To my surprise, not to say shock, Rolf shook his head emphatically. “You had nothing to do with any of that, Miss Delaney. On the contrary, you, too, became a victim of it.”

  I flushed, realizing that he must know what had happened between Adam and me, my captivity, the cell, the aftermath, all of it. Yet he was equally without contempt or pity. Instead, I felt only understanding from him.

  Was that what Adam had seen as a child overwhelmed by the loss of his parents? And even more as a young teenager driven to seek the bloodiest revenge? If so, I could only imagine what such acceptance had meant to him.

  It emboldened me to ask the question uppermost in my mind. “Can you tell me how your sister is?”

  Nothing could come remotely close to undoing what had happened but Adam had indicated that my uncle’s death had brought the grieving woman some relief. At the same time, it was too soon to know if she would recover the will to live.

  “Clara is coming to terms with all that has happened as best she can,” Rolf said. “The knowledge that the man who was most directly responsible for her loss is no longer in this world does help.”

  At once grateful and relieved by his willingness to discuss such a painful matter with me, I dared to go a step further. “She doesn’t know the details of how Ned died, does she?”

  I hoped that she didn’t. As a mother grieving the loss of her children, I couldn’t begin to imagine how she would react if she knew that Grandmother had killed her own son, her “baby boy” rather than have him face any form of justice. It was one more proof of the insanity lurking at the center of my family, a poisonous web spinning generations of evil.

  “I saw no purpose in burdening her with that,” Rolf said. “It is enough that he is gone. She takes comfort in the fact that he will not be able to harm anyone else.”

  I took some comfort in that myself even though I knew that the danger from my family remained as great as ever. The only hope I had of changing that rested on finding out why my cousin Patrick had died. If Will was right, Patrick had learned something so threatening to Grandmother and the others that they had killed him rather than risk exposure.

  The possession of such information might be the only means of stopping them before they could do even more harm. But I wouldn’t discover it while sitting on top of a mountain in Switzerland.

  “I really need to talk with Adam,” I said.

  “Unfortunately, he is occupied at the moment. He asked me to show you around, if that is agreeable to you.”

  As though I was a guest instead of a prisoner and he no worse than an absent host? I bristled at the thought. Adam knew the reality that lay between us as well as I did. He was just choosing to disregard it, as he did anything else that defied his will.

  I was about to say as much when reason asserted itself. Rolf was unlikely to reveal any immediate solution to my predicament. But he might provide insights that I could use to help myself, beginning with why we had left New York.

  “Thank you for offering; I would like to see more of the castle.” Tentatively, I added, “As for Adam, I suppose certain priorities do have to come first, the…uh, situation being what it is.”

  Rolf glanced at me. His expression was unreadable; I couldn’t begin to guess what he was thinking.

  After a moment, he said, “It’s unfortunate, of course. All reasonable parties consider the matter settled.”

  Encouraged by his willingness to say even that much, I prodded further. “And yet…it isn’t.”

  “No, but be assured, wherever Sebastian has gone, he will find few supporters. Respect for tradition runs deep in the Falzon family. His own father has denounced him.”

  Sebastian! My heart faltered as I remembered the duel that he and Adam had fought, that ancient ritual so out of keeping with the modern world yet still the means by which leadership of the Falzon family could be decided. In an instant, my mind flashed back. I smelled the blood flowing into the thirsty ground, felt the heat of the blazing sun, and heard again the avid grunts and murmurs of the watchers gathered to cheer on death. Terror for Adam’s safety rose to choke me.

  I dragged in air and forced myself to focus on the moment. Some of what Rolf said didn’t ring true. I remembered the conversation that I’d overheard between Sebastian and his father. The older man had struck me as even more power-hungry than his son. I couldn’t believe he would give in so easily.

  Rolf stood aside so that I could precede him down the stairs. As we descended to the main floor, I debated whether to say more. I had my own problems to deal with, not the least being Adam’s destruction of the fragile trust that had been growing between us. Yet despite that, I couldn’t forget what I’d heard or ignore the warning bells that were going off in my head.

  When we reached the vast entrance hall, I said, “Tradition is all well and good but this is the twenty-first century. Sebastian can’t be the only one who wants to turn his back on the past. Given how much is at stake, I hope Adam doesn’t take the loyalty of any family member for granted.”

  Rolf leveled me a long, steady look. As I returned it in kind, the corners of his mouth turned up in what might have been a smile. “I think you will find that Mister Falzon plans for every contingency.”

  “Every foreseeable one,” I corrected gently. “No one can anticipate everything that might happen.”

  “Fair enough,” Rolf conceded. “Sebastian’s actions do raise concerns. Chief among them is the fact that he is likely to be aware of your relationship with Mister Falzon.”

  A chill ran down my back. I remembered a moment standing at the windows of the tower on Malta, when Sebastian had looked up in my direction. Undoubtedly, he’d seen me but surely not well enough to make out who I was.

  “Why would he be?”

  “It’s hardly a secret. Photos of the two of you that have been all over the media in recent days.”

