have a few more precious hours of life?”
“Bastard.”
“One minute, Catherine. Then I’ll hang up and give the order to kill the girl.”
He would do it. Nothing would please him more than to put her through that hell.
She would have to give in. The slim chance she’d had of getting Luke and her out of this situation alive had just become even slimmer. The fragile scenario she’d concocted was becoming dangerously complicated.
Dangerous? No matter which way she turned, it could be lethal. This was just one more obstacle to overcome.
“Catherine.”
“You win,” she said through set teeth. “Don’t hurt them.”
“I’ll always win. You had one victory, and the rest of the prizes were mine. I’ll be standing beside my car waiting for you. You do remember what I look like?”
Satan.
“How could I forget?” She could see the car on the side of the road.
Rakovac was standing by the passenger door. His thick black hair was blowing in the breeze, and the expression on his heavy, flushed face was eager, hungry.
Well, she was hungry, too.
She pulled over behind his car and got out of the driver’s seat.
“Beautiful,” he murmured. “I’d forgotten how exquisite you are, Catherine. I had a photo of you back in my office, but the reality far surpasses it.” He held out his hand. “Come here, I want to touch you. Do you know how often I’ve thought about you in all kinds of positions and ways?”
She was standing next to him now. “I imagine the most frequent was of me dead.”
“That was one of my favorites.” His fingers delicately brushed her forearm. “But there were others…more sexual.”
She forced herself to stand stiff and unmoving beneath his touch. She felt sick. She wanted to reach out and strangle him, break his bones, spit in his face.
Not the time. Take it. Endure.
“You hate this, don’t you?” he said softly. “And I’m not even hurting you yet. Do you know how exciting I find it to hurt a woman with sex? It’s male domination brought to the highest peak. With you, it will be the ultimate pleasure.”
“Take me to see my son.”
“Oh, I will. That will all be a part of it.” He stepped back and opened the passenger door for her. “Step into my world, Catherine. I guarantee it’s going to be an experience you never forget.”
His hand was still on her elbow as she bent to get into the car. “Let me go.”
“I will. Just one more thing…”
Then she saw the tiny hypodermic needle emerge from the palm of his hand on her arm and plunge deep.
“No!”
Swirling heat.
Darkness.
Chapter 17
Venable received the information Joe had asked him to request about Czadas twenty minutes after they’d left the farmhouse.
“I’ve got it.” Venable had to shout to compete against the noise of the helicopter rotors as they strode across the tarmac toward the aircraft. He shoved his phone into his pocket. “Mikhal Czadas. Still active in the resistance movement, but more discreetly these days. He purchased the family home of a rich businessman, Nikolai Savrin, some years ago. It’s out in the middle of the back of beyond, which must be convenient for his less-than-legal activities. Some question of how he came by the funds to buy it.”
“How many years ago?”
“Nine.”
“Curious coincidence. What do you want to bet that those funds came from Rakovac to ensure that Luke was kept in the most out-of-the-way place possible.” He boarded the helicopter. “What else?”
“Not much,” Venable said grimly. “Except there are rumors that Czadas has an illegitimate son who he took on several raids over the last few years. The boy was very quiet. Czadas didn’t allow him to talk to strangers.”
“And everyone was a stranger.”
“Exactly.” Venable buckled his seat belt. “It’s shaping up to be an interesting evening. They transmitted a photo of Savrin House. It’s located on a lake. I’ll show you the photo after we get in the air. According to the last report we have, Czadas has a few men patrolling the area, but very few at the house itself. He’s reputedly too full of bravado and a king-size ego to believe anyone can invade his space successfully.”
“We’ll have to see if he’s right. How do we get to the house after we land?”
“I’ll have a car and men waiting at the closest airport to Savrin House, which is in the town of Sergriev. We’ll go there and see what we can find out.” He added somberly, “And damn carefully.”
He was a strange boy, Eve thought as she studied Luke’s intent face while he listened to Kelly. He had fired questions at her for the last twenty minutes, some of them random, some of them searingly personal. All the while the flitting expressions on his face had been a mixture of curiosity, distrust, and a kind of insatiable thirst. There were so many things he didn’t know about people and the world around him. How could he, kept in this remote house and only allowed limited access to the outside world?
Yet melded with that strangely spotty ignorance was an overlay of wariness and cynicism that could have belonged to a man in his thirties. It was evident Luke had never had a childhood. He’d mentioned being cared for by a village woman as a tiny child but had been immediately turned over to Czadas when he’d left babyhood. She wanted to feel sorry for him, but it would be like pitying a wild animal. He was so much on the defensive that she doubted he would ever allow anyone close enough to pity him.
Or to love him.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Luke’s gaze had suddenly narrowed on her face. Those intense dark eyes were probing, weighing, judging. “What are you thinking?”
“I was thinking that Catherine is going to have a very hard time with you.”
He shrugged. “I don’t care about her. She’s not here. You’re the ones I have to worry about.”
She suddenly realized something about him. “You live totally in the present, don’t you?”
He stared at her in bewilderment. “What else is there?”
No, his past, except for a dim memory of his mother, was a nightmare fight for survival, his future, uncertain and lacking in hope.
“A great deal.” But this was not the time to try to explain that to him. She had listened intently to the exchange between Luke and Kelly. Kelly had not only answered questions; she had asked them. Luke had not replied to all of them, but Eve had heard enough to start to piece together the enigma that was Catherine’s son.
The violence, the beatings, the cruelty that extended far beyond the physical.
The loneliness.
Even when Czadas had taken him out into the world, he had not permitted him to socialize with anyone. It was a wonder he had not withdrawn entirely within himself.
But then there had been the library of books. They had probably been his salvation. Feeding that quick, agile mind and giving him refuge.
“You’re looking at me again. I don’t like it.” He was frowning. “Is it because you’ve got that funny kind of job Kelly was talking about?”
“You think she’s seeing you as a skeleton?” Kelly scoffed. “Don’t be dumb. Eve wouldn’t waste her time on you.”
“According to what you said, she’s already wasted a lot of time on me,” Luke said. “So I’m not the one who’s
