sean’s snort of disgust.  “This fucked up mess was all
your
doing, Chastain!  You brought a shit storm of trouble down...on
both
of
us!”  He inched closer.  “Any finger-pointing by you should be done in a
goddamn mirror!” he yelled with contempt.

Frank’s blood ran cold from
the ruthlessness in Sean Parker’s eyes.  He needed to talk him down.  Try to
reason with the deranged lunatic.  He kept his voice low and calm.  “Danielle
will want to see me.  I’m her father and she loves me.”  He hesitated, running
the calculations in his head and decided to say it.  “They
both
love
me.”  He surreptitiously slid his hand inside his jacket.

Sean’s mouth twisted into a
snarl.  “I guess your definition of love includes rape, huh?  You sonofabitch!” 
He punched hard against Frank’s chest knocking him back against his Mercedes.

Frank flinched at the
accusation and from the steel at his back.  His nerves ratcheted higher as his
hand slowly and discretely moved further under his windbreaker, almost reaching
his target.  “I’m sure that’s what you have to tell yourself, Parker,” he spit
out hatefully, firmly gripping his pistol.

At that moment, a heavy crack
of thunder resonated through him and before he even understood what had
happened, his arm twisted painfully and his hand slammed down onto the hood,
his grip faltering and releasing the gun to slide off with a clatter onto the
gravel below.  Frank felt a growing panic and confusion mixed with a searing
pain in his side.  The sky lit up with a round of lightning flashes and then
the first drops started to fall.  He looked down and saw Sean’s hand on a knife
handle, holding it firmly in place in his gut.  His free hand jutted out to
grasp Sean’s throat, but Frank could already feel his strength waning.  His
eyes flicked in fear from the knife and back to the remorseless eyes in front
of him, the sharp taste of iron now seeping into his mouth, the warmth
spreading across his abdomen and sticking to his shirt.

“You had it all, Chastain,”
Sean ground out with vehemence.  “A life any man would envy, but you pissed it
all away with your mindless fucks and gambling.  You put Shayna and Danielle in
the path of monsters right out of a horror movie.”  Frank groaned and gurgled
as the knife twisted in his flesh.  A macabre grin inched across Sean’s face
and he licked at the raindrops on his lips.  “It seems that your loss is my
gain.”  Frank wanted to speak but unbearable pain prevented words from forming. 
“And now I’m going to collect what’s due me.  You see, I don’t do charity, so
that big bag of money is going to pay me and everyone else who had to clean up
your
mess.”  Frank’s weak grip dropped from Sean’s throat as despair began to
overtake him.  Sean leaned in closer.  “And then I’m going to take Shayna and
make her forget you ever existed.”

Sean started moving Frank
away from the Mercedes and he was powerless to stop him.  He felt certain that
shock had begun to set in and the maniac holding him up with a knife stuck in
his gut was the only reason he was still standing.  Fear for Shayna and
Danielle at the hands of this madman horrified him.  He tried speaking but
could hear how garbled his own words sounded.

“What’s that, Chastain?” Sean
asked angling in and shaking his head contemptuously, huffing loudly.  “They
will
always
be safe with
me
.  Don’t waste your last moments
worrying about that.  I’d much rather you think about
why
this is
happening to you.”  Sean dug the SOG SEAL in a bit deeper causing Frank to gasp
and groan louder.  “You might’ve been able to see your daughter, because I would’ve
considered sparing you—
if you hadn’t hurt Shayna
—raped her,” he said
sharply, turning Frank while still keeping the knife plunged to the hilt. 
“Think about that on the way down.”  Sean glanced up to the dark stormy sky as it
now dropped heavier sheets of rain.  Then he leaned into Frank’s ear and said bitterly,
“If you believe in a god, you’d better start begging him now, because you’ll
get no forgiveness from me.”  And with that, Sean brutally scored the blade up
Frank’s abdomen before ripping it from his body, releasing a gush of blood and
then shoving him off the cliff.

He inhaled deeply, then
stepped indifferently to the edge, looking down as a nearby lightning strike
lit up the three-hundred and fifty foot drop to the sharp rocks and crashing
waves below.  He then moved systematically back to the Mercedes, kicked the
pistol over the edge, reached in with his gloved hand and shifted the car into
neutral before pushing it over the cliff to its final destination.  Along with
its owner, he reflected, unrepentantly.

