Heir to a Dark Inheritance (6 page)

He turned the wineglass in front of him in a slow circle. “And what happened to your first husband?”

Leave it to Alik to ask so bluntly. Social niceties were not something he gave deference to. Although, she found she almost liked it. At least he asked for what he wanted to know. At least he spoke, even when the words were unpleasant.

Now
that
thought, the comparison she was making to her husband, that was a betrayal. She shut it down as quickly as it started.

“Sunil had a lifelong heart defect. At least that’s what his doctor told me later. It had gone undetected until, one day his heart…stopped. He was at work. They took him to the hospital, kept him on life support for a while. But he never came back. He just slipped away.”

“How long has it been?” he asked.

“Three years.”

“You loved him?”

“I love him,” she said. “Very much. Not…not in the same way, obviously. But, he will always live in my heart.”

A knot of emotion formed in her chest, and she welcomed it. It was safer than the heat that had been blooming there only
moments before. Much safer than any of the new, raw emotions she’d experienced in the past few weeks.

“I have never lost anyone I cared for like that. I can imagine it must be difficult for you.”

For you
. As if it wouldn’t be for him. “You’ve never lost anyone you cared for?” She thought of her parents, of her husband. “You’re very fortunate.”

“I’ve never really loved anyone,” he said, his tone cold, frightening in its flatness. “One good thing about that is it keeps you from loss.”

“What about your parents?” she asked.

“I never knew them. My mother left me at an orphanage when I was two, probably nearly three. My date of birth is a best guess made by the woman working at the facility at the time I was brought in. My name was given to me in much the same way. I don’t share my surname with anyone I’m related to. From there, when it became overcrowded I was put out on the streets.”

“I…I’m sorry.”

“No need to be.”

Two servers came in and placed a tray in front of both her and Alik before leaving the room as quietly as they’d entered.

“It must have been hard,” she said.

“It was all I knew. And as I think you must know, it’s impossible to waste time feeling sorry for yourself when there is life to be lived.”

She did know that. It had been one of the things that had made her most angry when she’d been at the lowest point in her grief. That life had gone on. That she’d still had to go to the grocery store, still had to eat. Pay bills. There had been no time to drown in her grief the way she’d really wanted to.

Now she saw that for the blessing it was.

“That’s very true.”

“I have been thinking,” he said, his subject change sudden. “You should take my name. As should Leena.”

“What? Why?”

“You don’t want a different last name than your daughter, do you?”

“No…I hadn’t…I hadn’t considered it.”

“You gave her her first name, and I will not change it, but I want her to carry my name. She is my only family. And you should carry it, as well.”

“I don’t…” Patel was her husband’s name. Except, Sunil wasn’t her husband anymore. Alik was. “I’m not sure I can do that.” After what he’d just told her, about the orphanage worker who had chosen his name, she understood why it would matter to him.

But she couldn’t do it. Not now. Changing her name was like changing herself, and she couldn’t allow it. Couldn’t allow this, couldn’t allow Alik that sort of power.

“It is the most logical thing to do.”

“I know,” she snapped. “But I’ve just been so damn logical for the past week, that my heart has taken a beating and I’m not sure I can do this, too. I made you my husband today. That place belonged—belongs—to the man I loved. And if I take your name, then I have to get rid of his.”

“It is no matter to me,” he said, his tone hard. “It’s entirely up to you. I thought you might like our family to share a name.”

“A family? Is that what we are?” She hated herself for saying it. After what he’d just said, she knew she was stabbing at him, but she honestly couldn’t stop herself.

“The closest thing to one I’ve had.” Again, his voice carried that sort of detached weightlessness. As if none of this meant anything to him. As if he was simply relaying facts. The man seemed to live entirely in his head.

No, that wasn’t really true. Because there was something else about him. Something darker, much more frightening. Something earthy and sensual that came from a place deep
inside of him. He was a man very much connected with his body, too.

And she didn’t like how much her own body seemed to be intrigued by that.

