Chapter 10
The grounds either side of the driveway leading up to the house looked very much like some of the places Talia had lived in the past three years: manicured lawns surrounded by a profusion of scented flowers.
There were two more guards waiting for them outside the front of the house ready to escort them inside once Ethan had parked the car and turned off the engine.
“Ready?” he said gently.
The palms of Talia’s hands had gone damp and her face felt flushed, but she could feel herself calming as she looked at Ethan’s bland expression. Instead of answering him, she reached out and grasp hold of the front of his T-shirt to pull him in for a brief, hard kiss. “But don’t think, even for a moment, that you are off the hook for the way you snuck out of my bed this morning and then left me on Androcco,” she warned as she released him.
He gave another of those grins. “It makes me hard when you threaten me.”
She glanced down at the bulge in his jeans. “Who knew you were this kinky!” She gave a mocking shake of her head.
“Kinky can be good. Well, it’s better than boring, anyway,” he added when she merely raised her brows at him.
Talia turned away as her attention was caught and held by a silver-haired, handsome man stepping out onto the veranda that surrounded the whole of the front of the house. He was wearing tailored trousers and a white formal shirt now, but was still recognizable as the man she had seen beside the pool with her father through the binoculars a short time ago. Viktor Antipov. Who seemed to be doing very nicely for himself without any of the billions he said her father owed him.
“Showtime,” Ethan murmured, leaving the keys in the ignition—they might need to make a faster getaway than their arrival—before getting out of the car and coming round to open Talia’s door for her. He took a firm hold of her arm once she stood beside him. “Where you go, I go,” he murmured so that only she could hear.
Talia wasn’t going to argue, had no interest in playing the heroine. She just wanted to talk to her father and then get out of here. With or without her father.
Viktor Antipov gave a charming smile as they stepped up onto the veranda. “Your father has not exaggerated your beauty.” Talia was too surprised to react when he took her hand in his and kissed the back of it. His smile faded as he looked at Ethan. “And this young man is…?”
“I’m—”
“He’s my bodyguard.” Talia snatched her hand away, barely resisting the impulse to wipe it and the touch of this man’s skin down the thigh of her jeans.
“I’m her bodyguard,” Ethan repeated. He had hoped, after last night, he was more than that, but he’d take what he could get for the moment. At least Talia was still talking to him. And she had kissed him out in the car. He’d hang on to those two things until the two of them were far away from here and had a chance to talk alone together.
Viktor eyed him coldly. “You will remain here while I take Talia to see her father.”
Ethan stepped closer to Talia, one of his hands lightly clasping her arm. “Not happening.” His gaze met and challenged the older man’s.
He recognized it as a killer’s gaze. God knows he had seen enough of them in the army. In Vaso Alizoti too. Cold. Calculated. Without mercy.
Talia spoke up. “Ethan goes where I go.”
“I go where she goes,” Ethan repeated mockingly. “Pretty sure I recognized a guy on the front gates as one of the visitors I had a couple of nights ago.” He didn’t, but there was no harm in letting Antipov know who he was dealing with. “Looks as if he might have caught a bit too much of the Majorcan sun,” he added for good measure.
Viktor didn’t even blink. “As far as I am aware, Boris has not stepped foot on the island of Majorca. Certainly not in the last two weeks.”
Ethan shrugged. “My mistake.”
“Indeed,” Viktor clipped, giving Ethan another steely eyed stare before turning to Talia. “Come along, my dear.” His expression softened as he spoke to her. “You father will be pleased to see you again.”
Her eyes widened. “You haven’t told him I’m here?”
“When Boris called up from the gates and told me you wished to see Ivan, I thought you must want to surprise him.” Viktor stepped into the cool of the house and began to walk down the hallway, leaving Ethan and Talia no choice but to follow him. The two bodyguards fell into step behind them. “I am certain he has no idea of your presence in Florida.”
Ethan’s hold on Talia’s arm allowed him to feel her tension increasing the closer they approached the back of the house where her father was.
Understandably. Talia’s reaction to some of the things she had learned about Ivan the past few days said the next few minutes were make or break time between her and her father.
Talia knew, as she watched the revealing expressions flickering across her father’s face the moment he saw her—shock, followed by dismay, and then forced joviality—that after today, he would forever be Ivan to her.
What had Ethan called him? A Russian scumbag who raped his own country of its wealth? Talia knew in that moment that was exactly what her father was. What he had always been. What he would always be. He and Antipov, his partner in that crime, were alike and welcome to each other.