  I flushed, thinking of how we must have appeared in New York. Lovers, strolling hand in hand, without a care in the world.

  “Why didn’t Adam mention this to me?”

  Rolf arched a brow. “When the two of you were discussing the situation?”

  My face warmed. I hadn’t fooled him for an instant; he’d known that Adam hadn’t told me anything. The realization left me at once relieved and embarrassed.

  Apologetically, I said, “I should have known better than to try to mislead you.”

  He shrugged, my effort at duplicity rolling off his broad back as though it had never happened. “There has been no time for the two of you to discuss anything. Events have moved too swiftly.”

  “That doesn’t explain why he left it to you to enlighten me.”

  “He has no idea that I am doing so,” Rolf replied. “I took it upon myself.”

  Looking at me directly, as though to emphasize the seriousness behind his words, he said, “Right now, his focus must be on Sebastian. For everyone’s sake, including yours. He knows that, however much he wishes otherwise.”

  We were walking through a gallery just then, filled with works of art that under other circumstances would have commanded my attention. As it was, I didn’t notice any of them until that moment. My eye settled on a portrait of Eros on top a motorcycle, careening through a dark, urban scene. The little cherub looked more like an imp from hell as he notched one of love’s arrows in his bow.

  In the back of my mind, I remembered that Adam’s parents had been art collectors, primarily of modern art.

  “Did Adam live here as a child?”

  The question popped out. The moment it did, I mentally reprimanded myself. Speaking of focus, I needed to keep mine squarely on getting back to New York. I had experienced my fill of captivity and then some. I would never accept it again, no matter how treacherous my emotions or how different the superficial circumstances.

  Rolf nodded. “He did. In fact, it has always been his favorite of the family’s residences.”

  Still staring at the leering cherub, I asked, “Why is that?”

  “He likes to ski.”

  The answer surprised me. I’d expected a more pragmatic reason, reflective of the Falzons vast wealth and the need to protect it. But perhaps Rolf was merely being discrete.

  “Swiss banks aren’t part of the appeal?”

  His smile held a hint of nostalgia. “They were in the days when wealth was denominated in gold or various national currencies. Now that it’s electrons or even more purely bits of information, it’s best handled in other ways.”

  He didn’t need to elaborate. The little that I had glimpsed of my own family’s financial manipulations made it clear enough that every effort at reform came with the loopholes already built in.

  “The real appeal,” Rolf said, “has always been that this is a highly defensible position.” He gestured toward a balcony off the gallery, inviting me to step out onto it.

  When I did so, I saw instantly what he meant. The ground fell away below me, plummeting an incalculable distance into the deep shadows cast by the mountains. I’d never had a problem with heights…until now. Whether it was the shock of being taken again by Adam, the pain that clawed at my heart, or simply that the atmosphere this high up was thinner, I suddenly felt dizzy.

  That didn’t stop me from looking up and to either side. What I saw stole my breath. The Alps were glorious, of course, as always. But the castle itself, looking at once carved into the mountain and rising above it to the heavens, surpassed them. Banners emblazoned with the Falzon crest flew from the spirals of turrets. Mullioned windows glinted in the westering sun. It should have been a fairy tale castle and perhaps in some way it was. But--

  “Black stone?” I asked. “Really?”

  Rolf shrugged. “This particular mountain holds a great deal of obsidian.”

  That explained the cold, almost metallic light radiating from the castles outer walls. I thought of how they must look at the beginning and end of each day, as though the fires of a frozen hell were trapped inside them.

  A shudder ran through me. Clearly, my imagination was overwrought. I supposed that was only to be expected, given where I was and how I had come to be there. My mind kept returning to the question that I dreaded asking even as I was increasingly desperate to know the answer. Finally, I couldn’t resist any longer.

  “What happened to Adam’s parents?”

  If the question surprised Rolf, he didn’t show it. Instead, he said, “They were killed, far from here, while on their yacht in the Mediterranean.”

  “Who did it?”

  Why did I want to know? I had to leave, put distance between myself and the man who had shattered my life, and find some way to move forward without him.

  Yet still I waited for an answer. Adam had executed those responsible for his parents’ deaths, hunting the last of them down while he was still a boy. He couldn’t have done that without Rolf’s help or at least his awareness.

  “At the level of wealth and power that the Falzons have occupied for so long,” Rolf said, “there are few rivals. However, they do exist, other families, in other places. One of them was most directly responsible for what happened.”

  I turned that over in my mind, thinking of the webs of connections that lay within families and beyond them.

  “Most directly? Was someone else ultimately responsible?”

  His eyes flicked over me and away. “I did not mean to suggest that there was any such person.”

  Yet he didn’t deny it either. A shudder ran down my back. The sun still shone brightly but I felt as though a cloud had moved in front of it, casting the black castle into even deeper shadows.

  “The Falzons must have taken precautions to assure their own safety,” I said. “What went wrong?”

  “Security lapses occurred but why exactly remains unclear.”

  After so many years? I could only imagine how extensive the investigation must have been yet there were still unresolved issues. How deeply buried did secrets have to be in order to remain beyond the reach of a man willing to do anything to discover them?

