THE PERFECT TARGET (28 page)

He did none of that. He simply looked at General Viktor Zhukov. And smiled. "I always keep my promises."

Disbelief slammed in hard and fast, and for a cruel moment, the world, the temple, the man and the truth blurred into something dark and unrecognizable. She must have misunderstood. That was all. She must have misunderstood the looks, the words exchanged between the man she'd trusted her heart and her soul and her body to, and the desperate criminal who'd callously ordered the execution of entire villages in Ravakia, whose soldiers forced husbands to watch as their wives were raped then executed alongside their children.

Smiling faintly, Zhukov stepped closer and extended the rose in his right hand toward Miranda. "For you, my sweet. I've waited a long time to have you."

Horror crashed through Miranda with breathtaking swiftness. Stricken, stunned, appalled, she stared at the manicured nails of his fingers, realizing sickly that the stories she'd read were true. He'd cut off his pinkie to demonstrate to his men his disregard for pain.

"Worry not, my sweet," he murmured in that cruelly cultured voice of his, the one that belonged to a connoisseur of fine wine and art, not a man with eyes as lifeless and flat as the Dead Sea. Not a glimmer of emotion shone from their depths, not hatred nor anger, not anticipation, not victory. Nothing.

"I'll be very, very gentle with you," he promised with a slow, twisted smile.

She felt Sandro's hold on her wrist tighten, felt sickness back up in her throat.

"Once I'm done," he went on, "once I teach you how to beg, once my son is home, you'll never want another." He shifted his gaze to Sandro, but his eyes remained cold. "Not even your escort here." He laughed then. "I hope you enjoyed her while you could."

"What man wouldn't?" Sandro muttered.

Something deep inside Miranda shattered. Betrayal slashed hot and hard and deep, slicing clear down to the bone. On an animalistic cry, she wrenched away from Sandro and staggered back from him. She commanded herself to run, to fight, to get away from these men, this nightmare as fast as she could, but her legs were leaden. She could barely breathe, much less move. It was as though she'd been lifted from her body and could only watch the hideous scene unfold.

It was like stepping on a land mine.

"What's going on?" she demanded in a broken voice she barely recognized as her own. There had to be some mistake, she kept telling herself. Sandro would not turn her over to this man.

Standing there in the shadows of the ancient temple, with a kooky Hawaiian shirt on his back and his lethal briefcase in his hand, Sandro looked at her with absolutely no emotion in his eyes.

"Some paths," he said again, slower this time, softer, his voice more accented, more vacant than she'd ever heard it, "cannot be turned from." He started to say something else, but a hard sound broke from his throat as his eyes flared wide. His body went horribly rigid for a punishing heartbeat, then just as quickly, he collapsed at her feet.

Gunfire, she realized in a stunned rush. From behind him.

"Sandro!" She dropped to her knees and lunged for him, horrified by the puddle of red seeping against cool stone. "No!" she cried. "Please, God, no!" Around her, chaos exploded much like that day on the promenade in Cascais. There was shouting and running, more gunfire.

"Come," Zhukov barked, curling his hand around her upper arm and dragging her along the cobblestone. "Now."

Jagged edges ripped into her skin, but she fought him, not caring about the pain. Desperately she grabbed for Sandro's briefcase and pointed the weapon at Zhukov, her fingers shaking as she fumbled with the trigger disguised by the handle.

Zhukov laughed. "Do not fight me," he warned, his voice no longer mild and cultured, but hard and authoritative. "I do not have to be so gentle."

She tried again and again, but nothing happened. Zhukov kicked the briefcase from her hand and dug his fingers more deeply into her flesh. She struggled against his surprisingly powerful hold, the rocks tearing into her skin.

"No," she said again and again, trying to break Zhukov's grip and reach a hideously still Sandro.

"Someone help us!" she pleaded, finally inching close enough to press two fingers to the base of Sandro's throat. His skin was hot and damp, but her hands shook so badly she couldn't tell if she felt a flutter of a pulse or her own hideous fear. "Please!"

Zhukov smashed the muzzle of his gun to the side of her face. "You leave here with me," he growled in a low menacing voice, "or you do not leave here alive."

