Chapter 13
“W
hat did your mother say?”
“I’ll tell you while we clean you up.”
She wiggled out of his arms, and this time Jacy let her go. “It can wait,” he said.
She came to her knees and looked at him. “No, it can’t. Get your shirt off and come into the bathroom. You can get up,
ja
?”
She stood and got up slowly. Holding the towel to his chest, he followed her into the hall. Her face was tearstained and she was a little shaky, but she hadn’t totally shut down. She’d just learned two life-changing pieces of information at once—one good and one bad—and she was still on her feet. That, Jacy thought, was what set Pris apart from most young women her age. She was something extra-special, and he had sensed that weeks ago.
That’s why it had been so easy to fall in love with her. She was like no other woman he had ever met, and why he couldn’t blame her for lashing out at him. He’d boxed her in a corner, and as a survivor, she’d been forced to come at him with everything she had. And she’d done pretty damn good.
His balls hurt, his knee had probably taken a two-week setback, and he was wearing a red strip across his chest, but the truth was, he’d never felt better. He’d put her to the test and she’d come out swinging.
“How deep is it?” She asked as she headed into the bathroom.
They needed to talk about the phone call. He asked again, “Pris, what did your mother say?”
She turned and looked at him. He was leaning into the doorjamb. “What do you think she said? She said exactly what you knew she’d say. That my father is a criminal and that I shouldn’t believe anything he says. Do you know where she’s been living? I forgot to ask her that.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to know that right now. Maybe in time.”
“Do you think I would harm my mother?”
“No. But knowing the location puts you in even more danger than you are already.”
“I don’t understand.”
“If your father learns that your mother is still alive, what do you think he’d do? He’s already tried to kill her once.”
“I would never tell him.”
“He’s a master game player, and very resourceful. Just be patient.”
She looked at the towel. It had turned completely red. “We have to get the bleeding stopped.”
He shrugged out of his shirt. “It’s just a nasty scratch.”
“A scratch? Then why is it still bleeding like I severed an artery? And why did you say you could bleed to death lying in there on the floor?”
“Motivation.”
“And at that moment you thought I cared if you bled to death?”
“Yes, otherwise you would have gone for my throat.”
“Sit down.” She was irritated now, and she started opening up doors, even though he didn’t think she even knew what she was looking for. “So how are we going to fix this? I’m not very good with blood.”
“An assassin who hates the sight of blood. Now that’s novel.”
She shot him another irritated look. “That’s not what I aspired to be, though I admit to years of practice. However, I never knew that there was a purpose behind all the hours I put in on the firing range. I did it to make my father proud of me and to get his attention. He wasn’t home very much. Of course, now I know why.”
Not all of it, Jacy thought. But she would know all of Holic’s dirty secret eventually. She had to know everything. And as much as he would like to protect her from more pain, she needed to know what kind of parasite her father was.
“What
was
your ambition?” he asked.
“You would laugh.”
“Try me.”
“My mother loved to paint and she passed that desire on to me. I haven’t done anything outstanding, but one watercolor was good enough to hang on a wall at the ski lodge. It’s a mountain scene with Groffen in the foreground.” Her eyes went to the bloody towel again. “I wish Vic was here. He would know what to do.”
“I know what to do. A roll of duct tape and a pair of scissors can fix just about anything.”
She looked totally confused.
“It’s good stuff. You’ll see.”
He smiled, but she wouldn’t give in to it. He saw blood on her hand and at first he thought it was from him and the towel. But it wasn’t.
“You’re cut.”
She looked at her hand. “I don’t care about my hand.”
“How bad is it?”
“Would you stop worrying about me! You’re the one who needs medical attention. Where do you keep this duct tape that’s supposed to be so wonderful?”
“In the kitchen. I’ll go get it.”
Jacy left the bathroom, retrieved the tape and scissors, then returned.
When she saw what he’d brought back, she shook her head. “We’re using that?”
“Yup. And a strip of gauze. Snip, snip, slap, slap, and we’re done.”
