Meridio's Daughter Part 24

Tessa's grief turned her into a wild animal. She watched as the man who held Casey slapped Casey in the head. That's when what little awareness was left in Tessa snapped. She bit down hard on the man's hand, trying to cover her mouth, and kicked back sharply, the heel of her boot connecting with the man's knee.

He immediately released his hold and Tessa flung herself at the man holding Casey. Tessa kicked and bit until the man dropped his small bundle to grab at Tessa. Both men took hold of Tessa and she shouted.

"Run, Casey!" It was only a fraction of a second, but Casey realized her friend had sacrificed herself so Casey could get away.

"Run!" Tessa shouted again.

This time, Casey moved so fast the men didn't know she was running until she was halfway back up the rocky hill.

"Get her," Meridio shouted.

Casey turned around only once, when she reached the top of the ridge. When she quickly looked back, she saw her father strike the girl who was held securely between two men.

"Niko!" she screamed even as she turned and ran until her five-year-old legs refused to run any longer.

"Niko!" Casey screamed.

Tessa was dozing in the leather chair, a book lying open in her hands. She bolted up and the book flew out of her lap.

Rus.h.i.+ng through the door, she wasn't prepared for the sight that met her. Casey was screaming as if completely unaware of her surroundings. Tessa flipped the light switch and grabbed Casey, who sobbed against Tessa's chest. Casey cried for nearly an hour, and Tessa held her tightly, allowing her to purge the violent images from her mind's eye.

"Niko?" Casey finally asked weakly.

"Yes, baby...it's me."

Chapter 17.

"Oh, G.o.d, he killed him. There was so much blood," Casey cried tearfully, and Tessa realized why Casey developed an aversion to the color red.

"I know, sweetheart," Tessa said quietly, gently stroking Casey's head.

"I don't understand...why didn't you tell me that we knew each other?"

Tessa took a deep breath and sighed. She brushed away the damp tendril of hair from Casey's face. "When you were twelve, you and I met, do you remember?"

Casey shook her head, trying hard to remember and amazed that she could have forgotten the girl who, in one day, had come to mean so much to her.

"I was visiting my mother at your father's estate and you came running into the kitchen from outside. You'd been to the beach and I remember how sunburned your cheeks were. I was just leaving and I opened the back door, and you ran right into me. I had short hair and I was wearing sungla.s.ses. I just graduated from high school and was getting ready to start at Oxford."

"And you took your sungla.s.ses off and stared at me," Casey added, suddenly remembering that day.

"Yeah. You looked at me, and for a second, you acted like you were going to say something, but you just smiled and introduced yourself. You had no idea who I was...it broke my heart," Tessa *said sadly. "My mother said you never remembered what happened that day. She said it was a gift from the Virgin, and she made me promise that if I cared anything about seeing you grow up healthy and happy, that I would let the past go. So I did. I could never let you go completely, though. Sometimes, when I was home for the summer, I would follow you just to see what an amazing woman that five-year-old grew up to be. I could never even explain to myself why, but I couldn't get you out of my mind."

Both women were crying by this time. Casey finally looked up, and in a voice so soft that Tessa barely heard her, she asked, "Can I still call you Niko?"

"Yes, love," Tessa said just as softly. "I'd like that."

"Niko, who was your mother? You said you were visiting her that day. Did she live on the estate?"

Tessa smiled a bittersweet smile and saw no reason to hold back the information at this point. "Casey, you've known my mother all your life."

Casey pulled away and looked into Tessa's eyes, still filled with tears. She searched Tessa's face and saw the answer etched in the lines of a face that had become so beautiful to her. The same proud, angular features, the hair streaked through with gray now, and the term of endearment that had obviously been pa.s.sed from mother to daughter... little one. Casey smiled with recognition when she thought about the one other person who ever called her that name.

"Olympia is your mother," Casey said slowly, more as a confirmation to herself than to ask if she were correct.

Tessa smiled, too, once Casey fit the puzzle together.

"Oh, Niko...I'm so sorry. My family has caused the two of you so much pain."

"There's another side to that, love. You have been responsible for so much of our happiness also. During the years when my mother was ashamed to admit she had a daughter, you were there for her to love. And just when I thought I would spend the rest of my life alone, never knowing what it felt like to be in love, to have someone love me, you were there."

