Second Nature (When Seconds Count) (17 page)

“
Who’s Daniel?” Her voice wavered with the same fear he’d seen in her eyes. “Who is Daniel, Grant? How did those people know my real name? I haven’t even told you.”

His heart froze inside his chest as every word in his vocabulary evacuated his brain.
Dammit, what had he done? He wasn’t ready for this. He’d thought of nothing else during the long drive to Mutare but how to tell her. For a man who had been trained to plan for every contingency possible, this was a complete fail. How could he even begin to explain that her entire life had been a lie? That she had been kidnapped from a loving family and sold into a world in which one would rather die than endure? He knew what had been done to her. He wasn’t naïve enough to think she’d escaped being raped and beaten. Her body bore the scars of her forgotten nightmare. Truth was, it didn’t matter. Not to him. She’d survived and that was all that was important to him. She was strong and beautiful, inside and out. She was perfect in ways he would never deserve. 

He
swallowed back the bile that had gathered in the back of his throat and tried again to say the words. They twisted in his gut, clawing their way up his throat until he nearly gagged in another mute attempt to spit them out. He couldn’t do it. Four simple words and he couldn’t fucking say them.

“
Grant you’re scaring me. What the hell is happening?” With limited grace, she pushed out of her seat, stumbling with the first bit of weight she tested on her ankle.

“Thalia, please.
You’re going to make it worse. Sit back down and I’ll try to explain!” His arm snaked around her waist and locked her against him, her hands frantically working to pry herself loose from his hold.

“Natalie?” Her
head snapped up at the raspy voice calling her name, halting her struggle as she took in the stranger who stared back at her from a few feet away. “Natty, honey?”

Her hands fell away to her sides
, her body shifting lifelessly in Grant’s arms as she stared at Daniel in confusion. His heart ached for her, for both of them. He couldn’t let them suffer in silence any longer. The words that had been impossible to say flew from his thoughts, rolling off his tongue with such little effort it shocked even him when they were uttered next to her ear.

“
Daniel is my friend, fossa.” He turned her in his arms and tucked her into his chest, resting his chin on top of her head as he looked over at Daniel. “He’s also you’re father, Thalia. He’s been looking for you for a very long time.”

“You should eat something.”
Thalia reached for the tablets Grant handed her, completely numb to his touch as his fingers lingered on her hand before he hesitantly let them fall away. She closed her eyes, shutting out the pity she saw in his worried expression. She threw back her head and popped the antibiotics to the back of her throat, ignoring the sharp sting as they slid like razors into her empty stomach. She didn’t care. It was an inconsequential pain compared to the breathtaking ache that filled her chest and threatened to tear her in two.

P
eriods of heavy silence filled the too cozy hotel room, everyone watching her every move each time she dared take a deep breath, making the tangled web of voices in her head scream louder against the quiet darkness invading her thoughts. Voices she barely knew mingled with the haunting ones of her past, of people she thought she knew. People she’d trusted. How could Issa lie to her...about everything?

“I don’t understand.” Her fingers twined together so tightly she could feel the icy sting when the lack of circulation began to takes its toll.
“My family died in a car accident when I was seventeen. Issa told me…they…but…why would he lie?” Relaxing her cold, numb fingers, she reached out and traced the edge of one of the photographs lying on the table in front of her. It was a photo of her, standing in an outdated kitchen, her silver eyes crossed in a funny pose, her tongue sticking out as she licked peanut butter from a piece of toast. Behind her was this man, Daniel, holding a cup of water over her as if he were about to pour it over her head, a devious, quirky smile on his much younger face. She looked like the girl in that kitchen. She searched inside herself for any recognition, but felt nothing. Nothing that would tell her she deserved to feel as happy as the girl in that photo looked. She found nothing that said she had ever owned that life.

“That’s not what happened
, Natalie.” She flinched away when a warm hand caressed her shoulder and Rebecca slowly slid into the space next to her, pulling her further away from the perfect scene in the picture. “You grew up in Maryland. Daniel raised you after your mother left. You had just turned sixteen and gotten your driver’s license when you disappeared. Daniel had let you drive to school and…you never came home. Another girl who had gone missing managed to escape. She couldn’t identify the men who took her, but she remembered you. She picked out your photo, along with four other girls who had been held with her. We don’t know who Issa is or why he would lie to you, Natalie. Maybe if you told us a little about him we could figure it out.”

