“I was worried about the way my father had been behaving. It wasn’t rational. I knew he was upset, but he’d become secretive and . . .” She trailed off, realizing what it had been that had sent her following him. She smelled his lies. The memory swept over her fast, her stomach reacting, churning with bile, just as it had when she’d followed her father down the streets of the city and then the trails by the river, deeper and deeper into the Borneo rain forest. Her heart had sunk in her chest, and she’d known he wasn’t going on a medical call.

He’d gone through guarded gates and she had parked her car in the forest itself and continued on foot. She’d stood for a long time in the trees when he drove behind those large gates, debating what to do. All the little clues from her childhood had begun to fit like pieces of a giant puzzle.

The waterways weren’t safe. Everyone knew that. People were kidnapped so often and held for ransom, no one even blinked anymore on hearing the news. Most of the ransoms were paid and the prisoners released. It was business. Just business. But there were a few groups she’d read about, terrorist camps that tortured and murdered prisoners, always milking the families of those they kidnapped for more until there was no more and the bodies were sent back in pieces. The money was used for guns and bombs and more terrorist camps.

She’d been horrified, and then she’d been in denial. Of course her father wasn’t involved in such a thing—and she’d decided to bluff her way inside. The leopard rubbed along her leg, probably sensing her distress. She realized she had fisted her hands in the leopard’s fur, burying her fingers deep, trying to push back her thoughts.

“I know what you’re doing,” Isabeau whispered. “You don’t want me angry at Conner so you think by making my father look bad, I’ll forgive what he did.”

“I don’t need to make your father look bad, he did that all on his own,” Elijah said. “But the thing is, you don’t have to defend him.” He ignored the threatening roar of the leopard, although he adjusted his position slightly, preparing for defense. “My father left me a drug empire when his own brother killed him. I don’t have any reason to defend his lifestyle choice. It makes a great cover for me to move between the underworld and the business world, but no matter what, that’s my legacy and I have to deal with it. I choose my life. You choose yours.”