you’ll go back to being a rude little giant . . .”
Uh, that expression made absolutely no sense.
“. . . and you’ll start issuing death threats again, but I have to remain with the circus for a while longer. I just have to.”
“Why? Jecis beats you. Why not leave him before he has a chance to hurt you again?”
“You don’t understand. I can take a beating, I can, but if I leave before I’ve—just before,” she said, stopping herself from admitting something she didn’t want him to know, “Jecis will find me and kill me, as well as the otherworlders.”
“You’re his daughter.” His precious. His beloved, Solo remembered, and had to grit his teeth to prevent himself from cursing. “He wouldn’t kill you.”
Another small smile, this one sad at the edges. “He wouldn’t mean to. Wait. I take that back. Maybe he would. To Jecis, leaving the circus is the ultimate betrayal and deserves the ultimate punishment.”
“But you want to?” He gripped the bars. “Leave, I mean?”
Hope glittered in her eyes, and she nodded. “I do.”
His own sense of hope bloomed. “One day, this circus will be destroyed. Jecis has hurt too many people not to be hurt himself. That’s a spiritual law, and spiritual laws are always enforced. The longer you stay, the more likely you are to be caught in the crosshairs.”
“One day,” she parroted hollowly.
“Yes. Free me, Vika, and that day can be today. I’ll take care of him. He’ll never hurt you again.”
Shame obliterated what remained of the hope. “I can’t let you do that.”
“Why not? Do you love him?” he asked.
“When he’s an evil man with no goodness left inside him?”
That wasn’t exactly an answer.
“No,” she finally said, “but he’s also my father. I can’t. I just can’t. And besides that, you would have to kill Matas, too. Otherwise, he would come after us and the same fate would befall us all.”
Solo would happily take care of Matas.
“And then, after both men are dead, and I have no means of protection,” she said, “you would leave me out there in the big, bad world to fend for myself, penniless, helpless. You wouldn’t mean to, I know. I can tell you’re a good man. But you have a life out there, one that doesn’t include the zoo owner’s daughter, and you would eventually cut me loose.”
“No—”
“You would also sentence the other captives to death,” she interjected. “They would be slaughtered simply to punish me.”
“I would come back for them.”
“Yes, but would you make it in time? No, you can’t guarantee that.” She turned her head away, trying to end the conversation the only way she could.
Solo latched onto her wrist, giving it the barest squeeze to bring her attention back to him. “I will leave your family alone if that’s what you want.” He would hand them over to Michael, and the end result would be the same, but she didn’t need to know that. “I’ll release the otherworlders and take you with me, and you’ll never have to fend for yourself. I have money. I can take care of you for the rest of your life, if you so desire.”
Her gaze searched his features. “I . . . I actually think you mean that,” she said.
“I do. And I’m willing to vow it.”
“Don’t,” she said with a shake of her head. “I don’t want you morally bound or anything like that, when there’s a huge problem with your plan.”
“And that is?” he said, urgency riding him hard. He would have a solution, whatever it was, and she would free him. She had to free him.
“The cuffs.”
“They aren’t actually a problem. I have a friend who can remove them.” John could remove any kind of shackles. If he’s still alive. The thought irritated him. He was. And that was final.
“You’ll lose your hands.”
“They’ll grow back.”
A moment passed. She shook her head, as if his words were too odd to keep inside her head. “The real question is, can you reach your friend before Jecis finds you? And what about the other prisoners in the meantime?”
He popped his jaw. He had no immediate solution for that, which meant he had to try another angle. “Do you like the life you lead? Hiding under mobile homes? Sneaking food to prisoners?”
Growling low in her throat, she slapped at the bars. “No, but I have a plan. A plan that will work better than yours, thank you. I just have to wait for the perfect time.”