by Bella Rose
“Just find out what’s going on,” Mikhail told Frank. “I trust my gut. It’s kept me alive this long. I’d be a fool to ignore it now. I know I sound paranoid. Maybe I have good reason to be. Just do it and stop giving me shit.”
Frank clicked off without another word, leaving Mikhail feeling as if he’d overreacted twice over.
* * *
Courtney glanced over her shoulder and sighed with relief. It was time to have a talk with her father about these men he kept paying to tail her. At least, she was almost certain they were her father’s men. Who else would want to follow her every move? She’d felt compelled to ditch the men every single day before she went to work. It had become a nuisance as much as anything else. Especially since she could hardly believe her father was still ignorant of her having a job. Was the man so far out of it after losing his business that he simply wasn’t paying attention anymore?
Of course, if that was the case, then it was a little strange that he was having her followed. She had just begun contemplating the possibility that it was Creighton who had put her under surveillance when a large white van screeched to a halt at the corner in front of her.
Time slowed to a snail’s pace as she watched the side door open to let two men out on the curb. They were enormous and dressed all in black. She had the odd thought that they hadn’t bothered to cover their faces. That couldn’t be good if this was a kidnapping. Then she realized what she was thinking. Kidnapping? That meant she needed to be doing something else other than standing here like some hapless victim.
Putting on the brakes, she turned on her heels and sprinted in the opposite direction of the van. She could hear the men shouting to each other behind her. Their boots made a lot of noise on the concrete. The hard slapping of their feet grew closer. Her lungs worked furiously as she screamed at the top of her lungs and tried to run away.
Why was nobody helping her? She passed people. They just turned and stared. Did nobody want to get involved? She saw a few phones out. They were actually videoing her. They’d video the event but not help her? Life sucked!
The men were shouting in something that was not English. She couldn’t understand them. But as she dodged around a big blue mailbox and just managed to avoid a set of thick arms, she knew they were upon her. Her lungs burned with the effort of getting away, and she knew she was going to be caught.
“Please!” she screamed. “Help me! Stranger danger!” It was the only thing she could manage to yell. Ridiculous words that only seemed to make people think she was kidding.
Then the arms wrapped around her, and she began to fight and wrestle. She bit the man’s arm, but that only earned her a cuff to the side of her head that made her see stars. She was momentarily stunned and silent. Then the van pulled up beside them, and her captor threw her inside.
Her butt hit the hard surface of the vehicle’s floorboards, and someone threw a bag over her head. It was well and truly over, and she was caught.
* * *
Mikhail was pacing again when Frank pushed his way into the office. Trying to work had become utterly useless. Mikhail’s instincts were all over the place, and he would not be satisfied until Courtney was sitting right in front of him and the two of them could work this whole baby thing out to their mutual satisfaction. Surely that was all they needed to do. Some plans or something, and maybe an agreement. Or something.
“Boss.” Frank looked as if he was about to deliver news that Mikhail would not like. “We dug around and discovered that Vasily was responsible for the write-up in the society page of the paper.”
“What?” Mikhail roared. “Why would he do that?”
“Five minutes ago our IT guys found video on the Internet of a woman being abducted right here in town. Apparently the general public and about two dozen witnesses all thought it was a gag of some kind.”
“Our society is screwed,” Mikhail muttered. “It was Courtney. That’s what you’re going to tell me.”
“Yes. We think so.”
“And the captors?”
“The IT department is trying to isolate a plate or something to identify the van. It’s totally generic.” Frank was still texting someone on his phone, probably the guys down in IT.
“It’s Vasily,” Mikhail said tersely.
“Are you willing to go charging in there without verifying that?” Frank asked quietly. “If you’re wrong, that puts you in a very bad position with him.”
“You know I’m right.” Mikhail nearly ripped his hair out by the roots. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Sir, we’re trying to verify. It could be her father or Creighton. We still can’t rule out those two suspects.”
Mikhail closed his eyes, feeling as though he had let something precious slip right through his fingers. She had been just out of reach his entire life. Now someone was trying to make that permanent. How much of a fool was he to give into his fear of commitment? What if something happened and Courtney died without his ever having apologized for being such an ass? Hell. He had slept in the same bed with her just last night and treated her with an almost callous disregard. How often had he screwed up?
“I’m not fucking this up,” Mikhail said furiously. “Not this time.”
“Sir?”
“I want you to do some recon. Forget verifying this bullshit on the Internet. Send a team to Vasily’s. If he’s got her I want a meeting. Now.”
“If you’re sure.” Frank looked dubious. “I have to say this is not my recommendation.”
“What happened to the team that was supposed to be watching her?” Mikhail demanded.
Frank looked chagrined. “She gave them the slip about five minutes before she was nabbed.”
“Then let’s do something right for once, shall we?” Mikhail was determined that this should apply to just about everything when it came to Courtney Piers-Cameron.
Chapter Seventeen
Someone yanked the bag off Courtney’s head. The brilliant lights in the room briefly dazzled her eyes. She blinked a few times as she tried to get the spots to go away. The room where she was being held was vaguely familiar. Her hands were tied behind her back, held together with hard plastic zip ties. She was in a hard-backed chair in a room with high ceilings and oiled wainscoting. The place looked as if it had been pulled straight from a movie set in the colonial era.
