Protector (27 page)

“You’re
being ridiculous.” Wasn’t she? He eased up on the gas, coasting downhill toward the town’s edge. Built into a mountain, the village wrapped around a medieval church with the steeple poking far above everything.

“Am I?” Her voice went ragged. “What do you think is going to happen with us when I see my father?”

What would
happen
? Why the hell was she even asking that? He could untangle glitches in high-tech test programs but didn’t have a clue what went on in this woman’s brain. “That’s not a problem since you won’t be seeing him.”

“You don’t have the right to decide that for me. If I want to get out of the car right now and walk to his house, there’s legally nothing you can do to stop me.”

She was right, but still…

“And that’s what you want?” Shock rippled through him. “You’ve spent most of your adult life keeping him at arm’s length. Can you honestly say you still want to have contact with him after everything he’s put you through?”

“He’s my father. I have to do this. You don’t need to understand or agree.”

“You’ve got to be joking.” He glanced over at her, dumbfounded.

She shrugged. “I tried to stay away from him for years. But then I heard about his heart attack… Good or bad, he’s my blood.”

“So was your uncle and look how well that played out for him.” He couldn’t hold the sarcasm from his voice, but damn it, she needed to understand how dangerous this line of thought could be.

“Don’t you think I know that?” She pounded the worn leather seat with her fists. “Relationships are complicated. When I heard my father might die, something shifted inside me. I knew I couldn’t just walk away from him any longer.
Chuck, I need to see my father and make peace with him. And I need to do it alone.”

“Fine, damn it.” Chuck straightened, pushing the words through gritted teeth. “You can see him whenever you want. I understand they have liberal visitation at the pen. Drop in as often as you like during his twenty-to-life stint at your local correctional facility.”

She winced as if slapped. Then her face shuttered away emotion. “Chuck, we slept together a few times and fixed a car together. That’s it. The sex was good and you’re an interesting guy, but don’t go ruining it by trying to turn it into something more. Just take me back to the boat. I’ll arrange for a
Fortuna
vehicle to transport me to my father’s house.”

This was it. She was, no shit, dumping him to return to that viper’s nest she called a family.

Why did civilians always think everything would be okay, that they would be okay, somehow exempt from the risks right in front of them? Criminals didn’t have a conscience. Her
father
didn’t have a conscience.

Frustrated as hell, he knew he wasn’t going to make any more headway with her on the subject. And God forbid he should slip up and call her Red or Lynnie.

Maybe an update from Berg would make her realize how imperative it was that she stay away from the ship and anything to do with her father. Now that they were clear of the cottage and in a town of sorts, he figured he could risk a call in to the ship. He needed to make contact. Too much time had passed and Livia must not have guessed his locale.

He thumbed the secure code for Berg’s line, as secure as any communication could be these days. Techies like himself were cracking the newest safeguards daily.

After one ring, the other side picked up. “
Ciao! Buen giorno!
”

Berg’s Italian sucked, thickly laced with a Southern accent. But his familiar voice was a welcome sound.

“Four-six-nine. Alpha-Foxtrot.” Chuck recited his code to verify without question he was on the line and not compromised. “Need an update, my friend.”

“God, Chuck,” Berg barked into the phone, “it’s good to hear your voice. We thought you might be dead. Sure wish you could have given us some word sooner.”

“What happened to Nuñez?” Chuck gripped the phone so tight it cut into his flesh. He’d functioned okay, but the chance Nuñez had been taken or killed had never been far from his mind, messing with his head.

“He’s asleep on the top bunk right now. Snoring, too, I might add. Bullet winged his arm, but he’s already bragging about how he’ll work that into a disguise. And how’s Jolynn Taylor?”

“She’s fine.” Still doing her best to pretend to ignore him even as she listened in to his every word.

“Thank, God. Where is she?”

“Secured.” He wasn’t trusting the phone lines with everything, especially when it came to her safety. “Now, catch me up on what’s been happening since I left.”

Only a few days during what felt like months of living. Jolynn should have been readying herself for that damned fund-raiser and her friend’s wedding, rather than hiding out from gunmen and terrorists.

