Fate Book (21 page)

He kneeled between my legs and began sliding down his pants. His thick erection sprang from his pants, savage and hungry. I was just about to ask about protection, praying he had something in his wallet, when the phone on the desk vibrated loudly on top of the laminated surface.

We both jumped. “Hell. That’s your father,” he grumbled.

What?
“My father?” I scrambled away from Paolo, horrified by some irrational fear that he knew what Paolo and I were doing at that very moment.

How idiotic! I was a grown woman with nothing to be ashamed of.

I shook my head while Paolo arranged himself, took a breath, and then sat down at his laptop. He logged in and read.

His back was to me, so I couldn’t see his face, but his sagging posture radiated defeat, disappointment, and possibly something much, much worse.

“What? What is it?” I asked.

He didn’t reply. I got up from the bed and slid on my panties. “What? What did he write?” I demanded.

His head drooped. “I am to hand you over to someone else tomorrow morning.”

“But why?” I asked.

He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know.”

“Well, answer him back. Tell him no.”

Paolo didn’t turn around or look at me. “I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?” I asked.

“Both, and you know why,” he said quietly.

Yeah. I knew…he didn’t want to fight for me. Whatever hold the past had over him was stronger than anything he felt for me. I guess he had his own ghost to deal with. “Sure.”

I flipped off the lamp and got under the covers, turning my back to him.

“Dakota, this is my job. If your father is asking me to hand you off, it’s for a damned good reason. He depends on me to follow orders. That’s the deal.”

I closed my eyes and silently berated myself. I’d known this was “the deal,” but that didn’t make it any easier watching him choose his job and his ghost over me.

Paolo lay down behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, nuzzling his rough cheek into the back of my neck. “I wish things were different.”

Me, too…

~ ~ ~

The next morning, Paolo packed up his equipment while I showered yet again. I wanted to see him as little as possible before being delivered like a prisoner to a new penitentiary. I pulled my hair back into a neat bun and stared myself down in the mirror.
You will not cry, you will not cry. Do you hear me, Dakota Dane? You will not…

Oh shit. I’m so going to cry.

Well, to hell with it.

I emerged from the bathroom avoiding eye contact with Paolo.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Sure.” I threw my stuff in my backpack and marched to the truck, holding my chin up high.

The moment he got behind the wheel, he took a deep breath, looked at me with his mouth halfway open, and then pressed his lips together. Whatever he wanted to say, he’d changed his mind. Good. Because no words could make me feel better. I simply couldn’t understand how he could do this.

We drove through town in silence, and when we pulled into the police station my nerves took over.

“Why here?” I asked, thinking we’d do the exchange in the back of some seedy bar.

“It’s safer. Lots of witnesses. Not to mention, I have friends here.”

I remembered Paolo’s “friend” at the San Diego PD. “And just why is that? Aren’t you people supposed to be ghosts who don’t exist?”

He thought about his answer. “Even ghosts need friends, but they don’t know what I do or who I am. They only know they get paid well for keeping an eye on things for me from time to time, and I pass them helpful information when it comes my way.”

“So what did your ‘friend’ give you the night I saw you outside the police station in San Diego?” I asked.

“I had your new identity package sent there for safekeeping. But in addition to that? He gave me information about your roommate and everyone in your classes.”

“So you check out every single person who comes into contact with me?” I asked.

“Pretty much. Thank God you’re antisocial. It’s a lot of fucking work.”

Ass.

A white SUV pulled into an empty spot a few cars down. “Wait here,” he ordered.

I watched the other driver, a bald man with a cold stare, exit his vehicle and greet Paolo with a handshake. I sincerely hoped Paolo had done his homework on this guy; he looked scarier than shit.

They started talking and Paolo waved me over.

My entire body surged with adrenaline and pulsed with anger as I approached the man. How could Paolo leave me with some creepy stranger when my life was a horrible nightmare? This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening. But the man’s icy, blue eyes instantly zeroed in on me, extinguishing my rage with a cold chill.

