An Affair of Deceit (30 page)

Her breath caught in her throat. It wasn’t Beth, that much she could tell by the straight, masculine silhouette. It was a man, slightly shorter than average, and slim.

Kral was five foot eight and built like a long-distance runner.

But he’s in custody.
He had to be. If he wasn’t, then he’d probably slipped away again.

Her soul screamed one word:
Riley.

No. She wouldn’t panic. Refused to think the worst. Whatever was happening, she could manage it on her own. “I’ve already called security for an escort out,” she declared, her voice strong. “You’re welcome to join me.”

“Oh, I don’t think they’re coming, Abigail.”

Hearing the stranger speak her name sent a shiver down her spine, but his Eastern European accent gave her another clue to his identity.

“Lukas Kral. How unpleasant to meet you.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest in her best attempt at nonchalance.

The short man strode confidently into her office, smiling broadly despite the blood cascading from the side of his head where his left ear should have been. “My dear girl! I didn’t know you were such a bitch.”

God, she hated that word. She gave him a tight smile, but her heart surged and raced with cold, primal fear. “You clearly didn’t do much research, then. Do tell me why the Feds let you out of your cage.”

“They weren’t much trouble. America doesn’t train its sons the way it used to. Your father was the only challenge. The others fell like rain in April.”

She stared at him without expression, trying to convince him that she wasn’t impressed, trying to give herself time to think. Did he mean that he’d killed his FBI guards, including her father? If they were all dead, would anyone come to save her from this murderous man?

Her stomach dropped at her next thought.

Had Riley been there, too?

Her brain zeroed in on that possibility. But
no
. Riley mustn’t have been there. All her logic aside, the world would have shifted under her feet if Riley had died. “I can’t believe you’d kill your own cousin, not after the lengths you’ve gone to.”

Like a spider, Kral scuttled to her desk and pointed a thin, white finger to her face. “You know nothing about me, little girl, so do not pretend to understand my motives.”

Being called a little girl was no better than being called a bitch, and Kral’s reliance on such simple insults gave her power. Her courage rose. She smiled sugar-sweet and leaned forward
into his finger. He wouldn’t scare her. “I may not know everything, my dear uncle, but I know crazy when I see it.”

He threw his head back and howled. The inhuman sound echoed around her.

How was she going to get away from this madman?

“How did my father die?” she asked, angling for more time.

He grinned. “Like all men do. On their knees, begging forgiveness.”

“You’re lying. That hardly sounds like the bastard I knew.”

Kral’s grin turned feral, exposing his sharp canines. “Be careful what you say, girl. He was my cousin.”

“He was my father. You’re the only one allowed to disparage him?”

“I did not hate him.” Kral frowned and looked away, the lines in his forehead dark and deep. “He betrayed me, that is all. I wish it had not been so. I wish it had been different. I tried to save him. He refused to live.”

She rolled her eyes, letting them scan across her desktop in the process. There, sitting just behind her briefcase, was an uncapped pen. It wasn’t much, but it would injure a soft organ nearly as well as any knife.

“An eye for an eye?” she said, shifting one hand to her hip and the other closer to the pen. “You’re so noble. But what did my father ever do to you?”

“Don’t you know, my dear? Have you not been traipsing about the world with your lover, desperately trying to unravel your family’s secrets?”

Her thoughts ran wild, but she tried to keep her face loose. He couldn’t know about her relationship with Riley. How could he?

“I see you wonder how I knew about your indiscretions,” Kral continued, pleased with himself. “But did you really think you could invade my territory without me finding out? France has been my personal playground for decades, and you slept in
the spider’s web. My eyes and ears are loyal to the death, which is more than I can say for your father.”

She shrugged her indifference. “My father was only loyal to himself.”

“I don’t disagree. But as hard as he has tried to play to my most sentimental emotions, I have always seen through his lies. Even back in the orphanage, I knew that he would betray me.”

“You were children. What could he have possibly done to you there?”

