The mansion's white stucco walls gleamed in the moonlight
with false purity as one of two burly men operated an
elaborate keypad and handprint recognition system. Carina
stood silently between the two men, her eyes flashing
silent contempt. Although they tried to pass themselves
off as protectors, they were, in fact, her prison guards.
Alfredo and Neville were their names, but she called
daddy's pet gorillas Freddie and Neddie, to their
everlasting disgust.
A knock on the door of her apartment in Gavarone's capital
city, St. George, in the wee hours of the morning two
weeks ago had turned out to be Neddie, telling her to get
dressed and come. Now. Eduardo, her father, had ordered
her home to his estate outside the city, and Daddy always
got his way.
As Freddie and Neddie stood back now to let her enter, she
glanced up and noticed that the mansion's adobe-tiled roof
was the color of blood tonight. How appropriate was that?
She shuddered and took a deep breath. She could do this.
Just go inside and play the obedient daughter for one more
night. Man, she hated this house and her forced presence
in it. Her escape plan had to work. She'd go stark raving
mad if it didn't. And Daddy would never guess that Tony,
her openly gay clubbing buddy, had the cajones to help her
escape.
Her rendezvous with him tonight on the dance floor of a
nightclub in St. George had gone well. Freddie and Neddie
had lurked by the bar like trolls the whole time, never
suspecting that she and Tony had put the last touches on
their scheme while they gyrated under the strobe lights.
She'd passed off a wad of her jewelry to Tony. He'd pawn
it and buy her a plane ticket from this sleepy little
corner of South America to an even sleepier corner of New
England. Her older sister, Julia, was there already,
hiding from their father. Eduardo would never dream that
she'd sentence herself to such a quiet existence. Little
did he know that she desperately craved the peace such a
place could offer.
But in Eduardo's house, it was all about playing the game.
Giving him exactly what he expected to see. Truth be told,
she'd gotten sick of the party scene years ago. But right
now, her constant outings to nightclubs were the only
bright spot in her existence. And how lame was that?
Thankfully, she'd convinced daddy dearest that if she
didn't make occasional appearances in her regular
Gavronese haunts rumors would get started about her.
Rumors that would draw media attention to him that he
couldn't afford.
It was the one chink she'd found in her father's
formidable armor over the years. An international criminal
feared on four continents didn't have too many exploitable
weaknesses. But he didn't like to draw unnecessary
attention from the press. Of course, that meant she'd
spent the last few years doing everything in her power to
draw media attention to herself and, indirectly, to him.
And then, of course, there was the money. She did her
level best to relieve her father of as much of it as
possible, to put it back lavishly into the hands of the
working people he'd stolen it from. Sometimes she just
gave it away. Fistfuls to any random person in need whom
she happened to run across. It was a huge bone of
contention between them. But until Eduardo actually pulled
the financial plug — and oh, the media stink she'd make if
he ever did — she planned to spend it as fast and
furiously as she could think up ways to do so. It wasn't
much, but it was one small act to make amends to society
for her father.
Carina paused in the dim cavern of the foyer and kicked
off her strappy high heels. Dangling the skimpy shoes from
her fingers, she climbed the long, curving staircase
toward her room. The mansion's ornate walls pressed in on
her heavily. One more night in this wretched house of
horrors and then she'd be free. Forever.
"Good evening, Miss Cari."
She looked up at the gravelly voice. Gunter, her father's
gray-haired German chief of security, had worked for her
father for as long as she could remember. "Hi," she
replied.
"Out late, I see," he commented with a hint of disapproval
in his voice.
"Good band," she mumbled.
"I'm glad you're back safely, at any rate."
Sheesh. What did it say when the hired help paid more
attention to her than her own father? She flashed a
genuine smile at the older man. "Thanks."
Her father had been grouchy and distracted ever since the
trouble with her older sister a month ago. Quiet, boring,
responsible Julia had up and taken off for the United
States with copies of all her father's financial records
and a whole bunch of his money. Who'd have guessed sweet
Julia had it in her?
Although Eduardo hadn't said so, he'd undoubtedly dragged
her back home to the estate to put pressure on Julia. It
wasn't a new trick in his retinue of control tactics over
Julia — just an extremely annoying one. Cari was really
sick and tired of being their pawn. She was an adult
trying to have a life of her own. And what was so damned
wrong with that?
This situation between Eduardo and Julia was getting
worrisome. The maids were whispering that Julia had made
off with millions and that her father was threatening to
kill Julia when he found her. Surely, that was an
exaggeration. But just maybe, it wasn't. Both of them had
upped the stakes to the point where neither one could
afford to back down. And Cari was trapped in the middle.
She had to get out before their confrontation blew sky-
high, with her caught square in the blast.
Four o'clock tomorrow morning was zero hour for her
escape. Twenty-five hours and ten minutes to go. She could
make it that long.
