Chapter 28
Alexei Estate, north of Moscow, Russia
-
"I want you to get help."
Alex stared at him. "I don't understand."
His usually gentle features were harsh. Perturbed.
"Yesterday. You don't remember yesterday, do you?"
Alex nodded without fully understanding. Of course she remembered yesterday. It was only 24 hours ago. Why wouldn't she?
Didn't she?
"I…"
"You insisted you were Anna."
She shook her head, widening her eyes in denial. He was joking. Had to be.
"No, I didn't." She laughed. It was ludicrous. "Why in the world would I?"
He sat down next to her, putting a tender hand on her shoulder. "You insisted your name was Anna. You said you couldn't lecture at the University because you had no idea what to say. You said you were a spy, not a doctor."
"No…that's not true." Why would he say that? "Dimitri, why are you saying these things?"
"There are periods of time, when you're not yourself. You say things…and do things. Then you don't remember."
"No." It wasn't funny anymore. It was a lie.
"I want you to see a psychiatrist."
"No…I won't. Because this… this isn't true."
He looked at her. First with concern, then with something she'd never seen in his eyes before. Pity. Repulsion.
"I fell in love with your mind, Alex…and now."
"I'm not losing my mind…Dimitri. I love you. I would never…" He'd always been the only one who knew. Who understood and loved her anyway.
Seeing a shrink would mean he was right. That he was saying the truth. And she knew he wasn't.
"I won't…" she repeated. Scared.
He backed away from her. "If you won't, I don't know how we can survive. You're not the woman I fell in love with."
She was crying now. What he was saying still made no sense. But now it hurt.
"Darling, it's me. Alex…"
"No. Not anymore."
She wanted to throw her arms around him. She couldn't remember when she last felt such an urgent need to hold him.
He brushed them off, making his way out of the room.
"Dimitri, don't go please…"
"I'll come back when you seek help. When you admit that you've lost your mind."
Tears fell down her cheek. "No…"
She needed him. God, how was it possible to need him so much?
The door slammed shut. The room darkened and the walls started closing in on her.
He was gone.
Charlotte stood in his place, shaking her head sadly.
"Oh Sasha, you didn't think it would last, did you?"
How did her mother get here?
"He loves me, Mum."
"No. He loved the woman he thought you were." Her mother moved to comfort her. "The brilliant doctor, not the lost, pathetic creature you really are."
"He knew…" Alex started. "He always knew and it didn't stop him from loving me."
"He thought you were cured, but you and I both know better. You'll never really be fine, will you Sasha?"
"Go away!"
"You were always weak. Confused. A man like Dimitri Marick couldn't survive with a woman like that. Married to a little girl who doesn't even know who she is?" Charlotte smiled, holding out her hand. "You poor thing…come back home to me."
The thought was unfathomable. "No!"
"Anna, let me help you…"
"Stop it! My name is Alex!"
"Anna?"
"No!"
Why wouldn't they stop calling her that?
Charlotte had disappeared. The room no longer threatened to close in on her. To the contrary, the huge four-poster bed dwarfed her like an insect inside a giant flytrap.
"Anna?"
Alex groaned, shaking off the last remnants of the nightmare.
"Please stop calling me tha…"
She stopped herself in mid-sentence. The woman who stood in front of her now wasn't Charlotte. It was Olga, the blonde housekeeper.
"Are you alright?" she asked, concerned. "I will ask him to come to you."
Alex pushed herself off the bed, discovering that she was fully dressed.
"No…don't," she told Olga. "Please…don't tell Faison to come here."
"You are not well."
"I just had a bad dream, that's all." Alex mustered a lopsided smile. "Don't make it worse by bringing him here."
Olga gave her an oddly compassionate look. "If that is your wish, Anna." She gestured towards a food-laden tray. "I bring you breakfast. Cesar told me you it is important that you eat this morning. He wants you to go with him. On the horses."
Alex nodded. Anything to get Olga to leave.
"I will. Thank you."
The blonde woman left the room without looking back, closing the door behind her.
'Great,' Alex thought. 'You might not bring him here, but you will tell him what you saw.'
Alex clasped her hands together in an effort to stop them from shaking and as she moved across the room she caught a reflection of herself in the antique mirror.
Her hair was a mess, and the clothes she'd worn yesterday to explore the estate were rumpled and dirty. Her mind drifted back to yesterday afternoon, after Faison had seen her watching the chocolate coloured stallion. She remembered the unease she couldn't shake, even after he'd left her alone.
After that encounter she'd started walking, around the boundary of the estate. Along a barbed wire fence that couldn't possibly run forever.
