The Tycoon's Temporary Bride: Book Four (22 page)

He’d been so disgusted that he’d gotten
involved with The National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children and other organization that fought human trafficking. It
was an eye-popper for him. Most people around the world still
refused to believe the extent to which these people would go to
drug and kidnap young boys and girls and turn them into sex slaves.
Most of them were tricked with offers of bogus modeling jobs
abroad, only to wake up in a palace of horror or a dungeon of filth
the next day.

And to think that
his
Tashi had almost
fallen victim to the very criminals, rapists, and pedophiles he’d
been helping to put away for years. Adam closed his eyes and fisted
his hands in an effort to stop the nausea from rising to his throat
and the tears from gushing from his eyes. He had to stay strong for
Tashi.

He opened his eyes to find a dead, vacant
look in Tashi’s eyes. She stared through him, past him as if she
were transfixed in another place.

“What did the agent tell you to do? How did
you escape?” he asked.

“He’d already killed Scottie’s pretend
parents before I got to the house,” she continued in a low, dreary
voice. “They were lying on the floor with blood pouring out of
holes in their heads. He’d shot them in the head. Their eyes were
open wide and they were staring up at the ceiling, but they were
dead,” she whispered as if she were afraid to disturb the
ghosts.

She’d seen too much, witnessed too many
painful horrible scenes in her young life. Where did she find the
strength to cope? She was strong. He never realized how strong
until now.

She pressed her lips together as if to stifle
a cry. “And he—he—made me put on a bullet-proof vest and gloves. He
said I couldn’t leave any fingerprints behind. He gave me a gun and
showed me how to shoot it. He said—” She raised her hands in front
of her and demonstrated as she spoke. “He said, just—just wrap your
hands around the barrel, point at his head, and pull the trigger.”
She dropped her hands and squeezed her eyes tightly as if she were
trying to block out the vision. “I’d—I’d never even seen or touched
a gun before, and I was scared, but he said I had to learn to shoot
it if I wanted to stay alive.” She dropped her head in her hands
again as a new wave of sobs overwhelmed her.

Watching her, listening to her weep, seemed
surreal to Adam. He felt as if he was watching a movie, or trapped
in a nightmare, struggling to wake up, to cry out, but unable to
move or speak. He desired to hold her and promise her that no one
would hurt her ever again, but he had to wait until she’d told him
the entire story.

“What happened next, Tashi?” he urged
quietly.

“He—he said after I killed the driver, I
should push him out of the car and drive around the block to
another car he had left for me. He said he’d left a bag of money
inside. He took my cell phone and gave me another one. He said he
was going to call me and explain everything, but he never called.
And—and now my money and the cell phone are gone, and—and he has no
way of getting in touch with me.” She flung out her hands in
despair.

Now Adam understood her anxiety over the cell
phone being left at the apartment the night he’d brought her to his
home, and her falling apart three days later when she went back to
find it gone, along with her only means of financial support in
this world. “How did you end up in Granite Falls, Tashi?” he asked
in a tremulous voice. He needed to know what wind had blown her
here.

“The agent told me to drive here. He said I
couldn’t take any public transportation and I couldn’t use my
driver’s license or credit cards or anything that could be traced
back to me. He told me to toss the gun into the Hudson before I
left the city and ditch the car in the Aiken River once I got here.
He said I was a witness and that they would be looking for me.
That’s why I was living in that dump. I—I couldn’t put my name on
any lease. I can’t even rent a car. I couldn’t go to the hospital
when I was sick. I can’t use my name. I can’t do anything. I might
as well be dead.” She gulped hard as fresh tears slid down her
cheeks.

“Do you know why the agent sent you to
Granite Falls, Tashi? Did he tell you why he picked this town?”

“He said he had a friend here who would take
care of me. He said he was going to call and let him know I was
coming, and that he—he was to make me his temporary bride and give
me the protection of his family’s name until he got here and
explained everything.”

“What’s the name of his friend, Tashi?” Adam
asked in a tremulous voice.