Yes. She recognized her surroundings. She had been there twice before with her father for various social functions. This was Creighton Kemper’s family home. But Courtney couldn’t imagine why Kemper would have had anything to do with a kidnapping. What point would it serve? Especially given the society page misinformation that had been printed in the paper, there was no point in taking her against her will.
“Hello, Ms. Piers-Cameron.”
The voice was certainly not Creighton Kemper’s. It was cultured, but accented—Russian perhaps? She turned her head, trying to see who was standing behind her. It was impossible to get a good look from this angle. Her heart began to thump against her ribs, and she felt the first few pangs of panic.
Courtney took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice carefully measured. “Who are you?”
“I’m a concerned individual.”
She couldn’t help the snort that escaped. Concerned? “That’s hard to believe, since you snatched me off the street against my will. Or are you just referring to the fact that you’re concerned with your own interests and not mine?”
“You are feistier than I first imagined,” the voice said with obvious amusement. “I can see why he likes you so much.”
“Who likes me? Kemper? Kemper needs his head checked. I wouldn’t marry that philandering asshole if he were the last man on earth!” Courtney couldn’t help her outburst. She was so annoyed with Creighton right now, she could happily smack him between his legs with a baseball bat.
“Philandering asshole.” A man finally wandered into view. He was big and broad and definitely not Creighton. He smiled at her. He was handsome in his ow
n way, and vaguely familiar. “I like your creativity.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Vasily Romanov.”
Courtney froze. She vividly recalled hearing her father talk about Mikhail’s criminal relations back when he was telling her that Mikhail’s bad decisions had gotten him killed. “What do you want?” she whispered.
“A very interesting question.”
“You weren’t talking about Creighton before,” she said suddenly. “You were talking about Mikhail.”
“Da!” Vasily clapped his hands. “I almost feel sorry for you.”
She swallowed, feeling the bile begin to rise in her throat. “Why?”
“Because you are far too good for Creighton Kemper.” Vasily shrugged. “And yet I am going to make sure that you marry him because it will benefit me greatly to do so.”
* * *
Mikhail stood in front of Vasily’s home. The place certainly didn’t fit the profile of a Russian mobster’s base of operations. Although maybe that was the point entirely. The entire abode spoke of understated elegance and good taste. The narrow three-story structure was at least a century old and renovated to perfection. Mikhail knew without looking that the interior was stuffed with antiques and expensive art. Vasily had impeccable taste, and his wife Oksana adored spending money to furnish, refurnish, and refurbish whatever she could get her hands on.
He took a deep breath and ascended the steps to the wide front porch. Usually there was a man stationed there to watch the street and the door. Tonight there was nobody. That was Mikhail’s first sign that something was very wrong. The second was that Ekaterina answered the door.
“Katy,” Mikhail said softly.
“Hello, Mikhail.” Her smile was as brilliant as ever, but there was nothing about her that affected him in the way Courtney did.
“Katy, where’s Vasily?” Mikhail didn’t bother trying to pretend he was there for anything else.
“Papa has gone out.” Katy clasped her hands in front of her. “He asked me to remind you that if you want her back, you’ll give him what he needs.”
Mikhail saw a gaping crevasse opening before him. Vasily had obviously taken Courtney. Now he was holding her as collateral for the company that he wanted. The Russians obviously had their sights set on Pierson Security and refused to admit when they were outfoxed—or technically outbid, in this case.
Mikhail felt a grin tug unbidden at the corners of his mouth. “You father always plays the hand he is dealt and then cheats. You know that, Katy. Why help him?”
“I’m just the messenger.” She shook her head and shrugged.
Mikhail cocked his head, wondering how far and how thin her loyalty stretched. Especially given her recent marriage to a man she most likely didn’t care anything about. “He has the mother of my child, Katy. He has Courtney.”
Katy’s jaw tightened. He could see her clenching her teeth and knew she was angry. Then she pursed her lips and looked away. Her gaze seemed to stretch far away. “You never came back to see us after you left.”
“Your father would have killed me, Katy,” he reminded her.
She seemed hung up on something in particular. “What happened that day?”
“With your brother?” Asking was pointless. He knew exactly what she was referring to. “Uday went crazy, Katy. You knew that.”
“He wasn’t crazy,” she argued. “He was tired of Papa’s pushing him.”
Mikhail shrugged. “I did as I was told.”
“Papa said you went on a rampage.” She looked at him accusingly. “He said that is how you got your reputation and why everyone left you alone.”
“Did he?” Mikhail mused. “It wasn’t quite like that.”
“How was it, then? I want to know?” she insisted.
“Your father ordered me to shoot Uday,” Mikhail told her softly. “I refused.”
Katy looked stricken. “No.”
