Agostini thought, “How are you going to feel?” Is everybody but me going mad? He said, “Calhoun, I’m going to feel like it’s time for the next thing. Now, can we concentrate on what we have to do and get some control of the business in hand? There’s a parking space right there. Park up. Clemson’s apartment is right around that corner.”
Princess called Trixibelle. “Hey, hon, how you doing?”
“Princess. Great to hear from you. I’m just fine, thank you, darling. You were looking good last night, I got to say.”
“Thank you, honey. Now, I need to ask you for some help.”
“Sure, sweetheart, what can I do for you?”
Princess arranged to meet Trixibelle for coffee. She picked a little coffee bar near to Professor Miflin’s office in NYU. She wore one of the silky print dresses she’d bought with Pierce’s card. Soft, good with her curves, and alluring without being tarty.
When she stepped out into the bright lobby, Mikey greeted her with a smile and he asked if there was anything he could do for her.
“Thanks, Mikey, no. I’m just going to find a cab to take me down to Washington Square.”
“Ma’am, you just wait right there.” He strode out through the automatic glass doors and stood on a small brick dais. Almost immediately, he stretched up his arm and blew a whistle.
A cab rolled up to the entrance, and when it stopped, Mikey held the back door open for her. He seemed genuinely pleased to be able to help and he smiled as he waved her off.
On the way downtown, she called all of the other girls who she had seen with the investors, leaving Jayleen until last. Jayleen was the girl who Cane had been lavishing his extravagant attentions upon.
Trixibelle was in the coffee shop waiting already, her enthusiasm no doubt fired by the handsome fee that Princess had dangled. After they talked a few minutes, Princess waited while Trixibelle left to go see the professor.
When she got back, not too long after, Trixibelle was beaming. Princess got her to describe everything that happened and exactly what the professor had said. Then she squeezed Trixibelle’s hand as she left to hail another cab.
On the way to meet the next girl, she called Agostini.
“Professor Miflin is back on board.”
“Princess, that’s great. How did you do it?”
“Well, the professor had been afraid that he’d committed his money into a scam.”
“Pretty much what I expected,” Agostini said.
“He wasn’t too hard to reassure, though. Turns out he’s a lot more afraid of his wife than he is of losing his money, anyway.”
Agostini was quiet. Then, in a voice that was low like a whistle, he said, “You are a devious and unscrupulous woman, Princess.”
“From you, Pierce Agostini, I take that as a compliment.”
Agostini, Calhoun, and Callaghan stood in the blazing sun on limestone steps by a heavy—and intricate—wood and glass door. The plummy voice on the intercom said, “I am sorry, but Mr. Tranter is not at home just now. Perhaps you could put your card in the mailbox.”
Agostini took out his cellphone and called. Tranter picked up straight away. “Aaron? It’s Pierce Agostini. I’m trying to get in to see you, and they’re telling me you’re out.”
“Ah, yes. I’m at lunch until three, at the Four Seasons.”
“Tranter,” Pierce said, “I’m calling you on your house phone.”
They waited a couple of minutes and Tranter came on the intercom. “It’s really not a good time, Mr. Agostini. I am most awfully sorry.” Agostini couldn’t see a security camera, but he knew there would be one, probably up in the corner above the buzzer.
He looked up into the corner. “This really won’t take a minute, and I guarantee that it will be advantageous to you, Aaron. I believe that you’ve been misinformed, but I can show you conclusively that your fears are unfounded.”
Tranter buzzed them in without a word. In the elevator, Callaghan said, “Can you show him conclusively that his fears are unfounded?”
“If I can’t, then we may have to show him a more clear and present danger.”
They were met by a butler in a white, starched shirt and tails, who showed them down a wood-paneled corridor and through a door.
Tranter stood behind a huge writing desk in his book-lined study, leaning on the polished desk top. Agostini stood with Calhoun and Callaghan behind him.
“Mr. Agostini.” Tranter couldn’t speak without bustling stationery on the desk, looking down and up again. “I’ve been made aware of some troubling facts. Facts about your organization and about the property of the some of the land deeds.”
“You’ve been ‘made aware,’ I’m guessing, by one Yvgeny Markov, is that right?”
Tranter’s face colored up and he cleared his throat. “I don’t see what difference it makes where the intelligence is sourced, Mr. Agostini. Is it true or is it not?”
“Mr. Tranter. Aaron. Of course it’s not. The man who is putting these stories around is only doing it for him to obtain your options at a bargain-basement price. He’s trying to cheat you, and he means to cheat me afterwards.”
