Power Games (52 page)

‘This is your granddaughter,’ she’d said. ‘Hope.’

Terry’s eyes were blank. His grey hair clung to his temples.

‘I thought you were dead,’ was all he said.

His voice betrayed nothing, as if he couldn’t have minded either way. He barely looked at Hope.

What had Eve been expecting? The old Eve might have craved a grand, emotional reunion, a begging apology or a plea for forgiveness. The new Eve hadn’t succumbed to wishful thinking. He hadn’t changed.

The important thing was that she had. Looking into her father’s eyes, just as she had looked into the yellow stare of that majestic leopardess, Eve knew she was more powerful and brilliant than he would ever be. She had defended her child against a beast, roaring back in defiance of her territory, for those few seconds becoming part of the jungle, as woman, as mother, as survivor.

In realising that, she had cut the binds that tied her.

Hope started to cry. Eve went to the bedroom and picked her daughter up. ‘Hello, my darling,’ she said, and kissed her soft, wispy head.

They had a long journey ahead of them, and Eve was filled with nerves. She was going to see Orlando Silvers again.

Given the context, it wouldn’t be easy. But the day was for Angela, and she had resolved to go. Angela had become the friend she trusted most on that island and she had to be there to offer her wishes. If it weren’t for Angela, she
might never have made it out of that plane wreck in the first place.

Eve wished she could have repaid the kindness.

Orlando stepped into the Boston garden and felt the sunlight warm his face. At last, Angela was here. She had come home.

‘Everything ready?’ asked Luca, coming to join him. His boyfriend, a banker from Detroit, was at his side.

Orlando nodded. ‘It feels right, doesn’t it?’

Luca nodded. ‘Mom’s doing well,’ he said. ‘After the shock of it, God, I wondered if she would.’

‘This is closure,’ Orlando agreed. ‘Now we can look to the future.’

Guests began to arrive, filtering through the arched gates and building the respectful murmur of conversation reserved for occasions like this. The garden had been decorated accordingly: it was the only place to host today, in the house where Angela had grown up. Nothing fancy, nothing fussy, it wasn’t what she would have wanted. Light, free, out in the open, it felt a good fit.

Luca glanced over his brother’s shoulder, to where a dark car was drawing up. ‘You have to be kidding me,’ he said. ‘How did they get in?’

Orlando followed his gaze, narrowing his eyes as the Zenettis emerged from the blacked-out vehicle. It defied belief that the men should have come on a day like today: Carmine and Dino, the devils who had taken it all from them in the time of their greatest tragedy.

He signalled to Security. The Zenettis wouldn’t be on the premises long.

‘Hey,’ Luca nudged his brother, ‘you got another visitor.’

Orlando turned. Eve Harley was in a plain summer dress, her auburn hair long and loose.

She looked beautiful—more beautiful than he remembered, more beautiful than was possible. In her arms was a tiny blonde baby.

‘Hello, Orlando,’ she said.

He wanted to kiss her, this amazing, brave, magnificent woman, just take her in his arms and kiss her for the rest of time. ‘This is Hope.’

Instead, he gave Eve a smile, and touched his lips to her cheek, and oh, how he had missed the feel and fragrance of her skin. They would take it slowly, whatever Eve wanted and whatever he could give her, because Orlando knew that the protection of his woman and his child was a rare and priceless fortune.

Orlando went to hold his daughter.

‘So it is,’ he said.

She was nervous, which was crazy. After all she had been through, this should be a cinch. Still, it was a big day and she wanted to do it right.

‘I’m proud of you,’ said Isabella, squeezing her arm. ‘Are you ready?’

Angela nodded. She and her mother stepped out of the house. Guests were gathered on the lawn, the family she thought she would never see again, her
nonna
, her aunts and uncles and cousins—and her new family, too.

Eve. She felt like a sister to her now.

There she was with her daughter: Angela’s niece. The child had been with them all that time, an eighth islander. She would always carry the jungle with her.

Angela had been shocked when she’d heard about Orlando—her brother and Eve? Why hadn’t he said? Why hadn’t she? But none if it mattered against the place they had come from. It was good. It was better than good. It was great.

Two figures caught her eye. Carmine and Dino Zenetti, at the gate, blocked by Security.

‘Wait here,’ she told her mom.

Clad in her wedding dress, Angela stalked through the gate. Carmine saw her approach. He backed up, holding out his hands. ‘Angela—’

Without a word she punched his jaw. It made a sharp, cracking sound and caused her veil to dislodge. Calmly, she fixed it. Carmine toppled backwards, flailing against the hood of his car. His son stumbled to catch him.