Fear sliced cruelly, the inevitability of a death she hadn't expected for a long, long time, but Miranda wasn't about to go anywhere with the man who'd made it clear what he had in store for her. She'd die before she let that man touch her.

"Go ahead and shoot me," she challenged, twisting against his grip with a superhuman strength born of love and determination, through midnight dances and making love in the shadow of standing stones. She glared at him, for the first time noticing several men positioned around the temple, all in black, all carrying submachine guns. The general's men, there to see his will be done.

A child for a child.

"What happens to your prize if I'm dead?" she challenged. Sirens wailed and droned in the distance, and from the maze of narrow streets she heard shouting. Running. If she could hang on for only a few more minutes, help would arrive. "How will my death help get your son back?"

Abruptly, the pressure of the gun against her temple eased. Relief bubbled hot and fast, but as she glanced behind her, she realized her mistake. Zhukov wouldn't kill her, but he would kill Sandro.

"Now," he said firmly, pointing the barrel at Sandro's chest. "Or he dies."

Miranda went hideously still. Her heart hammered so hard it hurt, making breathing almost impossible, but with punishing clarity she knew Zhukov meant what he said. If she didn't go with him, he'd execute Sandro in cold blood, just like he'd done hundreds of others.

If she went with him, he'd put his hands all over her. And worse.

She realized it then. She had only one choice, one chance. A chance Sandro had returned to her just that morning.

"Miranda!"

More gunshots then, closer, louder.

Zhukov's eyes finally came to life, going wild. He signaled to his men and swore viciously, then curled his finger around the trigger of his gun.

Miranda acted without thinking. She grabbed the knife from the holster around her ankle and lunged for Zhukov, plunging the sharp blade deep into his thigh. He howled in pain and lost his balance, but the gun fired anyway, shards of cobblestone spraying mere inches from Sandro's head.

"No, Miranda, no!"

Everything happened so fast then, Miranda didn't have a chance to scream. Three of Zhukov's men lunged forward, but a rapid spray of gunfire sent two to the ground and one running for cover.

"You stupid bitch!" Zhukov roared, pivoting toward Miranda. "Now you pay."

She scrambled back from him, knowing she would never escape the gun pointed at her head.

The sound of gunfire deafened her. She rolled from the gun's trajectory, waiting to feel the white-hot sear of pain, the burn of a bullet ripping through flesh and shattering bone.

But didn't.

Gasping for breath, she shoved the hair from her face and looked up to see one of Zhukov's henchmen dragging him backwards, firing his gun to prevent anyone from stopping them.

Relief pushed hard and fast. Dragging air into her lungs, Miranda crawled back to Sandro. "Help us," she cried into the now ominously silent plaza. "Please!"

Footsteps then, loud and hard and closing in on her. Then arms, closing around her waist and dragging her away toward one of the narrow streets.

"No!" she shouted, thrashing wildly against Zhukov's henchman. Dear sweet God, she couldn't let it end like this. "Let go of me!"

"Don't fight me," barked a boldly familiar voice that sent her head spinning. The man broke into a run, in one smooth move swooping her from her feet as he sprinted toward the far wall of the city.

Reality cut Miranda to the quick. "We have to go back," she shouted, fighting desperately, kicking, hitting. "We can't leave him there like that!" Hurt. Bleeding.

Dying.

Like they'd left the man who'd gone down that day in Cascais, the man who now ran with her through the streets of Evora.

"The hell we can't!" Hawk Monroe growled. "If he's still alive, Zhukov's men will be all over him. No way was that bastard here alone."

"But—"

"Quit fighting me, Miranda! He's probably dead anyway."

No.
"No!" Her heart slammed painfully against her ribs. She could barely breathe. "Hawk, please—" She saw it then, the huge black beast of a helicopter waiting just beyond the city wall. Its blades whirred horrifically, promising escape. "No!"

Breathing hard, Hawk ran through an opening in the stone and practically lunged into the open side of the chopper.

In the same heartbeat, they were off the ground, climbing into the hazy twilight sky.

Away from Sandro.