“Well, now, I only have your word against his.”
“Aaron.” Agostini spoke softly and looked Tranter in the eye. “Has he shown you documentary evidence to back up his claims?” Tranter hesitated. “Anything, Aaron? Anything in print or from a reputable, verifiable source?”
He talked Tranter around, but not without some tedious discussion of securitized assets, disbursements, debentures, and collateral. He couldn’t help thinking that Princess’ approach would have been quicker and simpler.
It was only as they were leaving that they learned Yvgeny had actually visited Tranter, and just a short while before they arrived. “Yes, he was on his way to see Mr. Barney.”
As they hurried back to the car, Agostini called Princess but got put straight to voicemail. He left a message for her to call him as soon as she picked it up. Barney Blair’s offices were only a block and a half from Park Place Pinnacle, and Calhoun took them as fast as he could.
He continued to call Princess. As they passed the blue-green glass of the Hearst Tower with the gleaming curved Columbus Center ahead, Princess picked up.
Briskly he said, “Where are you?”
“I’m good.” Her voice was faint. “How are you doing?” It sounded like she was running.
“I said, where are you.”
“Oh, I’m just near the apartment.”
“That’s great. Go straight up to the penthouse. We’ll be back real soon.”
“Great,” she said, sounding thinner and breaking up some. “I’m just going to stop in on Barney; I’m right by his building. I’ll see you back—”
“No,” Agostini said, “don’t go—” But she’d either hung up or been cut off. He tried to call back, but he got voicemail every time.
He grabbed Calhoun’s shoulder. “Step on it, can you?”
“Did I hear that right, boss, that she’s going up to see Barney?”
“That’s it exactly.”
Callaghan said, “So, she might be running right into Yvgeny.”
“Calhoun, get around that damned truck, can’t you?”
Princess dashed through a break in the traffic and across the four lanes of asphalt. The signal had dropped out on her cellphone, but she was sure that Agostini had been saying something. She wondered whether to call him back as she weaved by a big, matte black SUV.
At the curb, in front of the upmarket brownstone where Blair Barney’s office was, Princess turned away and looked toward Park Place Pinnacle as she pressed the button to return his call. Busy. He gave her the impression he was on his way back. Almost here, perhaps. She looked down the street the other way.
As she turned, two strong hands gripped her shoulders.
At the sound of his voice, Princess froze. “Little mouse.” He was behind her. “How good it is to see you.”
He turned her around to face him. �
�You’re looking for your knight in shining armor, I think.” His pale eyes sent a chill down her body. Two of his henchmen stood behind him, and that was his Hummer parked at the curb. She should have realized.
He held her firmly. “Perhaps you are looking for the wrong knight, or the knight in the wrong armor.” He pulled her closer, towering over her, and he put his arm across her shoulders and pulled her tight against him.
“That man, Pierce Agostini—he is no good for you, little mouse. He is gangster. Not even good gangster. You should have proper protector. Strong man, a man strong like wall. Mm?”
His smile was his most frightening expression yet.
“Maybe I take care of you now. Mm?” Her teeth clenched as he looked in her eyes. “But you were expecting him along this way, yes?” He turned his head. “Vassily. You and Mikhail, back in the car. Be ready. I wait here.”
He moved, pulling her with him, back to the wall of the brownstone. “You think he comes here now, no?”
“No.” She said it as clearly and flatly as she could, while inside, she shook like a leaf in a gale.
“You do, little mouse.” Yvgeny squeezed her arm in a way that was horribly intimate. His cologne was overpowering her. “I know that you do.” He spoke in a sing-song voice, like he was talking to a child. “You’re so sweet.” He squeezed her arm again and she breathed in sharply.
“Mm. You smell sweet, too.” Princess felt hot and cursed the treachery of her female body. “Maybe you’re a little sugar mouse. Mm?”
She tried to stop herself from writhing in his grasp, but her whole body wanted to be away from him. He pulled her against him. His body was hot. Against her soft ass, she felt him uncoil and harden.
She winced when he spoke into her ear. “I know that you expect him here, because I saw you look up the street this way.” He turned her and himself toward the Park Place Pinnacle. “And then you looked up the street the other way.”
He turned them back. Pierce Agostini walked along the street toward them with his hands out to his sides. Princess shook her head at him but he kept on coming. “See?” Yvgeny’s voice was an exaggeration of glee. “Yvgeny knew.”
He held her even closer as he said, “Maybe I should have put you in the SUV, nice and safe, mm?”
