by Lara Adrian
“Because after Abbie’s death, things were . . . different between him and Knox. They’d been as close as any brothers could be after they’d escaped the lab, but all of that changed after Knox lost Abbie. He was filled with so much anger. Cain was too. He left the Darkhaven a couple of nights after the accident. Knox was already gone. He went out that night to look for Abbie and he didn’t come back for six months.”
“And Cain?”
Lana slowly shook her head. “He’s been gone all these eight years since . . . until tonight. Until you.”
The words settled heavily on her. No wonder Cain’s mood had grown increasingly dark the closer they got to the Everglades. No wonder he acted as if he’d rather be anywhere else tonight, with anyone else.
Now his anger toward her made a little sense.
So did the pain she saw in him out on the swamp path.
“I’ll go see about warming up something for you to eat,” Lana said as she headed for the open door of the guest room. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be back in a few minutes and we can talk some more in the kitchen over a bowl of chicken stew and biscuits.”
“Thank you, Lana. That sounds lovely.”
Marina smiled, but her face felt as if it were made of clay. Her empty stomach growled in approval of the meal she definitely needed, but her appetite had all but dried up.
Because now she knew she was right. Cain had lost someone he cared about, even loved.
The problem was, that woman hadn’t belonged to him.
CHAPTER 8
Cain moved the Aston Martin off the swamp road to the Darkhaven’s secured garage. He’d parked it on the path when they arrived, unsure how he would be greeted if he drove right up to the gates and demanded to be let in.
Returning inside now with his small duffel and Marina’s luggage, it felt strange as hell to be walking in and out of the place as though he’d never been gone. As far as homecomings went, his tonight was smoother than he deserved—even if the only other person who could truly understand his reluctance to be there had yet to make his appearance.
He’d have to cross that bridge with Knox eventually. He owed it to his brother. He only hoped the confrontation, when it came, wouldn’t end with one or both of them torn to shreds.
As for the rest of the former Hunters, after Marina and Lana had left the room, he’d brought everyone up to speed on the situation in Miami, starting with his vision of her would-be assassination and the subsequent attack on her life by Yury. To a man, his brothers agreed that protecting Marina was a duty that could not be refused.
Whether that meant Cain would accompany her to the eventual rendezvous with Anatoly Moretskov’s contact or that he would instead pack her ass up and sending her back home to Russia at the earliest opportunity, he hadn’t yet decided. He’d take whichever scenario seemed to be the least likely to get the Breedmate killed on his watch.
Right now, neither option felt right. He had precious little intel to go on apart from Marina’s word, and the prickling of his instincts warned him not to take the female on face value. No matter how staggeringly fine the face in question happened to be.
Fuck.
His fangs pulsed in his gums as he strode through the vacated great room on his way to the hexagon-shaped Darkhaven’s interior corridor with the two bags in his hands. Bram and Logan’s deep voices carried from one of the many gathering rooms that spoked off the connecting hallway. But as he turned toward the residential wing, it was the low thump of growling rock music and the accompanying clack of computer keys that slowed Cain’s steps as he approached Razor’s living quarters.
The door was open just wide enough to see the big male seated at his workstation in near darkness, but for the light of a single desk lamp and the glow emanating from a pair of open monitors on his desk. One of the screens was filled with code and open browser panels. The other displayed a live video feed of the exterior of a small cabin on a pine-studded mountain. Based on the sunset, Cain guessed the location had to be about three time zones west of the east coast.
Without noticing he had company standing silently behind him in the doorway, Raze typed commands on his keyboard and the focus of the drone’s camera overhead tightened. The feed sharpened with laser clarity on an open-air Jeep that was just making its way up the mountain toward the cabin. A curvy brunette in faded jeans and a gauzy white peasant top hopped out from behind the wheel and began to unpack a bunch of groceries and supplies.
Raze leaned forward in his chair and homed in even closer on the young woman, until her sun-kissed, freckled face and bright green eyes filled the monitor. The focus lingered on her as she went about her business, carrying items into the cabin unaware she was being watched.
