Читать книгу The Mercenary: The Savage Seven - Katherine Garbera - Страница 8

AUGUST 1, SANDTON

Olivia couldn’t stop panicking as she drove back to the house she’d shared with Ray—a murderer. She tried in her mind to justify what he’d done. Maybe he had some sort of explanation that would make it all okay.

But she highly doubted that. He’d pointed a gun at her. How was he going to explain that?

He’d killed a man. No matter how she sliced it, she couldn’t forget that. Anna had promised to send a man from her husband’s team to protect her.

The irony of this situation wasn’t lost on Olivia. Ray, the one man she’d relied on to protect her in this hostile, beautiful world, was now the one she needed protection from.

She still had the envelope he’d asked her to bring to the mines and she had nothing else. Her handbag. A nice designer clutch that held only her lipstick, coin purse, and one credit card. Hardly enough to get her out of the country. And though Anna had said to go directly to the airport, Olivia knew she needed clothes and more money.

She drove with a purpose, no longer enjoying the scenery but instead flying through the city streets until she reached her residential neighborhood. She pushed the button that activated the gate to her community.

The guard smiled and waved at her and she forced herself to wave back. She felt her breath getting shorter as images kept flashing through her mind. Images of Ray shooting someone—she still didn’t know who. And images of Ray glaring at her as she drove past his car, aiming his gun at her.

He would have killed her.

Her hands started to shake and she almost lost it, but there was no time for that. She forced everything to the back of her mind and found a kind of calm that she knew was false. She only had to keep it together until she got to the airport. Then she would get on the plane and get the hell out of South Africa.

She pulled into the circle drive of the house she shared with him. Burati came to the front door as she came up the walk.

Her bodyguard…would he protect her? She had no idea, and she didn’t want to take a chance that Ray may have called him and asked him to keep her here.

“Shall I bring the car around back, Ms. Pontuf?” Burati asked.

She shook her head. “I’ll be going back out soon. I have a lunch date with a friend of mine.”

“Very well, ma’am.”

“Burati? Has Mr. Lambert called?”

“No, ma’am.”

Olivia nodded. She felt safer knowing that Burati hadn’t talked to Ray. He might not like her, but she didn’t think he’d kill her.

She walked calmly into the house, not wanting to alert the guard if what he said was true. She went straight to her office and found her backup flash drive, then she went to her closet and took down her Louis Vuitton duffel. She grabbed clothes randomly and tossed them in. Then she changed her shoes from the heels she had on to her running shoes. She went to the bathroom and grabbed toiletries off the vanity.

And walked out the door. She was halfway down the stairs when she heard the rumble of Burati’s voice. She didn’t speak Afrikaans well enough to understand what he was saying. But she didn’t take any chances. She went back into Ray’s office and opened that middle drawer again. This time she took everything in there and put it in her duffel.

She had no idea if it was important or not, but she wanted everything she could find on Ray. Anything she could use to figure out what was going on.

She walked into the hallway, pulled her sunglasses on, and made her way to the front door. In the large foyer with its marble floors and gilt-framed artwork she heard Burati’s voice.

“Ms. Pontuf?”

She kept walking. This foyer represented what she’d always thought of as security. How foolish had that been? Things couldn’t protect her. Money couldn’t protect her, either, she realized. She walked out the door, hearing Burati behind her but very afraid to stop and talk to the man.

She got in the car as he came to the door. She noticed he had his hand on the butt of his handgun as she climbed into the car and locked the doors. Her car was bulletproof and she knew Burati wouldn’t waste a bullet on the car.

She started the engine and put the car in drive. She wondered if they’d let her leave the compound. She didn’t worry about that right now. She just had to get away. If Burati had been alerted to what had happened, that meant Ray knew she’d seen something.

Her mobile phone rang and she glanced at the caller ID. Ray.

Should she answer it?

She had no idea what to do, but went ahead and answered the call because she needed to know what he was going to do. If he believed she had seen him kill a man or if she’d simply driven by him and noticed the gun.

“Hello,” she said, trying to sound calm and as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about her day.

“Olivia,” Ray said. “Where are you? I need you to go to the house and wait there for me.”

“I can’t do that, Ray.”

“Why not? You know that Jo’burg isn’t safe for you on your own. You could turn down the wrong street and find yourself in a bad neighborhood.”

“Or I could just walk into our home and find you waiting for me.”

“You could, but I won’t hurt you,” Ray said.

“You pointed a gun at me.” Olivia realized she didn’t know Ray. Not the way she should have before she’d agreed to marry him.

“Darling, I didn’t know it was you. That man was trying to kill me, and I was afraid you might be his accomplice,” he said. “You’re clearly distraught, go back home and we’ll talk about it. I’m not sure it’s safe for you. Everyone knows you are my fiancée.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I’m leaving Johannesburg.”

“Where are you going? Burati said you’d packed a bag,” Ray said.

She took a deep breath. “I…a friend of mine is going through a tough time and she asked me to come and stay with her.”

“Which friend?” he asked.

“A school chum…Anna Sterling. I don’t believe you know her.”

“Where is she?”

Olivia knew better than to say London. So she stuck with the truth to a certain extent. “Washington D.C. I’ll call you when I get there and let you know when I can come back. Maybe you will have taken care of the threat to yourself by then.”

She wondered if she should have kept that information to herself. What if he did something to Anna?

She’d have to call Anna and warn her.

“Olivia?”

“Yes, Ray.”

“I still need that envelope you were bringing to me,” he said. He sounded aggravated with her now.

“I left it with the guard at the gate of the Onyx mines.” Olivia usually didn’t hold with lying, except maybe a little white lie when a friend had made an unfortunate fashion choice.

In this case she figured that Ray didn’t deserve the truth from her. And he’d killed a man. She didn’t care what the circumstances were; she knew she couldn’t marry a man who was a murderer.

She wondered if this was a onetime crime or if Ray had done this before. She knew that the diamond mine property was private and Ray wasn’t answerable to anyone except the diamond consortium.

“Did you?” he asked.

“Yes, Ray, I did. And now I have to go. You know I don’t like to talk on my mobile while I’m driving,” she said, hanging up the phone.

She put the phone on the passenger seat and tried to think who she could go to with the evidence she had. The U.S. Embassy had no authority over the diamond mines. The only governing body that did was the diamond consortium. Her cousin Amy’s husband Phillip was on the board of the consortium. They lived in Denmark, so they weren’t exactly local.

But she thought she might have to give them a call once she was safe. She wasn’t going to be able to think or really take a deep breath until she was out of Jo’burg. She just didn’t feel safe here.

She felt tears burn the back of her eyes, but she didn’t cry. Wouldn’t allow herself to be that weak. Nothing bad had happened to her. She’d witnessed Ray doing something unspeakable, but that didn’t mean she had to break down. She could keep it together. She repeated that to herself until the words became the truth and she calmed down.