Page 5 of Brazilian Revenge

Chapter Two

A year later…

“They get rowdy when there’s a man on the premises. Just ignore them, senhor,” the prison guard said.

The clinking of metal bars reverberated through him. Leonardo Duarte had been to many jails in his life as a human rights lawyer, but this one…he clenched and unclenched his fists. Following the short guard dressed in beige khakis and shirt, he strode on the stained floors and covered his mouth with his hand. Bile rose to the back of his throat. The blend of urine and body odor pushed into his nostrils. A string of catcalls started, and he slanted the women a look. Prisoners mounted over each other like rats inside a cage.

“Gostoso!” one of them yelled.

“Nice ass. You can come see me any time,” another one said. Whistles ensued.

He’d made a career of fighting against the Brazilian incarceration system. By using his high-profile contacts and giving out considerable donations, he had improved some prisons throughout the country. However, many didn’t share the concept that felons should leave the bars better human beings than when they had entered.

Leonardo gave them another glance, and a few women shouted obscenities at him and rubbed themselves against the bars. None of them deserved to be in those degrading conditions. Not even…

“There she is.” The guard pointed at a cell on the end of the hallway.

The woman sitting on a mat, with long legs stretching over the dirty floor, hardly reminded him of the hot seductress from a year ago. The thief who stole his beloved sculpture. The bitch who stripped him of his pride. Satyanna Darling.

He’d never forget that day when he woke up to an empty bed and learned she had fled not only her suite, but Rio. He’d asked the hotel clerks and learned Satyanna had left with an older man. Since she never mentioned Clemonte during their time together, he knew something was wrong.

When Leonardo had checked his home safe, the sculpture was missing. Didn’t take long for him to have a private detective deliver bad news—Clemonte was a masterful con-artist, and Satyanna his partner. She had distracted him, slept with him in her hotel room while Clemonte stole his sculpture from his place.

Leonardo had searched for her for an entire year. Yet, it had been all for nothing. That was until a phone call he had received earlier that day—from the sheriff in a small prison in Rio. Satyanna had been found with a fake Brazilian driver’s license. Since she wasn’t a Brazilian citizen, they should have called the American Embassy and let them deal with her, however she had begged for them to call Leonardo instead.

She knew I would come.This time, though…he swallowed the lump in his dry throat. He was painfully aware of all she had done and caused. His father was dead, and he had been buried without the heirloom Leonardo had bought years ago that symbolized his mother. Any lust he’d felt for the redheaded vixen in front of him was well and truly cooled.

The guard struck his cane on the metal bar. “Hey, Gringa. You have a visitor.”

She shivered, and he imagined she must have been so far away from that place, at least in her mind. Well, he couldn’t blame her.

“I’ll make sure the other ones are quiet. I’ll be at the end of the hall. Call if you need me, senhor.” The guard turned on his heels and proceeded to shush the women whose voices faded into the background.

Leonardo stretched to his full height, and as Satyanna stood, every tiny hair on the back of his neck sizzled. Instead of the sexy Scheherazade costume she had on when they met, she was wearing a dirty gray shirt, dust-caked jeans, and flip-flops.

His gut clenched. She turned to him, her foot kicking the metal dish on the floor. The moment her gaze landed on his he drew in a sharp breath. A few bruises blemished her face, and the redness near her eye he imagined had been caused by a slap. Dry blood clung to a corner of her swollen lips.

A blend of betraying emotions welled up inside him. A year ago he had met her at a party Camila insisted he attend. What had started as innocent flirting became the hottest, most incredible weekend of his life.

Not just the sex. The tightness in his stomach loosened, and a warm sensation swept through him. In a way, she had helped him deal with the hardest news yet when his father had been diagnosed with brain cancer. Had she known she helped him at the time? No. Would she ever know? Never.

She peered at him, and he recognized the spark of life in those deep, emerald eyes. He took a step back. No. She wouldn’t persuade him to make the same mistake twice. Besides, the woman was bruised, for crying out loud. Her color was pale, without the glow from before. He had yearned for revenge, to see her at her worst. Yet, somehow the picture he painted was a tad different. This…woman walking toward him, her hands clenching against the bars, wasn’t the same one that haunted his dreams at night. Or was she?

“You came,” she said, her voice strangely steady. Wasn’t she scared of what could happen to her?

“What kind of trouble are you into now?” he asked, even though the sheriff had briefed him on the phone. She had been stopped for speeding, and when the highway patrol checked her Brazilian driver’s license, he recognized it as fake. She clumsily tried to bribe the man who was one of the few incorruptible officers, and had been taken to the local prison.

“I need to come clean, Leonardo. I want to go back to the States more than anything, but not while you think I stole the sculpture.”

A chuckle floated up his throat. “You want a first-class upgrade? Satyanna Darling, you broke the laws. You stole from me. And while I’m rejoicing at seeing you jailed like you deserve, I want what’s mine. You’re going to tell me right now what happened to the sculpture, otherwise you will rot in here.” He threw his words at her like an arrowhead at a wild animal. A cold wave swept through him. Would he really do it? Let her rot there?

“Please help me out of here. I swear I didn’t steal from you. Harry Clemonte did,” she said, mentioning her middle-aged partner in crime.

Blood boiled in his veins. Did she think he was that stupid? To think he would let her loose, only for her to dash and meet that sketchy old man, the one she had some sort of sick relationship with? “I’m not an idiot. You fooled me once, when I was too distracted and reckless,” he said, his eyes trailing down her body. “You do nothing for me today. Nothing,” he repeated, raising his voice.

She parted her bow-shaped lips, and he couldn’t help but watch her. “Good. I’m not interested in fucking you, Leonardo. I wanna have a chat with you so you won’t press charges against me. I wanna go back to the States, and I knew if I used my real ID I would be caught before I left the country. Besides, if I knew anything about reliable people to buy fake IDs from, I wouldn’t be here to begin with. Some daughter of a criminal I am.”

“No kidding,” he said, even though they both knew Harry wasn’t her father, biological or otherwise. Leonardo had high-profile contacts at the federal police, and had sent her picture and information out months ago. There was no way she’d make it past passport control.

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