“She’s pretty.”
Razor hit a key and the surveillance went black. For a male who was damn hard to rattle, he looked more than rankled to realize he had a witness to his cyber spying. “Just keeping an eye on a situation for a friend.”
Cain grunted. “Good thing. Otherwise the whole long-distance stalking scenario might seem creepy.”
Ordinarily, Raze would have chuckled at a brotherly jab, or at least broken a smirk. Instead he killed the music, then pivoted in his chair and watched Cain stroll inside the room uninvited. With the pair of bags stowed at his feet, Cain crossed his arms and eased his shoulder against the wall.
“I need your help, Raze.” He gestured to the computers on his brother’s desk. “I need to know whatever you can dig up on Anatoly Moretskov.”
Razor hated to be called a hacker, but he was remarkably adept when it came to chasing down a target, either online or in person. And if he needed more specialized computer skills than his own impressive abilities, Cain knew the male had a network of contacts all around the world that he could tap for assistance at a moment’s notice.
A sly tilt kicked up the corner of Raze’s broad mouth. “I’m about ten minutes ahead of you, brother. I started pulling data on the bastard as soon as my ass hit the chair.”
Cain approached the workstation as Razor began opening browsers and files on the bigger of the two monitors. “Question number one, is Moretskov still alive?”
“As of a few hours ago, he was. Here’s a photo from a State dinner he attended in Moscow last night.” On screen was an image of three men in tuxedos holding cigars and glasses of sparkling champagne. “Moretskov’s the balding penguin on the right.”
Cain studied the grinning, portly man with the dark eyes and thinning ring of salt-and-pepper hair. The smile and laughing eyes didn’t seem to belong to a man who’d just sent his niece on a life-and-death errand for him five thousand miles away.
Then again, Moretskov likely had no idea yet that Marina had run into danger. Since leaving Miami, she’d been desperate to get in contact with her uncle. Cain had her satellite phone in his pocket, which he intended to deliver along with her other belongings once he was satisfied with the intel he got from Razor.
“Who are the other two men with Moretskov?”
“Dude in the middle is a multi-billionaire who also happens to be married to the Russian president’s cousin. And the big-nosed ox on the left is none other than Boris Karamenko, head of a particularly nasty group within the Bratva. Arms trading, narcotics, human trafficking. He’s got his chubby fingers in all of it. He’s also got a reputation as a beast to his enemies, well-deserved by the sound of it. Nobody crosses Karamenko and lives to tell.”
“And Moretskov? Is he as bad as his boss?”
Raze glanced at him. “No one’s as bad as Karamenko. As for our man Anatoly, he reports directly to Karamenko as his personal banker. According to rumor and speculation, Moretskov’s bank in Saint Petersburg has been laundering mob money and managing various other financial interests for Karamenko for about thirty years.”
“And now he wants out,” Cain said, staring at the men in the photo. He shook his head. “If Boris Karamenko is as bad as you say, it’s going to cost a hell of a lot more than two million
dollars to get out from under him.”
“You think she’s lying to you?”
Cain frowned. “I think she’s protecting her uncle and nothing else matters to her. I think she’ll say or do anything for him.” Even risk her own life, evidently. “What else do you have on Moretskov?”
Razor brought up another file. “Here’s the basic bio. Fifty-eight years old. Rumored net worth of half a billion by U.S. numbers. Never been married. One younger sibling, a sister, Ekaterina. She died twenty-two years ago.”
Cain nodded, recalling that Marina said she had lost her mother when she was three. He didn’t want to recall the pain he’d heard in that confession, the vulnerability in her voice when she’d admitted that she understood the pain of loss.
He cleared his throat. “What about the rest of the Moretskovs? Do they come from a long line of mobsters and oligarchs?”