“Natalya!” Ivan stood up to step forward and grasp her stiff body in a quick hug. “What are you doing here?” It was obvious from her father’s tone of voice how dismayed he was. “How did you know where to find me?”
Confirming that her father had left Nassau voluntarily?
She believed so, yes.
She pulled out of his arms and stepped closer to Ethan. “Ethan and I were passing through, and I thought I would pay you a visit,” she dismissed lightly. “You left Nassau so abruptly, we didn’t have time to say good-bye.”
“Try to understand—”
“Oh, I do,” she assured him coldly. “I understand perfectly.” She had been terrified when her father went missing, had swallowed her pride and gone to Ethan for help, and all the time, her father had gone voluntarily, without so much as a word to her or any indication of when he would be back. “Good-bye, Ivan.”
“I swear I was coming back for you, Natalya.” His voice sounded pleading. “I tried to call you once I was here, but the servants at the house in Nassau said you had left two days before, and your cell phone was out of service. Once I had completed my business with Viktor, I was coming to look for you.”
“Well, now you don’t need to.” Her gaze met his unwaveringly. “I think you’ll find, from the fact Mr. Antipov had his men looking for me, that he wasn’t too sure of how reliable your word is on the deal the two of you are making,” she scorned.
The look Ivan gave the other man told Ethan he’d had nothing to do with the men who had come to his finca in Majorca. Indicating Antipov had been the one trying to abduct Talia, most likely, as Talia had now guessed, as a means of ensuring Ivan didn’t try to double-cross him a second time.
Which probably meant Gabriel was right, and it had been a colossal mistake bringing Talia into Antipov’s lion’s den. One narrow-eyed glance at the insolent challenge in the silver-haired man’s expression told him his guess was a correct one.
No way.
Absolutely no fucking way was Talia going to end up as Antipov’s prisoner as a means of ensuring Krechenko didn’t cheat him a second time.
“And my name is Talia,” Talia continued in a hard voice. “As yours is Ivan Krechenko.” She turned to Ethan. “I’ve seen what I needed to see and would like to leave now.”
“Sure.” He complied immediately. “It’s not been a pleasure, gentlemen.”
Ivan seemed to see him for the first time. “Ethan Knight…?” His eyes widened in recognition.
“I’m surprised you remember me,” Ethan derided.
“You were my daughter’s bodyguard several years ago.”
“Where are your own bodyguards?” Talia challenged, knowing by the way Ivan’s gaze didn’t quite meet hers that Aleksai and Erik were dead. “How could you?” she accused emotionally: she had known the two burly bodyguards since she was a child.
“There are always casualties in war—”
“This isn’t a fucking war. It’s your personal greed!” Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides.
Ivan’s cheeks flushed. “I grew tired of running, and do not use such language to me, Natalya.”
“You were the only one who was tired of running, and don’t you dare presume you have the right to tell me what I can and can’t do!”
“So you ran to the man who was once your bodyguard?” Ivan frowned his disapproval.
Ethan gave no indication he was aware of Antipov taking advantage of the heated conversation between father and daughter to give a slight nod in the direction of the two bodyguards standing on the steps. Or the way those two men tensed, ready to move again on the Russian’s word. A sure sign that he and Talia weren’t going to be allowed to leave. “I’m her bodyguard now too,” he drawled, slowly turning his head to look directly up to where he knew Gabriel and Alexandre were watching. That pointed glance was their own previously agreed signal that something was wrong.
Then he attacked.
The bullets started raining down as Ethan dealt with the two bodyguards in a matter of seconds, a foot to the stomach of one, a chop to the neck of the other, before dealing that same blow to the first one. He didn’t waste any time making sure they were both down, knew from experience they would be. By the time he turned to face Antipov and Krechenko, the first man was lying on the patio groaning as he clutched the top of his leg and blood seeped out between his fingers. Krechenko was still standing but holding the top of his arm, an expression of agony on his face as blood dripped down onto the paved patio.
Talia stood where Ethan had left her, her face pale as she made no effort to go to her father. She was either in shock or it really was too late for her to give a damn if her father was injured. Ethan would take a guess on it being the latter.
Two more bodyguards ran out of the house, guns already out and looking for a target.
“Take out the man!” Antipov called out to them between gritted teeth.
Talia came out of her shocked stupor as she realized Ethan was about to be shot. “No!” she cried as she ran in front of him and toward the two bodyguards. One of them went down before she reached them, blood blooming on the front of his white shirt as one of Gabriel’s bullets struck him in the chest.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion after that.
Talia looking down the barrel of the second bodyguard’s gun as she moved slowly toward him. Hearing Ethan’s shout of “No!” behind her. The sound of a bullet being fired echoing inside her head. Almost being able to see the progression of that bullet as it came straight toward her.
