Protected by a Hero

by Susan Stoker, Cristin Harber, Cora Seton, Lynn Raye Harris, Kaylea Cross, Katie Reus, Tessa Layne

  Vadim reached out, gently cupping the side of her face with one hand. “We’re going to figure all this out.”

  She leaned into him, sliding off the chair and wrapped her arms around him. She’d been alone for so long, afraid to tell anyone the truth about who she was, she felt like a sponge now, just soaking up all Vadim’s strength. “I’m just scared to go back to work I guess.”

  Vadim stiffened and pulled back to look at her. “You’re not going in to work until we find this guy.”

  “What?” She couldn’t afford to just not work.

  “I’ve already talked to Sierra and you’ve got the next week off. At least.” He sounded so freaking high-handed, as if his decision was final, that she gave his chest a little shove.

  She didn’t care that Vadim was right in this, it pissed her off that he’d just made the decision without asking her first. “So you called my boss and made a decision without thinking to ask me?”

  For the first time since she’d met him, Vadim looked like a deer caught in headlights. Okay, more like a tiger in headlights. His expression was wary.

  “It’s not a trick question, Vadim.” She sat back on the chair at the island and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “I should have asked you first?” he said, clearly confused.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “But it doesn’t make sense for you to be in public with Emile out there. He’s likely already vandalized my car and you seem sure he’s the one who spoke to Mr. Botkin.” The tone of his voice was like he was talking to a small child.

  Which lit the fuse on her annoyance. “I know, I get that. But I don’t want someone making decisions for me. I could have called Sierra on my own.” She would have preferred it.

  He looked as if he wanted to argue, but instead nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  Some of her anger evaporated. “It’s okay. I just…I don’t like anyone making decisions for me, okay?” She’d had so much control in her life taken from her that even the little things being taken away rubbed her the wrong way.

  Something like concern flickered in his pale eyes, but he nodded. “Okay. I’m going to be here most of the day working on tracking down Emile. But tomorrow I’ve got a full day with Wyatt…and I would like to have a friend stay here with you.”

  Angel figured he’d already asked his ‘friend’ and resisted the urge to smile. “A friend?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “One of the security team.”

  She couldn’t even imagine how expensive it would be to give her a bodyguard for a day. “Your house is safe and you’ve got an impressive security system. Plus you’ve got Charlie.”

  The dog trotted into the kitchen then and made a soft whining sound near the pantry door. “No,” Angel said to her, knowing that even if she wanted to spoil the dog, she couldn’t do it every time.

  Vadim gave her a ghost of a smile as Charlie headed for her food bowl instead. “I would feel better to have someone here. And I would like him to teach you some self-defense moves. Nothing too intense, just enough training to give you moves so that you can do enough damage to someone then run.”

  “Can’t you teach me?” After seeing him take out those guys at her apartment complex she had no doubt that he was skilled enough.

  “I could, but if your hands are all over my body we’ll end up naked more often than not.” He half-smiled, but she knew he was right.

  Even thinking about those kinds of teaching scenarios with Vadim made her body heat up. She put a pin in that for now because the thought of learning more self-defense than she’d picked up in the few classes she’d taken in college was wildly appealing. But… “Won’t that be really expensive? To have someone stay here?”

  He blinked, as if that was the last thing he’d expected her to ask. “No.”

  She knew that wasn’t true, at least not to her. But maybe he didn’t consider it expensive. She didn’t want to take advantage, but the thought of being able to actually defend herself. Protect herself. Yeah, she couldn’t say no. “Okay, thank you and I’ll pay—”

  Shaking his head, Vadim closed the small distance between them. He cupped her face between his hands, the action so gentle it melted her. “Let me do this for you.”

  There was no way she could say no to that. When she leaned up to kiss him, he brushed his lips across her forehead instead.

  Disappointment filtered through her until he said, “Write everything down first. Then…” He trailed off, his expression wicked as he moved down the countertop of the island and pushed his laptop open again.

  She could easily fill in the rest of his unspoken thought. She grabbed the pen and started scribbling all her information down. It was time to get her life back.

  * * *

  Emile opened the door to his newest motel room. His private investigator had rented the place under his name so Emile wouldn’t have any records of being here in Vegas. Not that his PI knew the real reason for his trip. He’d been vague, telling him that Angel had stolen his grandmother’s priceless ring when she’d left him and he just wanted it back.

  He wasn’t sure if the guy believed him, but he was still helping him. Of course Emile was paying him a shitload of money so he might not even care about the truth. The guy was in another state; Emile hadn’t wanted anyone with ties to his own family. He’d needed to keep his search for Angel a secret because he hadn’t wanted to risk his parents finding out he was still looking for Angel. Namely his father.

  His father was still angry about what he’d done to her. Or maybe not so much what he’d done, but that he’d shamed the family publicly. It wasn’t like he’d ever gone to trial so he didn’t have anything on his record. But his father said the whole town knew about him now, that he had to be more careful or he’d end up in jail and ruin the family name.

