by Layne, Ivy
I kept my hands to myself. She hadn't jumped up and kicked me in the balls. That was a good sign. I tried again.
“Lily, this is about more than you and Adam. Tsepov threatened my mother.”
“I should be furious right now,” she said quietly, mostly to herself.
“I'm fine if you are,” I said. “It was a shitty thing to do. I know that. Sometimes, in my line of work you have to make hard choices.”
Lily sighed. “I guess you do. If you've been watching me, you know I'm not involved. And you searched the house? Trey's computer?”
“Not as thoroughly as I need to. But I'm not the only one who searched the house. Deputy Dave went through Trey's office twice during dinner the other night. He didn't find anything, but he's looking for something. Any idea what?”
“What? Why? If Trey owed him money or something, he could have told me.” Lily tipped her head back, resting her soft curls against my arm. She stared up into the cloudless blue sky. “He was working with Trey, wasn't he?”
“I don't know for sure, but I'm starting to think he was.”
Her eyes still on the sky, she said, “Who is Andrei Tsepov, and what does he have to do with anything? Why did his men break into the house and say they were taking me to him?”
“Fuck,” I said, “that's a long story.”
Lily tipped her head down and speared me with a no-nonsense look, the same one I'd seen her give Adam when he refused to eat his vegetables. “I'm not going anywhere. Talk.”
“Okay. Andrei Tsepov is the nephew of Sergey Tsepov, who was shot and killed a few years ago by my sister-in-law. Sergey Tsepov was a bad guy. He was very good at being a bad guy. It looks like he was in business with my father, who we didn't know was such a bad guy until recently. And from what we can figure, tracking the money moving from Tsepov, to my father, to Trey, Trey has been wrapped up with them for a while.”
“Wrapped up with them in what, exactly?”
“I don't want to tell you what they're into. I don't want you to know.”
It was clear there'd been problems between Lily and her husband. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but it sounded like they'd fallen out of love years ago. Not being in love with her husband and knowing he was a criminal who'd put both her and his son at risk were two very different things.
I thought about some of the shit my father, Tsepov, and Trey had been into. I didn't want to bring that kind of darkness into Lily's life.
“Tell me, Knox. I'm not a child. I need to know.”
“You really don't.” She didn't, but that wasn't my call. Lily was right, she wasn't a child. I gave in.
“Fine. I don't know that we have the whole picture. We may never have the whole picture until we find my father, and knowing him, probably not even then. From what we've been able to find, there's been some arms dealing, a lot of transport. Tsepov moving things and using my father and Trey to do it. Drugs, though that wasn't a major part of their business. Trafficking, mostly women. And an adoption ring, highly paid surrogates, mostly.”
“Trafficking?” Lily asked in a weak voice. “Arms and drugs?”
“From what we can tell, the Tsepov syndicate originated the business except for the adoptions. My father and Trey worked together on logistics. Moving product, whatever that product was, from one place to another. The only way we've been able to figure it out is that my father, when he was shorthanded, used the company as protection for some of the transport. Not often, or my brothers and I would have caught on. Often enough that we could see the pattern once we looked for it.”
“But the adoptions aren't Tsepov? The adoptions were your father and Trey?”
“From what we can tell, yeah. Not all of them, maybe none of them, are illegal. Highly questionable, but not necessarily illegal.”
“How is Andrei Tsepov tied up in this?” Lily asked.
“Andrei inherited the family business, and he is not following in his uncle's footsteps. He's sloppy and a little stupid. Normally that would be a good thing. For us, it's not. He's an amateur and a dumbass.”
“Why would he want me? Why send those men?”
“He called us the same night you did. Said my father took something from him and he wants it back. If we don't turn it over, he'll kill our mother.”
“What did your father take?”
Chapter Nineteen
Knox
Ishook my head and laughed under my breath. “What did my father take? That's the question of the century. This would all be a hell of a lot easier if fucking Andrei Tsepov had bothered to tell us. I'm assuming you don't know either?”
“No. I wish I did.”
“I'd bet Deputy Dave knows. Why else would he be searching Trey's office?”
“I don't have the faintest clue,” Lily said. “What's going on with your brother? Is his girlfriend okay?”
“Cooper says she's fine. I'll see what Evers has to say when he gets away from Tsepov.”
“Are you worried?” She answered her own question. “Of course, you are. Is he going to be all right?”
“Evers? He'll be fine. I don't like that he handed himself over to Tsepov, but he's a lot safer there than Summer was. He's sneaky. Smart. Plus, they have the FBI on the case. The phone is going to ring any minute telling us everything's good.”
I mostly believed that. I was 98% positive everything would be fine. It's that other 2% that always fucks you.
Nothing was going to happen to Evers. No fucking way. He'd just gotten Summer back. He'd come back from hell if he had to, as long as Summer was there waiting for him.
“So, we sit here and wait?” Lily said, her toes digging into the sand.
“For now.”
“And then what?” Lily asked, hopeful query in her warm, brown eyes.
I wasn't sure what she was asking.
What's next with the investigation? With Adam? With us?
I looked out at the water, letting her question roll around in my head. I decided to take the easy road. Business.