Tell
them about Issa? Where did she start? How would hearing about him teaching her how to cook or playing Romeo against her horrible rendition of Juliet when she was having trouble staying focused on her studies help them understand why he’d lied to her? Or the time he took her to France and visited every cheesy tourist trap with her when she finally graduated? Or all the times he helped her focus and breathe after her lungs seized in one unexplainable panic attack after another when she first awoke in Mumbai to a world she didn’t recognize. He always made time for her, even when she was acting bratty and spoiled.

A
hard lump she couldn’t swallow formed in her throat when one of her most treasured memories of him floated into the chaos of tattered thoughts in her mind. Her favorite time with Issa was when he was on one of his boats, large or small. His smile beamed with pride and freedom, his nearly white hair ruffled by the heavy sea breeze that always kept the costal air cooler and cleaner than the stuffy smog in the overcrowded cities. The memory was so clear her fingers twitched with the desire to reach out and trace the fine lines that formed at the corners of his eyes as he laughed, throwing out orders to his men to get underway. He loved the smell of the sea and the sounds of the birds as they flocked the loading docks. He was like a small boy with a shiny new toy each time he bought a new ship. She could feel the tug on her hand as he raced up to the bridge, dragging her behind, excited to show her how everything worked. All the new bells and whistles his other ships lacked. He never kept secrets from her. Anything she ever asked him, any question or interest, he was always ready with an answer or instruction. How would knowing about any of that help them understand why he’d lied to her?

She could feel the hurricane of emotions brewing inside her, confusion controlling its path of destruction.
She stared at the pictures, dozens of them, of her with this man Daniel. None of them made sense. Surely if he was her father she would remember
something
about him. The weathered burly man standing on the other side of the large hotel room, now engaged in what looked like a silent argument with Grant, looked nothing like the pictures of the man Issa had told her was her father; the father who had died with her mother in India in a car crash that had apparently never happened.

T
he images of her life, of what she thought she knew to be true, were now blurred with lies and irrevocably twisted with the images of a stranger and a man she loved like a father she never knew she had. It was beyond confusing. Everything spun together and played on a never ending loop in her mind until nothing but white noise filled her senses. Another wave of nausea crashed against her soul, making her wish she could run away from it all and never look back.
Out of sheer desperation she tried again to stand, but it was useless. Her ankle was braced but still had no chance of holding her weight. She was back to being weak and useless again, completely dependent on Grant.

Grant.
She closed her tired eyes. Again, she was assaulted with his haunted expression as they stood on that plane and he told her she was someone she wasn’t. The things he’d said about the scars on her back came rushing back, bringing with it a violent reality that challenged everything both familiar and new in her life. If any of it were true, how could Issa ever love her? How could Grant still want her? Why would he? He looked at her differently now, a sad sort of sympathy in his eyes every time they hesitantly met hers.
Dammit!
She didn’t need his goddamn pity!
None of it happened! None of it!

Digging
the heels of her palms into her eyes, she tried to force some sort of order into the chaos waging war on her mind. She wanted to scream at them all that it wasn’t true! They were all liars. She couldn’t accept that Issa would make her believe such a lie. Why? What purpose did it serve? He wasn’t the monster they were trying to make him out to be. She would know, dammit, if he was! He never,
not
once
, touched her or asked her to do anything that was…was...

Her
shaking hand flew to her stomach as burning bile churned in another nauseating wave. Even thinking about Issa as a man capable of such horrid things was impossible.
He was my father.
The only father she could remember having. He was a good man. He loved her when she had no one left to love. How could she ever doubt him? Blinking back the burning sting of threatening tears, her blurry gaze caught again on the pile of photos lying on the coffee table, mocking her memories. The evidence in front of her was irrefutable.
How can I not doubt him
?

Overcome with shock, s
he had barely cried when she found Issa slumped over the center console of his car at his Mumbai mansion, the driver’s door glass shattered around his lifeless bloody body from the single bullet that had pierced his skull. Even days later, after flying his body home to Mozambique Island, her tears were stubbornly absent at his funeral. She’d been too scared out of her mind for the first year to really mourn him, too set on revenge for the last six months to allow herself to feel the pain of his loss. The closest she’d come was the first night she’d told Grant about him.

