Fate Book Two (3 page)

“Fine. But hurry,” he grumbled.

I ran as fast as I could down the beach toward the café and told the barista what had happened. He quickly dialed for the police and then followed me outside along with a few tourists who wanted to see the situation for themselves.

When we stepped out onto the back patio that butted up against the beach, there was Paolo. He had the man facedown in the sand, the guy’s arm shoved behind his back in one of those painful police holds.

Paolo pushed his knee into the base of the man’s spine, and the man screamed.

That’s gotta hurt. Serves him right.
It was certainly better than death by corkscrew.

Funny, though, Paolo no longer looked like he was in “kill mode.” In fact, he almost looked…well, kind of bored. Maybe irritated, too.

When the police finally arrived, Paolo told them what happened and that we’d come by a little later to make a statement.

As they drove off, Paolo looked at me and shook his head.

“What?” I barked defensively.

“Nothing.” He laughed bitterly. “I swear, Dakota, you’re a damned danger magnet.”

I swatted him on the arm. “That was so not my fault.”

He laughed. “I’m calling you Dakota Danger from now on.”

“Shut up.” I tried not to smile, but couldn’t help it. It was kind of true. Trouble seemed to seek me out.

“Maybe I should rethink marrying you,” he said. “I’ll never get any rest.”

I tipped my head to one side. “Funny. Harhar. Can we have that toast now?”

Paolo’s dark eyes locked on my lips, and his smile melted away. “I think I’d rather take you home. The moment was a little ruined by some asshole trying to stab my fiancée.”

“I’m okay, Paolo.”

He grinned. “I know. But I’m in the mood for that ab licking you mentioned. I hear it can be very therapeutic.”

I laughed. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

As we walked back to the condo, I couldn’t shake the gnawing sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. Was this always going to be our life? Something bad happening to me, and Paolo coming to my rescue? I didn’t want that. Not for him. And not for me.

I wanted us to have normal lives.

CHAPTER TWO

Present Day

Up until about nine months ago, when our identities were exposed to the dodgier half of the world, my mom had been the head ER nurse in our small suburb outside of San Francisco. Gunshot wounds, broken bones, and heart attacks didn’t even trigger a dewy forehead on the woman. But as we sat in that dingy trucker motel situated on a dusty road on the outskirts of Cahuita, I noticed a look of forlornness in her eyes. And a lot of sweat. Of course, it was June and hotter than hell, but she was definitely freaking out in her own quiet way.

I sat next to her on the edge of the bed and gripped her hand. I wanted to tell her that everything would be all right, though we both knew that wasn’t likely. Paolo wouldn’t simply up and leave on his own.

Images of him being dragged off from the church’s men’s room and thrown into the trunk of a car drilled holes into my soul. I felt so helpless. I needed to be out looking for him, combing the airport or…crap. I didn’t know. I just needed to be doing something other than sitting in my wedding dress, crying.

Ohmygod. Ohmygod. This is bad. How did they find us?
Not that I knew who “they” were. My father had countless enemies reaching every corner of the world.

Staring at the bolted door, my mom let out a heartbroken sigh. “I never wanted this for you, Dakota. I did everything I could to keep you insulated.”

I thought she’d done a pretty good job. Except for having a mom who worked constantly and a father whose profession as a “photographer” kept him globe-trotting, I had a fairly normal childhood. Normal meaning I didn’t have a clue about this secret world. It was only last year that I learned the truth, including the fact that some of the faculty and student body at my high school worked for my father. Bodyguards. Can you believe it? My mom couldn’t. And she’d been peeved—seriously peeved—when she’d found out because she didn’t want any of my father’s world bleeding into ours.

“I know,” I said quietly, staring at that same grimy motel door, “but you did your best. And I couldn’t have asked for a better mom.”

“Thanks.” She nodded absentmindedly. And watching her big blue eyes—the same color as mine—filling with giant crocodile-sized tears nearly launched me into a sad little tailspin to hysteria-land.

“I’m never going to see him again, am I?” she whispered to herself.