"No!" Miranda screamed, her vocabulary reduced to that one word. The chopper steadily gained altitude, leaving Evora, and Sandro, far behind. She could see the ancient columns jutting up against the crimson-streaked sky, people scurrying around like ants. "We have to go back!"

"Miranda," came a deep booming voice.

Startled, she blinked through her tears, turned, saw her father open his arms wide. "Dad…"

"You're safe now, sweetheart," he said, enveloping his youngest daughter in his arms. He pulled her to his chest, held her against his heart. "You're free."

Chapter 15

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Terrorist Blast Kills Eight

The horrifying headline glared at her from her unyielding computer screen.

The accompanying picture chilled.

Miranda's throat burned with an emotion she didn't want to feel. Her heart bled. After her rescue, she'd searched for information about a man left bleeding on the cold streets of Evora. At night, she'd lain awake in the once-comfortable bed of her Richmond, Virginia apartment. There, she'd relived every moment they'd spent together. Every touch. Every lie. She'd braced herself. And she'd prayed.

But nothing prepared her for the truth she found on the third day.

Sandro, the man who'd taken her captive but promised her freedom, who'd strolled straight out of her fantasies but shattered her dreams, was dead.

Killed five years before.

Blinking against dry eyes, Miranda stared at the results of her Internet search, as she had so many times over the past two weeks. For the first few days everything inside her had felt raw and shredded, but now, now, there was only numbness. She was free, her father had told her. Free.

She didn't feel free.

Sitting cross-legged on the overstuffed sofa she'd once loved, with her notebook computer in her lap and a glass of untouched iced tea to her side, with the sun shining brightly from a shockingly blue sky and a robin singing for all the world to hear, she might as well have been locked in the dingy room hidden in the abandoned villa.

A lie, she told herself. It had all been a lie. In the end, Sandro had merely told her what she wanted to hear as a ploy to gain her cooperation. Had it not been for her father and Hawk, she'd be in the general's hands now.

The evidence was irrefutable. She'd been there herself. She'd heard the exchange, seen the glimmer in Sandro's eyes.

But Sandro was dead, killed five years before.

That was the real lie.

Discovering his true identity had been easy enough. She doubted he even realized how many clues he'd given her. Bombings always made the news. All she'd had to do was go to her favorite search engine and type in London Bombs. A horrifying number of matches had greeted her, but she'd plowed through them, determined.

And found it.

Five years ago, a car bomb had exploded outside a London café, killing eight, including three American tourists. The names Sandro had mentioned—Roger and Gus—had glared at her from the computer screen. And his own. Sandro. Alessandro Vellenti. Heir to the renowned Vellenti Vineyards in California's Napa Valley.

There'd been a picture.

And the picture had been of Sandro.

Younger, happier, those midnight eyes not so haunted. Smiling. Laughing.

A man the world believed dead.

But Miranda knew that wasn't true.

She'd tried to contact his parents, but they were out of the country and the receptionist at the vineyards sadly said master Sandro had gone to Europe five years before but never came home.

She looked at the Web site again, at the picture of a younger Sandro, his hair longer, mussed. His mouth not so hard. He looked … innocent. Far more innocent than a mere five years should tarnish. And this time when she blinked, tears escaped.

She knew it was him. Despite what everyone said, she knew the man who'd been killed in a hideous act of cowardly terrorism five years before was the same man who'd danced with her in a musty wine cellar. The man who'd killed for her.

The man who'd lain broken and bleeding in the shadow of an ancient temple, while Hawk had raced her to safety.

To freedom.

Away from Sandro.

É hora para mim de morrer outra vez.

She knew what the words he'd muttered that misty morning by the standing stones meant now. She'd had them interpreted within minutes of touching down at a military base in Germany.

It's time for me to die again.

The reality chilled her. He'd planned to die that day in Evora. That was hardly the mark of a ruthless criminal. A man as vile as Sandro pretended to be would do whatever it took to protect himself, all else be damned.

But Sandro had taken her to Evora, despite the foreknowledge that he might not walk out alive.

Had he been successful, she wondered with a sharp stab to her heart? Had he died alone there that day, abandoned on the cold cobblestone sidewalk? The question tortured her, shadowing her by day, slicing through her dreams when she sought sleep.