I was keeping Lily, but I wasn't sure she was ready to hear that yet. I could ease her into it. Evers wasn't the only Sinclair who could be sneaky.
“We'll stay in Bar Harbor for now. I'll have Cooper send a team to your house. It needs to be re-secured, for one. Even if the FBI has Tsepov, your deputy is still up to something.”
“He's not my deputy,” she protested.
“He'd like to be.”
“I'm not so sure about that,” she countered, “and anyway, I don't care. I don't want Dave Morris.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her who she did want. I let the opening go. For now. We'd have time. I'd make sure of it.
“After we get the house re-secured, I want to see if I can get our best computer guy up for a day or two to take another crack at Trey's laptop. I got more from it than you did, but not enough. There's something I'm missing. Unless he had another one?”
Lily shook her head. “I can't swear he didn't. What I don't know would fill an encyclopedia. But that's the only computer I ever saw.”
“I want Lucas to take a crack at it. And then we tear your house apart. Adam's birth certificate and that paperwork didn't vanish. They have to be there somewhere. We'll find them.”
“What if we don't?” Lily asked.
“Then we'll figure it out, Lily. I promise. You're not going to lose Adam.”
I pulled my arm from the back of her chair and dropped it between us, taking her hand in mine and twining our fingers together. A shy smile spread across her face. She squeezed my hand with hers before she turned her eyes back to Adam, a flush cresting her cheeks.
The beach had filled with tourists as the sun had risen. If not for them, I would have pulled her onto my lap and done a whole lot more than hold her hand. From that hint of a blush, I hoped she was thinking the same
thing.
I tried not to feel smug. So much was up in the air. Evers. Tsepov. Adam's missing birth certificate. Whatever the fuck was going on with Deputy Dave.
But Lily had come clean. She was innocent, we were alive and well, sitting on the beach watching Adam play in the sun while she held my hand.
Maybe everything else was a big pile of shit, but this was good. This was the best.
I rummaged in the bag beside me for the silly sun hat I'd bought her. Without comment, that shy smile still on her face, she put it on, shading her skin from the sun. A few minutes later she called Adam over and sprayed every inch of exposed skin with sunscreen, ignoring his strident protests. The second she released his hand he took off for his sand castle. Lily sprayed her legs and held out the can.
“Do you need some?”
I wanted to insist I didn't. I never burned. I took the can anyway and gave my legs a cursory spray. I had plans for later and they didn't involve a sunburn. They also didn't involve Lily thinking I was too stupid or bull-headed to use sunscreen.
The morning stretched on to lunch. Adam abandoned his sandcastle in search of snacks, and we all took a break to fill our stomachs with the junk food I'd picked up with the beach supplies.
Lily waded into the water up to her knees, shrieking as Adam splashed her before she bolted back out. Adam dunked himself, screamed with glee and dunked himself again before racing to his mother's lap and curling up in a dry towel, falling asleep wrapped in her arms.
She held him, leaning into my side, stroking his wet hair from his forehead. I wrapped my arm around them both, feeling like I held the whole world.
Lily's eyes were drooping with fatigue when my phone vibrated in my pocket. Cooper.
“Yeah.”
“Everything's good. The FBI arrested Tsepov. Evers is with them now. He's fine. No casualties on our side.”
“He's okay?”
“He's okay. Tsepov wants account numbers. Apparently, Dad took off with a ton of cash he owed the senior Tsepov, and no one looked for it after Emma shot him. Andrei figured it out and he wants it back. Seen any numbers up there?”
“No, not so far, but after last night I'm going to search the place from top to bottom. Shit. He could have told us that in the first place.”
“Andrei Tsepov is an idiot,” Cooper agreed. “What's going on up there?”
“Just enjoying a day at the beach,” I said. “Adam played himself into a nap, and I think Lily is about to follow him.”
Her head tucked against my chest, words slurring with sleep, she murmured, “I'm not sleeping.”
I gave her a squeeze. Her eyes drifted shut.
Cooper heard every word. “Knox, I swear to fucking God—”
“Save it, Cooper. Don't even bother.”
“Fine,” he bit out. “I don't have time for that shit anyway. Now that Tsepov is out of circulation for a while I'm sending a team to Lily Spencer's house. You need cleanup?”
“No. Tsepov took care of it. But the back door has a hole in it, and all the security needs to go up a level. Or two. We're not done there. I need Lucas.”
“The laptop?”
“The laptop. I'm missing something. I'd send it down, but I don't want it out of our control.”
“I'll see what I can do. Alice is making arrangements. She'll text you with a place to stay, probably for the night. Shouldn't take the team long to secure the house.”
“Works for me.”
“Knox?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful. We've got a little breathing room, but watch your back.”
“You, too,” I said, and disconnected.
Twenty minutes later my phone beeped with a text from Alice.
East Street Hotel. Check-in is at three. Have fun.
Jabbing at the letters with my thumb, I texted back
Thanks. I owe you.
Lily and Adam napped for over an hour. After waking to Tsepov's men well before dawn I could have used some sleep myself. Later.