“They were going to kill us both then.” Mikhail could feel himself slipping back to that moment. “I started shooting. I don’t even know how many men I hit. I emptied my clip and slammed another one in the gun and that’s when I saw your brother go down. I didn’t kill him. But I got the credit. And as far as I know, Uday was shooting just as much as I was. There was no telling who was responsible for what. But I was the one who walked away, and I suppose that meant I earned the credit.”
“Papa took the woman to Creighton Kemper’s family home,” Katy whispered. “It’s outside the city. In the country somewhere. Apparently nobody goes out there. Or that’s what Kemper told Papa.”
“Thank you.” Mikhail gently touched her hand. “And I wish you all the happiness. No matter how you get it.”
* * *
“What is it you think you know about Mikhail Krachenko that would make you want to be with a man like that?” Vasily said with an exaggerated sense of the dramatic.
Courtney was hesitant to answer. The man had been pontificating endlessly on the virtues of Creighton and the match that she’d already agreed to make with him. Courtney couldn’t imagine what Vasily cared about who she married. None of it made any sense.
“Would you just shut up and get to the point?” she finally shouted. “I don’t understand what this matters to you. Go home to your Russian mobster lifestyle and leave me out of it. Mikhail isn’t a part of your organization anymore. I know he’s not. I don’t think he ever was! That was something my father concocted just to blacken Mikhail’s name and make me hate him!”
“Is that what you think?” Vasily crossed his arms over his broad chest, looking very smug. “Let me tell you a few things about your precious Mikhail.”
“What?” Courtney snarled. “Is this where you tell a bunch of lies to make me hate him too? I’m sorry, but my father already screwed that up for you. I’m done believing all of the crap. I know him. He’s a good man.”
“He murdered my son.”
Courtney froze in her chair. She knew Mikhail carried something around on his shoulders, some kind of guilt or some perceive wrongdoing. Something. But could it really be something so awful?
“I thought you were related to him,” Courtney said slowly. “Wouldn’t your son be Mikhail’s cousin or something?”
“Why do you think we have never come after Mikhail before now?” Vasily blustered. “We have left him alone as long as he stays out of our business interests. For a man who was once blooded as one of us, that is not normal, little girl. Not at all.”
Courtney hated the condescending way he spoke to her. She ground her teeth together and tried to see through all the bullshit. She was so tired of everyone lying to her and just expecting her to eat it up.
“We let Mikhail Krachenko walk away, because he was such a brutal killer that the idea of going after him made grown men shake in their boots.” Vasily waved his hand. “It is embarrassing, but there it is. He slaughtered my son along with ten of my best men that night. He is a killer through and through.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that you’ve left him alone until right now?” Courtney argued weakly. “Why now?”
“We had made arrangements with Kemper to acquire your father’s company when Kemper married you. It was to be your dowry, no?” Vasily rushed ahead, not even waiting for her to try and explain that he didn’t quite understand how her father had meant for that to happen. “Then Mikhail swoops in right under our noses and steals the company! It is insulting!”
It occurred to Courtney that Vasily was giving her way too much information. “Why are you telling me all of this? You’re doing the classic evil-villain info dump. I don’t get it. What’s your angle?”
“Oh, me?” Vasily shrugged. “I was wasting time until the priest got here.”
Courtney nearly choked trying to speak. “Priest?”
“Somebody needs to perform the marriage. No?” Vasily looked as though he’d just played the biggest joke ever. Courtney was just hoping it was all a nightmare and she would wake up in the morning an
d find out she could start this day over again.
* * *
Mikhail was already stepping into the driver’s side of his car when he felt the cold steel of a handgun muzzle pressed against his temple. He lifted his hands slowly, reflexively taking the stance of surrender and trying to figure out who had managed to so completely get the drop on him.
“I don’t know what you want,” Mikhail said slowly. “But I can get you a lot of money if you just turn around and walk away.”
“Money.” The bitter voice belonged to Gordon Piers-Cameron.
Mikhail stepped back onto the pavement beside his car and lowered his hands. He stared down the barrel of Gordon’s gun and waited. His heart was steady and his breathing regular. He did not believe in his heart that Gordon had the machismo or commitment to pull the trigger. The man wanted something. He wasn’t ready to give up just yet.
“You have to stay out of this,” Gordon said haltingly. “You can’t go messing things up again. You keep doing that, you know. Even when you were a boy you were always making matters more difficult than you should have.”
“How is that?” Mikhail asked in a neutral voice. “What did I do?”
“You put ideas in her head,” Gordon insisted. “She was happy until you came along and told her that she wasn’t. Now it’s the same thing all over again.”
“If you think your daughter was ever happy,” Mikhail growled, “then you never knew her at all.”
Chapter Eighteen
Courtney was doing her level best not to freak out. It wouldn’t do her any favors to make Vasily think he had rattled her. The man couldn’t force her to marry Creighton. This wasn’t the eighteenth century; people had to agree to marry. There was a legal contract involved. There were licenses and—well—other stuff. No matter what this crazy Russian mobster said, she wasn’t going to marry Creighton Kemper.
Of course, at the moment she wasn’t about to marry Mikhail Krachenko either. In fact she was contemplating a life of being single. It had to be far easier than this incessant wondering about who was lying to her, why and for what purpose.
