simply found a new means of tormenting us. Apparently killing Powell employees and members of their families was not enough for him.”
Griff nodded agreement. “You’re right, Sanders, but this letter is not something we can ignore.” He walked over, caressed Yvette’s damp cheek and said, “I’ll make arrangements for us to take the Powell jet to London tomorrow. But before I finalize my plans, I have to show Nic the letter and I have to tell her everything.”
“Do you think that is wise?” Sanders asked.
“No, Griffin is right,” Yvette said. “He has to tell his wife. She has every right to know.” Yvette glanced at Sanders. “Perhaps you should tell Barbara Jean.”
“No,” Sanders replied. “Not now. Not until we know for sure.”
Nic kept rehearsing how she would tell Griff that he was going to be a father. Should she say, “We’re pregnant?” Or maybe she should hold his hand over her still flat belly and ask, “Which would you prefer, a son or a daughter?” Then again, she could just put her arms around him, look up into his gorgeous gray eyes and say, “We’re going to have a baby.”
In the end, it probably didn’t matter how she said it. Griff would be thrilled. No, the timing wasn’t perfect and Griff, who worried about her way too much as it was, would hover over her night and day. And she had every intention of letting him smother her with attention. After all, why not give him the pleasure of pampering her for the next seven months?
When she arrived outside Griff’s study, she found the door open and Griff waiting there alone.
She could tell him about their baby this morning. She could walk right into his study and deliver the good news that he was going to be a father.
But when he looked at her, the expression on his face stopped her cold. Something was wrong. Horribly wrong. What had happened now?
She rushed over to him. “Griff, what is it? What’s—?”
He grasped her shoulders. “I love you. If you never believe anything else, believe that.”
“You’re frightening me. Please, tell me what’s wrong.”
“First, tell me that you know I love you more than anyone or anything on this earth.”
“Yes, I know you love me. And I love you.”
He released his tenacious grip on her shoulders. “I received a special delivery letter from London a little over two hours ago. The signature on the letter was a decent forgery of Malcolm York’s signature.”
“Then it was a letter from
“I want you to read the letter.” Griff reached behind him and lifted the envelope from the desk. “After you read it, I want you to sit down and let me tell you about what happened on Amara. It’s something I should have already told you.”
Nic felt sick at her stomach. It could be nothing more than morning sickness, but she suspected it was nerves. Fear-induced nerves.
Griff removed the letter from the envelope and handed the single page to Nic. She took the letter in her unsteady hand. When she first glanced at it, her vision blurred for a few seconds and then instantly cleared.
The letter slipped from Nic’s hand and sailed slowly onto the floor. She lifted her gaze and stared at Griff.
“Yvette has a daughter?”
“She gave birth to the child nearly seventeen years ago when we were on Amara.”
“I don’t understand. Where has the girl been all these years? And how would this pseudo-York know about her? If what he says is true, this girl thinks of him as her father. But if the real Malcolm York was her father —?”
“York wasn’t her father.”
“But Yvette was York’s wife.”
“In name only.”
“What are you saying?” When Griff didn’t immediately respond, she demanded, “Exactly what are you trying to tell me?”
“Come over here and sit down.” When Griff reached for her, she jerked away from him.
“I don’t want to sit down,” she told him. “I want you to explain. Tell me what happened on Amara. Tell me about this girl, about Suzette.”
“You have to understand what it was like for us, for me and Sanders and for Yvette, who was as much a prisoner as we were. She was forced to do things she didn’t want to do, just as Sanders was. Just as I was.”
“I know that he used you and the other men he captured as prey in his savage hunts, that you were treated like an animal, that you were forced to kill in order to stay alive. I know that eventually, you and Sanders and Yvette killed York and . . . But there’s more to what happened on Amara, isn’t there, a lot more?”
“Yes.” Griff watched her closely, a look of agony and supplication in his eyes. “And I will tell you everything. I swear I will. But for now, I have to explain about Yvette’s child.”
Nic instinctively knew she did not want to hear what her husband was about to tell her. But she had to know the truth. She needed to know.
“Tell me.”
“York was involved in numerous illegal activities. That’s how he made his billions,” Griff said. “His two most lucrative business ventures were drug trafficking and human trafficking.”
“Human trafficking?”
“All the captives on Amara were not there just to be used as prey to hunt and kill. Some were there to amuse York and his closest allies . . . his business associates.”
“You’re talking about selling human beings into slavery. Children and women and—”
“York was a sick son of a bitch. He didn’t get any pleasure from sex with his wife or any other woman. He preferred to watch rather than perform.”
Bile rose from Nic’s stomach, the taste bitter in her mouth.
“Are you all right?” Griff asked.
She swallowed. “Go on. Tell me the rest of it.”
“York found Yvette the perfect tool to give him unlimited pleasure. He forced her to use her gifts as an empath to connect with the men’s minds, the men he hunted and killed. Everything he could learn about how they thought, how they felt, how they might react in any given situation, gave him an edge over even the most resourceful prey.”
Nic felt dizzy.
“Are you sure you’re all right? You look so pale.” Once again when Griff tried to touch Nic, she avoided him.
“Please, don’t touch me.” She couldn’t bring herself to look directly at him. “Don’t stop until you’ve told me
