The white mansion faced the ocean in a U shape, constructed around a large courtyard with a pool. Details were spotty in the dark. Soon enough she would get an up close view of the place where Enrique Medina had lived in seclusion for over twenty-five years, a gilded cage for his sons to say the least. Even from a distance she couldn’t miss the grand scale of the sprawling estate.
The intercom system crackled a second before the pilot announced, “We’re about to begin descending to our destination. Please return to your seats and secure your lap belts. Thank you, and we hope you had a pleasant flight.”
Her stomach knotted with nerves over meeting his family.
Engines whining louder, the plane banked, lining up with a thin islet alongside the larger island. A single strip of concrete marked the private runway, blinking with landing lights in the night. As they neared, a ferryboat came into focus. To ride from the airport to the main island? They sure were serious about security.
She thought of his father, a man who’d been overthrown in a violent coup. The detailed planning of the island made her wonder if every step this family made had ulterior motives. Nothing seemed left to chance.
If that was the case, why then had he brought her here?
Carlos steered the SUV through the scroll-work gates separating his father’s mansion from the island. The machine gun-toting guards didn’t so much as flinch as he drove by. He and his siblings had agreed to gather at the house to reconnoiter, then go to the island clinic to see their father.
He thought he’d prepared himself for this visit, prepared himself for his father’s death. But as he stared at the white adobe mansion where he’d spent his teenage years recovering, the past came roaring up like a rogue tidal wave.
Slowing the vehicle, he eased past a towering marble fountain with a “welcome” pineapple on top. Ironic.
When he’d been here for his brother’s wedding, he’d been able to numb himself. However, for some reason, he felt raw this time in a way that he hadn’t experienced since a surgeon had retooled most of his insides. His fingers clenched around the steering wheel reflexively before he forced himself to relax and turn the vehicle over to the uniformed staff member opening the passenger door.
His shirt stuck to his back, and Carlos tried to chalk up the perspiration to the warmer Florida climate. But he couldn’t lie to himself. The doctor inside him couldn’t deny the physiological reaction to the stress of being here.
Carlos circled the front of the car and before he consciously registered the motion, he reached for Lilah. Strange how her presence here kept him going. One foot in front of the other, in spite of the stabbing pain increasing at the base of his spine. His body shouted subliminal alarms left and right. He tucked his hand against her waist under the guise of being gentlemanly since she would probably think he was nuts if he clasped her hand.
This arrival together was important to him, a commitment from him to her, even if she didn’t realize it. Bringing any outsider to the island was a huge step. Especially for him. His family would recognize that right away.
Lilah was his now.
The butler motioned them toward the library. Lilah stayed silent, eyeing her surroundings as they walked through the cavernous circular hall, two staircases stretching up either side, meeting in the middle. He guided her through the gold gilded archway, past his father’s favorite Picasso.
Finally, he reached the library, his father’s domain. Books filled three walls, interspersed with windows and a sliding brass ladder. Mosaic tiles swirled outward on the floor; the ceiling was filled with frescos of globes and conquistadors. Scents from the orange trees drifted in through the open windows along with the feel of the ever-present warm ocean breeze.
Beneath a wide skylight, the family had all gathered while his father’s wingback chair loomed empty. Enrique’s two Rhodesian ridgebacks stood guard on either side of the empty “throne.”
“Lilah, these are my brothers, Duarte and Antonio.”
Duarte stepped forward first, his hand extended precisely. His middle brother would have made the perfect military officer if they’d stayed in San Rinaldo. Their assumed identities as adults had made it impossible for Duarte to sign on as a U.S. serviceman. Instead, he’d become a ruthless businessman.
Lilah wore her overly calm expression, the one Carlos had seen her wear during stressful board meetings at the hospital. She shook Antonio’s hand next.
The family maverick sported longer hair. He’d left the island at eighteen and signed on to a shrimp boat crew in Galveston Bay, working his way up to shipping magnate. His weathered face showed lines of worry today. His new wife tucked her arms around his waist in quiet comfort.
Once intros were complete, the women circled Lilah in an impenetrable wall—of protection or curiosity? He wasn’t sure. But their half sister, Eloisa, Antonio’s wife, Shannon, and Duarte’s fiancée, Kate, were filling her ears with everything she could possibly need to know about the island.
Carlos turned to his brothers. “Our father?”
Duarte clasped his hands behind his back. “Still holding his own at the clinic.”
“I want to know why he left the hospital in Jacksonville.” There had been a glimmer of hope when they finally persuaded their father to look beyond the island clinic for medical help on the mainland. Getting their father to agree had been a major coup given what a recluse Enrique had become. “I thought he was on board with seeing specialists.”
Antonio shrugged impatiently. “He said he’s come home to die with his family.”
Duarte’s jaw went tight for a second before he continued, “The doctors in Jacksonville support the clinic staff here. Transplant is the only way to go if he wants a chance at beating this.”
“Then what’s with his whole death march?” Their father had options. A chance. A liver transplant could even be done with a live donor giving a lobe of his or her liver, and Enrique had a room full of possibilities in his children. “We need to get him back to Jacksonville immediately.”
Duarte laughed darkly. “Good luck convincing him to agree.”
Antonio braced a hand against the dormant fireplace. “Tests show I’m a match as a donor, but the old man shut me down. He’s fixated on the notion that he doesn’t want me to undergo the risk, even though it will save his life.”
Carlos resisted the urge to bark out his frustration at the outright hypocrisy. His father had demanded his son fight to live after the bullets had torn into his back, to endure endless torturous procedures and rehabilitation in order to beat the odds and walk again. No way was Carlos letting the old man simply check out on the family when there was still a chance. “I will just have to persuade him otherwise.”