“I don’t know. He was about to tell me his
name when some men came in and starting shooting at us. All I heard
was, “His name is
A
—” and the rest was swallowed up in the
gunfire.

A—Adam.
Temporary bride
. If the
situation weren’t so grim, Adam would laugh.

“Then more men came in and fired at us,”
Tashi continued without prompting. “He told me to run out the back
door, and so I ran out and shot the driver like he’d told me to.
But I didn’t hear anything else from inside. It was quiet like
death. I don’t know if he made it out alive. And—and I’ve been
searching the Internet for information about the shooting, but the
only thing out there is about a man shot to death in the
driveway.”

Adam’s gut was tied up in knots but he forced
himself to breathe through the pain. There was only one New York
FBI Agent he knew who had friends in Granite Falls. “What was the
agent’s name?”

“I don’t know. He just said he was an FBI
agent, and that he had come to rescue me from some bad people.” She
dropped her head and gazed at her twisting hands.

“Can you describe him?”

She licked her lips, then gazed up at him
with a face bleak with sorrow. “He’s black, and really tall and
muscular, and he had—um—a small scar on his right cheek.” She
touched her cheek. “And now he’s probably dead because of me.” She
dropped her head again.

It was Paul
. Tashi’s case of
survivor’s guilt wasn’t just about the driver she’d killed. It was
about the agent who’d come to save her—a man she didn’t even know.
“Were there any other agents at the house that night?” he
asked.

“No. He was alone.”

Why would Paul work alone? Where was his
partner? Why would he put his life on the line for a strange girl
and then send her to him for protection?
Why
? Adam didn’t
ask the questions because he was certain that Tashi didn’t have the
answers. Only one person did. “How long ago did this happen? When
did you come to Granite Falls?”

She took a deep, steadying breath. “Umm—about
a year and a half ago. Last—um—around the end of March.”

The same time that Paul Dawson fell off the
grid. Adam remembered Massimo trying to get in touch with Paul last
year—around the time he married Shaina. But the agent’s phones had
just kept ringing, and the agency had simply told him that he was
unavailable, which wasn’t unusual since Paul did go undercover
quite a bit.

But after hearing Tashi’s horror story, Adam
had to wonder. Was Paul dead? Was that the reason Massimo was
unable to reach him? Adam couldn’t remember Paul ever being
undercover for this long. In his recollection, the longest he’d
spend incognito was three to four months. He was a meticulous agent
who got in, hit hard and fast, and then got out unscathed.

“I’ve been waiting all this time for him to
call or show up, but I don’t think he ever will,” Tashi said,
cutting into his thoughts. “I was so happy when you told me your
name was Adam. I knew it was a long shot that you were that man
whose name began with an
A
, but I was holding on to hope.” A
look of tired sadness passed over her features.

Hope
. The last gift to leave Pandora’s
box after the seven plagues had been unleashed on the world. Adam
gathered Tashi into his arms. “I
am
your hope, Tashi. I am
the man whose name begins with an
A
. The agent who rescued
you is Paul Dawson.” Adam refused to think of Paul in the past
tense. He had to hope that his friend was alive, but for whatever
reason was still unable to contact him.

He cleared the croak from his throat. “Paul
is a good friend of mine, and of Bryce, Erik, and Massimo. We met
him at a restaurant in Paris a few years ago, and we became instant
friends that night. Since then, we’ve gotten together at least once
a year in New York or here in Granite Falls. That’s why he sent you
to Granite Falls and to me, so that I can protect you.”

“Really?” she asked in a hoarse voice. “Are
you really the man he sent me to find?” Her arms tightened about
him as tears of relief, he supposed, flowed freely from her, seeped
through his shirt, and warmed his skin.

“Yes, Tashi. I am
that
man, and you
did find me. I won’t let anything or anyone hurt you again. I will
protect you.”

“It just seems too good to be true.”

“Sometimes it is, sweetheart. Sometimes, but
not this time. This time it’s really true.”

“I’m glad he picked you, and I’m glad I found
you.”