Then he casually strode back
to the waiting car, duffel bag hanging loosely from one hand, the other holding
out and angling the knife, the downpour washing away the warm blood.

Shayna
was jolted awake by the sound of her own raspy, labored breath.  She felt the
pounding of her racing heart and the trickle of tears down her heated skin.  Just
one of many nightmares she had, now mostly centered on Danielle and never
finding her.  Shayna concentrated on controlling her ragged breathing and
reminded herself that the real nightmare was over—sort of.  Now she didn’t know
where Sean or Frank were.  They both seemed to have vanished.  The FBI had
taken over the case, since a kidnapping was involved.  They had discovered
Frank’s money trail and the nasty cartel to which he had unwittingly become
indebted.

She had recited to the police
and the FBI exactly what Sean told her to say.  It was mostly the truth.  She
had gone away for an extended weekend, had left her phone behind so she
wouldn’t be interrupted.  
Why wasn’t the man she had spent the weekend with
at her side now?
  Easy.  He had received a call about a family member on his
deathbed in Florida.  That’s why they had come back to Mt. Pleasant early.  He
would be back as soon as possible.  The staff at Gaetano’s confirmed her story,
as did a nurse at Mercy Hospital, in Miami.  Apparently, Agent Kepler had even
spoken to Sean.  Shayna closed her eyes, shaking her head disbelievingly.  Somehow,
someone had crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s.

Who was Sean Parker?

Did it even matter now?

It had almost been a week
since she had last seen Sean, since he had instructed her like a demanding
drill sergeant.  He promised to do everything possible to get her daughter back
and he delivered.  He always did.  But why hadn’t he come back?  The possible
list of reasons made her sick to her stomach.

She shifted her focus to
Danielle, who had gone back to her condo a couple of days ago, when Harper
arrived from San Diego.  She knew Harper wouldn’t let Dani out of his sight,
but she still missed having her here, seeing with her own eyes that her little
girl was okay.  Dani didn’t want to talk much about what happened, not yet
anyway.  She cried a lot—they both had.  They had spent time watching favorite
movies and looking through old photo albums.  It was obvious that Danielle
desperately needed to see Frank, needed to know he was okay, too.

Danielle would forgive him
anything—even this.  Shayna wasn’t so sure that she could do the same.

A charge in the air skipped
across her skin, and she stiffened, trying to hone all of her senses on the
subtle change in her surroundings.  She held her breath, unsure if her heart
was even beating.  A soft sigh of relief passed her lips.

“Sean,” she whispered knowingly,
before sitting up and throwing the covers off her body.  Throwing her legs over
the side of the bed, she saw his silhouette.  He sat silently, unmoving, arms
fanned casually across the back of the loveseat angled near the
floor-to-ceiling windows.  With the sheer fabric draped behind him, the late
night glow cast him in changing shadows as clouds dragged across the moon.  She
didn’t need to ask how he had gotten in without tripping the alarm.  He had
explained her new system to her, showed her how to use it, and knew her code. 
Somehow, she understood that he would’ve gotten in here, undetected, even without
knowing any of that.

Shayna stood cautiously,
fighting her instinct to run and wrap herself around him, thanking this man for
everything he had done for her. 
Whatever it was
that he had done.

As she stepped closer, his
stiff body language pushed her back, as if in warning not to get too close.  He
wouldn’t make eye contact, either.  Swallowing her emotions, Shayna stopped and
knelt in front of him, begging him with her eyes to look at her, but he
refused.  She eased her bottom back onto her heels.  He was still wearing the
steely guard, the same cold armor he had donned that night on the Tuscan
Dream.  She had so many questions bubbling up inside, but squelched them all
and said the only thing that mattered, the only thing that would ever matter.

“Thank you, Sean.”  She felt
a tear slip down her cheek and quickly swiped it away.  He remained quiet,
immovable, not acknowledging her gratitude in the slightest.  “Danielle is
safe.”  He must know that, right?  “She’s with Harper now, and in time she’ll
be just fine...thanks to you,” she paused, “and your friends.”  She chewed
nervously at her lip.  Why wouldn’t he talk to her, look at her, touch her? 
“I’ve been so worried about you, what might’ve happened to you.  I did
everything you told me to, said exactly what you told me to say.”