Taking along only a flashlight and a bottle of water, Alex had walked for hours, along the fence. It made her aware of how unfathomably large Faison's property was. Once she left the clearing near the estate, the fence ran through forested areas, along a fast flowing stream and then just as she thought the forest would never end she found another grassy clearing. Towering poplar, spruce and birch trees suddenly gave way to wide open space flooded with sunlight.
'I must have walked at least fifteen… twenty kilometres,' she thought back, as her aching muscles reminded her this morning that. 'And even so, I didn't circumvent the property…'
Long after her water bottle had emptied, a thick heavy darkness had blanketed everything in sight and she had to turn on the flashlight just to see her hands in front of her face.
Alex didn't fear the darkness or the occasional rustling sounds that came from the forest. 'Neither would Anna,' she thought, remembering the isolated log cabin in northern Ontario where she had first met her sister.
In fact, the only sound that did frighten her was that of approaching hoof beats in the darkness, followed by a light that was stronger and brighter than that of her flashlight.
Three horses had surrounded her. Faison and two other men she had never seen before. 'Security guards,' she'd speculated.
"You were starting to worry me," he had told her, shining the flashlight directly at her. Blinding her. "I expected you to try and find a way out, but I thought you were smarter than to try it in the middle of the night."
"Maybe you're overestimating me," she'd shot back.
Faison hadn't bothered to dismount his horse, holding out a hand to her instead. "It's a long way to the nearest settlement," he told her. "Even if you could get out."
She had glared at him.
He continued holding out his arm. "It's going to get cold overnight." He had looked at her as one would have an errant child. "You're not dressed for it. And I see you didn't bother to take along any supplies."
'I didn't think I was exploring the world's largest estate,' she had thought glumly. Who could have fathomed the sheer immensity of Alexei estate?
Faison was right. She was cold, not to mention hungry and thirsty. And exhausted.
"If you don't want a ride back with me, we can stay here all night. You, me, and my two guards, Sergei and Piotr," he had offered, with a trace of a smile. "I brought you a jacket and sleeping bag in case you decided to play that game."
She had hated the mild look of amusement on his face. At least at the estate there was a good chance he would stay out of her immediate line of vision.
Reluctantly, Alex held out her arm and allowed him to pull her up onto the stallion.
Although the darkness slowed them down, Faison rode with surprising speed, commanding the horse's every movement rather than trusting its instincts. Technically he was a flawless rider, but he rode the horse as though it was a machine incapable of thought.
'Dimitri would say you try too hard,' she'd thought, imagining how unimpressed her husband would have been with Faison's riding skills.
It had been her last thought before they returned to the estate and she staggered tiredly to her room, too exhausted to do anything but quench her thirst with the large jug of water that stood on her bedside table. Her resolution to avoid sleep was crushed only seconds after she sank into the four-poster bed.
'If you sleep, you dream…' she thought morbidly, bringing her mind back to the present. 'It's inevitable here.'
Her hands were still shaking when she caught another glimpse of herself in the mirror, unnerved by the image that stared back her.
It was like looking at Anna. The bold layers and the thick blonde highlights of her new haircut still felt foreign to her. Seeing it made her want to slip out of her skin to shake off the invisible weight pressing down on her.
'A shower,' she thought, throwing off the dirty clothes she wore. Faison had brought her clothes which he'd purchased himself at a high end Moscow department store. Alex shuddered when she pictured him picking out the undergarments she wore.
Tears came out of nowhere, as she thought of Dimitri.
Back at Vadsel, she'd sometimes roll her eyes at his inability to keep his hands off her.
'A little restraint would go a long way,' she'd tease. 'I'm British you know, I'm not sure I can handle all this affection.'
As expected, he'd laughed. 'I'll keep my hands off you, the day you make it easy for me.'
'What I wouldn't give for your touch right now…I miss you so much, darling. I miss your confidence in me.'
Naked, she stepped into the shower, brushing back salty tears as they mingled with the scalding hot water that cascaded over her.
'Anna wouldn't cry,' she reminded herself, hating that she still couldn't stop her hands from shaking. Nor push the image of Charlotte taunting her, from her mind.
"He loved the woman he thought you were. The brilliant doctor. Not the lost, pathetic creature you really are."
'Anna wouldn't long for her husband and wait for him to rescue her.'
"Anna was always the strong one. The one I wish I had instead of you."
'Me too,' Alex thought, hating that the water couldn't wash her thoughts away. 'I wish you had taken the one you wanted, Mum. Almost as much as I wish I was her.'
'Anna wouldn't wait to be rescued,' Alex realized, closing her eyes, letting the water sting her face. 'Anna would find her own way out.'
Epsom, England
-
Andrei looked at his adoptive father in disbelief.
