Looking straight into the eyes of the lead agent, Dimitri Kyriakou, international billionaire, held out his hands before him—as he’d seen done in movies, as he’d known he would have to do long before this flight, long before last night—and as the steel handcuffs were clasped around his wrists he forced his head to remain high.
Present day
Dear Dimitri,
Today you found me.
DIMITRI GUIDED THE car down roads he’d travelled only once before. Headlights pierced the night, picking out slanting sheets of rain and wet shrubs lining the road. His mind’s eye, however, ran through images of his now very much ex-assistant’s horrified face as words like ‘Sorry’, ‘I didn’t know’ and ‘It was for the best...for the Kyriakou Bank’ stuttered from the man’s lips.
Fury pounded through Dimitri’s veins. How had this happened? How?
In the nineteen months since his release from that godforsaken American prison, he’d sweated blood and tears to try and find the culprit responsible for setting him up to take the fall for one of the most notorious banking frauds of the last decade. Not only that, but also to bring his—his father’s—family-owned bank back to its former glory.
And finally, one month ago, after the arrest of his half-brother, Manos, he’d thought all his troubles had ended. He’d thought he could put everything behind him and focus on the future. He thought he’d be finally able to breathe.
Until he’d received notification of unusual activity on a small personal account he’d not looked at in years. He’d set up the alerts the moment he’d resumed his position on the board of governors and had hoped that he’d never receive one.
But two days ago he had.
And he’d been horrified to discover that, unbeknownst to him, his assistant had arranged payment to a woman who had claimed Dimitri had a daughter. It had happened before, false accusations seeking to capitalise on his sudden unwelcome and erroneous notoriety after his arrest, demands for impossible amounts of money from scam artists. But this time...
Was it some perverse twist of fate that this discovery had coincided with the second leg of the Hanley Cup? That he should be drawn back to Dublin not only for the Winners’ Circle, but also because his assistant had transferred the ridiculous sum of fifty thousand euros to a money-grabbing gold-digger who had—
The sound of his phone ringing cut through his thoughts like a knife.
‘Kyriakou,’ he said into the speaker set in the car.
‘Sir, I have the information you...for...’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s...rush... So I cannot guarantee...disclosure.’
‘You’re breaking up, Michael. The signal out here is terrible,’ Dimitri growled, his frustration with this whole mess increasing. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘Yes, sir... Just about.’
‘Look, you can email me the file and I’ll look at it later, but for now, just top-line thoughts will do.’
‘Mary Moore...years old... One daughter—Anna, no father on the...certificate. Arrests for drunk and disorderly...disturbing the peace.’
Dimitri let out a curse. He couldn’t believe it. The woman who had come apart in his arms was a drunk? Had a criminal record? Dammit.
‘Okay. I’ve heard enough. Get me your invoice and I’ll ensure the payment is—’
‘Wait, sir, there’s...you need...’
‘The signal’s breaking up now. I’ll read the full file when I can access emails.’
With that, Dimitri ended the call, not taking his eyes from the road once. If he thought he’d been angry before, it was nothing compared to the fury now burning through his veins. He glanced at the man sitting silently in the passenger seat of the car—the only man outside of the Winners’ Circle he trusted. David Owen had been his lawyer for over eighteen years.
‘Legally, at this moment, there’s actually very little you can do,’ David said without making eye contact. ‘All you have is the request for fifty thousand euros and a grainy black and white photo of a little girl.’
And it had been enough. Enough for Dimitri to recognise that the little girl was his. He’d looked exactly the same at her age—thick, dark, curly hair, and something indescribably haunted about her large brown eyes. Dimitri acknowledged that that might have been fanciful on his part. But surely, with an alcoholic criminal as a mother, that was a given.
‘You have no actual proof that the child is yours.’
‘I don’t need it. I know it. Know that she is my blood. The timing fits, and, Theos, David, you read the email, you saw that picture too.’
David nodded his head reluctantly. ‘We could engage Social Services, but that would cause publicity and scandal.’
‘No. I will not have any more scandal attached to the Kyriakou name. Besides, it would take too long. The reason you’re here is to help me get what I want without any of that. I can’t afford for the press to find out about this yet. The mother is clearly only in it for the money. A little legal jargon will help grease the wheels, so to speak.’
The satnav on his phone told him to take the next left. How on earth Dimitri had found his way to that little bed and breakfast three years before, he had no idea.
‘Are you sure you want to do this? As I said, legally your position is not the strongest.’
‘She lost her right to any legal standing when she tried to blackmail me,’ Dimitri bit out.
How could he have been so deceived? Again? How could he have let that happen?
Throughout his wrongful imprisonment, fourteen months incarcerated and locked behind bars like an animal, he’d held up the memory of that one night, of her, as a shining beacon in the darkness. A moment completely for him, known only to them. He’d lived off the sounds of her pleasure, the cries of ecstasy and that first, single moment—the moment when he’d been shocked, and ever so secretly pleased, to find that she had been a virgin—he’d drawn it deep within him, hugged it to him and allowed it to get him through the worst of the time he’d spent in prison.
Had he been deceived by her innocence? Had she really been a virgin? But even he had to acknowledge that thought as inherently wrong. It may have been the only true thing about Mary Moore. But the rest? She’d lied. She’d kept a secret from him. And she’d live to regret it for the rest of her life. Because nothing would prevent him from claiming his child.
* * *
Anna gasped as the rain pelted down even harder. It snuck beneath the neck of the waterproof jacket she’d slung around her shoulders the moment she got the phone call. She hadn’t had the presence of mind to bring an umbrella though. She dug her hand into the pocket and pulled out the only protection she had with her against the elements. And the irony of that was enough to poke and prod at the miserable situation she was in.
She pulled the large, thin envelope from her pocket and held it over her head as the paper ate up the rain in seconds, and water dripped down her jacket sleeve and arm, to eagerly soak the cotton of her T-shirt.
It didn’t matter if the letter got wet. She knew it word for word by now.
We regret to inform you...owing to late payments...as per the mortgage terms...right to repossess...
She was about to lose the small bed and breakfast she’d inherited from her grandmother, the place where both she and her mother had been