‘We came to apologise!’ mumbled Carmine. ‘Have you lost your mind?’

Angela hauled him up and grabbed him by the collar. Dino withered away.

‘You can shove your apology up your ass,’ she told him. ‘You’re only here because you heard I’ve got plans to buy you out. Newsflash, Carmine, I can now—your balls are on the line and they’re mine to do with as I damn well please.’

She pushed him back. ‘But do you know what?’ He gaped up at her. ‘I’m not like you. I’m decent. We’ve got our money back, so here’s the deal: you take yours and you run far, far away. Never look round. Never slow down. Never turn back. If you so much as attempt to contact me or my family again I will tear your dick from between your legs and send it back to you in the mail. It’d be a cheap delivery.’

Carmine straightened his jacket. His face was bleached.

‘Goodbye, Carmine.’ She nodded to his son. ‘Dino.’

Dino watched her go, a parallel wedding, the wife he should have had, and helplessly reached out to nothing.

Music filled the air. Her brothers stood at the front, pillars on either side of the leaf-strewn altar. At its centre was the man she adored.

Noah Lawson.

Love of her life. Man of her dreams.

Angela half expected, as she did every day, to wake up and find herself still on that sun-drenched beach, the heat beating down, the sea glittering and wide, and the ache for home beating hard in her chest. All those times she had been desperate for Noah and had tried to conjure the contours of his face, the blue of his eyes and the softness of his lips … after all that, here he was.

Here. Hers.

Never again would they be separated, never again would they part. They had wasted too many years.

Noah had come for her. In a feat of bravery beyond her most courageous imaginings, he had searched where others had feared to tread. And when he had found her, he had saved her life. The snakebite Angela had almost died from was still a wound on the inside of her wrist—a tattoo she wore, a reminder of all she had conquered.

Those final stages were a blur, pieced together from what people told her.

But she did remember him: Noah’s arms lifting her into the boat; the sound of his voice above the hum of the motor, never stopping, always telling her he loved her and that she would live and that they would live together, a long, lovely life, his voice carrying her across leagues of ocean, towards death or towards home and at some points there wasn’t even a line in between.

For a week she had lain in hospital, Noah keeping vigil at her bedside. When she was better, they had flown to America.
They had shunned the whirlwind spotlight, renting a house by the lake, miles from everything.

Angela heard what Noah had been through: the search, the journey to Maliki, the man working for Cane, the pirates, the escape from the boat and finally the Russians who had rescued him in the eye of the storm …

Only one doubt remained: why the pirates had wanted to take him to Koloku. To whom had they meant to deliver? What for? She had her suspicions about the tribe, and what that might have meant. Noah did, too. But to this day the natives defied discovery, or definition. They came from another place that Angela and her fellow survivors would probably never know.

Isabella kissed her cheek and let her go.

Angela stepped up to the altar. She took her true love’s hands. All she could see was Noah: a man who had chased her across wild oceans and brought her back from the brink—but still, as well, the boy she had known as a teenager, working at Hank’s, driving to the lake in the open-top car and calling up to her window.

‘Angela,’ said the minister, ‘do you take Noah to be your lifelong partner, to love and support him, forsaking all others, as long as you both shall live?’

‘I do.’

They did not wait to be told they could kiss.

Koloku Island, Southeast Asia, the Palaccas Archipelago

Kevin Chase crept naked out of the trees.

The natives stood ahead of him: eight uniform lines, patiently waiting, their faces bright with awe and worship.
When they saw him they raised their spears and emitted a yodelling cry. They were eager to get started—and so was he.

Kevin touched the crown of leaves atop his head, and flexed his muscles. Behind, the village of Haulo began to emerge. Children came to see their god; women to survey their emperor, men to admire their leader.

Slowly, Kevin began to move. The locals watched him, transfixed.

The tune in Kevin’s brain had never left him. The music never would. He had been put on this earth to teach his melodies far and wide.

Here, he reigned supreme.

The jungle seemed to sing with him. Moving gracefully in shapes and rhythms both new and marvellous to the native troupe, they followed his lead. Kevin executed his dance routine to his debut single, ‘Sweet Talk’.

He sang, crooning as he had on stage in another, faraway reality, shooting his arms to the sky and launching up on his toes. The locals imitated, perfectly in sync, echoing the foreign sounds and slave to the beat.

Kevin’s was a new order. He was powerful. He was king. He was almighty.

The wilderness had fought him—and he had won.