"This gangster…he kidnapped Alex, because he thinks she is Anna?"
Dimitri nodded. "It sounds crazy, I know."
"You say Alex, she did this for her sister? She knows what can happen to her?"
"She was aware of the risks, yes. But she also thought that the men who were watching her would protect her."
"And now? You do not know where she is?"
This time he shook his head. "No…I don't know." Dimitri sat on the edge of Andrei's cot-sized bed, pushing his flat palm down on the thin mattress, while Andrei remained in his desk chair, straddling it backwards, his arms wrapped around the chair's back so he could face Dimitri without turning the chair.
Andrei had hung on to every word he said, trying to understand that which Dimitri couldn't explain to himself, much less to someone else.
"But the police is going to find her?"
"No police," Dimitri explained. "If the police knows, the media will find out as well. Exposing her as Alex could be very dangerous for her."
"But if the police do not help you, how can you find her?"
"Anna and some of her associates are working on it and I've hired a handful of private investigators. I will find her, Andrei…"
Andrei's face was paler now than when Dimitri entered the room, betraying how deeply the news affected him.
He jumped up from the chair. "I will help you too."
Dimitri stood up alongside him, raising his hand and gently pushing him back with it, "You can't help, Andrei."
"Of course I will help you! I will go with you when you go!"
"No. You're going to stay right here at Epsom. You're going to go through that math book and write that test tomorrow." Andrei was already failing his classes even though he knew he had to pass them to stay enrolled and train with Tempus Fugit. Dimitri knew he could use his clout to keep Andrei from getting expelled, but he didn't plan to.
On top of it, having Andrei in Paris would only complicate matters with Sean, Dan and Anna.
"Are you crazy?" Andrei demanded, incredulously.
"There's nothing you can do, if you come to Paris with me."
"Of course there is! I can help you…if I come with you it means you have two more hands and two more eyes that maybe can find Alex!"
Dimitri frowned, steeling himself. "You're not coming with me and that's final. You're going to stay here and try twice as hard to pass that damn math test, is that understood?"
"You are really crazy," he said angrily, tapping a finger against his temple to prove the point. Andrei pointed to the math book. "How can I try to understand this when Alex is missing? How can you say I cannot help you?"
"Because you can't."
"I'm coming…I am not staying here!"
This time Dimitri gave him a firmer push back down into his chair. "If you leave this dorm with me today, you're not coming back. Do you understand that?"
Andrei narrowed his brows, uncomprehending, pushing Dimitri's hand off his chest.
Dimitri took a deep breath. He still wasn't used to this. Insolence. Hot-tempered stubbornness. 'Parenting,' he thought, correcting himself. He still wasn't used to parenting.
What he did know was that a young man's fears couldn't be given free reign. He needed discipline. Structure. Dimitri also knew that strength came from staying on one's path, even when circumstances made it next to impossible. It was what his father would have forced him to do.
His father wouldn't have let him indulge his fears. If he had, Vadsel wouldn't have survived four decades of Communist rule.
"You cannot stop me…" Andrei threatened, taking a jacket out of his closet.
Dimitri gave him an angry glare. "You don't think I'm serious, do you? If you follow me to Paris…I'll take it to mean that you don't give a damn about racing. And I will find someone else to race Tempus Fugit because that horse needs someone who's committed to him."
"I am committed to him!" Andrei yelled back. "Alex gave him to me! You cannot take him away from me!"
For the first time since he met him in that chaotic orphanage, Dimitri saw him cry.
"Then stay here and prove it," he said harshly. "Don't come running after me like a scared little boy. I thought you were a man now!"
"I want to help you…" Andrei said between sobs. "Please let me help you..."
Dimitri bit his lip. He might never have said as much, but Andrei loved Alex. Every reaction today was proof.
Dimitri could envision Alex furious at him for what he was about to do.
"What the hell has gotten into you?" he could hear her angry voice in his head. "He's upset. He needs love. Not this cold, military-style discipline."
Alex would have taken him in her arms and held him. It was why Andrei loved her.
But Dimitri wasn't Alex.
"I said I don't need your help," he repeatedly coldly.
"Please…"
"If you want to race horses, you're going to stay here and pass that test. And look after Tempus."
Andrei glared at him, defeated at last. "I hate you."
The words stung him and Dimitri took another deep breath. Strength wasn't built on following whims. Andrei might not know that yet, but he would learn.
"I'll call you every day to let you know whether we've made any progress."
"You better!" Andrei threatened.
The comeback almost made Dimitri smile. You are such an Andrassy.
"I love you," he said softly, hoping that somehow, in spite of it all, Andrei would know it was the truth.
