All In (31 page)

“To Denmark? Why?”

“Caro was always special, sort of frail. After . . . the attack . . . she withdrew into her own world. The doctors said she was traumatized, but no one knew what to do with her. My mom heard about a therapist in Denmark who specialized in these types of patients. She was desperate; otherwise she would never have allowed herself to be separated from Caro.” David looked down at the floor. Had he never discussed this with anyone? “Caro moved there. She was only fifteen, but it was good for her. She lived out in the countryside by the sea. It helped her heal.” David fell silent, and Natalia tried to visualize what he was telling her. A small Swedish town, the locals who turned on a family of outsiders.

“My mom never recovered,” David continued softly, and it was as if Natalia was seeing the young man he'd been then, still a teenager but with one foot in the adult world, an outsider, worried about his mother and sister. “We grew apart, the three of us, in different ways. Caro stayed in Denmark. I moved to Stockholm to study. My mom died while I was at the School of Economics.”

“But your mom stayed there? In spite of everything that had happened?”

“Yes, she refused to leave. My mother could be very stubborn.”

Natalia smiled a little at how David had very clearly inherited that stubbornness.

“If you can die of a broken heart, my mom did,” David continued. “And I was no help. We grew apart, and then, one day, she was just gone. I didn't even know she was sick. Pneumonia that she didn't get treatment for in time, so pointless. At the funeral I told everyone that Caro was dead and no one questioned it. Maybe that was wrong, but she was doing so well in Denmark, and it felt safest. It wasn't until the last few years that she started to go out, see people.” He smiled a sad smile. “To be more like other people. There are no signs of her breakdown anymore. But we don't talk about what happened. I can't and she . . . I don't know, actually.”

Natalia's heart was pounding. Somehow she suspected he hadn't told her everything.

“But what was it that happened?” Her question sounded like a whisper in the quiet exhibit room.

“Carolina was raped.” David said it calmly, but she saw the effort it cost him. Natalia felt an icy chill race through her body.

“It was a gruesome rape,” he said, pulling his hand over his face. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. The back of his neck was bare and looked vulnerable. Natalia wove her fingers together in her lap. “Of course all rapes are terrible,” he continued. “But this . . . I thought Caro was going to die. It was awful. And I blamed myself.”

“No, why?”

“Caro had always been a little different, even before.” He looked up. “I should have been home with her. Mom was working, and Caro didn't like to be alone. But I was young and restless, didn't want to sit around home and babysit my sister. So I slipped out. And they came in and . . .” He stopped.

Natalia tried to picture it. A frail fifteen-year-old at home alone. Men who broke in, took her trust, hurt her forever.

“But who were they?”

“Four boys from the school. Caro knew them, and they tricked her to get in. She thought they were well-meaning—Caro always thought the best of everyone. She was incredibly sweet as a teenager, and she was like any fifteen-year-old girl. But they were there to get back at me.”

“At you?”

“I'd gotten into a fight with some of the older students at the school. These four wanted to teach me a lesson.”

That sounded completely insane, like what would happen in a war. Men taking revenge on women and children.

“Natalia, it's hard for me to say this,” David continued. “But Peter was one of the attackers.”

“Peter?” She blinked, still busy digesting what she'd heard. “Peter who?”

David didn't answer. She looked at him. Slowly shook her head when the significance of what he'd said sank in. And she was forced to comprehend the impossible.

Of course. That would explain so much.

But that was sick. David
couldn't
mean . . .

“No,” she whispered.

David watched her steadily. “There's more,” he said.

“More?” How could there be
more
? Whatever she'd been preparing herself for when they'd started talking, this wasn't it.

“Of course a crime like that would be reported. I was completely beside myself; my mom called the police, the school. But it was hushed up. Do you understand? Your father—one of the school's biggest donors—and the headmaster hushed it up, said it was Caro's fault for inviting them in. You know how it goes.”

Natalia nodded, devastated. It happened every day. Girls were raped first and then blamed for it, a double attack. First physical abuse, then shaming.

“Our family received threats, our name was dragged through the mud. You can't believe what people said about us, about Caro. It was awful. And when I tried to report the crime anyway, well . . . you've seen my back. Peter and his buddies did that. Finally my mother begged me to stop.” David shook his head. “I did. For her sake. And I started studying instead, thought that's how I would get back at them, become so powerful that no one could do anything like that to my family ever again.”

Natalia couldn't breathe. Her chest was on fire.

David was destroying her family. Because of something her brother and father had done. It was a vendetta, a feud, real blood vengeance, the kind you only read about.

Nausea washed through her.

“Natalia?”

David's voice was distorted and distant. She couldn't breathe, couldn't sit still. She stood up, clutching her purse until she couldn't feel her fingers.

“I need a minute,” she said weakly.

David had stood up too. “I'm sorry, truly. But I wanted you to know who Caro is. I could tell you thought something else.”

Natalia didn't know what to say. David had spent his youth protecting his mother and sister against violence and threats—from
her
family. He'd devoted his adult life to plotting revenge against her father and brother. Peter had . . . No, that was too much.

“My biggest motivator since then has been securing Caro's future,” he said.

“By getting revenge against everyone who was involved,” she noted, because suddenly everything made sense. David's missile-like trajectory throughout his professional life. How many of the people he'd ruthlessly ruined had been involved in the events at Skogbacka? In the rape and the cover-up? All those articles she'd read about him, all the rumors—they were true. They were part of his plan for revenge.