T
ime and place ceased to exist as the pain clawed at her chest, no longer willing to be denied. The once impenetrable wall she’d built around her heart weakened and crumbled, falling in jagged pieces to the ground at her feet, and her insides began to quake with uncontrollable sobs.
Issa!
In an instant her weary mind took her back to that fateful day, kneeling in the broken glass as she cradled Issa’s cold, dead body to her chest.
No! Oh God. Issa, no! No! You can’t die! You can’t!
Forbidden tears fell unchecked from her eyes in wistful streams of overpowering sorrow. Calming numbness surrendered to a searing burn, like a thousand tiny flames dancing beneath her flesh as her mouth opened on a silent cry, her lungs unable to release the scream of injustice she so desperately wanted the world to hear.
You can’t leave me, not like this! Issa, please! Please don’t leave me!
The room began to spin around her, her body clinging helplessly to the strong arms that carried her into the darkness.

Grant felt the moment her body succumbed to her exhaustive sobs and she fell into a fitful
sleep. Careful not to disturb her, he peeled his arm from around her waist and propped up onto his elbow to watch her breathe. She’d been inconsolable. Seeing her like that had wrecked him. Shifted his entire foundation. He’d never allowed himself to get close enough to anyone to actually feel their pain. That kind of pain, her pain, was something he never wanted to feel again. Yet he would trade places with her in a blink of an eye if he could. If nothing else, so she would never have to remember.

They’d spent the last four
hours battling against the lies she’d been told. The sheer number of emotions she’d processed in that small window of time was staggering. She was three days past exhausted and he was shocked she hadn’t broken sooner. He’d been ready to snap at more than one point himself, and kick his friend’s ass over the constant barrage of Q and A they were throwing at her. She was clearly not ready for any of it. His rage was in check now, barely, but he could feel it simmering just under his skin as he watched her chest rise and fall with each labored breath she took. He wanted more than anything to rip that mother fucker Issa from his grave and demand answers.

Thalia and Reb
ecca both seemed confused about her
uncle’s
role in Thalia’s abduction, but he had no problem seeing him for what he was. If nothing else, Grant was a professional liar. He’d spent his life perfecting that tradecraft, sharpening it into one of the deadliest tools of his profession. He knew skilled deception when he saw it, and this Issa bastard had played a master’s hand. If it was the last thing he did, Grant was determined to find the piece of shit that was ultimately responsible for taking the innocence from the child inside the beautiful, strong woman in his arms. It was time to pull his aces, find out who the key players were and end their game for good. Before they could destroy another beautiful living soul.

Without a sound he rolled from the bed
and crept from the darkness, his bare feet quiet against the plush carpet beneath him. Carefully, he latched the heavy door closed securely behind him when he entered the adjoining hotel suite. His skin crawled with uneasiness as he took in the skyline beyond the twentieth floor balcony. Either the Bureau was paying the redhead well enough to puke up the cash for this palatial palace or she had someone by the balls. Either way, it was a stupid move to be holed up in the fucking penthouse in the middle of town. He had to get that thumb drive and get them the hell out of there.

“Is she going to be okay?” Daniel paced to the closed door, his hand resting on the doorknob.

“Don’t.”
Grant threw the warning over his shoulder as he walked past Daniel to the other side of the room and pulled the curtains closed. “She’s done in. Just let her rest.”

“She’s
stronger than you think if she’s survived this long,” Rebecca said, her elbows resting on her knees as she studied the screen on the laptop in front of her. “It may not seem like it, but it was good for her to release her grief. Give her some time to process.”

Gritting his teeth against the rage that flowed through his veins, Grant marched
over to her laptop and slammed the lid closed. “What you
don’t
know about her and this situation is going to get us all killed.”

Rebecca didn’t flinch. She straightened her spine and slid back onto the sofa cushion. “Then tell us, Mr. Kendal. What do we need to know to get the bastard who did this to her
?”

“I don’t give a damn about that right now.” Daniel paced to the
polished hardwood curio and poured himself a glass of what looked like expensive bourbon, his lips twisting in protest as the spicy fire burned its way down his throat. “I only want my daughter back.”

“She’s not the same little girl you lost, Daniel. We’ve talked about that.” Rebecca stood, running her palms down her prim slacks
, tossing her long red hair over her shoulder before she walked over to a black briefcase sitting on the floor by the front door. Hoisting it up and sitting it on top of the bar in front of Daniel, she opened it and pulled out a well-worn file stuffed to bursting with dog-eared pages. “She’s safe, Daniel,” she said, pausing to rest her free hand on top of Daniel’s. “I have a job to do now. That’s why you brought me here. We have to strike now to get these bastards.”

The thin thread left of Grant’s
patience snapped free from his grasp. Shattered pieces of Rebecca’s laptop littered the marble floor in the small foyer at the front door before he could think twice about the loud crash waking Thalia. These fucking people didn’t get it.