To return the sentiment, Andrei threw a textbook at him.
"If I cannot help you…then get lost!"
When he closed the door behind him, Dimitri heard Andrei's angry voice from the other side.
"And you better find her!"
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo
-
Sandrine scrunched the paper into an angry ball and threw it into a wastepaper basket.
"You think you are so clever," she fumed. "You forget that you were my teacher and that I was a good student."
From beneath her apartment she heard the sound of voices yelling in a mixture of French and Lingala. Something about a late payment for two bags of rice and flour.
Unlike Robert who lived in a bungalow provided by the WSB, in a gated neighbourhood, just outside the city's financial centre, Sandrine lived in an apartment above a store, in the congested middle of one Kinshasa's largest markets. Smells of fruits and spices permeated the air.
The apartment's walls were so flimsy; there were days when Sandrine wondered if they would still be here, standing, at the end of her workday. Yet in spite of her father's disapproval, she loved it. There was life here. Vibrant, chaotic and crazy life. It was Africa in a nutshell.
She got up from her computer to open the apartment's window and yell at the shopkeeper below.
"Tais-toi, Mustafa!"
'How am I supposed to concentrate like this?' she thought, irritated, forcing her glance back onto the computer screen, to the page she had just printed. Her computer sat on an olivewood table, next to a window that overlooked the tarps of the market stalls below.
A steady din of human voices, vehicle noise and animals yelping filtered into her room and were she not used to it, it would have made it nearly impossible to focus on her task at hand.
As Sampson suggested, she'd run a trace on Robert's credit card.
At first it seemed almost too simple. Sandrine saw three tickets purchased on a South African Airlines flight to Johannesburg.
'He went to South Africa…' she concluded.
Then she spent a good portion of her day sitting in the endless traffic on the road to Kinshasa's Nidjili Airport, knowing she would only be able to obtain a passenger flight manifest in person. Only to discover, once there, that it was a ruse. That the three tickets purchased for that flight had gone unused.
'You knew I would try and find you,' she thought, eyeing a five thousand dollar cash withdrawal against the card. 'So you bought another three tickets…in cash.'
Unlike most other parts of the world, hard cash was still widely used in Africa and it was common practice to purchasing airline tickets with cash.
"It means there's no way I can find out where you are…unless I go over every flight manifest that left Ndjili airport last week. And that would take forever…if you used your real name," she mumbled in frustration, only to discover two other large cash withdrawals on the credit card.
'You're going to do everything with cash. Untraceable cash,' she thought. 'I should have known you wouldn't make this easy, Robert.'
She had to find him.
A sense of dread and urgency had filled her since yesterday. 'It's been too long…' she thought. 'He should have been back by now.'
Sandrine stared out the open window at the market below.
"There has to be another way to find you…"
What would Robert do?
Her mind drifted back to the days spent in the unforgiving jungle, to the frustration of trying to track diamond smugglers for whom the terrain provided the prefect cover.
'Don't give up so easily,' he had scolded her then. 'Just because the tracks on the ground are gone doesn't mean they've left no traces. Look up, Sandi. Look up and look around. Leaves, branches, everything that's been affected by human presence has the potential to leave a clue. Everything.'
'Think, Sandrine…think.'
When the answer suddenly came to her it was so obvious, she wanted to hit herself for not thinking of it earlier.
She thought of the photos Robert had shown her when they were seated on a pier overlooking Lake Victoria. 'Anna works for Interpol…she lives with her daughter in Paris…someone else must be looking for her. Someone who might have a far better lead than I do.'
A smile crossed her lips, 'Instead of trying to find you, I should try and find others looking for Anna.'
'You may have made a deal to stay away from your wife and daughter.'
Sandrine's smile grew. 'But I didn't.'
Near Alexei Estate, Russia
-
Robert Scorpio was hidden behind a bush, less than a hundred metres from the fence and gate he was studying.
He raised his binoculars towards the property for the umpteenth time, frowning when he saw the sun above him. Another half an hour or so, and the sun would position itself to reflect the light of his binoculars. In other words, in less than a half hour he would take a lengthy break and return at dusk.
Robert had been here since sunrise. For the fifth day in a row.
The first two days he'd surveyed the estate by walking around it. Literally.
'For two days I walked next to that,' he thought, in disgust, eyeing the fence that was now etched in his memory. Sellers would label it as a high-security, non-electric, anti-scale fence. It was most likely made of various collapse resistant steel components.
Its top consisted of interlocking, rotating spikes with razor sharp edges. It wasn't particularly high, perhaps seven feet, yet its appearance created an instant psychological barrier. It looked malevolent. Insurmountable.
