by Sienna Snow
“I heard that.”
“We aren’t done with this discussion.” I stared into Isa’s blue eyes.
“I wouldn’t expect anything else.” Isa moved to the door, unlocked it, and opened to a beautiful woman with a fur coat around her shoulders, a designer outfit hot off the runway, and a handbag worth a few hundred thousand Euros.
“Hello, Herr Weber.” Her accent switched to one only a native German speaker could have pulled off.
There was mischief in her gaze that said she knew Isa was mine and what we were doing.
Which only meant she was here to cause trouble.
“Signorina Amici,” I said with a perfect Italian inflection.
She scanned me from head to toe, lingering on my still half-hard cock a fraction too long before meeting my eyes. “Marriage looks good on you.”
“You should try it. I know your intended would appreciate an official date.”
The sneer that touched her lips nearly had me laughing. She’d been promised to one of the sons of her father’s blue-blood friends. Someone I considered a friend and who happened to be in the same line of work I was in. Interpol and head of an organized family. Though his business revolved around financing the projects of other families.
I’d learned on one of my first joint operations with Solon that Bri had a low opinion of arranged marriages and never planned to follow through with hers. She’d created a very public spoiled-brat image to give reason for her never-ending engagement. Too bad for her, her fiancé was about to call her bluff.
“I’ll let Isa tell me if it’s worth the trouble and then perhaps entertain the idea.” Her attention turned to Isa. “This is what you turned down my proposal for. Bella, I never expected you to go soft for a big dick.”
Isa’s face went deep red.
“On that note, I’ll leave you ladies to finish business.” I walked over to Isa, cupped the back of her head, and drew her in for a kiss. “We’ll discuss your secret activities when you get home.”
Before she could respond, I strode out the door.
Chapter Thirteen
Isa
“How do you know Ba…Sebastian? And why would you say the big-dick part in front of him?”
“Because the activities you didn’t want me to see and made me wait for hadn’t cooled in his blood.”
Dear God, Bri had been checking out Baz’s package. If I didn’t know she was half in love with her unwanted fiancé, I’d have punched her.
That was probably not a good idea, since she was a spy and all that and could kill me without breaking a sweat. The pampered princess was a lethal weapon who’d taught me most of my moves.
“And the first part of my question?” I couldn’t hide my annoyance.
A knowing smile touched Bri’s lips. “My higher-ups have kept an eye on him for years. He is… How do you say it?” She tapped her lips. “A person of interest.”
That was a crock of bull.
There was something between Baz and Bri that rubbed me the wrong way. It was as if she knew more about my husband than I did.
Hell, she probably did.
The man I’d met over the last few months for coffee dates was a lie. One couldn’t run an organized family like Sebastian’s or be the son of an asshole like Jonas Weber and be the Baz I’d fallen for.
I guess time would reveal the truth.
The one thing I was sure of was that my husband could make me come over and over again. At least, we were sexually compatible.
“Could you be any vaguer?”
“Of course, I could.”
“I really hate you sometimes. No wonder Ana quit on you.”
“Ana quit because the reason for her leaving to join my circus came back for her and impregnated her. Pregnancy and the agency aren’t a good combination.”
She studied me and sighed. “You’re going to be next. Deny he fucks you every chance he gets.”
“We’ve been married less than a day.”
“I know a woman who’s tasted the goods before the purchase. Did you try to kill him when you found out he was pretending to be an ordinary businessman?”
I narrowed my gaze and smacked my desk. “You were having me watched?” I threw my hands in the air. “You could have saved me the humiliation of finding out after the fact. Dammit, Bri, you’re supposed to be on my side.”
Bri shrugged. “I like both of you. And you weren’t in danger. Weber protects his own. Besides, it was quite entertaining to see the unguarded side of both of you.”
“Baz and I are not a fucking soap opera for your entertainment.”
“Baz?”
I clenched my teeth. “If I didn’t like you so much, I’d have quit helping you years ago.”
“You love me, bella. Admit it. Especially since I bring you treats from your favorite bakery in Milano.”
She pulled out a box from her handbag and handed it to me. Who the fuck keeps baked goods in a bag worth more than people’s homes?
Briana Amici, of course.
I took the box and opened the lid, inhaling the sweet scent of bomboloni, an Italian version of doughnut holes, and cream-filled cannolis. Pulling one of the doughnuts out, I quickly hid the box in one of my desk drawers and then took a big bite of the doughy piece of heaven.
My staff always seemed to find their way to my office after one of Bri’s visits and then would sucker me into sharing my stash of treats.
“Why are you here, Bri? Other than to annoy the crap out of me.”
She walked over to my door, shut it, and then strolled to the seat across from my desk before sitting down.
“There’s a hit out on Sebastian.”
I stopped chewing and set my treat on a napkin. “Say that again.”
“You heard me.”
“How do you know this?”
“Some of our tech sleuths heard chatter on the web.”
By “web,” she meant the dark web. The part of the Internet ninety-nine percent of the world never accessed but where the dirtiest, darkest, and most dangerous deals occurred, from arms deals and assassination plots to the bartering of humans.