“Snip and slap. You’re joking,
ja
?”
“Here, cut a ten-inch strip for me and a three-inch one for you. I’ll get the gauze and get rid of some of this blood, then I’ll show you. It’ll put the palm of your hand back together with barely a scar.”
Five minutes later Jacy was wearing a piece of silver duct tape across his chest, and Pris was wearing one on the palm of her hand.
“Good thing I don’t have a hairy chest,” he teased, making another attempt to get a smile out of her. Again, it didn’t work.
“I thought you were an ex-Hell’s Angel and intelligence agent. How could you let this happen? When I attacked you, why didn’t you knock me down and snap my neck?”
“I was taught never to hit a woman.” Jacy reached out and tried to touch her, but she shied away.
“You could have stopped me. Why didn’t you?”
“You were too quick.”
“That’s crap. The truth. There’s no reasons to lie anymore. Not for either one of us.”
“Maybe I just wanted to see what Holic Reznik’s daughter was made of. Like I said before, you could have slit my throat with the mirror. I could ask the same question of you. Why didn’t you?”
She looked away.
“I’ll tell you why. You didn’t really want me dead.” She didn’t argue with him, and Jacy didn’t press her for more. He said, “We’re going to have to fly to D.C. Not tonight. Maybe not even tomorrow, but eventually. I’ve got a call to make.”
“To Merrick? My mother mentioned him. Is he your boss?”
“Ex-boss. I retired a few months ago, but it looks like I’m back in the loop for now.”
“I know I have to pay for what I did. Like father, like daughter. The only difference is, I’m not going to run.”
That was damn brave of her, Jacy thought, considering the uncertainty of the situation, and what was hanging over her head back in Washington.
“I’m going to make that call.”
He walked out of the bathroom and into his office. If there was a way to fix this for her, he was determined to do it. But in this case, duct tape and a pair of scissors wasn’t going to mend the scar that Holic Reznik had left on his daughter’s heart.
When Pierce picked up, Jacy asked, “You talk to Merrick?”
“I did, but he’s not amicable to any deals. He wants you to bring her in as soon as possible.”
“I won’t do that. Not without some guarantees.”
“Did she call her mother?”
“Yes. Thanks for getting me the number.”
“How did it go?”
“It was a shock, but necessary. She wants to turn herself in.”
“Then bring her in.”
“And feed her to the wolves? No.”
“I’ll talk to Merrick again. Maybe he would recommend that we make a deal with her. Does she know where the master kill-file is right now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out. We might be able to use it as leverage.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“You sound wiped out. Anything else you want to tell me?”
“I’ve been up for forty-eight hours. I need some sleep is all.”
“You sure that’s all?”
“It’s been a rough couple of days. Call me in the morning.”
When he hung up, Jacy left the office. He checked the bedroom, and found Pris had cleaned the blood and broken pieces of mirror off the floor. No easy task, he imagined, since she didn’t do well with the sight of blood.
He left the room and went looking for her. She wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen. She had said she wasn’t going to run, but had she said that so he would let his guard down?
He hurried to the front door, turned on the yard light, then threw it open. On the deck, he stopped in his tracks, his eyes locking on her slender form where she stood out in the blowing snow, her arms wrapped around herself as she looked out over the frozen ice of Two Medicine Lake—her lightweight coat doing nothing to ward off the single-digit temperature.
He swore and limped off the deck.
“Pris?”
She turned, tears frozen on her cheeks.
“Dammit, you’re going to turn into an ice chunk out here.”
“
Ja,
what I deserve.”
“You don’t deserve any of this.”
She held up her hand as he came toward her. “
Nein,
I do. I didn’t tell my mother what I’ve done. About the men I killed. How could I tell her I’ve become my father?”
“You’re not your father, honey.” Jacy strode forward and scooped her up in his arms and started back to the house. “Don’t keep comparing yourself to him. You’re nothing like him.”
“Put me down. Your chest will start bleeding.”