And he whispered in her ear, “Are you afraid of me now, little mouse?” She wanted to jam her heel back into his balls and tell him that she wasn’t afraid of him. The way she was shaking, though, she wasn’t sure it would work.
As he squeezed her, Princess heard the fine, smooth clicks of a gun being cocked.
Just a few days ago, she probably wouldn’t have known what the sound was. In just a week or so, she’d heard so many that if she thought about it, she might have a stab at identifying what kind it was.
At the same time, a black SUV—Agostini’s, she thought—stopped right alongside the Hummer. The driver’s door opened and slammed, and Calhoun appeared on the curb side of the Hummer, at the back. His arms were out, holding a gun in the direction of the doors.
At the first sound of the gun cocking, Yvgeny froze. Behind, in her periphery, Princess saw the shine of polished steel. A short, fat gun barrel. The gun was gripped by two big black hands.
The barrel was jammed into the side of Yvgeny’s head.
“Are ye all right there, Miss?” Calhoun’s soft brogue almost made her want to weep. Agostini stepped toward Yvgeny.
His eyes went to her first, looking to see if she was okay. Then he said to Yvgeny, “Your Cossack goons are smart, right? They’ll know that if they make a move, the safest thing for us is to blow your head up like a cantaloupe. They’ll know that, right?”
Yvgeny said nothing. Princess felt him tense.
“That’s if any of them can get out past my marksman there,” Agostini said. “They can’t get out the other side, of course. You know these two men both are champion marksmen? Trained in the British SBS. Great guys.”
Calhoun said, “Do put your hands behind your head, please, Yvgeny. There’s a good fellow.”
Slowly, Yvgeny let go of Princess. She saw his head jerk to the side as Calhoun shoved the gun harder against his temple. Agostini beckoned to her with his hand upwards, closing his fingers. Was it a gesture of protection, or of captivity?
She didn’t care—she ran to him. She heard Yvgeny laugh. “Little sugar mouse thinks she’s safe with the not-so-good American gangster. The play-gangster.”
Calhoun held him by the hair on the top of his head and shoved him with the gun, out toward the street. Agostini held her by the waist. She leaned into him when he pulled her close.
Calhoun held Yvgeny up against the back of their car. Agostini steered Princess around past them and into the back. Callaghan came quickly after them, walking backwards in a crouch with the gun still extended in his hands, right up until he slid into the driver’s seat.
Calhoun kept a hold of Yvgeny as he backed toward the open rear door. As he slid in and let go of Yvgeny’s hair, Callaghan gunned the engine and they were away.
Calhoun said, “Has Yvgeny ever been up here, boss?”
“You mean does he know where we live?”
“I suppose that I do. But the safe assumption has to be that he does.”
Princess clung to Agostini’s chest the block and a half to home and around the corner into the garage. She was surprised to catch herself thinking of it as “home.”
Dino had wanted to hear every detail, but Agostini’s first concern was to get in touch with Barney. When he called, the little guy said, “Yvgeny was just on his way here about an hour ago—or at least, he said he was. I haven’t heard from him since he called to say that he was coming.”
Agostini advised him not to let Yvgeny into his building and not to see him at all, if he could possibly help it.
Princess had been listening. Since they got back to the apartment, she had kept pretty close to Agostini. “He’s a sweet little guy,” she said. “I would hate for anything to happen to him.”
Barney hadn’t struck Agostini as particularly “sweet,” but he didn’t feel like arguing the point. He was amazed at how Princess still managed pull surprises out of the bag.
Today, she had as much success in rescuing his project as he did. And he had headed a team of three armed and experienced men. She did it on her own, and with just a phone. He found himself thinking about ways they might continue to partner together.
He couldn’t really see it panning out, though. Top of her agenda was still getting her club back. There was no easy way he could hand it to her now. Not with the debts her Daddy had run up.
While Agostini owned it, she could run it. Now his investment fund looked like it might be secure, he could probably let her run it in any way she liked.
Her father’s debts themselves would have been bad enough—they were pretty stupid amounts—but the guys he owed? Right now, she was way better off with her father not owning Hotsteppa’s. If he did, Fat Tony and the others would be in there like sharks. They’d tear the place to ribbons just to liquidate the assets and get paid off.
No, there was no easy way to see himself and Princess as partners. Shame. She was a pretty useful team member for a brat. How was he going to bring it to the point of handing her back, though—that was the problem.
Any time, he could open the cage and let her out, but she wouldn’t be satisfied without getting ownership of the club back. Probably was a pity she didn’t use her fuck ticket last night, after all.
Perfectly Bad: a bad boy romance Page 18