“Dakota,” he nodded his head. “Nice to meet you. Your father speaks very highly of you.”

“Dakota,” Paolo said, “this is Derek. He’ll be watching over you.”

I looked at Paolo. “For how long?” My insides were trembling. Something didn’t feel right.

“As long as it takes,” Derek replied.

I whispered to Paolo, “Please, I’m begging you. Don’t do this. I don’t know him.”

Paolo gripped my shoulders. “You’ll be fine,” he said, without a flicker of emotion in his tone.

“I don’t want to go with him. I don’t care what my father told you. Please, Paolo! Please!”

His eyes dropped for a moment and then hardened. “You can’t stay with me. So you’ll go with him, or you’ll be alone. Those are your choices.”

So that was it. Everything we’d been through. Everything we felt—well, perhaps that was my fatal flaw. He felt lust; I felt more. He warned me not to. I didn’t listen.
The sucker gets what the sucker deserves.

I lifted my chin. “Thank you, Derek. I’ll try to make your
job
as easy as possible.” I looked at Paolo. “I’m a piece of cake;
easiest
job you’ve ever had. Right?”

After all, I was just some sex kitten ready to pounce on his yarn any chance I got. Can’t get any easier.

Irritation flickered in his eyes. “You were great.”

“See. Nothing to worry about, Derek,” I said. “Good-bye, Paolo.”

I loaded myself into the white SUV.

Don’t look back, don’t look back
, I commanded myself as we pulled out of the lot. I felt Paolo’s eyes following our truck from across the lot. Unable to resist, I looked back and saw the expression of a man who didn’t care.

Why did I look back?

So you remember not to cry over him. He doesn’t care about you.

Easier said than done, but I was determined not to. I would bury any feelings I had for the man and shove them down a deep, dark hole. I would not crumble. I would not shed one tear for a guy who didn’t care about me.

~ ~ ~

For the first thirty miles or so, Derek didn’t say much other than a few yeses and nos. He was more robotic than Paolo had ever been, which made me extremely uncomfortable. But then again, the entire situation felt uncomfortable.

“Where are we going?” I asked. I knew Paolo had intended to take me somewhere in Texas, given the direction we’d been heading and the fact he’d said it would be a two-day drive. But Derek had gotten onto Highway 25, north toward Albuquerque.

“A safe house, a few hours from here,” he replied.

Paolo had said it was the first thing
he
did: establish a level one safe house. And he made it clear that no one else would know its whereabouts, so it made sense that Derek would take me somewhere different.

“I guess my dad didn’t give you a lot of time to prepare,” I said.

“Prepare what?” he asked.

“The safe house.”

“We have people who take care of all that,” he replied.

Shit.
He was lying. Paolo had specifically said that they never trusted anyone with that work.

Maybe you misheard Paolo. Maybe he’d said only
he
did all his own safe house prep?

Ask another question.

“Thank goodness,” I said. “I can only imagine how busy you guys get with all of your spying and killing people. My dad says he can’t keep up half the time.”

The guy bobbed his head. “Yeah. Well, comes with the territory.”

Holy crap.
Paolo had been very, very clear; my dad’s people were not spies or assassins. They were very skilled information gatherers. Yes, that sounded like a spy to me, but he saw a distinct difference. In any case, whoever this guy was, I was pretty sure he wasn’t on my dad’s team. What was I going to do?

Think, think, think…

“Derek, I’m so sorry, but I’ve really got to use the bathroom. I drank way too much coffee this morning. Can we stop? I think I saw a sign for a gas station at the next exit.”

“We need more road behind us first. You’ll have to wait.”

Don’t panic. Don’t panic…
“I really can’t. Have the bladder of an acorn. It’s really annoying.”

He glanced at me with those cold, blue eyes. “Sure. No problem.” From the corner of my eye, I saw him reach into his pocket and slam something into my leg. The needle stuck out like a porcupine quill, and whatever he gave me was potent. My hand didn’t even make it to my thigh to pull it out.

