She waited in silence for his reaction. For his disgust. Her mouth was dry with fear of losing him but she went on. He had to know. He deserved the truth. Rachael spread her hands out in front of her. “It’s actually worse than it’s portrayed in the movies, Rio. There are the fields and the workers and the labor atories. There are endless supplies of cocaine. There are guns and murder and treachery. We live in a house that has everything money can buy. We wear the best clothes and have the finest jewelry. The cars are fast and powerful and the lifestyle is decadent. We can have anything we want. Especially if you overlook the bodyguards and the guards at the gates. If you can overlook the corruption of officials and police departments and the murders when some poor man tries to steal to feed his family. When you can overlook the addicts and women selling their bodies and their children, then I suppose, it would be a great life.”
She turned away from him, unable to have him look at her. She couldn’t look at herself. “That’s my inher itance, Rio. It’s what got my father and my mother killed.” Rachael felt behind her for the chair.
Her leg throbbed and burned from overuse, but that wasn’t what made her legs shaky.
“My brother told me that our father fell in love with our mother and he wanted out of the business.
Once she found out, she would have left him, so he wanted to go legitimate. I have no idea why we moved from South America, but we have estates there as well as in Florida.” She sank into the chair, grateful to be off of her leg. “I think he thought it would be different in Florida, but they were still in the business there. No matter what he did, he couldn’t change anything.”
Rio fixed her a cool drink. He could see pain eating her from the inside out. Two small children thrown into the middle of a world of violence. He knew the strict rules of the society their mother had grown up in. She must have tr ied to pass her morality, her honor and integrity to her children. He handed her the drink and sat on the floor, taking her injured leg into his hands.
Rachael looked down at his face. She couldn’t find evidence of a judgment. There was nothing but acceptance in his expression. There was compassion in his eyes and she had to look away from that.
Tears burned too close. She didn’t dare begin to cry. She was afraid if the floodgates opened, she’d never be able to close them.
She sipped at the cooling nectar, trying to think how to tell him. What to tell him. She’d never told anyone. People died over the kinds of information she carried with her. Rio’s fingers were gentle on her skin as he bathed her leg, elevating it while he examined the puncture wounds. His hands were sure and steady and her heart did a funny little flip. She touched the top of his head, the thick shaggy hair.
“You’re a good man, Rio. Don’t let your elders or anyone else tell you different.”
Her heart was in her voice. Rio leaned down to press a kiss against the largest scar. “What happened to you, Rachael? What happened to your brother?”
“My uncle Armando ran the business with our father. They were twins, you know. Very close we thought. We spent so much time with him. He came to dinner all the time. He treated Elijah as his own son. He even took Elijah to ball games and into the Everglades. We thought he loved us. He certainly acted like he did. I never heard Armando and Antonio fight. Not once. They always hugged one another, and it seemed genuine.”
Rio looked up when she fell silent again, frowning into her drink. He waited. Whatever trauma she’d exper ienced, he had the patience to wait for the telling. She was trusting him with things he was certain no other knew.
Rachael took a deep breath, glanced toward the door. The windows. “Are you certain no one is around? Could Kim be within hearing distance?” Her tone was low, a ghostlike whisper, and there was a childish quality to her voice. “In our home they sweep for electronic devices every day. Sometimes a couple of times a day. And Elijah has them sweep every car for bombs before we ever get into them.”
He cir cled her ankle with his fingers, wanting to touch her. Wanting to be an anchor for her. “It must be a terrible way to live, always thinking someone might want you dead.”
“I was nine years old when I walked into a room and saw my parents murdered. Armando was stabbing his brother over and over. Mom was already dead. He cut her throat. There wasn’t a spot in the room free of blood.”
Rio could see she was far away from him, was still that little girl, walking innocently into a room, perhaps coming home from school and wanting to show her parents something special. His fingers tightened, holding her to him.
“He looked up and saw me. I screamed. I remember I couldn’t stop screaming. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make the sound go away. He came toward me with the knife. There was blood all over it, all over him and his hands. I just stood there screaming. I know he would have killed me. He couldn’t do anything but kill me. I was a witness. I saw him murder them.”
“Why didn’t he?” It was like pulling teeth. She revealed something and then fell silent. The trauma ran deep and it would never go away. He knew her life couldn’t have gotten much better in the intervening years, not with a million-dollar price on her head.
Rio lifted her, slid into the chair and cradled her on his lap. Rachael snuggled into him, wanting the comfort and safety of his arms. She turned her face into his throat. “Elijah came in. He wanted Elijah alive mor e than he wanted me dead. Armando had no family, no one to run his empire, no one to carry on his work. He had taken Elijah with him on small things, let him see what a big deal he was. He stood ther e in that room with my parents’ blood pooling around his feet, holding a knife to my throat, and he told Elijah to make up his mind. To swear loyalty to him and be his son or he would kill me right there.”
“And Elijah chose to keep you alive.”
She couldn’t look at him. “Our lives were hell, especially Elijah’s life. Armando wanted Elijah to be mir ed in so deep, with so much blood on his hands neither of us could ever go the police.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I knew Elijah did it for me, to keep me alive, but it wasn’t right. It was never right.
He should have let me go. I should have had the courage to save him.”
“By doing what? Killing yourself?” He turned her arms over to run the pad of his thumb over the scars on her wrists, scars he’d never mentioned. “He couldn’t let you do that. So he joined the man who murder ed your parents.”
“And he learned from him. And he grew stronger and more powerful and more cold and distant every day.”
Rio felt tears, rain-wet, against his skin. Her body trembled. “It was always us against everyone else, but suddenly we began to have terrible fights. Elijah became very secretive. He wouldn’t let me leave the compound. He had someone with me all the time and drove away every friend I had.”
“He was splitting with your uncle. Starting a war.”
“I had a friend, Tony, the brother of my girlfriend. We hardly knew each other. I met Tony at her house.
He’d recently moved back to town. I had dated a couple of times and it always ended in disaster. Once it turned out to be an undercover cop, and another time I found out the man I was dating had been paid by Elijah to take me out.” Utter humiliation clogged her throat. “I don’t think I can remember a man having an interest in me as a woman. The police wanted information to convict Elijah, and I guess they thought they could send in an undercover man to romance me. Armando wanted a way to get close to Elijah again to be able to kill him. He was so furious, so absolutely furious with Elijah. He’s done ever ything he can to try to kill him.”
“Tell me about this man.” She was avoiding it. Rio knew her now, knew her every little sign of agitation and distress. She was burrowing deeper into his body, trembling, her breath coming in hard gasps of despair.