Adam woke with his stomach growling, and we packed up, heading back into town in search of food. Lily hadn't had much breakfast, but she put away most of a sub and a bag of chips.
Adam devoured his own sub. I got a lobster roll overflowing with succulent, sweet, red and white lobster meat. When in Maine… Might as well not waste the chance to eat fresh lobster.
We found a Putt-Putt and wasted an hour. Lily was hopeless with a golf club, but Adam wasn't too bad for a five-year-old. That meant he sometimes hit the ball with the club and almost never got it in the hole without a little help. He didn't care.
Lily's eyes were too serious as she concentrated on each swing of the club, biting her lip every time she tapped the ball, usually missing whatever she was aiming for. Her mind wasn't on the game. I caught her scanning the parking lot the same way I did, looking for trouble. I couldn't blame her.
We wrapped up the game in time for check-in at the East Street Hotel. I pulled up the address Alice had texted and navigated to an elegant building downtown, across the street from the bay. Taking up most of the block, the white siding and black shutters were vintage Maine.
The uniformed young woman who checked us in gave us a blinding smile. “Oh, you lucked out. We're normally booked solid through August, but your assistant called right after a cancellation and snatched it up.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking the key and wondering what Alice had gotten us into. I'd imagined a small inn or one of the big chains by the highway, not this expansive, elegant hotel.
The elevator took us to the top floor where the door to our room swung open to reveal a corner suite. We walked into a living room with two balconies, dominated by views of the harbor, the blue water dotted with white sailboats.
A bouquet of roses sat on the dining table beside a silver ice bucket holding a bottle of champagne. Two champagne flutes and a box of truffles completed the picture.
Lily's eyes flicked to me and back to the roses. I flipped over the notecard reading Enjoy your Romance Package to see 'Have fun ;) Alice' scrawled across the back.
“Alice,” I said to Lily in explanation.
Her shy smile curved her lips, joined by a flush on her cheeks. “How did she…?”
Not, Why did she?
But, How did she? As in, How did she know there's something going on with us? Not that I needed more proof that Lily was as interested as I was. That kiss over cookies had been proof enough.
“Alice knows everything,” I said, not telling her that Alice knew because Cooper had been bitching about me being led by my dick.
Alice was Cooper's right hand, but that didn't mean she wouldn't find it funny to piss him off by setting Lily and me up in a love nest that Cooper was paying for. I owed Alice her own bouquet of roses.
“Wow, this is nice,” Adam shouted, darting across the room to bounce on one of the armchairs.
“Adam,” Lily hissed, “don't jump on the furniture.”
He popped up to test out the couch facing the flatscreen TV before vaulting off and checking out the small kitchenette.
“Look, Mom, it even has a kitchen! It's like a house. Can we stay, Mr. Knox?”
“For tonight,” I promised.
He gave another shout and ran for one of the bedrooms. Lily shook her head.
“I'm sorry. He's tired and wound up.”
“You don't have to apologize, Lily. He's fine.”
I followed Adam to see what he'd discovered. A bedroom opened off of each side of the main space, one with two queen beds and one with a king.
I dropped our bags—mine with the king and Lily's with the two queens—and did a quick walk-through. One entrance, secured by a deadbolt and a safety lock. Two balconies off the living room, and one off each bedroom, all inaccessible without a climbing rope, the safety locks un-r
eachable by a five-year-old.
The suite wasn't a bunker, but with Tsepov in jail, it was safe enough. Lily and Adam disappeared into their bedroom to get cleaned up from the beach.
The T-shirt I'd wrapped around the cut on my arm was glued in place by dried blood. A good soak under the shower and I peeled it off without tearing the healing cut open.
Adam and Lily didn't emerge until I was cleaned up, re-bandaged, dressed, and finished setting up extra security equipment. The sensors on the balcony doors and the main entrance to the suite were overkill, but I'd sleep better knowing they were there.
I glanced up from the laptop screen and my mouth went dry. Lily wore a cherry red sundress, the full skirt brushing the tops of her knees, a light sweater over her shoulders to ward off the coming chill. It was July, but this was still Maine. Once the sun was down, the warmth of the day would fade.
Held up by two thin straps, the dress dipped just enough to reveal the shadow between her breasts. My cock stirred, and I had to look away before I embarrassed myself. She'd been wearing less at the beach, but somehow this was different.
With her hair pulled up in a ballerina's bun on the top of her head and a light gloss on her lips she was transformed, sexy and elegant. She still reminded me of a woodland fairy, but this fairy was the Queen.
Adam fidgeted in shorts and a polo shirt, his clear blue eyes a little red from the sun, salt water, and exhaustion.
“Do you want to eat dinner at the restaurant downstairs? There's one inside that looks pretty formal, but the other one has seating outside on the second level, overlooking the bay.”
Adam tugged at my pants. “Do they have kids’ stuff? With crayons?”
“I don't know, bud, but I bet they do. We'll figure something out if they don't, okay?”
Adam's bottom lip jutted out and he shrugged his shoulder with a jerk. Lily said with apology, “It's been a long day.”
I didn't know what that meant.
I thought I did, but I had no idea.
I was about to learn.
Chapter Twenty
