Chapter Twenty-nine
When Gabby came back downstairs, Jonah was relieved to see she looked calmer and less terrified. Before he could ask, she said, “The test was negative.”
Every muscle in his body loosened. It was about damn time they had some good news.
“I’ll take another one tomorrow.”
“If we run out, I can get more.”
“Thank you.”
“Justice brought a whole folder of information on the procedure, in case you want to read up on it.”
“No, I don’t. The basic facts are I was inseminated with Rudy Bianchi’s sperm and I could be pregnant. Anything beyond that doesn’t interest me.”
“Very well, then, let’s talk about the why of it. Why the hell would Luis and Rudolph Bianchi do something like this? What are they to each other?”
“Business associates. Occasional enemies. Mr. Bianchi used to attend my grandfather’s events, but he stopped coming several years ago.”
“Our research indicates he’s a recluse.”
“That’s my understanding, too. Even when Rudy was on trial, his grandfather never attended.”
“From what I can tell, he did everything possible to keep him out of prison. After his conviction, he appealed the verdict. Thankfully, it didn’t work.”
“I read an article that Rudolph had issued a statement. I don’t remember what he said, though.”
“Wasn’t much. Just that he still believed in his grandson and that justice would one day be served.”
Gabby snorted. “People like Bianchi and Luis have a perverted sense of justice. It serves only them.”
“I agree. So why would they cook up this scheme? What’s in it for them?”
“I have no idea.”
“Justice told me that Rudolph showed up at Luis’s home the other day.”
“That’s significant in itself. The man can’t be bothered to attend his grandson’s trial, but he goes to Luis’s home?”
“Yeah. So what about Rudy?”
“What about him?”
“Not to be too indelicate, but the man shot off in a cup. He’s in the know on this. You’re the only one who was kept in the dark.”
“The man is a disgusting piece of human waste.”
The man was definitely slime, but the way she spoke about him sounded much more personal. Her voice held a vehemence that said theirs was more than a distant acquaintance.
“How well do you know him?”
He had no idea what she was thinking. Her face had been pale before, but now it seemed even more so. An ominous, sickening thought came to him. Hell, the man was a rapist and a killer. Any woman around him would be in danger.
“Did he hurt you?”
Instead of answering, she dropped down onto the sofa and patted her lap. Chamo had been sitting by the fireplace but jumped up on the sofa and dropped his head into her lap. She smoothed her hand over his coat for several long moments.
Jonah waited her out. He didn’t get the impression that she was refusing to answer as much as she was trying to determine how to form the words.
“What do you know about my parents?”
The basic facts of the accident that had taken the lives of Meredith and Javier Mendoza were a matter of public record, but Jonah knew next to nothing about what kind of people or parents they had been.
“I know they were killed in Switzerland while they were on a skiing trip. They were headed to the airport, returning to Venezuela from a holiday. Your father was driving. He lost control of the car on the icy road, and it went off the road and exploded on impact, killing both your parents. You and your brother were staying with your grandfather at the time.”
“No,” she said quietly. “With the exception of the last part, that my brother and I were staying with my grandfather, it’s a lie.”
She closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them, he was astonished that instead of the sadness he’d expected, a simmering fury burned. “Luis Mendoza killed my parents. He shot them in front of me.”
His entire body jerked at the news. Of all the things he’d thought she might tell him, this was off-the-rails crazy. And Gabby had witnessed it all.
Not doubting her for a moment, he shook his head slowly. “There were no questions or mystery surrounding their deaths. I read a couple of old newspaper articles. Even reviewed a copy of the police report detailing the crash. The son of a bitch got away with murder.”
“Of course he did. He is Luis Mendoza. His hand is in the pockets of the most-influential and powerful people in the world. Covering up murders would be child’s play for him.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
Gabby nodded. The scene had replayed in her head for years. Even now, if she closed her eyes, she could recall it in vivid detail. “We were leaving. It was the middle of the night. I thought we were going away on holiday. Not until years later did I realize what was actually happening. My father was taking my mother and me away. We were sneaking out of the house and my…Luis caught us. I remember my father saying, ‘We’re leaving, old man.’”
“What about your brother? He wasn’t with you?”
“No. I remember my mother crying when I asked her why Carlos wasn’t going with us. And I distinctly remember my papa telling Luis that he had already taken one child, but he couldn’t have me, too.”
