Hearts On Fire (The Santiago Trilogy Book 3) Read online

  “Remind me to high five her the next time I see her.”

  My eyes fly open again. “Remind me to spank the living shit out of you for applauding it.”

  She flashes me a weak smile that peppers my chest like shrapnel. I watch, enthralled, as my wounds start to gape and ooze. I can feel the warmth of her love seeping into my soul, spreading out like a crimson cloak until every inch of me is stained and wanting. She’s so much more than my weakness now. She’s the air that I breathe and I make a mental note to hire a hundred new recruits. Her protection is paramount.

  “Well?” I let go of her to fold my arms and break the spell. “Are you going to lean over that desk voluntarily or shall I put you across my knee?”

  To my surprise, she shakes her head. Denying me. Testing me. “I can't. Not when Anna is… It doesn't feel right.” Her voice breaks. Her mask of courage slips.

  I grit my teeth, irritated beyond belief. She needs to learn to disassociate from sentimentality, as and when required. Like me. Like Joseph. My bed is the only arena for that kind of bullshit now. There, I’ll welcome it. I’ll turn it to my advantage. I’ll gladly fuck the conflict out of her all over again.

  She turns toward the door.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” I say, crooking my finger at her and narrowing my eyes. “Come back here immediately.”

  “I’m tired. If there’s nothing to be done here, I’m going back to bed.”

  “Oh, there’s plenty to be done here, mi alma,” I say huskily, taking her arm and pulling her back to me.

  Sighing with resignation, she settles back into my embrace. My dick starts to throb and I grind my erection against the soft concave of her stomach.

  “Dante…”

  “Hush.”

  Locking my arm around her waist, I guide her backward against my desk. Her body is stiff and reluctant, and I can sense my lust transforming into something even darker. Eve and that fucking defiance of hers…

  “You will see her again, my angel,” I grit out, driving my knee between her legs and spreading her wide for me. Her sweet scent hits my senses and my self-control starts to slip away like a tilted hourglass. I slide my hand up the outside of her thigh with clear intent. “You need to trust me…”

  Her fingers halt my progression and I hiss in displeasure. “Of course I trust you.” Her grip on me tightens and her eyes start to glisten again. “I know you’ll do whatever it takes to find Anna.”

  “Then enough of the stalling. It only makes me harder. I suggest you slip out of your panties before I find a more inventive way to remove them.”

  We hold each other’s gaze for a beat. It’s a poor stalemate on her part – her shoulders are sagging already. Still, I find myself compelled to reassure her again before I continue.

  “I have my best men looking for her, including Joseph,” I say, dropping to my knees and dragging her ass to the edge of the desk. “Think of this as a pleasant distraction. You’re not defiling our search efforts by allowing me to defile you for an hour or four.”

  She glances at the window as she lifts her hips to allow me to slide off her panties. “I’ll never have a say in this, will I?”

  I ease the black lace down her legs, going slow so I don’t knock against the patchwork of hate that blemishes her knees, another disturbing legacy from that night in Miami. “I’ve never forced a woman, Eve, least of all you. I may be a monster but I’m not a total dick.” I pause to block out another image, one that features a faceless Russian ravaging her body. My body. My fingers clench around the useless scrap of material.

  “You’re not a monster, Dante.”

  Her proclamation jolts me back to her light. This false belief of hers...

  “How are you feeling today?” I lower my gaze to gorge on the ultimate prize.

  “I’m okay, I’m…” All of a sudden she clamps her hand over her mouth and spins away from the desk, catching my shoulder with her foot and knocking me off-balance.

  “Eve!” I thunder, rising quickly to my feet.

  “Bathroom!” she squeaks, stumbling for the en suite. Moments later I’m listening to her wretch her fucking guts up, over and over again.

  My hand is wrapped around my cell before she’s going down for Round Two. “Get my private doctor on the line,” I snarl, halfway to the en suite myself. “I want him on my island within the hour or he’s a dead man.”

