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She wished that Jack would come looking for her, except why would he? She’d walked out on him, and then put him off again. Jack could very well be giving her the space that she’d asked for.
“There’s something you don’t know,” Gramps said.
Terra was getting the picture that there was a lot she didn’t know.
“We don’t have time for the family reunion.” Marcus kept his distance from Terra as he held the weapon aimed at her head. “Jim brought it to you, Robert. You must still have it. If it was stolen, then that’s all part of your plan and you know where it’s going.”
Terra thought through possible ways to remove the gun from him.
“Step away from her.” A man spoke from behind, his voice menacing.
Marcus’s entire demeanor shifted. Fear crawled over his face as he stared at the new arrival behind Terra. “You can’t shoot me before I kill her.”
“I don’t want to shoot you,” the man said. “I want to negotiate.”
“You’re in no position—”
Terra turned to see who the newcomer was.
The man from the bar? The pilot? She’d never gotten a good look at him. Chance Carter held up a box in one hand—an offering—and pointed a gun at Marcus with the other.
“My deal was to deliver this package—my last delivery. Then my plane went down, and all bets were off when I woke up in the hospital and the package was gone. I knew I had to find it and find you and deliver it to you in person so I could make sure I would never be blackmailed again. Only I didn’t know who was behind the blackmail. But I figured it out.”
Chance lowered the box to the floor while continuing to aim the weapon. Then he held the gun with both hands. “My first clue was when I saw what was inside the box.” His face twisted. “I had to ask myself, what is that golden jeweled crown, a Nimrud artifact looted from the Iraq Museum, doing in Montana? What was I doing delivering the item I had walked away from years ago?”
“Your actions cost me everything,” Marcus said.
“Imagine my surprise when I discovered that this whole time, it was you blackmailing me, Tony. I thought you died in that helicopter crash in Iraq. Instead, you took on a new identity and obviously kept building your trafficking business. You forced me to leave my family to keep them safe. But now I have it in my hands, and I found you. I’m done for good. I just have one question—why me? Why did you send me to deliver this?”
“The artifact that cost me everything? I lost my family because of you,” Marcus said. “Even if I hadn’t survived the crash and disappeared, I would have been court-martialed and lost them anyway. You deserved to pay. I thought the crown was apropos for your last delivery, since that was the very item that was lost to me when you wanted out. I was able to get my hands on it again, diverting it from being returned back to Iraq.” Marcus shrugged. “So you would deliver it for me, completing what you wouldn’t complete years ago, and I would finally get my millions.”
“It doesn’t belong to you. It didn’t then. It doesn’t now.”
Marcus sighed. “We’re all a little older and a little wiser. We all made mistakes. Give me the box, and I’ll let them go. With the money, I can reinvent myself all over again.”
The pilot looked intently at Terra. Emotion welled in his eyes. A pang shot through Terra’s heart. She hadn’t seen beyond the pilot. Behind his scruffy beard, older broken features. Behind the baseball cap and a thicker body ... she hadn’t seen who he really was.
Her vision blurred. She wasn’t thinking clearly. No ... “Who are you? You’re not ... you can’t be—” But she knew in her heart that he was. Recognition slammed into her, knocking the breath from her. She gasped for oxygen, and then words. “Dad?”
“Yes, baby. It’s me.”
“What? Why? I ... I don’t understand. What are you doing here now? Why did you leave in the first place?” The questions overwhelmed her, and the precarious situation shook her to her core.
“As for what I’m doing here now, as soon as I realized who was behind everything, I knew I had to warn Robert. I knew Robert, you, and Owen were in danger, but I got here too late.” He growled those last words out, glaring at Marcus. “But it’s okay because I have the leverage needed. As for the past”—his tone softened as he turned his gaze back to her—“I had no choice. Because of my mistake in Iraq, staying here would have put you in danger. Even though leaving hurt us both, it was better for you. Safer. After your mom died, I couldn’t lose you too. Briggs forced me to leave my family, to leave you to keep you safe. But I see now that my efforts made no difference. You’re here now because of my mistakes.”
Tears erupted. “You did lose me, Dad. You lost me and Owen. You left us. How could you think that leaving would ever be better?”
“Terra, I—”
“Don’t beat yourself up, honey.” Marcus/Tony, whoever he was, interrupted her father so he could be kind now? “I required that of him. I didn’t need anyone catching up to Chris Connors to ask more questions about the looting. I could have nothing lead back to me. I had to create a new identity, and Chris had to as well. He had to lose his family, like I lost mine. I helped him create his new identity—Chance Carter, courier for an airfreight company in which I’m the majority shareholder.”
“And Leif Morrisey?” she asked. “He wanted revenge for his sister’s death. He was looking for you. What did you do to his sister?”
“She was fencing for me in Morocco and got into a bad situation. That’s on her, not me. I had to focus on collectors in the United States for the last couple of years.”
Terra was done with the man pointing a gun at her. Except her hands were in plastic ties, and he held the gun. There were no defensive moves she could use that wouldn’t risk either her grandfather or now ... her father.
“You.” Marcus directed his words to her father. “You put your gun down and back away from the package. Come over behind the desk and join Robert.”