  Emile didn’t care if he ended up behind bars. He just wanted Angel all to himself one last time. Just for a little bit. He wanted her to suffer for embarrassing him, for turning him down when he’d offered her everything. He’d been there for her when she’d needed him, then she’d thrown all his kindness back in his face as if he was nothing. He was going to take everything from her, what he rightfully deserved. He hadn’t pressured her about sex before but she owed him use of her body and he would take it.

  But now she was nowhere to be found. He’d been watching the restaurant for three damn days and she hadn’t shown up once. Fighting that sinking feeling of familiar desperation, he shut the door behind him and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. No missed calls or texts. He quickly called his PI.

  Humphrey answered on the second ring. “Yeah.”

  “Have you found out anything?”

  “Not since we last talked an hour ago.” He sounded frustrated, but Emile didn’t care. He was paying the guy after all.

  “Call me if you find anything,” he snapped, ending the call and tossing the phone onto the king-sized bed.

  His investigator had found out that the SUV Emile had briefly followed was registered to the Serafina casino and hotel. He’d also had the investigator run the plate registered to the Mercedes Angel had been driving, but had come back with nothing. Which his investigator had said was odd. Emile didn’t care, he just wanted Angel and if his PI couldn’t find her, he’d hire someone else.

  At least Humphrey had come through with locating Angel. He had to give the guy that. Emile would have never found her in the first place without him. Using her personal history as a guide, the man had gone to New Orleans and managed to track down multiple forgers in the area. Eventually he’d found the one who’d provided false credentials for people. It had been a shot in the dark, but he’d managed to narrow down a forger with ties to the university. Then he’d blackmailed the guy into giving up Angel’s information. From there, he’d found out where she lived. Not that that did Emile any good right now.

  Emile shoved his hands through his hair as he stared blindly at the nearest wall. He hadn’t slept in days. Now that he was so close to
having her again, he couldn’t believe she might have slipped through his fingers.

  No, he refused to believe that. He would have her again. He just needed sleep. And a shower. He knew he smelled. Even though it had been a risk, he’d asked the hostess at Cloud 9 about Angel, wanting to know when she’d be working next. The woman had said she’d taken time off work and that’s all she’d known.

  But the hostess had seemed almost stressed by his question so he’d left immediately. And as soon as he’d gone, he’d seen her calling someone. Maybe he was being paranoid, but she could have called Angel or hotel security.

  He just didn’t know. And he hated not knowing. He raked his hands through his hair again, the slight pull against his scalp easing some of the pressure building in his brain. She brought out this obsessive side to him and he hated her for it. She made him crazy. She wasn’t the first woman to do this to him, but she was the worst. She’d actually been friends with him, made him believe that she loved him. In reality she was a lying whore.

  At a slight shuffling sound he turned toward the cracked open bathroom door. Confusion slammed into him when the door opened. Was there a maid in here? He’d left the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door.

  When a man stepped out, he frowned as it registered who he was seeing. “What are you doing here?” As soon as he saw the gun, however, he knew.

  His heart jumped into his throat. He stepped back, tripping over his feet as he scrambled to escape but it was too late. As a shot rang out, pain exploded in his chest for a brief moment before everything went dark.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Vadim hit send on his email, sending the last file Wyatt had requested to one of the man’s many accounts. This one wasn’t accessible by his assistant though, it was one of Wyatt’s personal addresses. His boss was about to buy a pharmaceutical company in Ohio and had requested that Vadim run all the financials of the sellers. Not the typical number crunching Wyatt’s accountants would do. No, he was looking at the owners’ personal accounts.

  Wyatt wanted to see how desperate they were since this sale had come up unexpectedly. Turned out there was a reason for it—they were about to go bankrupt due to poor money management and what Vadim was certain was fraud from two members in accounting. On the outside the company looked stellar, but Wyatt always did his homework.

  After he closed out the file, he pulled up the one he’d started to build on Emile Glass. The past three days he’d been working sixteen hour days, balancing his duties for Wyatt and his own personal stuff for Angel. He was exhausted, but it was worth it to make Angel safe. She hadn’t left his house the past three days either, which he felt bad about, but Roman was there with her and they’d done a bit of exploring in the desert. So far she didn’t seem to be going stir crazy, which eased his guilt.

  He was close to narrowing down Emile’s location, he could feel it. There was a possibility that he wasn’t in Vegas at all—but he’d bought an open-ended, round-trip plane ticket to Vegas and had arrived a week ago. So the man was here.

  Somewhere.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t using any of his personal credit cards or phone anywhere. That in itself was odd. People didn’t just fall off the grid for a week. Most people used their credit or debit cards once a day, so he was definitely trying to hide. This wasn’t some random coincidence that he’d come to Vegas and now suddenly Vadim’s car had been vandalized right after Angel was seen driving it.

  As he flipped through the massive number of files he’d found on the guy, one of the credit card payments stuck out. It was dated a month ago to a private investigative firm. Vadim frowned, scanning back through all the statements for the past couple years but couldn’t find anything similar. Maybe it was the first time he’d used an investigator but Vadim doubted it if this guy was hunting Angel. He could have been paying by check before. Either way, the use of a private investigator was interesting.