“Did you ever tell anyone?”
She tried to smile, knew it was a pitiful attempt. “As many people as I could, but I was only six years old. Who listens to a six-year-old? Besides, the only people around were the ones already owned or indebted to Luis. By the time I was seven, he had all but imprisoned me, telling people I was too grief stricken to be around anyone.
“I had teachers and tutors who ignored my pleas. I ran away several times in hopes of finding someone who would listen. I was always found. I eventually stopped trying. Until…”
“Until what?”
“When I was fifteen, Luis told me he wanted me to start serving as hostess for his house parties. My aunt Evelyn, who previously hosted them, had died a couple of years before that, and since then, he’d had no one to act as hostess. He told me he was giving me this one last chance. That I could have more freedom if I behaved. I wasn’t to speak of my parents or anything personal. I agreed.”
The warm, comforting body of Chamo soothing her, she lost herself in memories for a while. She hadn’t spoken about these events in so long. Telling them now was sure to bring back the nightmares she’d fought years to control. That couldn’t be helped.
“Gabby?”
“Sorry, got lost there for a second. The day of the first party came. I really don’t know if I would have abided by Luis’s wishes. By that time, I had become the quiet and submissive granddaughter he wanted. I hadn’t been around anyone other than the servants in years, so I might have never said anything to anyone. However, I didn’t anticipate seeing the chief of police at the party.”
She grimaced at the sheer naïveté of her actions. “My thinking was so basic and simple. I knew nothing about the man himself. I only knew that he was an officer of the law. As such, he was honor-bound by his position to enforce that law. Luis had murdered my parents, and the man needed to know this so Luis could be brought to justice. So, being the naïve little idiot that I was, I pulled him aside and told him.”
“And of course he had no honor.”
“None whatsoever.”
Dark memories threatened to overwhelm her. Talking about this after the day she’d had wasn’t easy, but she needed to get it said and out there. Maybe it wasn’t necessary for Jonah to know everything, but for the first time in years, she wanted to speak of that horrific day when everything changed.
“Both Rudolph and Rudy were at the party. Within five minutes of talking to the police chief, Stephan, Luis’s right-hand man, had me cornered. He forced me up to my room and locked me inside. Half an hour later, Rudy Bianchi unlocked the door and walked into my room.”
Jonah held his breath, his gut clenching with dread. Just what had the bastard done to her?
Her eyes distant, as if seeing the past unravel, she said softly, “He was twenty-seven years old. I met him for the first time at that party. He had tried to talk to me, but he was so much older, we had nothing in common. Plus, there was something odd about him…something that frightened me. As hostess, I couldn’t be rude to a guest, but I did my best to stay away from him.” She shook her head. “A lot of good that did.”
“What happened?”
“When I asked him why he was in my room, he said that Luis had given him permission, as my future husband, to discipline me.”
An ugly curse escaped Jonah’s lips, but if she heard, she didn’t let on.
“At first I laughed and told him to get out or Luis would kill him. I knew Luis didn’t care about me, but he had never allowed a man outside the family to touch me. The bizarre claim that he was to be my future husband barely penetrated my frozen brain.
“When I realized he wasn’t leaving…and he just stood there smirking, I ran to the door. He got there before me.”
She went silent.
Jonah felt as awkward as a bulldozer in a French restaurant and had no words to help her through the retelling of what he figured had been a horrific event. But he had to offer her some kind of comfort. He crossed the room and sat beside her. He didn’t touch her, but if she needed human contact, he was there for her.
“He didn’t rape me.” She sent him a frozen smile. “I learned later that that was the one thing he was told he couldn’t do.”
“Luis allowed this?”
“He didn’t just allow it, he arranged it. Rudy told the truth about that. Apparently, it had been decided years before that Rudy and I were to be married. No one had told me simply because I didn’t have a choice in the matter, so I didn’t need to know.
“Luis claimed later that his sending Rudy to discipline me had been a test for both of us. One that neither of us passed.”
Rage surged through Jonah, and it was all he could do not to release a battalion of curses. The very thought of any man, much less a child’s grandfather, doing such a thing was beyond disgusting. Luis Mendoza had sent a twenty-seven-year-old man to discipline his fifteen-year-old granddaughter. A man she barely knew. A man who would one day become a serial killer of young girls.