“We were not children; at the end, he was sixteen, I was thirteen. Young, yes, but in that time, in that place, we were as good as men. We worked for the KGB. Small things, but it was something. We were proud to play a part. But then the Americans got ahold of him.”

Even though a murderer stood in her office, she felt relief as one more piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

“So my father was a double agent working against the Russians in Czechoslovakia?”

“Yes. Despicable!”

“But it was hardly even his country anymore.” She leaned forward, resting her hands on the desk as though giving a subordinate a stern remonstration. The pen rolled just under the fingertips of her right hand. “That country was ruled by the Soviets. By working for the Americans, he was attempting to overthrow an oppressor. He was trying to return his country to its people. If that’s not loyal, I don’t know what is.”

“But we were KGB,” he said, pounding his chest with his fist. “KGB! They cared for us when no one else could. They educated us, trained us, gave us everything we needed, and he turned on them. He turned on
me
, and we were as close as brothers. Even after the Soviets left, when I tried to reconcile with him, he turned on me. He refused to consider my offer. He was so deeply entrenched in his new identity that he could not see reason. You and your mother blinded him to the glories we could achieve together.”

Abigail was unmoved by his speech, so keeping her face hard was no challenge. “I’ve had nothing to do with the man for twenty years, and even before then, he was hardly what you’d call an involved father.”

“What little credit you give him, dear child. You see, when the Russians finally left our land and I was able to move about more freely, I sent him a message, asking him to join me in the new Czechoslovakia and partake in the fruit of my labor. Together, we would build a new empire, one loyal to us. His reply came to me two days later in the form of a CIA assassin’s bullet.” He smiled, but it was the menacing, toothy yawn of a baboon. “One of my guards intercepted the message on my behalf, but I was nonetheless forced to retort in kind. I sent my own assassin to remove the obstacles that had interfered with my cousin’s decision.”

“So I hear. Your man failed, too.”

“He achieved the success that mattered.” Kral chuckled. “You’ve been as good as dead to your father ever since.”

The truth of it took her breath. “Then why come back, if you’d achieved your goal? Why take the bait? You’re not a stupid man. You knew better than to personally sell those Stingers. You had to figure it was a trap.”

“Indeed I did, and I knew your father was behind it.”

As she’d thought, nothing had happened by chance. “He’d been trying to trap you for decades. Why fall for one now?”

Kral’s teeth bore down on his lower lip. “The time was ripe for a second attempt at reconciliation. I am…not well. I live on borrowed time. I imagined that when faced with my mortality, your father would rediscover his true loyalties—that he would find he still had a heart, a sense of brotherhood. I was wrong.”

“He loved us. There is nothing you can do to change that.” She wrapped her fingers around the pen and folded her arms.

Kral’s lip curled. He looked as though he wanted to bite. “So it would appear. But perhaps you can ask him yourself in a moment? He awaits you in hell.”

Swift as a bird, he pulled a handgun from his waistband and aimed the weapon directly at her head.

Oddly, calm descended over her. “It’s been so lovely getting to know you, Uncle. Shall I sit or stand for our first and final good-bye?”

He frowned and dropped the tip of his gun a fraction. She thought it might be pointing at her belly. Well, she could live through a stomach wound, at least long enough for help to arrive.

“It makes no difference to me,” he said.

“Then let me sit.” She walked out from behind her desk and headed for the small sofa near the open door.

Perhaps she could just run out? Her steps quickened.

He must have read her intentions because he shouted, his voice unnaturally high-pitched, “Stop! Stop exactly where you are and turn around.”

She recognized the sound of rising insanity. She did precisely as she was told, stopping where she stood, which happened to be roughly four feet away from Kral. She turned, putting the door at her back. Kral was just out of arm’s reach. Nothing stood between her and his gun.

All she needed to do was injure him enough to get him to drop his weapon and give her a second to sprint away. She fingered the pen she clenched in her right hand, but it suddenly felt flimsy. How she wished for something sharper or heavier, like a letter opener, a paperweight, or anything but this stupid blunt pen.