“I will think about it. It doesn’t have to be done right away. I can do it anytime.”

“Of course. In the meantime though, I will give Leena my name.”

“Leena Vasin,” Jada said quietly. And she looked at the man across from her again, at the stubborn set of his jaw, the shape of his brow. She saw it then, for the first time. How had she missed it?

Leena looked so very much like her father. The expression she made when she was grumpy especially, favored the stern look on his face now.

“It suits her,” Jada said, surprising herself when she said it. Surprised by how much she meant it.

Leena was Alik’s daughter. There was no denying it or ignoring it. And she was glad in that moment that he was in her life. She was sure the feeling would come and go, but right now, she was glad that Leena had a father. Her father.

“Do you know,” she said slowly, “she looks like you?”

Alik’s eyes were obscured by shadow and it was impossible to see what he was thinking. “Does she?” His voice was inscrutable as ever. There was no way to get a read on his emotions. No way to know what he thought about that revelation.

“Yes. When she’s about to throw a tantrum she gets a little crease between her eyebrows, just like you. And her eyes have more green in them, but they also have that gray that yours have.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” he said.

“Neither had I until just now.”

Alik looked down at his wineglass again. “We should eat before it gets cold.”

“Yes,” she said. She wasn’t conscious of what she was eating,
and the moment the plates were clear she couldn’t actually remember what they’d been served.

“Would you like me to show you back to your room?”

Jada hesitated. It was dark now, no helpful light filtering in through the windows to guide her way. But the idea of traversing dark corridors with Alik didn’t exactly make her feel extra safe.

It made her stomach feel tight, made it hard to breathe. Still, she didn’t want to stumble around the palace for longer than necessary.

“Yes. Please, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Alik rose from his seat and Jada was reminded just how large he was, how imposing. Every inch the master of the castle. She didn’t know why she found it so fascinating. Didn’t know why she found him so fascinating.

He moved past her with that effortless grace of his. The deadly silence of a predator. It didn’t seem possible that a man who was so large, so tall and broad, could be so quiet when he moved.

She followed him out into the dark hall and a shiver ran over her body, creeping up her arms, her neck. “Got a flaming torch you can tear off the wall and use to light our way?”

Alik paused and turned, his expression cast into shadow. The shivery feeling got a bit more pronounced. He extended his hand and placed it flat on the wall, and then…the lights came on. And the expression revealed on his face could only be called
smart-assed
. “I could do that,” he said, “but it would be so much easier to simply find the light switches.”

“That would have been nice to know about earlier, so I wasn’t walking through this medieval heap in the dark.”

He turned away from her and started down the hall again, his back, wide and muscular, filling her vision. “Why on earth would I live in a place that didn’t possess modern conveniences? I’ve been homeless. I’ve been in prisons. I’ve done
my time without modern luxury, and I find it isn’t my favorite.”

“You’ve been in jail? How is it that the court deemed you a more fit parent than I am?”

“I don’t think it was a question of who was more fit, so much as who was more related. But, if it soothes you, the court didn’t see any criminal record.”

“How is that possible?”

“First of all, I doubt the Russian Mafia keep a record of every snot-nosed street kid they’ve locked up for a few days to teach a lesson to. Second, I’m skeptical that any of the guerrilla military factions I found myself on the unfriendly side of reported my prison time to the United States—or any government. Also, records and things like that may have been sanitized by some grateful rulers and the occasional victorious revolutionary.”

She stopped in her tracks and he kept on walking. “Wait a second. What is it you used to do?”

“What I do now for corporations? I used to do that for governments. Or, as I said, revolutionaries. Whoever offered the money.”

“You were a mercenary.” For the first time, she realized that the little prickle of hair on her arms, that vague sense of danger, wasn’t ridiculous. Alik Vasin was, or had been, a very dangerous man. And she had just married him.

“I suppose that’s the job title, though I was never too bothered about being specific with that. Didn’t exactly fill out tax forms. But that’s another thing I won’t be advertising to the courts.”

