Dangerous Beauty: Part Three: This is War (13 page)

The answer came to Carter before she even finished the question in her mind. Kent and Patrick must have heard what happened to their friends. They were just as afraid of Carter as they were of Silas. They found the opportunity to get rid of the source of their fear. They tried … and gotten their asses killed. It was unexpected, but a desperate risk they were willing to take.

Shit
, Carter thought. There was a possibility that her father was in there. A slim possibility, but a possibility nonetheless.

Taking a deep breath, Carter rolled her shoulders back to release some of the tension. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go back.”

Carter walked forward, but Gabriel pulled her back. “We don’t have to go in.” He walked over to the wall next to the door, which had a large red button on it, and about ten light switches next to it. “Carter, get one of your guns,” he said. “I’m going to open the gate in there. If anyone other than your father comes out, I think you should … shoot them.”

Carter knew that it was hard for him to tell her to kill, but she appreciated him for being smart. Carter prepared herself, ready to kill the person that had called out her name in that tunnel.

“Okay,” Gabe muttered. “Here it goes …”

As soon as he pressed the button, the sound of the large gate opening vibrated through the open garage. Carter swallowed as she waited and waited for someone to come through the door. Calming her breathing, she vowed not to cry when she saw that it wasn’t her father. After another moment of waiting, the slow creak of the door to the tunnel opening made them jump. She got her trigger finger ready, prepared to shoot the prisoner in the face. As soon as the door opened and the prisoner looked to the opposite side of where she was, Carter’s heart stopped.

“Carterina,” he whispered. “Carter, baby girl, where are—” When he turned his head and locked eyes with her he gasped.

Carter’s hands began to tremble and tears fell from her eyes as she stared at his face. A thick black and gray beard covered his face, and his hair had become a small afro, but Carter knew him.

She
knew
him.

He wore a white outfit similar to what Gabe wore before he’d changed, but it was covered in the blood of the men he’d slain in the cell. His skin was dry but the same color it was when she’d last saw him. The only differences were: he was a bit slimmer, older, and he had a long, healed scar going across his neck.

It was him. It was her father.

After Carter dropped the gun on the ground, she ran to him. His arms opened wide and he lifted her into a painfully tight hug. Carter wept in his arms. She let out loud sobs, unable to hold anything back. She cried, and cried, and cried some more, sobbing, “Daddy,” over and over again.

Robert held her as he fell to his knees, rocking her in his arms. He kissed her hair repeatedly as he comforted her softly in a language she didn’t speak. Carter didn’t know nor care what he was saying. She just continued to cry, enjoying the feeling of being in her father’s arms again.

Chapter 6: To trust again

After they changed from the blood-stained clothing, they hit the road.

Carter ran her finger over the scar on her father’s neck. She sat in the front seat of an old-school Jeep with her dad on one side of her driving the car, and her brother on the other side of her holding her hand. She stared at her dad as he kept his light brown eyes on the road. He should’ve been about … fifty-one now. He looked good. No wrinkles or anything, just gray hair in his beard and in his little afro. There were a few age lines on the outer corner of his eyes, but it did nothing negative to his appearance. To Carter he looked distinguished, even more handsome than he was before he was … well, she didn’t know what he was.

Was he killed and brought back to life? She didn’t know. She was sure she’d seen him dead on the living room chair. Not to mention she’d witnessed his murder with her own two eyes. Could she have dreamt the murder? Was it distress that caused her to imagine something that didn’t happen? She didn’t know, but she planned on asking. She finally had the chance that she never thought she’d have. She finally would get to make her father tell her the truth.

“Are you going to ask the questions boggling your mind, baby girl?” he asked as he continued driving. “Or will you just continue to stare at me?”

Sighing, Carter rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I just can’t believe you’re here. I thought you were dead.”