A pointed heel, perhaps?

He might be out of arm’s reach, but he was well within kicking distance.

Time for action.

She tossed the useless pen to the ground, and his wild blue eyes followed it. Seeing her opening, she swung her left leg up with a low outer crescent kick that collided with his wrist and flicked his arm—and the gun—away from her body.

Clearly surprised, he fired his weapon.

The unexpectedly earsplitting blast deafened her for a moment and she paused, wondering whether she’d been hit, but she felt no pain.

He snarled inhumanly and tried to swing his gun back in her direction, but she slid into him like a striking snake, ramming her elbow up to collide with his jaw, knocking his head back as she reached for his gun with her other hand.

His teeth rattled at the blow, but he kept control of his gun, grabbing her long hair with his other hand and pulling down hard.

She cried out and stumbled to her knees.

She cursed her femininity. If she’d had shorter hair, he’d have nothing to grab onto.

“How lovely this is. I find myself pleased that you aren’t going down without a fight.” He jerked her head back.

Her neck muscles screamed and she struggled for air, but her hands were still free and the fight was far from over. With a wordless yell, she smashed her right fist into his crotch, driving her hand up with enough force to feel his pelvic bones wrap around her knuckles.

The son of a bitch shouldn’t be procreating, anyway.

His knees buckled. She reached again for his gun. Grunting with pain but still on his feet, he swung his gun out of her reach, and then around like a baseball bat into the side of her face.

The stunning, white-hot explosion of pain must have forced her mind to shut down, because the next thing she knew she was lying motionless on her back, clutching the injured side of her face, trying to convince her lungs to continue expanding despite the excruciating agony caused by the passage of air through her crushed nasal cavity.

In all the fights she’d ever been in, no one had ever hit her so hard or so mercilessly, and she was wholly unprepared for it. For a woman who fancied herself a fighter, the humiliation was nearly as bad as the pain. Tears burned her ruptured skin.

Who in the hell did she think she was, anyway? A soldier? A warrior?
No
. She was a stupid, arrogant little child trained in an art that was entirely useless in a real fight. One real strike and she was out like a light.

Kral toed her face with his foot, pushing her as if to see if she was still conscious. Although she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, she couldn’t keep from groaning at the contact. He chuckled.

“So, the little girl finally learns what it’s like to be in a real fight, eh? You see, Abigail, this is the sort of thing we did every day in the KGB. There is no pain worse than dishonor. There is no sin greater than disloyalty. And for every crime, there is a retribution that must be paid.”

His words were salt in her wounds. He was insane, but damn it all if she didn’t agree with him. There
was
no pain worse than dishonor.

Slowly, breathing heavily, she pushed herself to her knees. The pain was enough to keep stars swimming in her eyes, but more vital feelings began to overtake her senses. Pride. Determination. Honor.

And, most motivating of all,
vengeance
.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” she jeered. Pain sliced through her mouth as she spoke, and she guessed that her jaw was broken. Warm, viscous liquid dripped down her cheek. Blood. But at least she was conscious. And alive.

“Oh no, my dear. I have much better awaiting you.” Kral crouched down beside her, brought his wet lips to her ear, and whispered, “Would you like to know what it is?”

She didn’t care. The idiot was exactly where she wanted him. She jabbed her elbow at his face, but she was too slow and he dodged, falling to his butt, clearly astounded. With an angry sneer, he leaned forward and slapped the side of her face that he’d pistol-whipped.

She stared at her desk, too stunned to scream. The slap hadn’t added much agony to her already overstimulated nervous system.
Was there a maximum amount of pain that her body could process at any one time? Was her jar full? Or does pain cease to matter when you’re fighting for your life?

She began to believe that as long as she was still alive, it was possible that she could withstand any amount of pain. The only way to escape the pain was to die, and she knew that she wasn’t ready for that.

She wasn’t ready to die. She took that fact in, drank it like water. The undeniable urge to survive swelled within her body, giving her new vitality.

Her gaze shot back to Kral, who sat on his heels, watching her.