'Exactly what the builders intended,' Robert thought. 'To deter people before they get any ideas.'
Given Cesar Faison's love of technology, Robert was surprised at simplicity of the fence. It was barbaric in an almost medieval way.
'Then again, it's not really meant to keep intruders out. It's meant to keep prisoners in."
'Not prisoners. Anna,' he corrected himself.
'It must have cost a fortune,' he thought after walking around its entire stretch. 'Miles and miles of steel-component, anti-scale fence. Barbed wire gone upscale.'
Scaling it wouldn't be that much of an obstacle. It was what would happen after he was inside, that would present the real challenge.
The plan was simple. Enter the estate. Kill Faison and free Anna.
Yet cutting off the head of the monster meant facing its angry limbs first.
With closer examination, Robert discovered that the fence was not nearly as archaic as he had at first imagined. Infrared cameras were positioned directly below the spikes, at two hundred metre intervals, forcing him to keep a visible distance from while surveying it.
Several times he spotted armed men patrolling alongside it, either with dogs or on horseback.
Five days of observation had led him to deduct that there were twelve guards working in teams of four, in eight-hour shifts. It wasn't nearly enough men protect an estate this size, but it meant that once inside, if anything went wrong, all it took was a phone call or an alarm button, for Faison to summon at least four men, instantly outnumbering him and his two agents.
Robert pulled a pocket size camera out of his pocket to take yet another photo of the estate's main entrance.
His heart nearly stopped when he saw a door open and a woman exit.
Anna?
He'd seen her yesterday for the first time. She stood some distance from him, leaning against a corral fence, observing one of Faison's horses, and it had taken every ounce of willpower not to run towards her.
Anna.
For the first time in ten years, she was close enough for him to see her. He wanted to yell out to her and let her know he was here.
Alive.
When all this is over, Anna, will you forgive me for the decision I made a decade ago? Will you understand?
Robert felt relief when he saw that the woman leaving to walk to the chicken pen wasn't Anna but a heavy set, blonde woman.
'One of Faison's household staff,' he decided, seeing the apron she wore.
He glanced at his Breitling watch. 12:30. Time to get out of the sun's glare and take a break.
Taking a break meant walking back to the camp he'd set up an hour's walk from the estate. It was a fully collapsible camp, hidden in a bush near the same creek that ran through the grounds.
Given that the nearest settlement was miles away and that only one road lead to the estate, camping within walking distance of the estate was the only option for what he needed to do.
At the days' end, Robert lit a fire, put up his tent and pulled out a kettle to boil water from the creek, grateful for the mild temperature outside. Although he was getting impatient to return to the basic comforts of modern life, he knew he had enough vacuum-packed food to last him another week.
'I won't be here another week,' he thought. Four or five days at the most.
Robert had ordered the two WSB agents who accompanied him to Russia, to remain in Moscow and wait for his orders while obtaining the equipment he needed.
Staking out the estate alone was safer for all of them. Once he had a concise plan of action, Robert would summon them to provide him with the back-up he needed.
They would enter the estate at night, halfway between two infra-red camera locations and with the aid of a metal, wire-mesh blanket to cover fence's spikes, scaling it would be a minor effort. Once inside, the two guards near the entry gate would be immobilized first.
It would leave two other guards and Cesar Faison, unaccounted for.
'But it would also mean almost even odds,' Robert reminded himself. 'And don't count out Anna...'
His two agents in Moscow had already obtained a floor plan of the estate from the Imperial archives and although he could make his guesses, there was no way of pinpointing Cesar Faison or Anna to a particular room.
If he did find Anna first, he'd arm her and that would give him an instant ally. Or would it? Is there a chance she would hesitate to kill Faison?
After everything Faison had done to both of them, Robert doubted it, even as the thought plagued him. He had to take into account that Anna wasn't the same person she was a decade ago.
'It doesn't matter,' he thought, running a hand through his salt and pepper stubble, as he started the walk away from the estate. 'I will kill him. Whether Anna agrees or not.'
It was why he had to do this alone, without the backing of any law enforcement of intelligence agency. This time there would be no prison terms from which Cesar Faison would be able to buy his freedom within months. Death was the only thing that would finally end it all. Faison had sealed his fate when he broke their deal.
Robert turned around and took a final glance at the estate behind him. 'In less than a week, it will all be over.'
In his mind, he saw Anna again, leaning against the white-washed fence on the grounds, and this time he stopped trying to push the image from his thoughts.
'Soon…' he thought, relishing in the notion of holding her in his arms again. After years of telling himself otherwise, he knew he wanted it so badly it was a physical ache.
"What then, luv?" he asked her aloud. "How do I leave you again after that? After you've been back in my arms?"