Still barely comprehending how messed up all of this was, Jonah asked, “Did he…”
“He made a lot of threats…of how things would be once we married. What he would do to me...” She waved her hand. “I can’t…
“Anyway, I knew nothing about defending myself. I cried and screamed. No one came. I finally got lucky, and one of my puny punches landed in the right place. I got away from him. The door was locked from the outside. The only exit was the balcony. I ran out to it, screamed again. No one came. So I went over.”
“Shit! That’s just…” He had no words.
“Unbelievable, I know. There are screwed-up families, and then there’s mine.”
And he’d thought he had the worst family in the world. Compared to the Mendozas, the Slaters looked like a 1950s sitcom.
“It’s a wonder you weren’t killed.”
“I came close to dying. I had a skull fracture and multiple broken bones. Stayed in the hospital for almost two weeks. When I was released, I went to England, to live in one of Luis’s houses. I assumed he didn’t want to see me, and I certainly didn’t want to see him.”
Still shaken by what she’d revealed, Jonah asked, “After all you’d been through, I can’t believe you weren’t a basket case.”
“I give credit to one person for my recovery.”
“Who?”
“Raiza.”
“I’m surprised, given his archaic views, he would trust a woman to watch over you.”
“She could go places a man couldn’t go, such as restrooms, dressing rooms. Luis wanted to make sure I was watched every waking moment. He just never anticipated what she would teach me.”
“I know she taught you how to handle a gun. What else?”
“How to survive.” She smiled as she continued. “She had children of her own, but she wasn’t exactly what you would call the motherly type.
“She was the first woman I’d been around since my mother. I thought she would sympathize with me, make me feel better. You know…mother me. So I told her everything. It was like a faucet had been turned on. Everything that had happened to me since I was a little girl came pouring out of me. My parents’ murders, being a virtual prisoner for so many years. I told her about Rudy and their plans for me.
“Instead of giving me the platitudes I expected or hugging me and telling me things would get better, she did the unexpected. Turned out, it was the one thing I most needed to hear.”
“What?”
“She asked me what I was going to do about it. Cry and moan or find a way out? I told her I had no way out, and she stared at me with the hardest, most determined look in her eyes and said, ‘So you’re a coward. I have no time for cowards.’”
Jonah knew Raiza had likely saved Gabby’s life, but he couldn’t imagine saying that to a young girl who’d been so damaged and hurt. She would have been vulnerable and scared.
“What happened next?”
“She walked away from me, and I lost it.” She grinned. “I had a broken leg and a broken arm, but that didn’t stop me from throwing myself into a wheelchair and going after her. I screamed, yelled, and cursed like a demon.”
“What did Raiza do?”
“She stood there and watched me. When I’d worn myself out, she nodded and said, ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’
“She walked off then. A few minutes later, she came back with books and DVDs, but they weren’t for entertainment. She told me to read the books, study the recordings, and after I healed, she would teach me. She kept that promise.”
Her smile was soft and full of affection. “She gave me something no one ever had before. She gave me hope.”
Jonah had seen his share of strong people before, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever known anyone with more strength than this woman. What she had been through could have destroyed her. She might give credit to Raiza, but if she hadn’t had the courage already within her, she wouldn’t have become the woman she was. And she wouldn’t be here now.
He didn’t remember how or when, but at some point, he’d put his arms around her shoulders. Her head was on his chest. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to pull her closer and press a kiss to the top of her silky head.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone more courageous.”
She huffed out a little laugh. “Courage had nothing to do with it. It was sheer necessity. It took longer than either of us thought it would to make it happen. Even though she encouraged me to leave, I couldn’t. My grandfather would have punished Raiza for allowing me to escape. If she’d come with me, he would have hurt her children or grandchildren. So I waited and continued to train, knowing that one day I would be free.”
“Sometimes having the patience to wait until the right moment is one of the bravest things a person can do.”
When she didn’t respond, he looked down at her. She had snuggled into his chest and was breathing the shallow breaths of a deep sleep.
The shock of yesterday, coupled with the hellacious news of what had been done to her, had taken its toll. After what she had been through during her life, trusting any man would be difficult for her. He felt both honored and humbled that she trusted him this much.
With Gabby’s head on his chest and Chamo’s head on her lap, Jonah gathered her closer and, oddly content, closed his eyes.