She walked down the long hallway toward her bedroom at the
back of the house. The half moon high overhead sent cold,
blue-white light through the gauze curtains into her
bedroom. She didn't turn on the lights as she stepped over
the threshold. Rather, she made her way to the French
doors leading to the balcony and threw them open. She
stepped outside into cool air that raised goose bumps on
her arms. Leaning on the wide stone balustrade that
surrounded the balcony, she listened to the rhythmic
pounding of the surf visible below until the cold soaked
her completely through.
Too jittery to sleep, she delayed going back inside
despite the shivers coursing through her. Freezing felt
better than the dull numbness that so often came over her
from living under her father's iron fist.
The ocean was turbulent tonight, with white breakers
rolling into the sand, pounding it in a relentless,
mesmerizing rhythm. She watched its impersonal grandeur
for a long time, feeling smaller and smaller in the face
of its power.
She was lonely. Was it too much to wish for someone who
would simply love her? No strings attached, no scheming,
no danger? Just a little old-fashioned tender loving care?
A tear escaped the corner of her eye and ran slowly down
her cheek, cold against her skin. It was the chilly
breeze. She would not descend to crying for herself.
Finally, reluctantly, she turned to go back inside. One
more night in her gilded prison. One more night in her
white lace bed. One more night as Eduardo Ferrare's
daughter. God, she couldn't wait to disappear, to shed her
skin and her past, and to begin a new life.
She padded across the expanse of white carpet to her bed.
Lost in her thoughts, she pulled off her silk blouse,
leaving on the white cotton tank top underneath. She
shimmied out of her short leather skirt and let it fall to
the floor as well. Abruptly exhausted, she pulled back the
covers in the dark and crawled into bed.
That was odd. Her bed didn't feel right. The mattress
moved heavily. She rolled over and plumped the pair of
eiderdown pillows she favored and noticed, out of the
corner of her eye, a strangely shaped shadow enveloping
the bed. Big and dark, it encompassed most of the other
side of her bed.
And then two more things struck her simultaneously: a
sensation of wetness on her skin and a metallic smell.
What in the world...
She sat up and took a good look at the other side of her
bed. And jumped violently. There was someone lying there!
The house's ventilation system kicked on just then, its
fan billowing her curtains just enough to cast a thin
shaft of moonlight across her bed. She caught a glimpse of
a silver crucifix earring in her unexpected companion's
left ear.
"Jeez Louise, Tony," she whispered. "You scared the
daylights out of me! How in the world did you get up here
without my father's men seeing you?" She reached over and
nudged his shoulder. She whispered, "Hey, you. Wake up.
Don't snooze through my great escape on me, will you?"
Nothing. A feeling of dread rose from her stomach. "Tony.
Wake up." She shook him harder.
He was out like a light.
She reached over and turned on the small lamp on the
nightstand beside her bed. It cast a circle of yellow
light on the room. She turned back to Tony.
Her scream split the night air like the fall of a
guillotine. There was blood everywhere. Her white lace
bedspread was soaked in red. The sheets, the pillows and
now even her clothing were bathed in it. Congealed blood
defined a dark gash across Tony's neck. Frantically, she
crouched over him, pressing her hand against the long
wound.
"Tony!" she cried. "Oh, God, Tony!"
And then she noticed his eyes, glassy and blank, staring
off into space. His mouth was open, pulled back into a
rictus of terror. She glanced down at the bed and saw his
hand clenched around the sheets. A single thought exploded
in her brain.
Her father had slit a man's throat in his own daughter's
bed. The horror of it hit her first, sending bile up into
her throat. And then the guilt struck. If she hadn't asked
Tony to help her, he wouldn't be lying here, dead. She
felt violently sick to her stomach.
On top of everything else, a wave of utter hopelessness
slammed into her. She'd never escape her father. Never.
And with that thought, despair closed in on her.
She knew her father was a criminal. A cruel, ruthless man.
But never, ever, had he turned that violence directly on
her. That had been the one constant in her life. Her
father loved her in a distant sort of way, and for all his
flaws, he'd always protected her from the world he lived
in.
But tonight, he'd smashed that silent covenant to
smithereens in a pool of blood.
And that was what broke her. Something cracked inside her
heart. It was too much to bear. She couldn't go on any
longer. She wasn't strong enough to keep fighting who and
what her father was.
A great black pit of despair yawned before her and,
numbly, she stepped into it. She scrambled awkwardly off
the bed, backing away, nauseated, from her last hope for
freedom. She noticed vaguely that she was leaving bloody
footprints on the white carpet.
Clumsy with creeping terror, she pulled out the fire
escape ladder stored in the trunk by the French doors and
fumbled to hook it onto the balcony ledge. Desperately
fleeing the horror behind her, she flung herself over the
side of the stone railing.