  He set that file on top of everything then slid his giant stack of paperwork into his briefcase. Normally he would read from his laptop, but Angel wanted to help so he’d printed everything off. And sometimes it was easy to miss things on his computer so a print version gave him a fresh perspective. It was after five, which was early for him to be heading home, but he could read anywhere. And he missed Angel.

  The security room was buzzing as he stepped from his office, but he tuned everything out until Iris held up a hand, motioning for him to stop. She paused, turning back to speak to one of the security team members where they stood in front of a wall of video screens before hurrying toward him.

  She didn’t bother with niceties, her expression pinched. “One of the hostesses at Cloud 9 called me about half an hour ago. Sorry I didn’t get up here until now. A man was asking about Angel’s schedule and I knew you’d want to know.”

  Vadim gritted his teeth as he took in that information, but he didn’t let himself outwardly react. “Thanks, Iris.” Vadim was tempted to head back to his office and scan the security cameras in the right time frame to see if he could catch a clip of Emile, but decided to do that at home. Now more than ever he wanted to be near Angel, to see with his own eyes that she was safe.

  When he reached the private elevators his cell phone buzzed. Gritting his teeth, he glanced at the screen, hoping it wasn’t Iris calling him back for something. His heart rate kicked up when he saw who it was. Detective Cody Hurley.

  Wyatt, Vadim and a handful of others at the Serafina had worked with him a couple months ago to bring down a huge criminal element in Vegas. To say the guy owed them credit for one of the biggest busts he’d ever had would be an understatement. Vadim had called him a couple days ago asking the detective to keep an eye out for Emile Glass. Didn’t hurt to use all your resources and for Angel, he’d use everything at his disposal. He wanted Angel safe more than he wanted his next breath. When the time was right he planned to ask her to move in with him permanently.

  He answered immediately. “Hey, Detective.”

  “Found that guy you were looking for.” His voice was grim.

  Relief punched through him at the news. “Great. Where?”

  “Dead.”

  Surprised, he frowned. “Where? How?” He also wanted to know who had done it, but figured that could wait.

  “Cheap motel, two gunshots. One to the chest, one to the head. Why’d you want me looking into this guy anyway?” A sharp note of command colored the question.

  Which Vadim ignored. “You have any idea who did it?”

  “No. It’s a shitty part of town so I’m just surprised anyone called in about hearing the gunshots. There aren’t any video cameras at this place either. None that work anyway. Looks like he surprised someone robbing his room. Come on, why were you looking into this guy?”

  Vadim wasn’t telling him shit about Angel, but he’d give him what he could. “There’s a possibility he was the one who vandalized my car last week. And I can’t tell you how I know that. Was he staying under his own name?” Because Vadim had put out feelers. The places he couldn’t hack into, he’d just called. Some places he’d had to bribe with cash or favors, but for the most part, the Serafina had a good relationship with the bigger hotels. He’d used that to his advantage.

  “No, a man named Glen Humphrey rented the place with a credit card,” he said.

  Under normal circumstances Vadim knew the detective wouldn’t be telling him any of this. It was against protocol and he could get in a hell of a lot of trouble for it, but he figured Hurley was fishing for info and asking him was smarter than trying to drag him down to the station for questioning. If Hurley did that, he’d never get anything out of Vadim and neither Wyatt nor his team would work with the police department again. “Never heard of him.” A lie. He’d just seen that name on Emile’s credit card statement as the name of the PI the man had hired. “Thanks for the info.”

  “You sure you don’t know anything about this guy?”

  Vadim snorted. “Other than the fact that he probably keyed my c
ar, no.”

  The detective sighed, his frustration clear. “All right. Talk to you later.”

  Once they disconnected Vadim thought about calling Angel but he wanted to tell her in person. He’d be keeping an ear to the ground for whoever killed Emile, but if the guy had been staying in a bad neighborhood and Hurley thought it was a robbery gone wrong…karma was a bitch. There was a chance it wasn’t random but since he knew Angel hadn’t done it and he certainly hadn’t, he couldn’t imagine the guy’s death was connected to her.

  Normally the drive home was quick but tonight it seemed endless. All he wanted was to see Angel. By the time he reached his place, raw energy hummed through him, his need growing at just the thought of sinking deep inside her.

  Work could wait, especially since her problem was dead. He wanted to give her life back to her, to start a future together where she wasn’t scared or looking over her shoulder all the time.

  As he stepped through his garage door into the kitchen, he heard grunting sounds. Then a peal of laughter—then Roman’s voice telling Angel to pay more attention.

  Angel said something but it was too low for him to hear, but Vadim grinned, glad she was getting some self-defense training. When Charlie didn’t greet him he remembered that Roman had said he’d needed to put the dog up in his room during training sessions because she got upset seeing Angel tossed around.

  He set his briefcase on the island counter then slipped his jacket off, tossing it on top. Loosening his tie, he made his way into the living room to find Roman pinning Angel on the couch from behind.

  It jarred Vadim to see her pressed against the couch wearing just a sports bra and yoga shorts and another man flush to her entire body. The coffee table had been moved and her damp shirt tossed on top of it. It was clear they were just training, but seeing Roman on top of her like that made Vadim’s possessive streak flare to life.