“Me, too.” And he was so glad that Felicia
and Lillian had gone against their sons’ advice and bought out that
café, or they might never have found each other.
There were no
coincidences…

“You asked me once if I believe in fate. I
didn’t know the answer then. But I believe in it now. It had to be
fate that brought us together in the café. It had to be.”

“
Sì cara, era destino.
” Adam closed
his eyes as joy flowed copiously through him. She had accepted the
fact that fate had placed her in the path of the man the agent had
sent her to, fifteen months ago. But had she recognized and
embraced her place in his life and his home, and was she ready to
take the next step into the secrets of the unknown with him? He
needed to know. “Tashi, what decision had you come to in the garden
today?”

She burrowed her face deeper into his neck.
“I was going to leave. I was going to sneak away once you returned
to work because I didn’t want to put you in danger. I didn’t want
to be responsible for someone else’s death. Those men are
dangerous, Adam. They will kill anyone who stands in their way,
just like they killed your friend, and tried to kill me. I might be
the only person to ever escape from them. I cost them a lot of
money. They won’t stop looking for me. That’s why your FBI friend
told me to stay off the radar. I’m scared for you, Adam.” She
tightened her arms about him.

“You don’t need to be scared.” Adam combed
his fingers through her hair, even as his flow of joy ebbed to a
trickle. She’d been planning to leave. “And you’re not responsible
for anyone’s death. Agent Dawson knew what he was walking into. He
was doing his job. You did what you did to survive. You’re not
alone anymore. You’re where you belong, baby.” Reluctantly, he
eased her out of his arms and held her at arm’s length. “And the
only way to keep you safe is to do what Agent Dawson asked.”

“Marry you?” She shuddered and looked
away.

He brought her face back to his with a gentle
nudge of his fingers to her chin. “Yes, marry me.”

“But he said it was only temporary until he
came to me and explained everything. And so much time had passed.
If he’s dead, it doesn’t matter anymore, and your association with
me would just put you in danger.”

“It does matter, Tashi,” Adam said with an
emphatic tremor in his voice. “And I’m not afraid of danger. Paul
made the request because he knows I can protect you.”

Probably more than anyone else he knew, Adam
thought. Paul had heard the story about Adam’s grandfather,
Demitri, taking on a Rome-based mafia ring after they’d tortured
and murdered Alessandro’s older brother, Vincenzo—a gambling addict
who was unable to pay back a huge amount of money he owed them.
Killing Vincenzo wasn’t enough for the mob boss who then ordered
the kidnapping of Vincenzo’s five-year-old son and held him for
ransom to pay back the debt. The boy had been rescued alive and
well, but it was the biggest and last mistake that mob boss and his
organization ever made.

When Demitri was finished, all the members of
that mafia organization had been wiped off the face of the earth
and their finances had been crippled so drastically that even their
extended families had been forced to sell their homes and auction
off their possessions. Up to this day, many of the mobsters’
descendants were still suffering the consequences of their parents’
sins. No Andreas had had any trouble since then, and it was known
across Europe and the rest of the world that messing with an
Andreas would bring certain death and destruction for generations
to come. Paul knew the Andreas name would provide the type of
protection Tashi needed.

Alessandro was just as merciless as his
father. He crushed his enemies and stamped out any signs of threats
to any family member or to Andreas International long before they
took root. He’d even stopped talking to his best friend, Luciano,
after learning that it might have been Luciano’s affair with his
secretary that had caused his sister-in-law’s death. He was even
more livid now that he’d discovered that a bastard child had been
derived from that tragedy. Massimo hadn’t forgiven his deceased
father for hurting his mother, but he’d accepted his half-brother
Galen into his life.

Like Massimo, Alessandro was not a forgiving
man, and it was with great pains at his wife’s insistence that he’d
started talking to Luciano again. Adam knew that his forgiving
nature was one of the reasons his father was so disappointed that
he was less like him and more like his mother.

But his father was so wrong about him, Adam
thought as fury gave flight within him. The Andreas’s ruthless
trait had been lying dormant inside him because up until now, he’d
had no reason to go to war. Nothing and no one had ever been
important enough for him to fight for, no wrong severe enough for
him not to forgive.