  3

  Eve

  I finally stopped throwing up two hours ago. By then, my throat was raw; my stomach muscles beat and burning. I never knew my body could generate such violence. I’ve endured sickness viruses before but this felt different. It was relentless in its intensity. The slightest odor seemed to trigger another wave.

  Afterward, Dante carried me upstairs and he hasn’t left my side since. He’s now pacing up and down like a caged animal at the foot of the four-poster bed. There’s a mild breeze blowing off the ocean and in through the open window, but there’s a blizzard raging inside.

  “Well?” He glares at the tall man sat in a chair next to me who is calmly taking my vitals. With his tan skin and thick pewter hair, Dante’s private physician, Whit Harris, looks like a plastic surgeon from L.A. He’s someone who should be sitting around golf clubs in his glorious retirement, not stuck in the middle of the Pacific at a wanted criminal’s beck and call. Still, if Dante trusts his judgement, I know I’m in safe hands.

  “And the nausea came on just like that?” Whit looks up from his expensive wristwatch and considers me thoughtfully.

  I wish I could plunder the depths of those unflappable blues. I need to know what he’s thinking, what direction that cool head of his is taking him in. “I’ve been feeling weird ever since I woke up,” I say, my voice croaking. “It’s been this way for the last few days. I thought it was the aftermath of everything that happened.”

  Whit nods sagely and returns my wrist to the bed. He knows all about the events in Miami. He was waiting for me as soon as I arrived back on the island. Dante didn't trust Petrov’s physicians to treat my injuries appropriately. I doubt there’s much about Petrov that he trusts anymore. I’m the only link left between these two dangerous men. Somehow I need to make Dante see that we need to all work together to rescue Anna and obliterate Sevastien’s trafficking network.

  My head sinks deeper into the white pillowcase. Sleep is beckoning me again like a glorious reward but I have to stay awake. Anna needs me.

  “Any new pain?” he asks, casting his eye over the fading bruises on my collarbone.

  I shake my head. It’s more a feeble response than a definitive answer. I’m fighting a losing battle against fatigue

  “I see.” I watch him delve into his leather case and produce a syringe and a couple of empty glass vials.

  “What the hell are they for?” Dante switches his death stare to the medical supplies. “The only prick I want her taking around here is mine.”

  “It’s okay, Dante.” I sigh. “Let him do his job.”

  “I’d like to run a few blood tests, with your permission of course, Eve,” says Wilt silkily.

  “What kind of tests?” Dante looks like he’s ready to knife the man. I wish Joseph was here to drag him back to the land of Sense and Reason, but I haven’t seen him since yesterday evening.

  “It’s all routine, I can assure you.”

  “Then tell me before one single drop of her blood touches that needle. I don’t ask twice for anything, Whit. Eve will testify to that.”

  It’s time to intervene before he loses his cool.

  “Can I have a glass of water, Dante?”

  “Can it wait?”

  Whit catches my eye and his lips start twitching.

  “Please,” I say weakly, putting on a show of sorts. We could both use a breather from his forceful intensity.

  Muttering under his breath, he prowls towards the en suite.

  “With ice?” I catch Whit’s eye again. Over-bearing and possessive don’t come close to des
cribing how Dante acts around me.

  “For fuck’s sake!” He turns on his heel and heads for the door. He knows he’s being dismissed but he’s loath to deny me anything right now. “One glass of fucking water with ice, coming the fuck up.” He slams the door behind him, asserting his displeasure with his typical violence. He’ll get me back for this but I’ll deal with those consequences later.

  My eyelids start to flutter. Lead weights are binding them together.

  “Just one more question,” croons Whit, wrapping a blue rubber tourniquet around my upper arm and gently feeling for a vein in the crease of my elbow. “Is there any chance you could be pregnant?”

  It feels like an icy wave just smashed into me. “Pregnant?”

  He offers me a frown of sympathy before plunging the needle into my arm. I don’t feel a thing. My head is too busy filling up with terror, like a faucet that’s been left on overnight.

