Lust on the Rocks (25 page)

She left the message where she found it.  There were bigger fish on her plate at the moment, namely one Mr. Marin. 
Marinelli
, she corrected herself.  He was on his way over now.

After a quick shower, Sam changed into a cotton tank and elastic gym shorts, misgiving churning.  She brushed her hair, paced around her room, softening her focus on its contents.  She still couldn’t believe it.  A connection to Scaliano she expected, but victim?  She ran fingers through the waves behind each sweep of her brush.  His sister?  Imaginations of the tragedy shot through her mind’s eye.  The pain he must have endured, the justice he now pursued.  It was more than she expected to find.  Much more.

At the knock on her door, she placed the brush in a drawer and took a deep breath.  This was going to be tough.  Collecting her nerves, she tamped down the angst as it fluttered anew.  For both of them.

She grasped the doorknob and forced her demeanor to remain casual.  Easy.  But when Sam opened the door, he pulled her into his arms, and took her breath away.

“I missed you,” he said, and nuzzled his face into the crook of her bare neck.

His touch, his scent, the warm sensations flowing through her body.  She felt control slipping away as she reached her arms around his waist and squeezed firm.  Me, too, she mouthed silently.

Vic pecked kisses up her neck and nipped the lobe of her ear.  “Did you miss me?”

When he pulled back, a heavy weight settled in her chest.  His eyes were bright, his smile eager.  Business as usual, he was here for some fun.  But she was serving up anything but.  “I did,” she said, and managed a small smile.

“I knew it.”  He gave a quick pat to her rear and placing her arm through his, walked further inside, tugging her alongside.  Vic scanned the surroundings.  “Your sister here?”

Her heart lurched.  “No.”

“Good.”  He gathered Sam in his arms and brought his face nose-to-nose.  “Cause I want you all to myself.”

“I want to talk,” she blurted.  She wanted to be smooth and sensitive, but the secret was suffocating and she needed release.  She didn’t lie well and keeping secrets poisoned her soul.

“Talk?”

She nodded, and swallowed, the truth stuck in her throat.

“Sure.”

He let go of her and Sam took him by the hand and led him to the sofa.  She sat and he lowered down next to her, careful, as though she suddenly were a fragile doll.

Sam’s heart ached at his reaction.  They should have already had this discussion.  He should have told her about his sister, his family, about the real reasons driving his revenge against Scaliano.  She would have helped him.  Tender, gentle, Vic had been nothing but decent with her.  Despite the burdens he carried and the truth he buried, he had always been kind, considerate and respectable of her and her sister.

Sister.  She would have helped him.  Because it was the right thing to do and he a man who deserved nothing less.

“You want to tell me about your sister?”

The color drained from his face.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Sam knew.

His breathing slowed.  Vic didn’t know how or why, but she knew.  A slender hand reached out and gently touched his cheek.

“Can you talk about it?”

Like delicate porcelain, expectation hung in the air between them.  He could reach out to her, or raise the wall—his choice.  Vic’s throat tightened.  There was only one choice for him.  “It was the worst day of my life.”

“I’m so sorry,” she replied.  Sadness filled her eyes.

He didn’t know how much she knew, but it didn’t matter.  She had asked, and he would answer.  “I was there...with her.”  His throat became painfully constricted and suddenly Vic wasn’t sure if he could continue, wasn’t sure he could utter the words, save for the soft plea in Sam’s eyes.

And the promise of a safe landing in her arms of com-passion.  “My family...we were all there...to celebrate.”  Tears burned behind his eyes as the memories came pouring in. “My father won an important primary. He was a Senator,” Vic explained, acutely aware how little she knew of his background.  “He was on his way to becoming Governor.” 
President
.  Many believed he would go all the way to the White House.

The thought fell away.  Did Sam even know his father had been in politics?  Did she know Anna’s death ended the same career?  Devastated his mother, crushed his father...  Vic held her gaze.  That it ruined all of them?  The incident at the hotel changed their lives
forever
.

At once, Vic decided the depth of her knowledge was irrelevant.  He needed to start from the beginning.  Taking a deep breath, he calmed the pound in his chest and eased into the story.  “Anna was twelve.  I was fifteen.”  Vic dropped his gaze and took Sam’s hand.  He enfolded it within his own, the smooth warmth of her skin reassuring.  “We were swimming together, Anna and I.”  She was practicing her synchronized swimming for the school team and I was working on my dive techniques.”