  “I can’t believe that Adam would ever let that rest,” I said.

  Rolf sighed. “He hasn’t but he has had to go on all the same. His responsibilities to the family and all those who serve it demand nothing less.”

  He didn’t have to tell me how far Adam would go to fulfill what he saw as his duty. I already knew that only too well.

  “But now this business with Sebastian…”

  Broad shoulders rose and fell in a gesture that dismissed anything but the most minimal concern. But the shadows behind his eyes made it clear that Rolf was more worried than he wanted to let on.

  I was beginning to understand why. Sebastian’s disloyalty must have revived all the lingering pain of betrayal that Adam had lived with since childhood. And all the rage that had created inside him. He could try to channel it in the most productive way possible, to find his cousin and end the threat from him for good. I sympathized with that, not in the least because I was driven just as powerfully to confront the evil within my own family.

  But he could also be weakened by it, prey to such powerful emotions and memories that not even he could withstand them. At that thought, I shuddered and wrapped my arms around myself. Sunlight warmed the balcony but it couldn’t touch the bitter chill that had taken hold inside me.

  Chapter Three

  “Will!” My voice shook with relief. I sat down quickly on the side of the bed, clutching my cell phone to my ear.

  Across the room, the door to the dressing room stood open. In my absence, an unseen hand had arranged my clothes neatly alongside Adam’s. The sight was a stark reminder of his power made all the more vivid because it appeared so ordinary, even inevitable. He wanted me in his castle aerie and so I was there. He wanted at least the appearance of normality in our relationship and so it was. What would he demand next?

  “Hi,” Will said. His voice was hoarse. He sounded wary and not particularly glad to hear from me.

  Even so, I couldn’t hide my concern. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine for a guy with the mother of all hangovers. Not that I don’t deserve it. I really tied one on yesterday. Hey, did you call then? Sorry if I said anything out of line, I was really wasted.”

  “You don’t remember what you said?” I hadn’t considered that possibility. I also wasn’t sure that I believed him.

  “Like I told you, I was totally in the bag. So what’s up with you?”

  “I…took an unexpected trip.” I didn’t want to say anything more, not right then, and give him an excuse to change the subject. “That’s why I didn’t get over to your place. But I’m worried about you. And about Todd. You said--”

  “Never mind what I said. Everything’s fine.”

  The swiftness of his response convinced me that he knew perfectly well what he’d told me. I wasn’t about to let him pretend otherwise.

  “No, it’s not.” My hand tightened on the phone. “Is Todd in danger?”

  I didn’t know my brother well; he’d gone off to prep school when I was little more than a toddler. But he was my brother. I’d be damned if I’d let him or anyone else end up dead under a bridge, as Will had warned that we all might.

  Sober, he was far less forthcoming. “Who from, political groupies? He’s attracting a load of those. If they all remember to vote, we’re a sure thing.”

  “You know that’s not what I’m talking about. I want you to tell me why you said what you did.”

  Silence stretched out between us long enough for me to wonder if he’d hung up. But finally, he said, “A reporter waylaid Todd yesterday. She wanted to know if there was any truth to the rumor that the Delaney Family Foundation is taking money from foreign governments and special interests in return for political favors.”

  “What? Is there such a rumor?” I certainly hadn’t heard about it but even more, I couldn’t imagine how anything like that would even get started. The family’s secrets were buried much too deeply for any mere reporter to ferret them out.

  “Of course not,” Will said. “No one is crazy enough to make an accusation like that against the family, even anonymously. At least not without having massive evidence to back it up. The question was pure chum, thrown at him on the chance that Todd would be startled enough to blurt out something stupid.”

  “And he went for it?” That didn’t sound like my brother. He was too smart and ambitious to fall for any such obvious ploy.

  “Not at all,” Will said. “He blew her off with some boilerplate about the great work the foundation does. That would have been the end of it except the question pissed him off enough that he mentioned it to some family flunkey. Next thing he knows, he gets yanked out of a scheduled appearance and driven to see your grandmother. She basically tore him a new one, going on about loyalty to the family, being thankful for all that was being done for him, keeping his eye on the ball, and on and on. He said that he’s never seen her that bad.”

  Grandmother’s moods had always been volatile. Her usual chilly disdain could turn to incandescent fury in an instant. I shuddered to think how much worse she must be in the aftermath of killing her “baby boy”.

  “How do you know all this?” I asked.

  “Because when it was over, he needed to vent and I happened to be handy. We went out for what was supposed to be just a couple of drinks.”

  And clearly turned out to be a lot more. I’d noticed that Will had a habit of being nearby when anyone surnamed Delaney needed something. It was a useful trait and one that had served him well. Until now.

  “What else did Todd say?”

  “Nothing…at least now that I’m sober again, I realize it wasn’t anything. I totally blew it out of proportion. Sorry if I alarmed you.”

  “Tell me anyway,” I urged.

  Silence again. I matched it, determined to wait him out however long that took.

  Will had a lot of strengths but patience wasn’t among them. Abruptly, he said, “What’s the point? Why would you even want to know?”

 

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