"I don't understand, why do the two of you work for my *father? How could he even hire you? Doesn't he remember who you are?"

"My mother never knew what happened that day. Meridio's men took my father's body to the docks, and it was made to look like he was murdered during a robbery. It was a great many years later before I could bring myself to tell her the truth. By then, what could she do? She's an Old World woman who tries to live her life in a male-dominated society with as much dignity as she can. Besides, your father paid very well for my silence. He was the one who had me sent to England. He paid for my education all those years," Tessa admitted.

"But when you agreed to work here, didn't my father try to explain or justify his actions at all?" Casey asked in amazement.

"By then, I had become the woman I told you about. I hid my emotions well. I was told not to take it personally, that it was just business."

Tessa ran a hand through her long hair. Her silence and accompanying scowl said more than words.

"There's more to this, isn't there? More you're not telling me?" Casey asked.

"Yes, and I don't know about you, but I'm bone tired. Let's talk more in the morning, okay?" Tessa said.

Both of them lay back on the bed, emotionally exhausted.

They settled in to sleep, facing one another, their arms wrapped around each other. This time, it was Tessa's nightmares that kept them awake. Tessa cried out in her sleep, and each time, Casey ran a comforting hand along her back, calming her. Once Casey thought she heard Tessa murmur, "Run, Casey!"

At length, Casey slept, and in keeping with the night, dreamed about the last piece in the puzzle.

"Never again, Andreas...never again. I'm taking my daughter and we're getting as far away from this place as possible."

Casey's mother sat on the child's bed and ran a hand through the golden locks. By the time they found Casey huddled in a corner of the stable, she was in shock. When Eva Meridio saw the blood covering Casey, she screamed in fright, thinking it was her *daughter's blood. The doctor was called and the child was given a mild sedative, but even through the medication, Casey could overhear her parents as they spoke above her bed.

"Wait just a minute, Eva, this is my daughter, too, we're talking about," Meridio whispered sharply.

"My G.o.d, Andreas, what if Ca.s.sandra had been hurt? What if she never gets over this?"

"Don't even think that. Do you think I want my daughter scarred like that?"

"Poor Olympia. What will she and Tessa do? How could you have?" Eva cried as she stroked Casey's head.

"It was business," he said sharply. "Olympia will be provided for. As for that h.e.l.lcat of a daughter she has, I'll make sure she gets s.h.i.+pped off to a good school. I won't let Olympia suffer because of her husband's disloyalty."

"Please, Andreas...if you've ever loved me, let me take Ca.s.sandra away from this life. I give you my word that she can return to visit as often as she likes, but please...let us go. It isn't safe for her here."

Meridio turned away from his wife and daughter to stare out the window. He knew he should be strong and demand that his wife stay; his father would have, but he knew that his business put everyone he loved in danger.

"Every summer," he whispered at last in defeat. "I want Ca.s.sandra here every summer." Upon saying that, he turned and walked out of the room.

"Hey, you got up without waking me." Casey leaned down to kiss Tessa's tanned cheek.

"Sorry, but I wasn't all that quiet and you still wouldn't budge, so I thought it was meant to be. Kafe?" Tessa asked.

"Yes, thanks."

The silence was deafening, and Tessa finally raised her head to see tears rolling down Casey's cheeks.

"Oh, honey, please don't." Tessa left her chair to kneel in front of Casey. "Casey, none of it was your doing."

*"I'm sorry I didn't recognize you...I should have remembered you," she said with a growl.

"You were five years old, cut yourself a little slack here. The human mind is a lot like a computer. When too much is fed into it at once, it doesn't know how to process it, and it shuts down. A five-year-old brain just wasn't equipped to handle what happened that day, and it shut down. I still think it was the right thing to do, not telling you. You were able to grow up without the visions I've had to see in my head every moment of every day since then. I always thought you were the lucky one."

Tessa ran the backs of her fingers across Casey's cheek and her smile was so filled with sadness and pain that Casey had to know.

"Last night, you said there was more. What aren't you telling me, Niko?" Casey asked.