She waited and still heard nothing
from the statue posed before her.  “They’re searching for Frank now.  He’s
missing.”  She watched him carefully in the shadows and noticed his body tense even
further, the flexing in his jaw and the narrowing of his eyes.  At that moment,
she knew Frank wasn’t coming back—not alive anyway.  Their life together
flashed in her memories and the bile rose in her throat.  She swallowed it back
down.  Dani would survive the loss.  She would make sure of it.

Shayna pushed to her feet and
moved closer to Sean, his eyes now downcast.  She rubbed at her eyes and wiped
away the remaining tears, blotting them on the hem of her short nightgown.  Cautiously
straddling him on the sofa, she placed her palms on his chest.  It felt so good
to touch him again, smell his scent, and feel his heat.  She needed him to
remove the shield, the wall he had put between them since that night.

She inhaled deeply, exhaling
through her nose.  Shaking her head softly and reaching up to barely stroke his
square, unshaven jaw, she murmured, “I’m not going to ask, Sean.”  She felt him
relax briefly and then he tensed again.  She leaned in closer so that he could
feel her breath against his skin.  “Not because I can’t handle the answer,” she
waited and moved closer, whispering next to his ear, “but because it doesn’t
matter, not anymore, not after everything.”

His arms greedily caged her
against his body and Shayna thought she might never again get air back into her
lungs.  Sean nuzzled, kissed, and buried his face against her neck, just below
her ear, inhaling deeply, squeezing her even tighter.  His shield was finally
falling away.

“I know you were a SEAL,
Sean.  A SEAL officer.”  His movements abruptly halted.  “Although, I suppose
you never really stop being a SEAL, do you?”  He pulled back and cupped her
face in his large hands, holding her a safe distance from him.  She answered
the question obvious in his eyes.  “The pictures on the wall in your office, I
saw the trident on your uniform.  Some of the faces in those pictures were in other
photos, too, older but the same.”  He slid down, resting his head on the back
of the cushions, still holding Shayna above him.  Then his hands smoothed down
her bare arms and gripped her small hands in his, scraping his stubble across
her knuckles and exhaling resignedly.  “Just tell me which side you work for,”
she asked without judgment.  A stunned expression colored his face and then he
laughed, shaking his head in apparent disbelief.  She knew he was laughing at
her naïveté.

His hands reached for her
face, thumbs caressing her high cheekbones, his expression now stony serious. 
“Good or bad?  Right or wrong?  That’s what you’re asking me?”  They were the
first words he had spoken, and the deep rumble of his voice expertly plucked
the strings wound tight in her body since this nightmare had begun.  “You’d be
surprised how often you can’t tell the difference.  How often they want the
same thing,” he said quietly in the dark, pushing her further away.

Shayna felt the cold armor
reassembling around him.  “I was done with all of this a few years ago.  I’d
paid my dues and left it all behind, with my ledger in the black.  People owed
me and I never intended on cashing in.  Yes, I have skills that many
people—good and bad—want to use, and I know others like me.  We’re scattered
around and come together when the situation requires it or when it suits us.” 
He waited, assessing her thoughtfully.  “I have contacts higher up than you can
imagine and lower than I would ever want you to know about.”

She processed his words as
the pieces of the puzzle began to snap into place, and then she suddenly felt
awash with guilt.

“I messed everything up for
you, didn’t I?  If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be in the black right now, but
you’re not, are you?  You owe someone now, or some people, don’t you?”

Sean huffed indignantly. 
“First of all,
none
of this was your fault.  Second, if it wasn’t for
our
paths crossing, I can promise you, you
never
would’ve seen Danielle
again.”  Shayna gasped at the harshness of his words and the haunting memory of
that same visceral nightmare she experienced nightly.  “I need to leave,
Shayna.  This was a bad idea.  I knew I should’ve left, not come here first.  I
just wanted to see you for myself again.”