“After Nuñez reported about how things went rogue at the safe house, we assumed you were taken by whoever shot up the place.”

“Keep talking.” He didn’t want to risk any longer than need be on this phone. “I— and a half-dozen other agencies— have
been chasing your GPS all over Sicily, until you blipped on the mainland last night. The colonel’s lady thinks she knows where you are.”

“Where I
was
.” He’d been right to be careful, to fall off the map if all those groups had been on the lookout. No question, not everyone’s motives would have been pure. He palmed the steering wheel, taking a tight turn down a one-way road along a canal leading to the medieval church. “Who leaked our location at the safe house?”

“The OSI agent who was working with Nuñez. She started up an affair with a guy who works for a local security firm… pillow talk… blah, blah, blah. Same old shit that has taken people down for centuries, people who can’t keep their pants zipped.”

Local security firm. The pieces closed together, jagged edges sliding into a seamless fit. Danger had been hovering closer to Jolynn than he’d imagined. “And that security guy must be tied to Adolpho Grassi.”

“The security guy
is
Adolpho Grassi. Italian authorities have him in custody. He’s on a police boat back to the mainland. Straight up, he started spilling his guts in hopes of cutting a deal. Said he never intended anyone to get hurt. That he just needed Jolynn Taylor to quit nosing in the ship’s finances and go home. He set up the attempt to attack her in the parking lot, the peeping Tom incident outside her room, the shooting by the water. It wasn’t until the safe house that things got out of control for his goons.”

It all made sense, especially if Grassi wanted to keep his connection to Taylor’s business tight through marrying Lucy. Jolynn coming back into the picture pushed Lucy out of the favored position. “Seems like things have tied up neatly.”

“We’re all hoping they’ll get more out of him once he’s in an official interrogation. But all signs point to him being
tied up in however that data is being shuffled through the slot machines,” Berg said. “How did you make the connection so quick?”

“He’s also tight with the director of operations at Taylor’s, Lucy Taylor.” Jolynn’s cousin. She would have all the more reason now to want to return to her family. Damn it. “Lucy’s engaged to the guy.”

“She and her uncle— the big man himself, Josiah Taylor— have taken a helicopter back to Taylor’s estate in Genoa. Poor kid, finding out about her fiancé this way.”

Lucy Taylor’s bad taste in men almost got Jolynn killed. Chuck found his sympathy level for Lucy was low. A warning bell clanged in his mind. He was losing his objectivity. He didn’t want justice. He wanted revenge.

He tried again to lose himself in the routine of work. “Any idea on a motive? Ideological or financial?”

“We’re guessing it must be the latter. Probably hoped he could also tap into the family fortune by tapping her and use those connections to tap into bigger dollars. Strangest part is, there isn’t one single shred of evidence linking Josiah Taylor to any of this. The guy’s coming back squeaky clean. Not that I’m complaining since we’ve got Grassi. It’s a rare gem to get our hands on such a weak link in a terrorist plot.”

Chuck eyed Jolynn, who’d given up looking out the window and was studying him with open curiosity.

“At any rate,” Berg continued, “with Grassi in custody, we’re hopeful the rest will unravel quickly and we’ll stop the flow of information. The brass supports your decision at the safe house. You protected her, kept her out of the fray, and stirred things up enough we were able to skim some crap off the top. We’ve upped surveillance on the ship. Good work, my brother. Congratulations, you can come in whenever you’re ready.”

Congratulations?
Instead of victory, Chuck felt his gut fill with dread. He’d been expecting to hear a litany of reasons he could give Jolynn to stay tucked away safely with him. And instead, he’d gotten an all clear that the threats to her had passed. His mission had refocused on tracing the transfer of terrorist data. He not only could walk away from Jolynn, but he had to for the sake of the operation.

But he would be damned before he would simply drop her off at the ship to make her own way home. He would drive through the gates of hell, right up to Josiah Taylor’s front doorstep and confront the devil himself. Because the time had come for someone to look that old man in the eye and let him know the consequences of hurting Jolynn.