  This can’t be happening.

  “But I’m on birth control,” I splutter, attempting to sit up. Sleep is the furthest thing from my mind now.

  “Not a hundred percent effective, I’m afraid. But I’m sure you knew that.”

  “Is this what you’re testing me for?” The vial is half full with my blood already. My baby’s blood.

  He nods.

  “How soon will you have the results?”

  “Give me a minute.” He removes the needle from my vein, presses a piece of gauze to the wound and seals the vial. “I’ll test the HCG hormone levels tonight and give you a call with the results tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I can’t wait that long for such a life-changing verdict. My brain is about to explode.

  I glance nervously at the door. Any minute now, Dante will be charging back into the room like a raging bull.

  He can’t know.

  If he thinks I’m carrying his child, he’ll never let me leave this island. Most likely, I’ll never leave this room again, not for the next nine months at least. He’ll lock me in here like he did in those first days of captivity, all under the guise of ‘keeping me safe’. Restrained by the life growing inside me. Burdened by a past that he’s desperate to remedy.

  This child means a second-chance, but it comes at the expense of my freedom. I can't have any unwanted restrictions right now. I need to help find Anna. I dragged her into this mess… My mind is spinning off track like a rambling drunk.

  “It’s just a theory,” he says soothingly, picking up on my terror, or maybe it’s haunting my face already? “It’s by no means a fait accompli. You’ve been through quite a trauma. It’s most likely delayed shock.”

  “I’m not ready to be a mother,” I whisper.

  “No parent is ever truly ready, Eve. If we all sat around waiting for that perfect moment, I doubt there’d be many children born into this world.”

  There will never be a perfect moment with us. “Will you speak to me directly as soon as you get the results?”

  Whit opens his mouth to argue. He knows what Dante will do to him if he keeps this secret. The man I love doesn’t do reasonable or rational.

  “Please,” I beg, clutching at his arm. “I need to tell him myself. In my own time… I’ll take full responsibility.” I reach for the pen and paper on my nightstand. The room falls silent as I scribble down my cell number.

  He pockets it without a word and hands me a small bottle of pills. “Prenatal vitamins,” he explains briskly. “In the slight event that you may be expecting… One a day, preferably with food.”

  I have just enough time to hide them under my pillow before the door opens again.

  “The sooner Sofia is back on this island, the better,” says Dante, slamming my water down next to me and spilling most of the contents.

  Whit rises from the chair and starts packing away his medical kit. “I’ll run these tests and be in touch. In the meantime, I want you to rest up as much as you can.”

  “Eve’s not going anywhere.”

  I shoot Dante a beseeching look. The one he returns makes my heart sink. It means I’m right to worry about his reaction to this baby.

  Sinking down into the pillow again, I try to absorb the aftershocks of this latest bombshell. My hand drifts to my stomach and Dante is by my side in an instant.

  “What’s wrong? Feeling sick?” He frowns at the flash of guilt on my face.

  “Just an ache,” I say, avoiding Whit’s steady gaze.

  Dante knows I’m lying but he can’t call bullshit and punish me accordingly, not when I’m laid up like this. “I’ll see you out,” he says, turning to his physician and ushering him out of the door.

  I listen to their footsteps on the stairs as my hand starts rubbing in gentle, ever-decreasing circles. It’s instinctive. Comforting. I don’t need Whit’s test to confirm what I already know. This baby growing inside me is as wilful as its father is. Barely a few weeks old, and its already making its presence felt.

  Will its arrival help lessen the pain of his daughter’s disappearance? Will it soften his sharpest edges? Will it dispel the worst of his darkness and lessen his desire to kill? Or will he see it as an intrusion? A betrayal?

  I recall what he said to me in Miami, when he’d begged forgiveness for his greatest act of evil, for murdering the mother of his first child. No details were offered. I asked for none in return. The pain I saw in his eyes that night assured his absolution. Will he offer me the same once he finds out what I’ve kept from him?