I was thinking the same thing about Paolo. “I’m sure Dad will be here any minute, Mom,” I said with a shaky voice.

“No, baby.” She looked at her watch. “Before we came to Costa Rica, your father and I went through his contingency. He told me if anything went wrong to wait one hour, then get on the next bus to SJO.”

SJO was a few hours by car and
not
the nearest airport. Yes. That was on purpose.

She looked at her watch again.

“How long has it been?” I asked.

“One hour.”

“Maybe we should wait a few more minutes.”
Or another hour
, I thought.

She wiped away a tear with a muted growl. “I can’t risk losing you, too.” She stood, reached under the bed, and pulled out two black backpacks. She opened one and tossed a light-blue knit dress and matching flip-flops next to me. “Put these on.”

“Mom, I’m not leaving.” I’d get her to the airport, but I was staying put until I had some news.

My mom’s normally pale face turned an angry red. “Paolo is gone, baby—not
dead
gone, but, you know, gone.” Her words were frantic, and her hands shook like a caffeine addict’s as she rifled through the other backpack, checking the prepaid phones and cash on hand. “He’s somewhere that’s not here. And whatever happened, staying will not help us find him.”

Damn.
I knew she was right. I’d gone over the backup plans a thousand times with Paolo. It had been an almost daily discussion after we’d first arrived. He drilled me on how these people operated, snagging one person to get to the others. The worst thing a person could do was go in with guns blazing on a crazy rescue mission; something “they” would be hoping for. Second worst was staying put when your identity was blown. Likely, at this very moment, there were thugs camped outside my condo, at the bank I used, and around my university
.

Dammit. Why is this happening?
I’d clung to the hope that someday this crazy life of ours would come to an end and Paolo and I could settle down—kids, house, career.

It’s never going to happen for me, is it?
Not that it seemed to matter at the moment, because Paolo was gone and I didn’t know what to do.

I remembered telling him once how the thought of losing him really got to me. The fear felt like a crippling knot of terror in the middle of my stomach. He’d responded by looking at me with those sharp, intensely dark eyes and possessively cupping my cheek. “If they ever take you, I will find you. I promise. And God help them if they do. But if something ever happens to me, you just run, Dakota. Run and don’t look back.”

As I’d thought then, I thought now:
Like hell I will.
Nevertheless, my mom was right; we needed to get someplace safe, with resources, and where we could figure out what to do next.

I stood and gave my mom my back. “Unbutton my dress?” She did, and I slipped it off. Carefully, I rolled my wedding dress into a tight ball and shoved it into my backpack. I was not giving up on Paolo or my father. I was not going to let this happen.

And this dress will be worn again.

We gathered up our things, inspected the remaining contents of our backpacks—four credit cards, two prepaid cell phones, one thousand in cash, and new passports. I was now Mayra Preble from San Antonio and my mom was Kim Mikalauskas from Cleveland.

“I think Buenos Aires is pretty cold in June. We’ll need to buy coats.” My mom held up her open-ended airline ticket.

“We’re not going south. We’re going to my safe house in Chicago.” Paolo had taught me well, and with the millions my father had stashed away for me in offshore accounts over the years (yes, another contingency), I had enough cash to build my own network of contingencies. Which I’d done. I’d learned my lesson about leaving my fate in the hands of chance or a bunch of macho guys—Paolo and my dad—despite my loving them.

I reached for the door, and a nightmare of a thought slammed into my already stress-wacked head: If Paolo had been taken at the church, why hadn’t any of us seen something? Why hadn’t “they” tried to take us, too? Or my father? In all honesty, he was their target. Yet…

We all walked away, and now my father is nowhere to be found.

Scorching, red-hot rage bubbled in the pit of my knotted stomach. There were no passports for my father or Paolo in those bags. No extra clothes either.

My father had planned this?

No. No. He wouldn’t do that to you, Dakota.
On the other hand, my father, as much as I loved him, was the sort of man who placed his beliefs of what was right above the feelings of others.

