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“Why did you bring me to the jungle?”
He lets out a sarcastic laugh. “You aren’t in the jungle, Gabriella. More like a forest.” He stops moving and levels his cold ice-blue eyes on mine. They harden looking at me.
I swallow hard at his hatred. “My name is not Gabriella.”
“It was.” A ball of anger knots in my belly, and I want to spit at him. “You’ve grown into a beautiful woman. You look just like her.” Her? His eyes roam down my body, making me shudder. “She wasn’t my type, neither are you.”
“Who do you think I am?”
He checks his watch before perching on a barstool across the room as if he’s determined he has time before the monster appears. His fingers clutch the gun as he wistfully stares past me. A blanket of restless unease covers him from head to toe. “Who are you,” he responds, not as a question but more of a statement. “You are the one person who can destroy me.” He waves his gun. “I might as well put this up to my head and pull the trigger.”
“Why don’t you,” I dare him. His eyes flash to mine.
“Because I’m going to make the man who put this in motion, suffer, first.”
“Tobias Paul?” I take a guess.
He nods. “So, you know him?”
“I don’t.”
His lips twist as he studies me. I recognize that look well. My dad would do it when he was trying to figure out if I was lying. More often than not, he was correct, so Richard should be able to see the same thing. I’m not lying. “Where are you from? And who raised you?”
I answer to prove he has mistaken me for the wrong person. “I’m from Tahiti. And my father, Rudy Foley, raised me.”
“And your mother?”
I stuff my feet underneath me, uncomfortable talking about my mom to a stranger. “She left me when I was a baby. She didn’t prefer a simple island life.” I hear my dad’s voice as I say those words. His words. I don’t have any idea if that is really why she left. It’s just what he always told me. I sigh.
Stop second-guessing your dad.
I love my dad. He has always been there for me. And how do I repay him? Leave him when he’s sick. Now, I might never see him again. Tears pool and I blink them away.
Stay focused, Aspen.
“Here’s the thing. Rudy Foley and Rose Burnet don’t exist.” I glare at the man who’s obviously trying to get me to tell him something different. But I can’t. Those are my parents. I can’t explain why they can’t locate them in their system. He raises a brow. “You really didn’t know they weren’t your parents, did you?”
Yes, they are! “Why are you doing this to me? Who are my parents then?” I cry out, my emotions breaking through my tough facade.
“That will be answered in due time.”
He has to be lying. He can’t even answer my questions. “How can I destroy you if I don’t know who you are?”
“Because you’re alive.”
I wonder for how long, though. “If you take me to the airport, I’ll take a flight back to Tahiti tonight. I’ll leave here and never return.”
He draws in a quick breath and releases it. “It’s too late for that.”
I drop my head in silent resolve. It’s time to escape. All those years my father taught me self-defense and martial arts, I never imagined I would need it. I just want to go home.
Although, there’s one question that’s been nagging me and I'd like an answer before I fight for my life. I lift my head and pin my stare on the man.
“Qui est Tobias?” Not until the question slips off my tongue do I catch that I asked in French. I open my mouth to repeat the question in English, but he answers before I can get the words out.
“He’s a ghost. The military trained him to kill, and when he got out, he became a contract killer. Dangerous doesn’t begin to describe him. The people that usually meet him are already dead.”
The knot of fear in my throat strangles my words. This is who he’s waiting for? “Why… why would he come here?”