Alexei Estate, Russia
-
Cesar Faison was out of breath when he dismounted his horse. He led the animal to the creek. It was a beautiful spot, where the dense forest met the grassy expanse of the Russian steppe, separated by a clear blue ribbon of trickling water.
"You've become an excellent rider," he told her, rolling up the sleeves on his white shirt.
Alex ignored him, leading her own white stallion to the water, after dismounting. She'd pushed the horse harder than he was used to and was pleasantly surprised at the horse's will to keep going.
"Have you spent time with your sister?"
Alex raised an eyebrow, patting the horse's neck, thanking it for its effort.
"Your sister and her husband breed thoroughbred horses in Hungary, don't they?" Faison asked her, brushing dust off his stirrups. "Andrassy thoroughbreds are quite well known on European racetracks."
Alex nodded. "She does."
"The horse you're riding is one of only two Lipizaner horses at Alexei Estate. His name is Schneefloeckli."
"It's because of his colour," Faison explained, catching her puzzled look. "It means 'little snow flake' in Swiss-German dialect. It's a mouthful, isn't it? I kept the name because I bought him from a Swiss breeder. Schneefloeckli used to run steeplechase in Germany and Austria. Not exactly an Andrassy thoroughbred, but a very nice animal nonetheless. If you like him, he's yours."
"I should be impressed? Your little snowflake tires too easily."
"I take it your sister's gone riding with you," he observed, still catching his breath. "You ride like you've been practising."
Alex shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe I look better on horseback than you only because you're out of shape."
Faison sighed. "Just for one afternoon, can you resist the sarcasm?"
"If you let me go, you could spare yourself from it altogether." Alex turned towards him, realizing she too was breathless from the ride. They must have neared the end of the estate's borders. It couldn't possibly be much bigger.
Faison sat down near the soft banks of the creek, meeting her eyes. "I could let you go, couldn't I?"
Alex said nothing, waiting for the catch.
"But then I could also rape you at gun point. In my home court, I could so easily enforce my will on you, Anna."
Alex tensed. "I would claw your eyes out first."
Faison smiled, "If we fought, you would lose. You know that, Anna. I have no doubts you would put up a good fight, but you would lose. What I'm trying to tell you is that I won't. I couldn't, because I could never hurt you. But you know that too."
"It hurts me to be away from my daughters."
His smile faded. "I've already told you, you can bring them here any time you wish. It's your refusal that's keeping you away from your daughters."
Classic delusional reasoning, Alex marvelled. Psychology 101.
'You're making me hurt you. It's your fault I'm doing this.'
Faison gestured towards the sandy space next to him, "Please…come and sit down with me."
"You said you wanted to show me something…" Alex started, not moving away from her horse. She could easily jump on the animal now and get away from him. Although her horse was tired, so was Faison's. And she was the better rider. She'd be able to push her animal with far greater ease than he would.
'And then what?' she asked herself. 'The estate is surrounded by an elaborate security fence, not unfeasibly high but impossible to scale.' A thought crossed her mind, 'Unless…'
"Please. Sit down," she heard him repeat.
"Fine," she complied. Some battles weren't worth the effort. Maybe it was time she became more selective in deciding which ones were.
"Tell me about David."
"David?" Faison's topic of conversation took her by surprise. "Why would you want to talk about David?"
"I'm very curious what made you choose to marry him, after Robert, that is."
'Now that's a good question,' Alex thought, thinking of the countless times she wanted to ask her sister the same. 'Of all the difficulties involved in being Anna. Justifying a marriage to David Hayward just might top the list.'
Faison saw her silence as an invitation to answer the question himself.
"When I heard about your marriage to the cardiologist, I was fascinated, of course. I wanted to learn more about the man. Imagine my surprise when I saw how very similar we are, your husband and I."
"Ex-husband," Alex corrected him. "And for what it's worth, he's nothing like you."
"David Hayward is a rule breaker," Faison explained. "He's a brilliant physician who sees no harm in using any means necessary to further his genius. His research methods are highly unconventional and he barely manages to stay two steps above the law…something you became painfully aware of once you were Chief of Police."
"Yes. It made me realize I made a mistake in marrying him," Alex finished for him.
"Yet you had a child with him." Faison countered, smiling sadly. "Why do you keep doing that to yourself, Anna?"
Alex looked at him uncomprehending. "Doing what?"
"Why do you keep telling yourself that you're something you're not?"
"What are you talking about?"
"You're like me, Anna. A rule breaker. A double agent, a thief, a liar…all those things aren't mistakes of the past; they are the very essence of you. They are the things that make you what you are today. Which is the most incredible woman I've ever met."
"You're wrong."