“If you ask me, he looks too much like Silas,” Gabe stated, eyeing Robert suspiciously. He knew that Carter had said they were identical, but after laying eyes on Robert, too much emotion surfaced. Now he wished he hadn’t convinced Carter to go back. They should have just left. “I’m sorry, but I don’t trust him.”

Carter scowled at her obviously confused brother. “Gabe, stop it,” she chided.

“I’m sorry, Carter, I don’t. Pull on his beard or something. He could be Silas in disguise.” He glared at Robert. “Just how long were you down there, buddy? You sound like Silas. What’s with the accent? Carter is an American.”

Robert peeked over at the boy with a slight frown, and returned his gaze to the road. “I’ve only been in that basement for three days. It’s hard to break away from my old accent after hearing Silas talk for the past six years. It took me years to get rid of it in the first place. I assure you, son, I am not Silas.”

“I’m not your son!” Gabe said angrily. “I’m nobody’s son. I’m a lost boy, like Peter Pan.”

Carter laughed softly at her brother’s words and gave his hand a comforting squeeze, hoping to calm him. She moved from her father’s side to lean against Gabe, knowing that this was probably hard for him. Her father locked eyes with her in the rearview mirror and gave her a nod, understanding that she needed to give her support and attention to her brother.

“It’s okay, Gabe,” she reassured him. “He’s not Silas.”

“I don’t know anymore, Carter. Is it possible for twins to be this identical?”

“Yes, Gabe. That’s why it’s called identical. What’s with the change of heart? You are the one that convinced me to go back, that faking my father’s death was something Silas would do …”

“Yes, I know,” he sighed. “But he’d also play on your weakness.”

“Weakness?” Carter was offended by his words.

“Yes, Carter,” Gabe said truthfully. “You miss your father, who happens to be the identical twin of your biological father. This is a fucked up situation and it’s confusing. I know he’s your dad, but how can we trust him until he tells us the story of how he survived the death you witnessed?”

Carter wanted to argue with her brother, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t deny the truth in his words. Although she had no doubt that the man next to her was indeed Robert Steele, she still was skeptical. For the first time, Carter could honestly say she didn’t trust her father. The hard truth hurt like hell, but it was true. He had a lot of explaining to do, and he needed to do it now. Carter had believed he was dead for six years, and now here he sat living and seemingly healthy. She didn’t want anything Gabe said to be correct, but the fact of the matter was that it was accurate. He needed to explain to them why Carter had witnessed his death six years ago.

“Gabriel is right, Carter,” Robert said, surprising both of them. “After all that’s happened, all that I’m sure you have recently found out—like for instance that I am not your biological father—it may be hard for you to trust me. I have a lot of explaining to do.”

“Then do so,” Carter stated boldly. “No more lying, Daddy. No more withholding. Please, just tell me everything.”

She couldn’t take the lies anymore. Every day she was finding out something new about herself and she was sick of it. She wanted the truth, she wanted answers, and she wanted them now.

Robert nodded. “Very well then.” He had no intention of telling her everything, but also wouldn’t lie to her. “About ten years ago, I got into a spat with Silas over the phone. I was in New York at the time because I had another job from Angelo Salerno. Do you remember him?” he asked, peeking over at Carter. “He’s the boy you called bubby’s father. We visited their home when you were just three. It was long ago.”

Carter didn’t say a word, happy that her wedding ring was safely tucked in her backpack. She knew the exact moment when her brother recalled the last name, and she squeezed the life out of his hand. Seeming to get that Carter would beat his ass if he said a word, Gabe remained silent.

Robert continued. “Anyway, Silas and I were talking after our argument had ended, and the conversation kind of drifted to Anya Salerno, Angelo’s deceased wife, and we spoke about her … murder. I’m sorry to tell you like this because I know you remember her. She’s the woman that taught you how to wish on those roses you loved so much. Anyway, he was upset with me because I’d told your mother that it was him who’d killed her. He threatened to tell Angelo Salerno that I was,” he cleared his throat uncomfortably, “having an affair with the woman—”

“I know that,” Carter stated, interrupting him. “Move on.”

