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His parents had been good people. His father had been sole heir to his family fortune and had made the difficult decision to risk it all on a better future for his home city. The Avelar Foundation’s development projects and charity efforts in Rio were world-famous. To think that their vision and refusal to bow to corruption had led to their deaths, just as it had almost led to his own...
‘This was on the thumb drive Nora gave me?’ He heard himself speak.
Fiero let out a heaving sigh. ‘That’s the next thing.’ He stood up, his mouth tightening into a line. ‘We pulled in a few of Cabo’s associates for questioning. It didn’t take much for them to start talking once they saw how much evidence we had against them. And they seemed to know exactly who our informant was: the only person Lionel Cabo had ever allowed to leave his organisation alive—the only person who had access to such secure information because she lived under the same roof. Duarte, she’s his daughter. He had her identity kept secret, but we found it all.’
Another file was shoved into his hands. Images of countless passports and identities on each page. A couple of arrests under fake names. But there was a name at the top, on an original birth certificate that had been hidden from public record: Eleanora Cabo.
Duarte felt the world tilt on its axis for a moment.
Eleanora Cabo.
That name...
He stared from his old friend to the serious, frowning photograph of the woman he’d just made love to for half the night, feeling shock turn him to stone. ‘How can this be?’
‘Her mother is an Irish ecologist, currently running a wildlife sanctuary in Manaus. She divorced Lionel Cabo after less than a year of marriage, a divorce most likely linked to severe injuries sustained by her at the hands of a male she refused to name. Her anonymity was part of a legal agreement. As was changing her daughter’s name and barring him from all access to her until she was an adult. It seems she reconnected with her father the moment she turned eighteen.’
Duarte felt nausea burn his gut.
Lionel Cabo’s daughter.
Cabo. The man who had killed his parents. Who had tried to have him killed.
Disbelief and rage fought within him. His temples throbbed and he rubbed circles against his skin, trying to calm the rising sensation.
A flash of memory struck, the picture in his mind so clear it made him dizzy. He saw himself standing in the grand entrance hall of a house he’d only ever seen before in pictures from his investigations: the Cabo mansion. He was looking down at the woman in front of him, cruel words spilling from his lips.
Nora’s hair was shorter, blow-dried into a perfect style. She grabbed his wrist as he walked past her. ‘Duarte. Please...don’t leave me with him.’
It was definitely a memory... Dear God!
Suddenly all his vivid dreams made sense. They were memories. Memories of the weeks he’d spent falling for a mysterious redhead in Rio, only to have his life become a living nightmare.
He turned away from Angelus’s worried face, striding to the window and bracing his hands on the cold marble ledge for support. He crushed his fist against his forehead as more memories came rushing back.
The first time he’d seen her...the way he’d been drawn to her like a moth to a flame across the dance floor in a crowded samba club.
He’d been taken from that first glance. She’d been sexy, yet shy, fiercely intelligent and adventurous. Only having her for stolen hours at a time had been a thrill. She’d been shockingly inexperienced, but eager and honest in her pleasure, and of course he’d risen to the delicious challenge of initiating her into the world of lovemaking in every way he’d been able to think of.
She’d become an obsession. He’d even thought himself halfway in love with her until Cabo had approached him and revealed everything.
It had all made terrible sense. He’d been her mark. She’d been playing the part of his perfect woman.
And when the opportunity had come to play her at her own game he’d taken it—meeting with Lionel Cabo right under her nose and letting him offer his own daughter as a reward, only to throw it back in the man’s face.
Angelus’s words rang in his ears. A secret.
On their last night together they’d fallen asleep and she’d awoken in a panic. He’d had to run after her and convince her to let him drive her home. She’d refused, saying her father was overprotective. Their hours together were stolen because she had to sneak out. She wasn’t allowed to leave the house alone.
He’d thought perhaps it was a religious thing, but then he’d found out the truth.
To know that her mother had gone so far as to get a court order against her child’s father suggested something more than normal marital discord.
That haunting image of Nora’s face in her father’s entrance hall replayed in his mind again.
‘Please, don’t leave me with him.’
The No