Her legs and arms gripped him
tightly.  “No!  You can’t leave.  Why would you?  I don’t want you to, Sean,”
she pleaded.  He was back to not looking at her.  Then the understanding rocked
her and the bile bubbled again.  “You’re going to pay your debt, aren’t you?” 
He turned his eyes away.  “Look at me!” she screamed, but he refused, sitting
stoically.

From what Agent Kepler had
confided to her, she knew that Frank owed his gambling debts ultimately to the
infamous Hector Morales.  The bookie and subsequent loan shark he had used in
Vegas had links back to the wanted syndicate leader.  The Morales cartel had
been around for a long time.  Shayna had done her homework, scouring the
internet for information on the notorious worldwide Morales network.  Various
publications, documentaries, and news stories told of his humble origins and
subsequent rise to power as one the most wanted men in the world.  Sean had
already known all of this, of course, and once he’d learned who’d come to
collect from Frank he’d had her and Danielle discretely surveilled.  He
understood that Morales’ people wouldn’t hesitate to use them as pawns.

His ring was involved in the
usual loan sharking, arms dealing and drug smuggling, but also the oldest
business of all—human trafficking for the sex trade.  She shivered involuntarily
at the chilling thought of what almost happened to her own daughter.  Over the
years, various rogue organizations and governments attempted to rid the world
of Morales, and he had only narrowly survived on a few occasions.

“You and your friends are going
after Hector Morales,” she stated impassively.  Sean’s widening eyes were his
answer.  Before he could speak she blurted, “That’s suicide and you know it!  You
can’t do that!”  Suddenly she found her arms manacled behind her back by one
strong hand.  She was panting, chest heaving, realizing she had been beating
against his chest like a crazy woman.  “You can’t, Sean,” she squeaked.  “We’re
supposed to get married, start our lives, and have adventures.”  He just stared
at her as if he had already given up—on them.  Her heart almost shattered.

Wriggling her wrists from his
vice like grip, she grabbed his whiskered face in her hands.  She had to break
through his defenses.  Sweeping her thumb gently over his soft lips, she chewed
at her own, thinking back over their history.  She sighed resolutely, pushing away
the panic.

“That very first time we
met.  Do you remember it?” she murmured, her lips curving in a coy smile.  She
knew damn well he did.  It had made a lasting impression on both of them.  “I
had left my attorney’s office and decided to walk around the Wharf District, just
happening across Gaetano’s.  The lunch crowd had already long disappeared, so
when I walked in—or did I strut?”  She grinned with narrowed eyes and a tilted
head, looking for any recognition in his beautiful green ones.

Bingo.  He was right there back
in time with her.  “I looked around for the hostess to seat me, but no one was
there.  I glanced around at the leather booths, linen-covered tables, heard the
hypnotic call of that old fountain near the back,” she paused closing her eyes,
remembering, feeling, “all wrapped like a gift in the smooth jazz filtering
through the sound system.”  Shayna opened her eyes, trailed her finger along
Sean’s jaw line, across his lips, down the cleft in his chin, and then cupped
her warm hand at his throat.  She could feel the quickening in his pulse.

“I was about to leave, and
when I turned I saw the lounge and a couple of people talking to the bartender. 
Instead of interrupting their conversation, I figured I’d just go.”  She leaned
closer so he could feel her breath, running her fingers through his thick hair
and looking directly into his eyes.  “That’s when I saw you.”  Her warm breath
caressed his cheek, his eyes closed for a moment and he wetted his lips. 
Shayna’s voice became husky with desire.  “I immediately knew you’d been
watching me the whole time.  I could see it on your face, read it in your body.
 You standing there, trying to look casual, with your hands tucked in your
front pockets, but I knew.  I knew, Sean.  I knew I’d affected you...just like
you did me in that very moment.”  She nuzzled against his cheek, kissed him
softly and felt his arousal growing.  She smiled against him so he could feel
it and ground her hips slowly against him.  He moaned, and she could feel the
fight leaving his body.

“And trust me; I did know
what you were thinking, because I was thinking the very same thing,” she
whispered hotly next to his ear.  Punctuating each word with kisses on his face
and neck, she teased seductively, “What would it feel like underneath you.”  Sean
groaned and Shayna sealed her lips to his, taking the opportunity to sweep her
tongue into his mouth, so hungry for a taste of him.