“Let it bleed. If you haven’t noticed, I’m made out of Montana granite. I have a hard head and can weather any storm that comes my way.”
He walked back into the house with her and kicked the door shut. He set her down on the couch and removed her coat. Saw she was shaking.
“You’re chilled to the bone. How long were you out there?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her teeth chattering.
“I’ll start the shower.”
“Jacy?”
He stopped. It was the first time she’d called him that. “What is it?”
“You’ve been really…good to me. I don’t understand why, but thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Why have you been…good to me?”
He smiled. “Some day you’ll understand why. But for now, all that’s important is getting you warmed up so you don’t catch pneumonia.”
Pris watched him walk away, his limp more noticeable than ever. Slowly she came to her feet. She pulled off her sweater, dropping it on the back of the couch before she came down the hall. While working the buttons free on her pants, she met him coming out of the bathroom. He stopped, and she saw his eyes drift over her.
It reminded her of the other night and she selfishly wished she could turn back the clock. But things had changed between them. How could they not? Now he knew she was Holic Reznik’s daughter, and even though he’d said she was nothing like her father, Jacy’s enemy had given her life.
She was almost past him when he reached out and touched her arm. “You all right?”
“My mother’s alive. That means everything to me. It is the bright spot in all of this. Thank you for giving me that.”
“When you’re out of the shower, there’s a file in my office I want you to read.”
“About my father?”
“Yes. After you read it, we’ll talk.”
The shower did warm her up. Feeling a little better, Pris made her way to Jacy’s office. He was there waiting for her. He stood, offered her his chair, gave her a quick computer lesson on his high-tech equipment, then left.
It took Pris a long thirty minutes to read all the data that the Onyxx Agency had compiled on her father. Holic Reznik had been a busy assassin. He’d even killed children.
Children.
A man with no morals, a thirst for blood, greed for money, with an insatiable hunger for beautiful women. It was believed he had over a dozen mistresses across the country.
Her father killed unconscionably, and cheated on her mother. This was not the man Prisca had grown up loving and adoring with all her heart and soul. But no more. With every line she’d read, her love had transformed into hate.
Sick inside, she wept for the father she’d once loved, then for the mother who had lived a life of lies with a man who neither loved her nor deserved her devotion. Then she wept for the two men she had killed in the belief that they were something they were not.
Her last thought was for Otto. Had he known the truth? Was he as ruthless as her father?
She wanted to believe that he had been tricked as she had been. If he had, that meant she hadn’t been wrong about all the men in her life.
She had once thought she could survive anything, but now she wasn’t so sure. But did she really deserve to survive this—after what she’d done?
Heartsick, Pris looked up when she heard the door open. Jacy stood with his hair wet, wearing only a pair of hip-hugging jeans, the duct tape blazing like an honorary badge of courage. He must have taken a shower, too.
“You all right?”
“I need to see my father. Afterward I’ll tell you anything I know. Then you can lock me up and throw away the key.”
“The only place you’re going at the moment is to bed. You’re exhausted both emotionally and physically. You need sleep.”
“I can’t sleep, not after reading that.”
“I wish I could have softened the blow, but it’s better this way. You needed to know why Onyxx has been chasing Holic for so long. Your father—”
She pointed to the computer. “That isn’t the father I knew. Or maybe I should say the man he pretended to be around me. I was treated with what I thought was love. But he’s incapable of love, I know that now. How am I going to tell my mother all of this?”
“You won’t have to. She knows.”
“Everything?”
“Yes.”
Prisca closed her eyes for a brief moment. “Again, thank you. When do we leave for Washington?”
“Once I hear back from Pierce. He’s the agent I’ve been working with on this. I trust him. He’s negotiating with Merrick for me.”
“Negotiating?”
“We’ve come this far together, I’m not going to abandon you now.”
“But if you did, I would understand.”
He started out the door. “Come on. I’ll put you to bed.”
“I don’t want to sleep…alone.”
He stopped and looked back. “Neither do I.”
“You didn’t have to keep the dinner date, Adolf. You could have canceled if you were busy.”