The images were vivid.  Dark brown eyes beckoned him to watch her through crystal blue water...the escape of bubbles as she smiled, followed by the excited waving, begging him to watch one more time.  Which he did.

One last time as she somersaulted, her long hair brushing across the bottom of the pool...

The blade plunged and twisted as her vision reappeared.  “She had beautiful long black hair.  It would swirl around her body as she twirled beneath the surface, her moves more graceful than a ballerina.”

Tears filled his eyes, but he faced Sam fully.  He wasn’t ashamed. 
He was relieved
.  He wouldn’t have to hide his secret anymore.  He could share his life—a very significant part of his life—with the woman who had become significant to him.

He could reveal the true nature of his animosity toward Scaliano and somehow, he knew, Sam would understand.

Vic took a deep breath and continued, “Anna ran through her routine, rolling and gliding to perfection until one time, she dove too deep, and her hair got caught—” he choked on the words, and a fresh wave of tears pushed forward, “—in the drain.”

He remembered her frantic reaction with such lucid detail, it felt as if he were reliving it—underwater—struggling as he fought to release her, fear squeezing in as she tried to pull free.

Tears streamed down Sam’s face.  As though she could feel his pain, could understand what he went through in one awful day, one terrible moment, where everything was lost.  Vic tore his hand from her clasp and squeezed thumb and forefinger hard against his eyes.  He crushed them closed to ward off the nightmare.

Sam said nothing, did nothing.  She waited.

In his mind’s eye, he could see the swarm of bubbles arise from Anna’s panic, the sheer terror take hold when she realized she couldn’t free herself.

And she looked to him.  For help.

To free her.  To save her.

“
I tried
...  I tried to get to her.  I dove down after her and yanked as hard as I could.”  So hard, he feared he was hurting her.  She had clutched hold of his arms, her nails digging in, her body jerked as he pulled.  “But it was no use.  The suction coming from the drain was too strong, too powerful.”

Regret hammered.  “I rose to the surface and shouted for help.”  Vic hunched forward and jammed the heels of his hands against his eyes.  He could still see Anna’s face, the desperate cry in her eyes as she knew the end was coming.  “I went down again.”  Again and again he tried, but she was running out of air.  “I pulled her hair again,
ripping
it apart...” he murmured, pained, as though he could feel the hair tearing from his own scalp.  Long, stringy strands, that wound themselves around his arms like tentacles.  Vic fought the memory of her face, lost in a tangle of black silk.  “I would have ripped it from her skull if I could have, but it didn’t seem to matter.”

He paused, and his long ago failure cut deep, slashed his heart in two.  Bleed,
damn it
, bleed.  Suffer!  She did.  She relied on you and you failed her.  She relied on you and you failed her. 
You failed her
...

Unable to control himself, Vic began to cry.  Fifteen years—
gone
.  A beautiful young life—
lost
.  The pain poured out.  Because of him.  Guilt and anguish mixed together and his cries turned to muffled sobs.  Anna was dead.  Because he had been unable to save her.  There was no one to help but him, and he hadn’t been enough.

Sam’s hand went to his back, a sharp reminder of her presence.  Face her, he urged himself. 
Face her
.

He pulled his hands away and turned toward Sam.  Mascara ran down her cheeks, mixing with her blush in blotchy red streaks.  The condo had grown dusky, eerily quiet as darkness closed in.  And Vic felt strangely remote, distant, from Sam, the present…

“It wasn’t enough,” he said plainly.  “Nothing was, and within minutes, she went limp.”  Dead.  As she sank to the bottom she stared at him, eyes wide open in disbelief.  Shock.  Then her gaze glazed over, the life sucked from her body.  It was an image he’d never forget. “The paramedics arrived and cut her free…” 
But she was already gone
.

Vic leaned forward, elbows to knees.  He raked hands over his face, willing the memory to dim.  As if it could.  The moment was seared into his brain for a lifetime.

Anna took a part of him with her that day.  From school to dating, from college to career, her death affected every aspect of his life.  Happiness had been replaced with loathing.  Hatred, which he honed into a fine-edged sword meant for one singular quarry:  Scaliano.