I looked at my mom and pasted on my poker face. She couldn’t know. It would break her heart, and with that hot head of hers, she’d only hunt my father down to confront him. But if my father had gone to such horrible, shady lengths to take out my fiancé, a man he didn’t approve of, he wasn’t about to come clean. A man capable of doing something so horrid to his own daughter was not to be trusted.

“Ready, Mom?”

She smiled sadly. “Yes.”

~~~

One week later, Chicago

From the high-rise view of my blandly furnished apartment (everything gray or khaki), sublet through a third party under a false identity, I stared out the window and watched the rain come down in dime-sized drops, flooding the mid-afternoon city streets. The peppy newscaster chatting away on the TV declared it the heaviest summer rain since 1967.

What a mess
, I thought. Still, funny how the logjam of drowning cars, nineteen stories below, felt symbolic of the thoughts inside my head: stuck in a messy, unmovable tangle.

From the moment we’d arrived in Chicago, I got to work and began checking Paolo’s bank accounts—the ones I knew about, anyway.

No activity.

I then placed an ad in the online Kansas City
PennySaver
. “16-yr-old, one-eyed, Oregon Rex needs loving home for golden years. Pedigree papers.” I included the number for my prepaid cell and a Gmail account for good measure. For the record, an Oregon Rex is a domesticated house cat that hadn’t been bred since the ’50s. Anyway, the ad was what Paolo called a “flare” or signal for him to call me. Aside from an insane person with a heart who wanted to care for a dying, one-eyed cat, no one would answer the ad, and only Paolo would know to look for it on Pennysaver.com. I could only hope that whatever happened to him, he would find a way to contact me.

The next part, however, was beyond difficult. My mom had to send her own flare to my father so he could locate us. I still didn’t know what I’d do if I saw him again, despite having had plenty of time to think this past week. If my father had taken my fiancé, then good old Dad was my only link to finding him. That meant I would have to pretend I didn’t suspect any wrongdoing and play the part of the grieving, unsuspecting daughter until I figured out what to do next.

“Dakota!” my mom screamed excitedly from the bedroom. “Get in here!”

I rushed from the living room, hoping she might’ve seen an e-mail response from Paolo pop up on my laptop.

“What is it?” I stood in the doorway of her room and spotted her sitting on the bed, her back against the headboard, laptop in hand.

She waved me over, grinning. “Come here. Come look.”

I sat next to her and saw a transcribed voice mail from her answering service. She had two set up, one in Paris and another in Mumbai, under the name Toni Galligan. Anyone knowing her fake name could call and leave a message with the service, which would convert the message to an e-mail and forward it to her Gmail account. Oh, the joys of staying hidden but keeping in touch. So inefficient.

My mom’s blue eyes scanned the message. “It’s from your father. He says that he hopes we are okay, and he’s found Paolo.”

“What?”
Holy shit
. “Is he okay? Where is he?” I leaned over her shoulder to read the message, but it said nothing more other than for her to send a flare with her phone number and location, that he’d see us in two days “alone.” As in, he would be coming alone.

Alone.
I tried to keep breathing, but it wasn’t easy. The obvious thought going through my mind was whether or not my father had truly found Paolo or if he was simply playing the role of helpful father. After all, my mom would never forgive him for something like this. My second thought—way more important—was if my father had found Paolo, why not bring him?

He doesn’t want to.

As I mulled over options—panicking, screaming, or continuing to fake calm—my mom began placing her online classified ad in the
Miami Herald
.

Broken pink lawnmower for sale. $300. Cash. Owner moving to Chicago. Must sell.

She added her prepaid cell and paid with a credit card under a fake name. Meanwhile, I stared at the screen, my mind trying to come up with a way to corner my father. There had to be some sort of leverage I could use to persuade him to undo this horrible nightmare.

What if you pretend to be someone who wants Paolo? Someone who’s been hunting Paolo for years. His family.
Paolo had told me they’d been looking for him, and not because they missed him. But that would mean I’d have to be the leverage, kidnapping myself and demanding Paolo in exchange for my freedom. The idea was lame enough that it might just work.

“Dakota?” My mom stared with deep concern.

“Yeah?”

“If anyone can get Paolo back, it’s your father.”