"You marry someone like Robert Scorpio and tell yourself that the likes of you and him are cut from the same cloth, when that couldn't be further from the truth. You and I are different than him. We always have been. It's why you were drawn to me from the very beginning. Why you seek out the likes of David Hayward and Duke Lavery. Paltry imitations of me. Because in life we are always drawn to those who mirror our own souls."
Alex wanted to laugh. "You're insane…"
"Stop it," he said, turning towards her, with a trace of anger. "Stop fighting it. Stop fighting who you are!" He pulled out a water bottle from the riding satchel he wore, offering it to her, disappointed that she refused. "You came to me when you were young…because you saw yourself in me."
"No…I was young, foolish and reckless. It was nothing more than that."
"You saw yourself in me, and then one day you looked in the mirror and no longer liked what you saw, because some self-righteous bastard by the name of Robert Scorpio convinced you that you needed to change into someone different, in order to be good enough for him."
His words shook her and for the first time, Alex wondered just how well she really knew her sister. She knew Anna had flirted with the DVX when she was young and that she'd briefly been a double agent. Alex also knew that Anna had crossed the boundaries of the law more than once. 'But how deep is your link to this man really, little sis? How much else is there that haven't you told me?'
Dimitri had often hinted that there were parts of her sister she didn't know and didn't understand, but Alex had always shrugged him off. Defended her little sister.
'Anna made mistakes when she was young…like we all did. But she doesn't have this dark side you go on about. After all, Robert forgave her, married her and she's Chief of Police in Pine Valley now. Her past is long behind her…'
Or was it?
"I've always loved you exactly the way you were, Anna," Faison said softly. "Because I'm the only one who ever truly understood all that you are."
Alex stood back up, distancing herself from him. "You think you know me…but you're wrong."
Faison stood up beside her and grabbed her arm. "Stop running from yourself, Anna!"
"Let go of me!" Alex demanded.
"We could be so good together," he started. "The two of us would be unstoppable." His grey-brown hair had loosened from its ponytail and was blowing across his creased face in the wind.
"I said 'let go' !"
Faison released his grip, "Anna…I told you I would never force you to do anything against your will. I always keep my word. There's no need for violence, because I know you will come to me willingly…"
Alex seethed. "Right…just like I came here willingly."
Faison smiled, "You're the one who came to meet me on that bridge. Even though deep down inside you knew that I would never hurt your little girl…"
Doubts washed over Alex again.
Would Anna have known that and not given in to his blackmail? Would Anna have known he was bluffing? Did she know Cesar Faison that well?
"One day, you'll come to my bedroom the same way."
Alex shuddered at the thought.
As if reading her mind, Faison smirked. "Don't get any ideas my dear, I'm not a fool. As much as I want to trust you and give you the freedom you want so much…don't be led to believe that having sex with me will make me trust you. Intimacy is not the same as sex." He spoke the words like a warning. "I've learned not to mistake seduction for passion."
'As if I would attempt to seduce you,' Alex thought morbidly.
Stealthily, Faison inched closer to her, and in one quick movement he grabbed hold of her neck and deftly immobilized her hands by clasping them both together into his one free hand.
For the first time, Alex caught a hint of the sheer animal strength in his sinewy limbs.
Before she could defend herself, his lips were on hers, hungrily, as though wanting to swallow them whole. It was a brutal, sadistic kiss.
Alex coughed, wiping her lips with the back of her hand.
"Take that kiss for instance," Faison said icily. "There was nothing intimate about that."
"Don't ever do that again!" Alex raised an angry hand to strike out at him, only to have him push down her attempt.
"I won't," he assured her. "Because the next time we kiss, it will be because you want it as much as I do."
Alex wrapped her arms around herself, fighting the urge to cry.
'Anna wouldn't wait to be rescued. Anna would find her own way out.'
"I'll never…" Alex started, testing her voice.
Faison sat back down, next to the fast flowing creek. Birch and oak branches rustled above them, an ignorant oasis of calm, blissfully unaware of the tension below.
"You will," he told her with cold certainty. "I have all the time in the world, Anna. Eventually you will stop fighting yourself. You will stop fighting your needs."
Alex stared at him, seated next to the bubbling, cool water of the creek, widening her eyes as he suddenly morphed into Charlotte. Holding out her hand to her.
'Come here, Sasha. Stop fighting me.'
Alex gasped at the trick image.
Faison held out his hand to her, "Come sit down with me…I told you there's something I want to show you."
' Sasha. Let me help you. Stop fighting yourself.'
"Stop it!" Alex closed her eyes, shaking the image from her mind.
"Anna, what's wrong?"