  I hear a distant door slam and my hand freezes. I won’t be able to keep this to myself for long. He knows my body better than I do; he’s claimed every dip and curve for himself. The slightest change and there will be questions. But he needs to understand that finding my best friend is equally as important to me as keeping our baby safe. Somehow I need to strike a compromise with the one man I know despises them.

  I need to find Anna before my secret is out.

  4

  Dante

  “Well?” My shadow casts long and dark over the bed, waging war with the pallor of her skin and the white pillowcase. She’s lying. She knows it. I know it. You can’t fool a man who lists interrogation as his favorite vocation. I’d flip her over and put her across my knee if I could, then drive my dick into her tight little ass until she’s screaming out her mysteries to me.

  “I’m tired. I ache. I’m a mess.” She rolls onto her side, tucking her knees up and hugging them close to her chest. Shutting me out. “I hate throwing up. It makes me feel crap. It makes me look like crap.”

  “I’d still fuck you,” I drawl, appraising her silhouette beneath the sheet. She’s as slender as a blade but twice as lethal. I’ve seen her kill. I’ve watched her take life without hesitation. The more I draw her into my world, the more her light illuminates my darkness, but at what cost? I’ll never let it consume her. I won’t see that light extinguish forever.

  “Lucky me.” She rolls her eyes at my crass humor but any perceived joy is misfiring. She’s too distracted. She’s not even in the same room.

  Something’s wrong. This knowledge courses like poison through my veins. I’m so fucking hard for her but I’ve never felt more impotent. I’m not a man who stands around on patience. If people don’t talk, my knife and bullet tend to change their minds pretty quickly.

  Not with her.

  Violence is never an option with Eve.

  I’ll have to entice the truth out of her another way, by using the fine art of conversation instead. That, or my dick… I know which one I’d prefer.

  “Are you hungry?” Better start with the basics.

  “Any news on Anna?”

  A growl of amusement rumbles through my chest. That’s another thing I love about this woman. She goes straight for the jugular in the sweetest, most inoffensive of ways.

  My smiling assassin.

  My angelic killer.

  “It’s only been an hour since you last asked me that, mi alma,” I chide her.

  “A lot can change in an hour.”

 
; Why do I get the feeling she not talking about the blonde?

  “I’m handling it. I told you that already.”

  “We’re in this together. I thought I told you that already.” A touch of heat stains her cheeks. Sapphires darken to match the hues of the indigo ocean outside and my dick turns to stone. My angel has fallen, and what a pretty sight it is to behold. She’s the queen of my fucking underworld now.

  It’s been three days since I last had her, three days since I stole the last of her decency by driving the worst of my hate inside her. Souls bared. As raw and honest as we’ve ever been, surrounded by a bloody ruin of our own making. It was the best sex of my life, shortly to be eclipsed by what will be unfolding in my bed tonight. First, I need to appease, then we’ll fuck to forget.

  “There are reports of a sighting in Marrakech. Sevastien, not the girl... Not yet,” I clarify, pulling out my phone to show her the images. “Joseph is on his way there now. Petrov has the feelers out all over Eastern Europe and he’s already appropriated a couple of Sevastien’s former party patrons from the other night. When they start talking, we’ll know straightaway.”

  I spare her the finer details. Two of these men are dead already. The other two probably wish they were. Petrov’s right-hand man, Viktor, is personally overseeing the machinations. He used to run torture houses all over Russia for the KGB. He’s almost as savage as me.

  She nods, accepting this. Her rose-tinted glasses were ripped from her face the moment she stepped inside that mansion in Miami. That night changed everything for her. “And Roman?”

  “Prodigal son is heading up a huge FBI investigation on US soil.”

  She frowns at the contempt in my voice before taking my outstretched cell to get a closer look at my team’s intel. If I harbor a dislike for Petrov, it’s nothing compared to how I feel about his illegitimate spawn. Bent FBI Agents like Roman Peters, or whatever the hell he calls himself, have a trust ratio of zero to fucking zero with me.