*  *  *

Her elbow rested in the open window. She kept her face averted. The wind tangled through her curls as she absorbed the enormity of what had happened. Her cousin’s fiancé had been stealing from the
Fortuna
, laundering money for heaven only knew what kind of lowlifes. Lucy would be crushed.

And Chuck’s investigation appeared to be complete. She didn’t need to hide out any longer.

They’d spent the day charging up the Italian coast, racing back to Genoa. The ship would be docking soon. Her father would return to his monstrosity of a mansion. Lucy would, too, for that matter. Tomorrow, the scholarship fund-raiser would go off without a hitch.

There was nothing holding them together. She twisted her fingers in her purse straps. “I want to thank you for all you’ve done for me. I know I gave you a lot of hell in the beginning, but you really put your life on the line for me and I won’t forget that.”

She wouldn’t forget
him
. Ever. He’d changed her life and
perspective in just a few short days.

His jaw went tight in an understated sign of stress, like how he rolled his shoulder and cricked his neck. She was beginning to recognize so many nuances about this man.

“Jolynn, I know we were careful with birth control, but nothing is foolproof.”

She hadn’t even considered… An image glittered to life in her mind of a chubby-cheeked cherub with a precious thatch of dark hair. Her hand fluttered toward her stomach, stopping shy of actual contact. “The timing’s not right. I don’t think—”

“Regardless,” he cut her off short, “if you find out you’re pregnant, I expect you to tell me.”

“You know I wo—”

“I don’t want to assume anything. You tell me. Even if you don’t want it, I do.”

She gasped that he would even have to wonder. But then how much did he really know about her? “Chuck—”

“No kid of mine is ever going to grow up without at least one of his or her parents.”

“But—”

He charged ahead right over her. “You’re probably thinking I don’t have the kind of job suited to family life. But I wouldn’t hesitate to change jobs if that’s what it took.”

There was so much about this man to respect, to love. His honor was shredding her to pieces here, and above all, she couldn’t afford to break down now. “I would tell you, but I would keep it.”

She wanted to say more, to tell him how much he meant to her, how she would give anything to have his child. But if she said any of those things, walking away would be all
the harder, and she had to do this. She had to find closure with her father and his world.

And no matter how much it broke her heart to say good-bye, she refused to let Chuck step into the cross fire for her again.

*  *  *

Driving through the scrolled security gates, Chuck steered the Fiat up the winding driveway to the Taylor estate.

While called a villa, the Italianate-style country home was quite clearly a mansion, newly built with an amalgamation of all bells and whistles from ornate bracket-corbels to balconies with renaissance balustrading. And if that wasn’t enough, it sported a domed cupola in the center large enough to display its own Sistine Chapel mural.

And statues. Good God, there were a lot of Grecian and Romanesque stone statues with fountains around the estate with sculptured hedge gardens just like Jolynn had described. He’d seen CIA satellite images of the property, but none of them did the place justice.

Jolynn sighed. “Gaudy, isn’t it?”

Diplomacy kept him quiet.

He considered just kissing the hell out of her. She didn’t look overly emphatic about wanting to leave. Instincts prickled along his spine. Why was she pushing him away? Why not just continue their affair and see where it led?

Could she really love her father that much? Chuck wouldn’t give up a cold for his mother, who’d dumped him at the orphanage.

He started to ask her again, but she was already half out of the car. Chuck slid out from behind the wheel. He looked over the roof of the Fiat and… Damn.

Josiah Taylor stood at the top of the marble steps. Still gaunt from his heart attack, Taylor leaned heavily on a carved cane. There could be no doubting the relationship between father and daughter. Taylor’s red hair, dulled to auburn with streaks of silver, still looked disturbingly like Jolynn’s. Both shared a long-legged, lean grace. Even at half power, Taylor generated a sense of authority, a somber force.

His custom-fitted suit shouted of wealth. His brown eyes, hard and focused, glinted with a fierce, streetwise determination. He reminded Chuck of the house. Purchased heritage.

Old Man Taylor and Chuck locked eyes. Josiah was no fool. Chuck suppressed the inclination to crick his neck to the side, roll the ache out of his shoulder that had never quite left since his captor had carved the tracking device out of his back.