“Not at all,” Raze said. “His parents were middle class. His father was an accountant who later worked his way into management of the bank in Saint Petersburg. Anatoly’s mother was a music teacher. They made enough money to send their son to the United States for college. Sounds like he might’ve stayed in the U.S. indefinitely, but when Anatoly was in his late twenties his father had a stroke and had to retire from the bank. Anatoly returned to Russia and assumed control of the family business. In two years, he’d increased the bank’s worth to over one-hundred billion in holdings. Mostly rumored mafia business.”
“And it only took him thirty years to find his conscience.” Cain scoffed, still skeptical about Moretskov even though he had no right to be sanctimonious. He’d spent a number of years in Las Vegas working for a man who wasn’t much better than Moretskov, or even Karamenko. He had a bank account that was fat with blood-stained money earned by delivering pain to his employer’s enemies.
He was far from a saint, but he’d rather walk headlong into the sun before he’d even consider allowing someone he cared about to brush up against the filthy edges of his profession.
Meanwhile, Marina was standing front and center in the midst of some of the most dangerous and powerful players in the world.
Cain braced his hands on the edge of the desk. “What can you tell me about Marina?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” He watched impatiently as Razor typed on the keyboard and brought up a number of files and documents. Public record information, society articles translated from Russian, a handful of old photographs from assorted events Marina had attended. One social announcement and image was dated nine years ago, on the night of her society debut in Saint Petersburg.
Cain scanned it all while Razor provided a verbal summary. “Born twenty-five years ago in New York City, father unknown. Dual citizenship, but it doesn’t look like she’s spent any time in the States other than now. Educated in Russia, fluent in both languages, as we know. Not a lot to tell here, man. Private tutors, expensive finishing schools, some equestrian awards when she was a teen. Just the basic rich bitch stuff you’d expect.”
Cain pointed to an old article that mentioned her mother’s name. “What’s that one about?”
“Death notice for Ekaterina Moretskova.” Raze ran it through a translator then hit the highlights. “Only sibling of Anatoly Moretskov, Ekaterina died twenty-two years ago while on a boating holiday in Spain with a male friend, a young literature professor from Moscow. Medical examiner ruled the drownings accidental due to the presence of alcohol and narcotics in both victims’ bloodstreams.”
“Jesus.” Cain exhaled the curse low under his breath. He knew Marina’s mother’s death couldn’t have been natural based on her age when she’d passed, but he hadn’t been expecting something this tragic.
Neither Cain nor any of his Hunter brothers produced in Dragos’s labs knew what it was like to have actual parents. They didn’t know that kind of love. They didn’t know the kind of hurt it might inflict to have a parent’s love only to lose it.
For a three-year-old child like Marina had been, it must have been devastating.
All she had left was her uncle. Even now.
Anatoly Moretskov wasn’t going to win any Man of the Year awards, but could Cain really fault Marina for clinging to the only family she had?
He didn’t fault her, but he didn’t care, either. He couldn’t allow himself to care, he reminded himself sternly.
The only truth that mattered was the damned birthmark on her ankle and the moral obligation he had to keep her alive. Even that was made of flimsy matter. For what wasn’t the first time, he wondered how low of a man he’d have to be to leave Marina in the care of Bram and the rest of his brothers here at the Darkhaven, then be on his way.
He had no doubt she’d be better off without him. Safer.
Christ, without him, she’d be safer on more levels than he cared to admit.
“What about boyfriends or lovers?” he blurted. “Any of those articles or documents mention any men in her life?”
Razor slanted him a flat look. “You’ve been eating her with your eyes all night, but you haven’t worked up the balls to ask her that basic fact? You’re slipping, Cain.”
He glowered. “I’m not asking because I’m interested in the female.”
“Whatever you say, man.” His brother had the nerve to chuckle.
“It called due diligence,” Cain drawled. “Besides, she’s not my type.”
Raze arched a tawny brow. “Didn’t realize you had one.”
Cain grunted. “Anyone without a Breedmate mark, for starters. And no one I’m supposed to be protecting.” He gestured to the blackened screen that had been trained on a mystery woman when he walked in the room. “You might want to adopt a similar policy.”