Everything he did from then on out had been focused on the bastard who stole his sister’s future, his family’s happiness.  First his law degree, then the negligence case in Reno.  But it went nowhere.  Nowhere until the Perry suit.  No matter what it took, Vic wouldn’t rest until he personally saw justice served.

In quiet companionship, Sam rubbed his back.  Long, gentle strokes, comforting and soothing—and welcome, as the band of deception cinched around his chest began to loosen.  Because she knew.  No more fear of being dis-covered, no more mask of secrecy surrounding his intentions.  He could go after Scaliano, full force, and nail his ass to the wall.  And Sam would go with him.  Because she knew.  Because her ethics would prohibit anything short of punishment to the fullest extent of the law.

Calmer, Vic allowed his gaze to drift outside, to float, to escape the bleakness which had settled indoors.  The sun was long since down, the sky a haze of deep purple and blue.  It was the end to another day.  A day Anna would never see.

Miami was a beautiful, vibrant city situated on the bay, but his sister preferred the mountains.  Like him.  Though the water always held a special allure for her...

His mind closed.  Stop.  Don’t.

Sam grazed his cheek bone with the soft skin of her knuckles and he could feel the heat of her stare as she ventured back onto the ice.

“That’s why Selena’s ordeal hit you so hard, isn’t it?”

Vic nodded.

“And your parents?”

What could he say?

It devastated them.  Losing a child tore a hole so wide it was irreparable, the ragged edges left to flap mercilessly in the drafts of a barren heart.  “My father gave up his bid for the Governorship.  My mom...”  An image of her face, once beautiful in its carefree laughter, its resemblance to Anna’s bit into him.  His mother had aged.  Her lips had thinned, her passionate brown eyes had dulled.  While her looks remained intact to the outside world, they were scored by grief, forever marred by tragedy.  “She’s never been the same.”

Though she managed the occasional smile for her son, it never reached its full brilliance.  Never matched the abandon it had when Anna was alive.  Because behind every one lay a gravestone, the perch from which his mother now viewed the world.

Sam pulled Vic close and wrapped her arms around him.  Like a shield, the force of her support encouraged him to take a break, to catch his breath.

Leaning into her, it was a reprieve he needed.  She laid her head against his and he let himself melt into her warmth, an act of pure survival.

Sam hugged him tight.  She used all her strength and held him to her body.  The despair he revealed had been more than she imagined.  Visceral, it seemed to swallow him whole.

And it wasn’t fair.  Vic deserved a life filled with the love and joy only a family could bring.  Comfort and security, not nightmares and regret.

She rocked him gently and counted the blessings in her own life.  Her role as the oldest of six had been trying, to be sure, but ultimately she had the luxury of riding out the highs and lows, of wading through the ebb and flow of life, of family.

Vic didn’t. Anna’s drowning had been a tsunami.  A deadly, tumultuous tumble of circumstance that forever submerged his family and their hearts.  Sam rubbed her cheek back and forth over the warm fuzz of his hair.  Today he had taken a step closer.  More than relaying the facts, he gave her a peek into his heart.

It was a difficult step.  A tenuous step.  And one he wouldn’t regret.  She’d make sure.

“I couldn’t save her,” he whispered.  “I tried but—”

“Shhh...” she mouthed into his hair, savoring the connection; the familiar scent, the familiar man.

“She needed me, and I let her down.”

“
Don’t say that—
you
did everything you could.”

“It wasn’t enough.  I couldn’t save her and she died...because of me.”

“Stop,” Sam ordered at once and squeezed his body with intentional force. “I don’t ever want to hear those words again. You were a teenager.”  Sam’s heart reeled at the unfairness.  “A boy, for God’s sake!”

He pressed his face into her shoulder, and rolled it back forth.  No.  “You did everything you possibly could.”

But he refused to listen.

Sam knew guilt was a bear.  It was a nasty poison and left unchecked, could kill from the inside out.  She kissed Vic’s head and murmured, “No one could have saved her, Vic.  No one.”

Vic slid his arms around Sam and tightened his grip.  One she matched.  Sam carved her determination in stone-cold resolve.  Scaliano would pay.  For his part in the Perry case and fifteen years ago at the hotel.  One way or another he would rot in jail, where he belonged.  She now understood all too well the drive behind Vic’s desire to punish.  It made perfect sense.  Knowing Vic as she did, she would have wondered if he didn’t go after the man with a sword in his hand and blood in his eyes.