“The headmaster and the others. You destroyed them financially, one by one, didn't you? You took their companies, tore down their houses, seduced their wives. They're not lies, that's the truth. Those were the men who raped your sister, right?”

“That was about business,” he said.

“That was
revenge
.”

“Does it matter?”

Yes, Natalia thought, it mattered, to her anyway. Maybe not in his world. But for her there was a difference between business and personal acts of vengeance.

“That's going to destroy you as a person,” she said, at the same time wondering if maybe it hadn't already. “Can't you see that?” she pleaded. “They wronged you, and now you're getting your revenge. I can understand the emotions, but David, no good can come from revenge. Do you really think this is what your mother would have wanted for you? For the two of you?”

“You can't know what my mother would have wanted,” he said, leaning his shoulder against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest. “The very idea that you think you know is so arrogant. Natalia, don't you realize how sheltered you are in your blue-blooded bubble? You don't know what life looks like for most people.”

Strangely enough, those words really stung.

She had thought that he
saw
her, saw past all the external stuff, saw how she'd fought her own battle. But she was just some upper-class bimbo to him, narrow-minded and ignorant.

Apparently there were no limits to how dumb and humiliated a person could be.

“We come from totally different backgrounds,” he continued, cocking his head to the side and studying her. “Can you honestly say that you didn't sleep with me because that idea was exciting?” He smiled. “How did you put it yesterday? That you were slumming it a little?”

“I'm sorry about that,” she said quietly. “I shouldn't have said that; it wasn't true. I'm sorry.”

“You haven't said anything about it being your own family who's behind everything,” he said, straightening up. “I get that you're mad at me, but aren't you mad at them? For what they did?”

She bit her lip. “I ...”

“You don't believe me,” he stated. “A part of you thinks I'm lying.”

Natalia looked down. “I don't know what to believe,” she said sincerely.

He had sounded credible, but the story was so dreadful. Could something like that happen? Could her own brother do something so brutal? Could a whole community turn on a defenseless family like that?

But yes, she believed him, she realized. “If it's true, then I was a part of your revenge as well,” she said, and the ground swayed beneath her. Peter had raped Carolina. So David had taken revenge by sleeping with Peter's sister.

“Retaliation for what Peter did,” she added flatly.

It felt so sordid.

David's eyes narrowed, and Natalia shivered.

“Peter and his friends violently raped Carolina,” he said. “They injured her in ways you don't even want to know. You wanted to have sex with me. That is an important difference, wouldn't you say? That you were more than happy to sleep with me.”

She nodded, pulled her fingers through the scarf she was unwrapping from around her neck. “Yes, there's a difference,” she said. “But do you know what I think?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“You're doing this for your own sake. You like taking revenge, you enjoy the power it gives you.” She looked him straight in the eye. “You're using what happened to your sister as an excuse to make money and gain power. I think it gives you satisfaction to manipulate people.”

“I didn't manipulate you into anything,” he said. “And you know that.”

“You shouldn't have contacted me,” she said and swallowed. “Or arranged the tickets, or flirted. You should have left me alone.”

“But I didn't want to leave you alone,” he said, moving closer to her.

She backed away.

“You can convince yourself that I tricked you, if that makes you feel better. But what happened between us, Natalia,” he said in a husky voice, coming a little bit closer still, “you wanted that, just as much as I did.”

He was so close now that he towered over her.

Natalia took another step backward and felt the wall against her back.

“But there can never be anything between us,” she said, her voice starting to break. She cleared her throat. “You knew that from the very beginning. That is a crucial difference, at least to me.”

“Just because there's no future doesn't mean it can't be good now,” he murmured.

She felt sweat breaking out on her scalp. What was he doing?

David raised his hand and caressed her, so incredibly gently, running his thumb over her cheek.

She couldn't breathe.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, sounding strangled to her own ears. The loving touch was so unexpected; she was completely unprepared for the answering flood wave of feelings. Her heart pounded against her ribs. She couldn't take her eyes off his face. Of all the things they'd done, she'd fallen hardest of all for his kisses. Nothing was as intimate as kissing, and he was so very good at it.

He put one hand on the wall behind her, slowly leaned forward, as if to give her a chance to pull away.

Natalia didn't pull away.

And he kissed her. Softly, tenderly, caressing her lips with his mouth. She was breathing, hard. She foggily thought she ought to push him away, that this could only end with even more hurt feelings. But she wouldn't have been able to push David away if her life depended on it. She needed this, more than she needed air or food. She closed her eyes, leaned into him with her whole body. They kissed until she gasped.

A muffled clank made her pull away. A guard had walked in; he glanced at them briefly, looked around, and then left again. David hadn't taken his eyes off her. His gaze was dark and intense, and his chest heaved as he pulled away from her. She could have kept going until they were lying in a heap on the floor.

He smiled slowly. “Are you going to keep lying to yourself, Natalia?” He reached out with his hand and ran a finger along the neckline of her blouse until she trembled. He smiled at the effect he'd had, watching her, staring deep into her eyes. “I never needed to seduce you, if that's what you've persuaded yourself. You fell like a ripe plum. I just had to reach out my hand and pick you.” His finger continued moving down, until he touched her breast, and unwelcome tears welled up in her eyes. “You still want it,” he murmured. “Despite everything you know about who I am and what I've done.”

He leaned toward her again.

And Natalia, who had never done anything violent to anyone in her whole life, who had always argued with her family in favor of nonviolence and peaceful solutions, raised her hand and slapped David right on the cheek with all her might. The slap was so powerful it made his handsome face snap to the side.