Surprised, Robert looked over at her, but Carter’s face revealed nothing. She’d known her father was sleeping with Nathan’s mother long ago; she had put the pieces together after she’d met Nathan. One night she had overheard Chrissy and her father talking about their personal lives. Basically, her father had been letting Chrissy down easily. The woman had come on to him, but he’d bluntly told her that he was involved with another woman. Carter remembered her exact words
. “Are you talking about that Russian? Your boss’s wife? The one that has been calling you all the time? You told me she was a prostitute.”

Carter had always thought her father an idiot for sharing such secrets with Chrissy, but she supposed even a hit man needed someone to talk to sometimes. Plus, he’d stopped sharing things with Chrissy during Carter’s teenage years. Carter figured that was most likely around the time he’d started seeing her mother romantically.

“How did you know?” he asked, but immediately shook his head. “Don’t answer that. I already know how you know. I told you numerous times to not listen in on adult conversations, Carter.”

“And I told you numerous times to stop having adult conversations with Chrissy.”

“Chrissy was easy to talk to.” That was true, but what Robert had left out was that he’d known Chrissy since he was fifteen. She was a Steele. The only Steele that had left the family with Robert in pursuit of a normal life. “She listened, didn’t judge, and didn’t tell. It was a shame what happened to the girl.” Silas had had Chrissy tortured because she’d kept Robert’s secrets instead of reporting every detail of Robert and Carter’s life back to him. Robert would not share that with Carter, but there was no need; the woman was dead, and she wasn’t coming back.

Carter nodded. “I agree,” she said genuinely. “Now get on with the story.”

Robert nodded. “Silas said that he would convince Angelo Salerno that I’d killed her because she had ended our affair, which was bullshit. I was involved with her, but not in the way one would think. It was personal, so I won’t go into detail, but I will say she fell in love with me. She’d asked to run away with me, but I didn’t love her the way she loved me. I cared for her deeply, but it wasn’t romantic love. I had fallen in love with your mother, but she was still involved with Angelo Salerno. My involvement with Anya Salerno eventually got her attention, and she became jealous. She confessed her true feelings for me in return, and never went back to Angelo. Which is what I’d wanted.”

“She didn’t tell him why?”

He shook his head. “No. She just stopped communicating with him.”

Ouch
, Carter thought. Now she understood Angelo’s dislike for Anastacia when she first met him. If memory served her correctly, she remembered Angelo calling Anastacia ‘cold as ice’ and this was probably why; she’d stopped communicating with him for fourteen years.

“Your mother and I weren’t able to meet often, but we made time for each other when we could. The rest of our communication was over the phone. We were planning, preparing her for when she would be reunited with you. I still spoke to Anya even though I had ended the affair. She had become … troubled, and she wished to leave her husband and son.”

Carter didn’t like hearing that. She had hoped that Anya hadn’t really wanted to leave Nathan … that something had forced her to leave him behind at least.

“I spoke with her all of the way up until her death. Her son found her, which I hated to hear because I knew how much he’d loved her. Your bubby was a good boy the last I saw him. He was a flawed young man, but good. I hated that he had to find his mother like that. It sent him spiraling downward. When Silas and I were discussing her that day on the phone, I hadn’t noticed I wasn’t alone. Years later, I got a call from a man named Mitchell. He tried to hire me to kill Angelo Salerno by blackmailing me. He said he’d heard—and recorded—the conversation I’d had with my brother. I knew it to be true because he sent me a copy of the recording. My plan was to contact your mother, tell her to come take you a year earlier than we planned, head to New York, kill Mitchell, and explain to Angelo what had happened to Anya.”

And all this time Carter thought Mitchell assumed her father would kill Angelo, merely because of the affair.

Carter listened closely while her father reached the part of the story she had been waiting for. How he was alive when she’d been positive that she’d seen him killed.