Jada curled her fingers into fists, her nails digging in her palms. “I don’t imagine there’s a box to check for that on official forms.”

“Not so much.”

“How did you…how did you get into something like that?” She was curious, even though she knew she shouldn’t be.
What she should be, was running away, and yet, for some reason, though that feeling of danger emanating from him remained, she wasn’t afraid of him.

“I told you, I was an orphan. I crossed paths with the Russian Mafia quite by accident one day when I was picking pockets. After teaching me a sufficient lesson,” he said, one long finger drifting over a scar that ran the length of his jaw, “the man I had attempted to rob asked how I’d done it so well. You see, he didn’t feel me lift his wallet. He was told by his guards, who were walking behind him. Who I was walking in the middle of.”

“What did you say?”

“I explained to him my process. The way I waited for the crowds on the street to be at a certain peak, how I waited for my mark to be at a certain point in their stride. And I told him, that when I was about to go for the grab, everything slowed down, and it was just effortless. He liked that.”

“And he had you picking pockets?”

“Hardly. But I was twelve and what he saw was the mind of a strategist. He was right. I had a gift for seeing all angles of a scenario, except, of course, in the instance where they caught me. I missed seeing that he had guards with him. That’s always bothered me.”

“It has?”

“No one likes to lose. Anyway, that was the start of my career in organized crime. They helped me hone my abilities and then they exploited them. Until I became too recognizable in Moscow. Until I got tired of playing the game. This was when I was maybe sixteen or so. But I left them with a lot of money in my pocket, though I have to say I’m not overly keen on wandering the streets in my hometown alone. I don’t trust how far that goodwill we parted with extends.”

“Then what?” In spite of herself, she was fascinated. She should be scared, but she wasn’t. Not really.

He started walking again and she jogged into place behind
him to keep up. “Then, I found out I had a reputation. A man found me when I was in Japan and asked me to do a job. To help a militia overthrow a very oppressive government.”

“And you helped them.”

“The price was right. I’m not a charity.”

“But you did the job.”

He nodded once. “I did. And I did it successfully. After that, word spread.”

“And that’s what you did after that? Hired yourself out as a…weapon?”

“For some years.”

“And then?”

“I had a mission here in Attar. To try and secure the borders. And for the first time, the mission went wrong. Sheikh Sayid was taken captive.” It was the first time she’d heard even a glimmer of true emotion in his voice. “And though I was offered another check, another job, I knew I couldn’t leave him there.”

“You cared for him.”

“I was the head of the mission—if it went wrong it was on me. When I take money to aid a certain faction then I am loyal to that faction until the job is done. The job wasn’t done.”

“And you cared for him.”

“Sayid is the most honorable man I have ever met, in a life spent surrounded by men who would sell their grandmothers for a chance at their version of glory. It was refreshing to meet someone who had nothing but loyalty to his family, to his country, no matter what he could achieve elsewhere. Sayid was taken into captivity because he deviated from the mission. Because he stopped a woman from being assaulted by two soldiers. I would not have done the same in his position, because at that time in my life, all I saw was the mission. The plan. And Sayid made me look past that for the first time.”

Jada felt something shift around her heart. Dear heaven, she wasn’t starting to understand this man, was she? She’d
grown up in a comfortable, middle-class home in the U.S. Born to parents to who had risked everything, left their homeland, to build a better life for their children. How could she understand a man who had spent his life alone? A man who had witnessed, and very likely committed, terrible acts of violence? It made no sense.

And yet, for some reason, she felt she did understand. She wasn’t sure why, or how…if it came back to hormones and the fact that he was just muscular enough to lull her into a stupor.

Except, her hormones weren’t centered around her heart, and that was definitely where a good portion of the feelings were coming from. She felt for him. Sad, happy that he’d found Sayid. And the real danger lay in the fact that she wanted to know more. That she was curious about him. About what was beneath the layers of rock that he kept between himself and the world.