The pained expression deepened. It was the pet name that added to the hurt. Tessa knew that she was about to betray Casey's confidence and trust in her, but she knew of no other way to pay her debt. It was a matter of honor, and she was afraid that Casey would never be able to understand that. Betray her lover or her father's name. Those were the two choices she was faced with.

Tessa stood and crossed to the other side of the patio table, looking up into the cliffs. She squeezed her eyes closed and rubbed the back of her neck.

"Do you know what it was like for me? I had just seen my father murdered, I couldn't tell my mother for fear of what she would try to do, and I was s.h.i.+pped off to a foreign country, strangers everywhere. Every single day, the vision of that afternoon replayed inside my head. Some days, it was all there was. Pretty soon, it was the only memory I had of Greece. Then one day, I made a vow, and after the words were uttered, I was finally able to focus on something else. I was able to concentrate on my studies, talk to my mother, and finally remember what my homeland looked like, all because of one thought, one thought that was able to keep me going for twenty years."

"Revenge," Casey whispered solemnly.

Tessa looked at Casey and saw realization dawning on Casey bit by bit.

*"It became all I had. It was the only thing to keep me company during school breaks when other children would go home to be with their families. It gave me a focus and a will to live again...it became my whole life, the only reason I had for living."

As Tessa spoke, her voice turned hard and determined as if she were focusing all that energy on getting through every day, just putting one foot in front of the other, like she did as a girl.

Casey didn't want to know this; she feared the answer, yet she had to ask.

"You're going to kill my father, aren't you?"

Tessa turned her head in Casey's direction; she at least owed her that much.

"Yes, I am," she said softly.

More silent tears welled up in the green eyes and spilled over onto tanned cheeks. "When Mr. Armstrong said my father would go to prison, that was just a lie then?"

"You were right about them the first time. In a way, they're not much better than the people they fight against. Their purpose may be higher, but they use the same methods. Once Jack has your father's connections, Andreas Meridio becomes expendable, and Jack doesn't care what happens to him."

"You would do this to me?" Casey could think of nothing else to say.

"Oh, G.o.d, Casey, I don't want to. I made a vow, it's a matter of honor," Tessa said weakly.

"I thought you loved me. I know you never said the words, but I thought you felt it."

"Oh, baby, this is the hardest choice I've ever had to make,"

Tessa said as tears filled her eyes. "I never expected any of this to happen between the two of us. In a million years, I never would have thought it possible that you would love me."

Casey rose and the two women stood facing each other in the sunlight.

"It's a matter of my honor," Tessa repeated.

"Murder is not honorable. Your father would be the first one to tell you that," Casey said sharply.

*"It is payment for a hahre!" Tessa shouted, slamming her hand on the table.

Tessa used the ancient Greek term and turned her back, once again looking out onto the cliffs. Casey knew there would be no arguments that could convince Tessa not to take the action she had envisioned for twenty years. If not exactly a woman of honor, Tessa was a woman of her word, and Casey knew that her father's life was already over, he just didn't realize it yet.

"Does Olympia know what you're planning?"

"No, and I'd prefer she didn't find out."

"I don't know what to do about this."

"Don't do anything," Tessa said, her back still facing Casey.

"I can't just...let this happen."

"Please, don't interfere...I don't want you to get hurt."

"You...you would hurt me?" Casey seemed amazed at the admission.

Tessa wheeled around and faced the woman whose tears matched her own. "Never," she hissed. "I would never hurt you."

Casey wiped the tears from her cheeks and returned the bittersweet smile. "Only by breaking my heart," Casey rasped, turning and rus.h.i.+ng into the house to pack.

Tessa heard the patio doors slide closed and slumped down into a chair. She held her head in her hands and let loose the sobs she had been holding back.

She wanted it to go on forever, this wonderful feeling of loving and being loved in return. She took it as far as she could, but finally, the day she cursed was here. How could she go back on her word and refuse the hahre now? If she lost her honor, what would she have left?

Not a word was spoken between them. Their bags were packed. On the pretense of having forgotten something, Casey ran back inside while Tessa placed their luggage in the trunk.

Casey wanted to take one last look around. Her glance fell on the rug by the fireplace where they made love, and she turned to see two pair of eyes looking at her through the patio doors.