“Why are you telling me and not him?”
“Because our association isn’t public knowledge.” She paused, and then continued. “And he wouldn’t believe me. Your husband is so used to having a target on his head, he doesn’t take any new threat seriously. He’s all business except when it comes to you. He deviated from the norm. He softened for you. He’ll listen to you.”
I found it hard to believe.
As if seeing my doubt, she said, “I’ve known him for the last five years. He handles his business efficiently and has a single-minded focus toward his goals. You are the one person he has put everything on hold for. He spent time with you, he got to know you, he showed you a side of him no one, I mean no one, has ever seen.”
The way she described Sebastian reminded me of Papa. The people he softened with were Mama and me.
“What do you expect me to do? We’ve been married less than a day.”
“I need you to get him out of town.”
“I can’t leave, I have multiple fucking businesses to run.”
“Your able-bodied staff is more than capable of handling them until we can determine who the threat is on his life.”
“Why is this so important to you?”
“I owe him, and I always pay my debts.”
“What did he do for you?”
“That is a need to know.” She stood, pulling out a folder from her bag and tossing it on my desk. “Look over these pieces and give me a price for appraisal.”
“I already told you I can’t do it.”
“You know you want to. You like the game of finding the fakes from the real thing.”
She was right, but I wasn’t going to admit it. I wasn’t secret-agent material, but it was a hell of a lot of fun to discover a master forger when no other person around had caught on.
“You’re so bossy.”
&nb
sp; “That’s the only way to be, bella. Now get your man out of town.”
“You seem to think higher of my abilities than I do. And what excuse could I possibly give him?”
“Pretend you want to go on a honeymoon. You’re a princess, sometimes you need to act like one.”
I sobered as the gravity of why Bri wanted me to leave with Sebastian hit me. “I won’t lie to him. Lies are what caused the mess between us.”
“I swear, you’re so annoying with your ‘tell the truth’ ideals. Sometimes a little white lie keeps danger from invading one’s world.”
“Some people are trained to lie. I’m not. I suck at it.”
“That you do. Remember that time I told you to tell the art dealer his statue was a fake when it wasn’t? You nearly stuttered your way into a heart attack.”
I pinched my lips together. It was my one-and-only time working face-to-face with a target.
“I prefer to focus on my skills as a markswoman in stopping said dealer from running away with his stolen goods.”
“You shot the tires out of his car, from the roof of the building. I hardly think that was a good use of the hours I spent teaching you to handle a long-range rifle. If you’re going to shoot, shoot the perp, not the car.”
“You may have taught me to shoot, but Ana’s the one who honed my skills.”
“Well, she quit so now you’re stuck with me.”
“Whatever. I’m not going to lie to him.”
“I’m not telling you to lie. Besides, he’s like a human lie detector.”
“I really hate you sometimes.”
“It’s okay. I love you all the time.”
Sebastian
“What’s the emergency?” I said to Lucas as I returned to Jonas’s townhouse.
The last thing I wanted to do was come back to this godforsaken place. I had hours of calls to make to all of my family’s allies, informing them of the change in power.
But the cryptic text Lucas sent, saying, Urgent, get your ass back to the house and put a man on your bride, had me driving back in an hour and putting everything else on hold.
Assigning someone to protect Isa wasn’t a problem. I’d had a man on her since the moment I learned I was engaged to her. The combination of my people with her personal detail would keep her as protected as possible without keeping her under lock and key.
Instead of answering my question, Lucas said, “If you don’t kill him after this, I will. It’s in his bedroom.”
The thought of going into the room where the old man had spent the years since Mama’s death with his near-underaged girls made me want to hurl. It hadn’t even been a month after Mama’s funeral when one of his women had paraded through the house as if she were queen of the manor.
She’d learned she was disposable a week later when she was replaced by another beauty with a killer body and no ambition but to land a man by spreading her legs.
We made our way into the musty, over-decorated house. We entered the bedroom to find a group of soldiers emptying drawers and one digging through a safe that looked freshly installed.
“Bring them here,” Lucas said to Kurt, who seemed to have a slight edge of worry on his face.
“Sir, you need to see this.” Kurt handed me a file folder and then positioned an open laptop in my direction.
Inside the folder were more pictures of Isa, but these were shots designed to be part of an investigative profile, similar to the one I’d had made on her. But instead of details on her whereabouts, it had information on her sexual history and physical measurements.
The coldness I’d felt when I’d seen the pictures from earlier in the morning returned.
As I flipped to the last of the documents in the folder, I found a transcript of a phone conversation Jonas had had a little over six months ago with Carson Malkovich, a known member of a Russian family trying to create a stronghold in Germany. A family who specialized in the very thing I’d spent my last assignment stopping. The sale of humans.
They discussed past transactions and payments, but it was the end of the conversation that had me ready to find the bastard, beat him until he begged for death, and then leave him to freeze on the banks of the river.
Jonas: Payment of forty million Euros upon completion of job. She’s a prime piece of ass to populate your next generation.