Alex stared at him at watched the image change once more. Into Dimitri. His familiar face sad. Disappointed.
Repulsed.
'I don't know you anymore, Alex. You're not the woman I fell in love with.'
"Yes, I am…" her protest was a whisper.
Then it was Cesar Faison who stood next to her again. "Anna?"
She felt an unexpected sense of relief as the other two images disappeared. Charlotte. Dimitri. Gone and replaced again by Cesar Faison.
His grey-brown hair tossed about in the breeze, its colour a sharp contrast to the crisp white riding shirt he wore.
Gone was the smugness in his face, and he now looked at her with worry.
"Anna? Did you see something?"
Alex shook her head. "No…"
She had to get away from him. Away from here.
Or else she would lose her mind.
Again.
She stumbled backwards on the soft, grassy earth, almost tripping over an exposed tree root before turning her back to Faison and running towards the white Lipizaner.
Before Faison could grab her, she was in the saddle, clasping the reins in one hand as she took off.
"Anna!"
Alex heard him mounting his brown mare in order to follow her.
"Come on, little snowflake," Alex leaned down onto his neck. "Get away from him."
Away from here.
She rode away from the edge of the forest, into the flat, open space of the steppe and as she did she could see the security fence that lined the estate's grounds, marking its boundary. Keeping its occupants inside.
"Faster!" she urged, hearing Faison's horse behind her. Her horse obeyed and she felt the powerful throb of hoof beats beneath her as the stallion lunged forward. It jumped over a rocky outcrop with ease, effortlessly lifting both itself and his rider into the air.
Faison's words suddenly came back to her.
"He used to run steeplechase in Austria and Germany."
Alex eyed the security fence in the distance and pushed the thought from her mind.
'The maximum height of steeplechase obstacles is four feet. That fence must be at least six or seven. It would be impossible…'
"Anna!" She heard his voice in the distance. "Are you crazy? Slow down! You'll kill yourself!"
"I have all the time in the world, Anna."
Tears stung her eyes, cutting down her face only to be wiped away, by the wind-blown strands of her hair.
'If I get beyond that fence, there is no way you'll catch me. If I make it over that fence, I'll stand a chance…'
Alex had no idea what was beyond it. Whether another settlement or a village was nearby or whether it was nothing but an endless expanse of forest, interspersed with occasional grassy openings, like the one she was now riding through.
'It doesn't matter,' she thought. 'I can ride for a long time, walk if need be…'
'If I stay here…I'll lose my mind…and that's not an option.'
A voice echoed in the back of her mind.
If anything happens…forgive me Dimitri.
Alex guided the horse right towards the fence.
Leaning further still into the animal's neck, she sensed the horses hesitation as it neared the fence. Undeterred, Alex steered it towards the metal obstacle.
"You can do this." She was out of breath now, the fence in full view, and when it was too late to turn back she guided the horse into the jump, realizing only then that the fence was higher than she'd estimated.
The animal balked as it made a mad attempt to stop and in a split second of self-preservation, it flung Alex off its back and catapulted her onto the fence like a rag doll.
In that split second Alex realized that the horse knew instinctively what she should have known as well: that a jump like this was impossible.
What Alex did know was how to fall off a horse. She knew precisely how to break a fall in order to land in one uninjured piece.
Yet this was different.
It wasn't the ground she hit. It was the steel spikes of the fence, cutting into her flesh like knives, as the horse careened against it in a thunderously noisy crash. Time stood still before Alex slowly began a downward slide along its metal spokes, hearing a sloshing sound as the spikes ripped through her flesh, reluctantly releasing their iron grip. Finally, thankfully, gravity pulled her to the ground like a falling rock.
'Maybe I'm on the other side of the fence…'
Immediately after hitting the ground, Alex used her arms to pull herself up in a reflex action. It was a futile effort that made them collapse and fold with her weight.
The fence hovered above her and clouded in her vision.
Don't…don't close your eyes…if you're on the other side you can still walk away…
It was her last conscious thought.
Meanwhile, the stallion used every muscle in its body to stop itself from falling and crushing her lifeless body underneath him.
The horse reared its front legs and deftly manoeuvred around her. Once it regained its balance, the horse returned to Alex's side.
Having finally caught up to her, Cesar Faison leaped off his horse and ran to where the exhausted stallion now stood, guarding its unconscious rider.
He knelt down next to Anna, gingerly lifting her upper body off the ground. "Oh...Anna, my love…can you hear me?"
A sticky, warm moisture oozed between his fingers, where they ran though her hair as he cupped her head in his palm. Faison pulled back his hand to see it was now painted in a bright red colour.
Blood.
"Oh God…Anna. "
Panic gripped him. "What have you done?"
