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I tip the bartender and make my way towards the beach to wander along the water for a bit. The cerulean waves are so clear I almost don’t want to stir up the creamy sand with my footsteps. I slip my sandals off and swear I’ll only think happy, positive thoughts, do a review of my highlights.
Like how I acquired Nice Makeup, taking yet another toxic make-up company off the market. How my Beauty Done Well Initiative is gaining traction in the cosmetics world. I’m excited to see my name and position being used to influence things for the better. Tara might kindly hint with indirect phrases that my personal life is crap, but my professional life is moving forward in a positive direction.
A staff member walks towards me, a stack of towels balanced on one hand. He’s wearing a white panama hat and sunglasses, but I can see a significant burn on the left side of his face. As he comes near, I prepare a smile of acknowledgement. But instead of walking past me with a nod, he slows down and stops in front of me.
“Can I walk with you, Laina?” he asks.
His voice is low, raspy, and familiar, making my heart stop and my knees shake. I look at the man’s face, searching to find anything recognizable behind the taut, twisting burn on his face. I try to pick out an arching gray eyebrow or straight-lipped mouth, but whatever marred his appearance has done significant damage. There’s nothing about this man that I know, but he knows my name. And that voice.
He takes off his sunglasses and with one quick glance from his grey-blue eyes, I’m a daughter again, being put in my place with a stern look.
“Dad?” I ask, wavering and weak. “You’re alive?”
CHAPTER 4
“Don’t hug me, don’t react, just keep walking down the beach,” Dad says. Is this a hallucination? Did someone put something in my Mai Tai?
Dad’s hand presses against my back, propelling me into my first step. This is real. As we walk, I check over my shoulder to make sure there are two sets of footprints in the sand. There are.
“What is going on?” I splutter in disbelief and shock. “It’s…it’s been four years.”
“You’ve grown up,” he says, looking me over without meeting my eyes. “You’ve done well for yourself. I’m impressed.”
I study Dad’s face, trying to understand.
“You’re a dead man. I put flowers on your grave. They said there wasn’t even anything left of you to put in the-” There wasn’t anything left of him to put in the casket.
Because he wasn’t dead.
Dad waves his hand in front of us like none of that matters. “I don’t have much time and I need your help with something.” He sets the towels down on a nearby chair and keeps walking. He won’t look me in the eye. This is not the Dad I lost.
I stop in place, forcing him to react. He shoots me a piercing gaze and, there, that’s Dad’s glare. I nod to indicate that somehow I’m processing and listening, and resume walking. My eyes choose to fixate on the foamy edge of the water to keep from breaking down and weeping.
“The plane crash was a hijacking,” Dad says. “It was ordered by a powerful enemy I made long before you were born. He’s the reason your mother is dead. I somehow walked away from the crash, away from her broken body.”
His words conjure a horrifying image and oxygen is in short supply as I shudder.
“Deep breaths, Laina. There’s more.”
“How did you know where I was?” I ask, brushing tears off my cheeks.
“I’ve been keeping tabs on you. I have some friends in the cyber realm who helped me arrange this.”
“You, what, you’re like living off the grid, hiding out in the dark web or something?” He shakes his head like that’s a stupid question and maybe it is. “So why was the plane hijacked?”
“I used to be best friends with Vanya Vidovic.”
My jaw drops and my limbs go numb.
“Vanya Vidovic? As in the Vidovic Group?” As in the criminal group Everett is currently researching.
Dad nods with a wry laugh as he urges me to keep walking. “See, you’ve heard of them. Vanya and I went all through boarding school, then college together. When we were juniors in college, he inherited his father’s extensive crime organization in Eastern Europe. I tried to talk him out of going down that path, tried to get him to stay in the U.S., but the pressure to uphold his family legacy was too great. When he left for Albania, I cut ties with him.”
“Why would he come for you then?” I ask.
“There was another friend that went through school with Vanya and I, the third member of our trio - Adam Lourden. Recognize that name?”
“Lourden Luxuries,” I murmur in disbelief. “The Lourden car crash.”