Malkovich: I don’t want a washed-up woman. I want her in breeding condition.
Jonas: The boy will use her but he won’t hurt her—she’s too much like his whore mother.
Malkovich: What guarantees do I have that this won’t blow up in our faces?
Jonas: I know my organization and my men. Their loyalty will always be to me. You’ll have to trust me.
Malkovich: I trust no one.
Jonas: You still owe me for what happened to my Hannah.
Malkovich: I owe you nothing. My men did what you arranged. It was your responsibility to have your daughter with you.
Jonas: You want the girl or not?
Malkovich: Forty million and the girl. Immediately upon delivery.
Jonas: Excellent. Now to get the boy.
The rage coursing through my body took all my effort not to let loose. My mind was swimming. All these years of not knowing, of wondering, of searching.
I clenched my fists. Jonas had been responsible for Mama and Hannah’s deaths. He’d destroyed an amazing woman and a sweet little girl.
And now he was going to sell my wife to a man who not only had killed my mother and sister but every one of his women after torturing them first.
The room seemed to still as if everyone was waiting for my reaction. I’d spent too many years schooling my responses to give anything away.
Taking a deep breath, I turned to Kurt and took the laptop he held. That was when I noticed the only soldiers in the room were those who’d been with me since I was a teenager. None of the ones from earlier in the morning were here.
If Lucas had removed everyone who was under Jonas, he had to have suspicions about loyalty, especially after what Jonas had said in the transcript.
I glanced at Lucas, who gestured with his chin to the computer. “Take a look at what we found on the surveillance footage from the family airstrip an hour after Jonas left here.”
My gaze shifted to the screen. There was a picture of Jonas boarding a plane.
“That’s not one of our jets.” I studied the luxury aircraft.
“It’s Malkovich’s.”
“Who cleared it to land? Ben?”
Ben was one of my men—he would never betray me.
Lucas’s gaze grew harder than before. “No. Andre found his body half an hour ago. Ben was shot and then his throat was slit.”
That was the signature move for Malkovich’s people.
Fuck. Ben had a wife and kids. He’d moved to the airfield believing it was a safer position than being my security detail.
Jonas had planned all of this. He’d sacrificed a good man.
“Why the fuck didn’t we get a warning the airstrip was in use?”
“Because Jonas ensured we wouldn’t.” Kurt pointed to the screen.
Circled in bold red were the faces of Dax and Samuel Walter. They stood at the base of the stairs of the plane Jonas boarded, and from their demeanor, they weren’t just with Jonas, they were with Malkovich.
How long had they played both sides?
The sense of betrayal was a punch to the gut. They were two high-ranking lieutenants in the organization, who’d been around since Opa had run the family. I’d trusted them. They’d helped me get my head on straight after my mother and sister’s murders. They’d played at loyalty to the family above all things.
Liars. They sacrificed the life of one of our men and put my wife in mortal danger.
Those bastards were going to learn the cost of siding with anyone other than the family.
“Did they come back after dropping Jonas off?” I asked, to no one in particular. This time I couldn’t hide the rage boilin
g in me.
Lucas answered, “Yes. They’re in the basement. I have them searching the files for information on Jonas’s safe houses.”
“I’m sure they liked that task.”
Dax and Samuel were at the top of the food chain under Jonas, but with me they wouldn’t have that place. They’d have to prove they were worthy of their positions.
That was a moot point now.
“They haven’t quite grasped I’m your second and if I tell them to scrub toilets, they need to shut their mouths and do it.”
“Kurt, you’re in charge. Secure the room. I believe it’s time to have a chat with the Walter brothers.”
Not bothering to see if my instructions were followed, I turned and made my way to the basement.
As I approached, I heard Dax say, “They’re beauties. Too bad you don’t have a taste for them.”
“Shut the fuck up. If anyone hears you, Weber won’t think twice about ending us,” Samuel responded.
“The boy needs us. We know all of his father’s secrets. How else is he going to locate him?” The amusement in Dax’s tone said he had no qualms about double-crossing me.
I slowly stepped into the room, my men staying quiet behind me. Neither Dax nor Samuel noticed my entrance.
“You’re too cocky. You saw the way he watched his woman. This isn’t going to be as cut and dry as everyone believes.” Samuel opened another box. “Why the fuck does one man need all this useless shit?”
“That’s not our business. Boss wanted it kept. All you have to do is follow the plan.”
It was time to make my presence known. “Mind sharing this plan? Especially since I’m your boss.”
Both men froze.
I walked up to them. “I gave an order.”
The way their eyes shifted back and forth as if they were looking for an escape had me almost hoping they’d try something. The men were big, but untrained from years of giving orders.
“Not sure what plan you’re talking about.” Dax rose from his perch over a box and came toward me. “We’re just following Flynn’s directive.” There was a sneer in his words that had me holding back the urge to backhand him.
I held out a hand, and immediately, Lucas placed the switchblade Opa had given me before his death into it, the very one he’d used when disciplining his soldiers.