The other male lifted his chin, then blew out a short chuckle. “Yeah, fuck you, too, brother.”
“As for Marina,” Cain said, “I want to be sure she’s not part of the Bratva along with her uncle.”
“You got reason to think she is?” Razor swiveled toward him, folding his glyph-covered muscled arms over his chest. “You think her story about Moretskov seeking asylum is bullshit?”
Cain shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. But I know she’s not telling me everything. She’s protecting some kind of secret and I don’t like it.”
“Hell, we’ve all got secrets to protect, man.”
Cain wasn’t going to deny that. But whatever secret Marina was hiding had likely already put a target on her back. It might put one on anyone else near her, too, including the people he cared about in this Darkhaven.
And if it did, that meant Cain and his unwanted charge were going to have serious problems.
Problems far bigger than the impossible desire that he couldn’t seem to shake whenever she was around.
CHAPTER 9
Marina ran a soft terry washcloth under the cold water tap in her en suite bathroom, then wrung it out and scrubbed the cool, damp cloth over her face. Exhaustion leaked away on her sigh, but the face staring at her in the mirror still looked weary. Worse than weary, she looked scared and uncertain.
All accurate, no matter how much she wanted to deny it.
And she was hungry too. The appetite that had abandoned her when Lana left a few minutes ago had come back with a vengeance by the time a short knock sounded on the guest room door in the other room.
“Come in,” she called, drying her hands. “The door is open, Lana.”
But as Marina stepped out of the bathroom, she found it wasn’t the other Breedmate who entered the room. It was Cain. Hard silver eyes locked on her as he walked in holding her suitcase. It was easy to forget how big he was, how just the sight of his muscled bulk and stern dark looks radiated unearthly menace and power. Even the air seemed to make way for him, growing thinner and hotter every second he remained in the room.
Marina crossed her arms under her breasts and raised her chin as she struggled to hold his unnerving stare. “Lana said she would send Bram to retrieve my bag from the car
.”
Cain grunted. “Sorry to disappoint.” His tone was anything but apologetic as he set the suitcase on the foot of the bed. She saw his gaze flick briefly, distractedly, to the cheery mermaid painting on the wall. Abbie’s painting. His brow furrowed with a deep scowl. “I trust Lana is seeing to it that you’re comfortable and have whatever you need.”
“Yes. She seems very nice.”
“She is.”
A monotone reply, accompanied by a cold, impersonal stare that took her aback even more than the fury that seemed to bubble so close to the surface of the lethal former Hunter. Something was different about Cain now, a subtle yet unmistakable change in his demeanor since the last time she’d seen him.
Starting in Miami, he’d been irritable and broody toward her. Half the time she’d been with him, she hadn’t been sure if he wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled or strip her naked and make her scream for an entirely different reason.
Now she felt a cool detachment stretch between them, as if she were looking at a stranger, not the man who saved her life. Not the man who had ignited a desire in her that still smoldered even in light of his chilly aloofness now.
Marina ignored all of it, focusing instead on what truly mattered. Her uncle and her promise to help him.
“Thank you for bringing the rest of my things,” she said, crossing to the bed with brisk strides. She opened the suitcase and sifted through the clothing with her hand. She frowned. “There was a satellite phone in here.”
“Yes.” Cain’s deep voice drew her gaze to him. He reached into the pocket of his black jeans and withdrew the device.
“You went through my belongings?”
He didn’t answer. Not so much as a shrug, let alone an apology or excuse. “This Darkhaven is off the grid. All communications going in or out are monitored and controlled.”
“Monitored and controlled by whom?”
“As far as you’re concerned? Me.”
Marina faced him and held out her hand. “I need to call my uncle.” Emotion threatened to clog her throat, but she held fast to her anger instead. “You don’t own me, Cain Hunter. No man does. Now, give me the phone so I can call and make sure nothing’s happened to my uncle. For all I know, his enemies could have killed him just as they tried to kill me.”