And then she was consumed with such excruciating pain, there was just blackness and the feeling of falling.
It was true, Ethan realized, memories did flash before you when you saw your whole world dying in front of your eyes.
Talia, provocative and flirtatious in a short skirt and fitted T-shirt the first time he’d met her.
The invitation in her eyes and the swaying of those hips every time he saw her for the next eighteen months.
The emptiness when she disappeared.
The despair when he couldn’t find her.
The joy he’d felt when Zander found Talia and her father again seven months ago.
The desperation when he’d known he couldn’t go to her with Agon Alizoti pursuing him.
The shock of seeing her again on Majorca.
The absolute pleasure of making love with her on Androcco.
Joy mixed in with worry when she turned up at the motel in Tampa.
Panic when she ran in front of him just now as the shot was fired.
Total devastation as he saw the jerk of Talia’s body as the bullet struck her and she started to crumple.
She never reached the ground, Ethan catching her before dropping to his knees with her cradled in his arms, unaware there were tears streaming down his cheeks as he frantically checked she was still breathing—yes—before searching for where the bullet had struck her.
“Nataly—”
“Don’t you fucking touch her!” Ethan’s voice was raw with emotion as he held Talia against his chest with one arm while he ripped off his T-shirt. He bunched the material and pressed it to her shoulder to stanch the flow of blood, then held her tightly in his arms again.
Ivan pulled his hand back. “Is she…?”
“Alive?” Ethan sneered. “Yes, she’s alive.” The bullet had hit Talia in the shoulder, and from what he could tell, it was a through-and-through. “No thanks to you.” Ethan’s arms tightened about her. Her eyes remained closed, her face having a sickening pallor. “You chicken shit piece of garbage.”
“You are upset—”
“Too damned right I’m upset.” He glared at the older man. “Listen, and listen carefully, old man. I am going to take Talia out of here now, and if you or your buddy over there ever come near her again, the next bullets fired will come from me, and they will be straight through both your rotting hearts.”
Ivan flinched. “I was trying to protect her by leaving her in Nassau.”
“You were protecting yourself by not allowing her to know exactly what a piece of garbage you are,” Ethan scorned. “Well, guess what, she knows. And you just rescinded any right to giving her your type of warped protection ever again. Stick with the trash you belong with and leave Talia the fuck alone. She’s no longer any of your concern. Do you understand?” he challenged fiercely.
“I—”
“Do you understand me?”
Ivan swallowed. “Yes.”
“Good.” He turned to see Gabriel and Alexandre bursting out onto the patio, both men armed, guns pointed at Ivan and Antipov.
“How is she?” Gabriel rasped.
“Alive,” Ethan answered as economically, wishing like hell Talia would open her eyes. He wanted to look into those deep-blue eyes again.
“Good enough to travel?”
“Yes.” Talia might still be unconscious, but at least the flow of blood was slowing.
Gabriel turned to Ivan. “Remember me?”
“Yes,” the older man confirmed gruffly.
He nodded. “Then maybe you’ll think twice before coming near any of my family ever again. I consider Talia a part of that family,” he added pointedly, waiting for Ivan’s confirming nod before turning back to Ethan. “We need to get out of here. Alexandre called the shooting in to the local FBI office as well as the police. They should be here any minute, and we need to be gone before they are.” He wiped his rifle before placing it carefully on the ground next to one of the unconscious bodyguards, straightening to pull out a handgun from the waistband at the back of his jeans. “With any luck, they’ll think this was a power play shooting. I seriously advise Antipov and Krechenko not to involve us.” He gave the two men a narrowed eyed glance. “Once the identity of these two is confirmed, they’ll hopefully be behind bars before the end of the day.” He gave Ivan a cold-eyed glance. “I’m sure the American government will be able to come to some agreement with their Russian counterpart to hand the two of you over.”
Ethan barely registered a defeated Ivan dropping down to sit on one of the loungers, as he rose to his feet, Talia cradled tenderly but securely in his arms. He walked up the steps and back through the house.
“I’ll drive.” Alexandre stepped forward and opened the back door of the car for Ethan to slide onto the backseat, still holding Talia. The other man closed the door again before getting in behind the wheel and starting the engine. Gabriel left the house a few seconds later and climbed into black SUV parked next to them. There was the sound of sirens in the distance as the two vehicles turned out of the driveway in the opposite direction.
Which was when Ethan realized tears were once again falling down his cheeks.
Talia had to be okay.
She had to be.