“Of course I was. You didn't want to learn. You didn't want to learn to ride a bicycle, either. Or shoot. But I insisted”
“Yes, you most certainly did.”
The bicycle episode had been particularly awful. She'd been scraped and bleeding and blubbering, but Victor had been pitiless. He'd forced her to get back on the hellish thing until she finally mastered it. It had been the same with the swimming. He'd yanked her head above water, sputtering and flailing, to let her grab a breath of air and some advice. “Pump with your legs,” he ordered calmly, before letting her drop back down into the green liquid underworld.
But she had not drowned. She had learned. Even to use the pistol, although she had hated the noise, the violent kick, the bruises it left in her small hands. The concentrated violence in the small object had terrified her, but she had learned. He had given her no choice.
She turned away from the water and met Victor's eyes. “You thought it was your duty to toughen me up,” she observed.
“Peter and Alix were lazy and soft,” Victor said. “If it had been up to your parents, you would have ended up a sniveling coward.”
It was true. She had Victor to thank for that crazy, joyful feeling of accomplishment, when her body finally understood the trick of equilibrium on the bike. And when she'd emerged from her first wobbly dive, Victor had applauded briefly, and then told her to get right back up onto those rocks and do it again until her technique was better.
Alix and her father hadn't even bothered to come down to watch.
She gazed at the water, lost in memories. She had worshiped and feared Victor as a child. He had been unpredictable. Demanding and mocking. Sometimes cruel, sometimes kind. Always vivid and engaging. The direct opposite of her drifting, absent father, sipping his cognac, lost in his dreams and his melancholy reflections. “I thought for a time that your mother had succeeded,” he said.
“At what?”
'Turning you into a sniveling coward. But she didn't quite manage it. The Lazar genes breed true. She didn't quite manage it.”
There was fierce, exultant pride in his silvery eyes. He could read her mind, follow her thoughts as if they were projected on a screen. He could understand her like no one else. Something inside her responded to it. The rest of her recoiled, horrified. She could not let herself bond with him, or care for him in any way. Not after what he had done. She groped for a way to break the spell. “Where is my father buried, Victor?”
“I was wondering when you were going to ask. He's buried here.”
“On the island?” She was startled.
“He was cremated. I buried the ashes and raised a monument to him here “ Victor said. “Come along. I'll show you.”
She was unprepared to confront the reality of her father's grave in Victor's company, but there was no escaping it. She followed Victor up the winding, rocky path that led to the crest of the island, trying to breathe. There was a small valley hidden in the windswept rocks. It was a velvety bowl of green moss, bare of trees. A tall black marble obelisk stood on a pedestal in the middle of the hollow.
Identical to the one in her dream.
She stared at the obelisk, almost expecting blood to start trickling from the words etched on the gleaming stone.
“Are you all right, Raine? You're very pale all of a sudden.”
“I've dreamed of this place.” Her voice sounded strangled.
Victor's eyes lit up. “So you have it too, then?”
“Have what?”
“The dreaming. It's a Lazar family trait. Your mother never mentioned it to you?”
She shook her head. Her mother had complained about Raine's crazy nightmares until Raine had learned never to mention them.
“I have it. Your grandmother, too. Vivid, recurrent dreams, sometimes of future events, sometimes the past. I often wondered if I passed it on to you.”
“You? To me?” she faltered.
“Of course, to you, from me. I would have thought that such a bright girl would have figured it out for herself by now.”
He waited patiently as she gaped. She finally found her voice again. “You're saying that you—that my mother—”
“Your mother has many secrets.”
She felt as if the earth was opening beneath her feet. “You seduced her?”
Victor snorted. “I wouldn't go so far as to call it that. Seduction would imply a certain amount of effort on my part.”
Raine was so stunned, she barely registered the insult to her mother. “Are you sure?”
Victor shrugged. “With Alix, nothing could be sure, but from your looks and your dreams, you are certainly either my daughter or Peter's. And I, personally, am convinced that you are mine. I can feel it.”
Mine. The possessive word echoed in her head. “Why?”
He made an impatient gesture with his hand. “She was a beautiful woman,” he said casually. “And I wanted to make a point with Peter, I suppose. Not that it worked. My brother was soft. I spoiled him, did all the dirty work for him. It was a mistake. I thought he could protect my innocence for me, and in return, I would spare him the ugly side of life. But it didn't work. He went looking for it anyway. He found it in Alix.”
She held up her hands in protest. “Victor—”
“He needed someone who could appreciate his sensitivity.” Victor's face rigid with old anger. “Not a money- hungry bitch who would spread her legs for any man who could stare her down.” “Enough!” Raine shouted.
He jerked away, shocked at her tone.
She forced herself to meet his blazing eyes, horrified at her own daring. “I will not tolerate you speaking of my mother that way.”
Victor applauded softly. “Brava, Katya. If that had been a test, you would have just passed it Alix doesn't deserve such a loyal daughter.”
“My name is Raine. Please do not mention Alix ever again.”
Victor scrutinized her stiff, averted face for a moment. “This place appears to upset you,” he observed. 'Let's go back to the house.”
She followed him down the path. Over and over, she considered the enormity of his revelation until her mind reeled— and gave up, unable to comprehend it.
The path ended at the veranda that stretched the length of the back of the house. He opened the door for her, and gestured her to precede him down the stairs. “I promised to show you my collection,” he said. “The vault is in the cellar. After you, my dear.”
The tiny transmitter in her pocket was burning a hole in her mind. She thought of Bluebeard's castle, and her stomach clenched. Don't think of it, she reminded herself. Just do it. She was swimming with sharks, a dagger in her teeth. She'd promised Seth. She had to at least try.
Victor opened a metal plate on the wall next to an armored door, and keyed a series of numbers into a glowing silver wall panel. “Oh, that reminds me,” he murmured. “This morning I changed my personal computer access code. I change it, on a daily basis, usually. I call the password my 'divine override.' It lets me into any part of the system.”
She nodded politely, as if she understood.
“One word. Minimum number of letters, four. Maximum number of letters, ten. The key is... what I want from you.”
She was bewildered. “You mean, you're telling me your code? But what do you want from me, Victor?”
He snorted. “Oh, for God's sake. You know me better than to ask such a question. If I tell you, it means nothing. If you figure it out for yourself”—he smiled, almost wistfully— “you are divine.”
He keyed in another string of numbers. The big, heavy door popped its seal and swung open. “After you,” Victor murmured.