I am so screwed
.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Time is one of those funny things. When you’re busy enjoying life, it seems to pass by so quickly that hours can feel like minutes. And when you’re terrified, waiting for the inevitable, minutes can feel like days. I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but when I woke up on the floor in the windowless room with a single lightbulb dangling from the ceiling, the dankness in the air telling me I was likely in some basement, well, the minutes felt like weeks.

Paolo had said that if my father’s enemies ever got a hold of me, they’d remove my head and ship it off in a box. Every breath I took, every beat of my heart would be my last, I thought. I may never see my mother again and have the chance to hug her. I may never see my father or Paolo again either, which meant I may never get to kick them in their man baskets.

Frigging men!
This was all their fault.

Well, culpability aside, I needed to get myself out of this, starting with a way to defend myself. I slowly got up and looked around for something—anything—for defense, but there was nothing in the room except a mattress on the cold cement floor, a small, doorless bathroom with only a toilet—no lid on the tank—and a sink. Nothing else. If I were strong enough, I could throw the toilet at my captors, but sprouting Hulk-like powers wasn’t going to happen to me.

Hopeless.

And hopelessness only turned into utter despair as I thought through the events that led me to this place. Paolo had handed me over to go into hiding. He’d said that in my case, when there was a leak, all communication would be broken. Possibly for months.

He wouldn’t know I’d been taken.

No one would come looking for me.

I was a dead woman.

The door opened, startling me from my deep, dark thoughts. When I looked, however, it wasn’t Derek, but a very familiar face. “Mr. M?”

“Dakota.”

I was about ready to run over to him and hug him, but one obvious question prevented me from doing that. “What the hell?”

He pointed toward the mattress. “Please, sit.”

“Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“Sit!” he screamed. That’s when I noticed the wild, desperate look in his eyes bloodshot eyes.

I was already past the point of terrified, so his screaming didn’t intimidate me exactly, but I did want to hear what he had to say. Simply put…why the hell was my English teacher holding me hostage in a basement?

I sat cross-legged on the mattress and waited for him to speak. Mr. M paced across the cement floor, mumbling frantically and running his hand over his thinning hair. Usually, his clothes were a wrinkled mess, but now he looked worse, like he’d been sleeping in them for a week. Then he began to do a disturbing little dance, wiggling his hips, making the number one sign with his index fingers.

I simply stared, unable to believe my eyes.

He twirled on his heel and pointed. “Gotcha! I got her! The best-hid girl in the world, and I,” he pointed to himself, “got her! With a fucking pen! Ha! Take that, Mr. Dane!”

With a pen? My pen?
I suddenly remembered what Paolo had said about tracking devices. It was the reason he hadn’t wanted me to take anything personal from my dorm.

Mr. M laughed like a madman, the veins popping from his forehead as he did. “I’m not going to lie to you, Dakota, you are going to die. The only question is how.”

Holy shit. Not good.
“And I’ve done what, exactly, to deserve this?” I asked.

“You’ve done nothing. Nothing. But that bastard father of yours ruined my life, so now I’m going to ruin his. I’m going to make it hurt while I do it.”

“If you plan on torturing me,” I said quietly, “I can save you the trouble. I only just learned who my father is, and other than knowing he’s some high-powered information broker, I barely know the man.”

He laughed again, howling at the ceiling. “Is that what he told you? Your evil bastard of a father is much, much more than a librarian. The CIA and Interpol are his lapdog whores! He’s the man behind the curtain,” Mr. M waved his red, sweaty palms through the air like a magician at a border town carnival, “who decides who lives or dies.”

“But he’s the g…g…good guy,” I mumbled.

“Is he? Is he
good
? Because I worked for him for years, my
dear Dakota
, and there are a few hundred thousand people who’ve died who might not agree. He’s a ruthless, fucking animal.”

I couldn’t believe that.

Okay, okay. I didn’t exactly know the man, but he wasn’t psycho. He worked hard, loved me and my mom, and tried to keep us away from whatever crap he was mixed up in.

Yeah. And has a secret life—an army at his beck and call, including the police, and people who are scared shitless of him
. But “fucking animal”?