Fyodor closed his eyes and rested the crystal glass against his forehead for a moment. “So, Lazar finally found us.”
“It appears that way.” Timur took a sip of the scotch and felt the burn all the way down. He needed that. So, apparently, did his leopard. The cat stretched languidly. “You and I both know, no matter how much Evangeline protests, Ashe’s appearance at the same time is damning. Not only that, Fyodor, but the messenger is in a house one street over from Evangeline’s house.”
Fyodor’s eyes sharpened. “Any idea when he rented it?”
Timur hadn’t thought of that. “At least a month ago according to the electric bill Jeremiah brought back with him. That would leave Ashe off the hook.” Unless … “Shit, if the messenger’s job was to locate us and then she was brought in, she could be the assassin. When did she approach Evangeline?”
“Just yesterday.” Fyodor shook his head. “I don’t want this for her. Evangeline doesn’t have the temperament to live like we do. Other women, maybe, but she only sees good in people and I don’t want her to lose that. Damn it, Timur …”
“I’ll do what I can to keep the damage to a minimum, but her safety as well as yours has to come first. You know that.”
Fyodor nodded. “I talked to her about security, and this time I was tough on her. I even pointed out she could get someone killed. She listened and she’s very sorry for putting either of us in this position. She also maintains that Ashe would never be here to hurt either of us.”
“How can she know that?”
Fyodor shrugged. “I’m just relating to you what she told me. She also doesn’t believe Ashe is leopard. She saw no sign of it in their previous relationship, and her cat isn’t moody, so far, around Ashe. I wasn’t near the woman at all, so I’m no help in that department. I walked through to my office and kept the door closed. I didn’t want your attention divided by having to guard us both.”
“Which I am very grateful for,” Timur admitted. “It gave me time to study Ashe. I believe she is leopard. She’s a little bit too fluid, too fast. She moves well, and there wasn’t a single time when the two women were working that they accidentally bumped into each other behind that counter. There was a time, right around four o’clock, when a large crowd came in and both were moving fast to take orders and filling them. Not one bump or spill.”
“It’s possible she is exactly what Evangeline thinks she is,” Fyodor speculated.
Timur knew his brother wanted to protect his wife from what they were. From the things they had to do. From their past. All of it. He wanted the same thing for her. Evangeline was a good woman and he thought of her as a sister. The last thing he wanted to do was kill a friend of hers. Or tell her that friend had come to kill her just because of who she’d married.
“It’s possible, Fyodor,” he conceded, “but not probable. Who is she to Evangeline?” He wanted the bottom line. He needed to know what he was most likely going to have to do before he went to that house and confronted her.
“She says they met briefly a long time ago. Evangeline had gone up into the mountains and there was a coffee shop. She’d dreamt of owning a bakery and wanted experience. She also needed a job. She met Ashe while out hiking and Ashe told her the shop needed help, put in a good word for her and she was hired. That’s where she got her experience as a barista.”
“Was her name Ashe Bronte?”
Fyodor shook his head. “It was Ashe Mostafa. She told Evangeline she was in trouble and needed a place to stay and make some money. Ashe claimed she saw the articles about our marriage and speculation on whether or not Evangeline knew the truth about her husband.” He rolled his eyes. “If Evangeline can read or listen to the news, she knows what everyone else knows.”
“She knows the truth and she’s accepted it, Fyodor. We’re all in this together. The hell with others who make judgments without knowing.”
“In any case, Ashe claims she saw the articles and came here hoping Evangeline would help her.”
Timur downed the last of the scotch. “What else?”
“Evangeline lent her the house and told her she could work in the shop. She asked me to tell you that she needs this favor from us, to just back off and accept Ashe is no threat.”
Timur raised an eyebrow at his brother.
Fyodor shook his head. “I didn’t answer her. I’ve always told her the truth if she asks me questions. Make this quick, Timur. Kill her or clear her. But do it fast. Evangeline is going to champion this woman.”
“Damn it.” Timur heaved a sigh. He didn’t want to hurt Evangeline any more than he wanted to kill Ashe.
“Evangeline was alone in the world for a long time. She climbed out of the mud—or the swamp might be a better way of putting it.” Fyodor shook his head. “She doesn’t have a lot of friends, and this woman means something to her. But if Ashe is setting Evangeline up, if she plans to hurt her in any way, I want it stopped. You understand me?”
Of course, he understood. Timur sipped the scotch. Preying on his sister-in-law was a very stupid thing to do. Targeting her was worse. He changed the subject and told his brother the plan to hit Ulisse’s shipment in a couple of nights. His brother was highly intelligent and always tweaked the plans and made them much better. Timur wanted his input.
3
TIMUR had always liked Evangeline’s house. It was small and comfortable, but very spacious. The front door opened into a small foyer, but that opened right into the living room, which was quite large, with high ceilings. That room went into a dining room and the kitchen. There weren’t doors separating the spaces and one could talk back and forth from any room.
All the lights were out in the house and the heavier drapes were pulled, something Evangeline rarely did. She liked the night to come in through her windows. Fyodor had had to teach her that if she had lights on, people could see in when she couldn’t see out. Drapes or no drapes, Timur could see in the dark. He had only to call on his leopard’s vision.
The locks were good ones—and there were a lot of them. Too bad for the occupant that he had the keys. Even if he hadn’t, he would have been able to get in. He was good at picking locks. More, he could take apart alarms if needed. His leopard’s acute hearing allowed him to hear the faint hum some alarms gave off, warning him of their presence. Of course, he knew the code for Evangeline’s alarm system.
Evangeline fit with them. She might be too compassionate, and she might think the best of everyone, but she fit. Timur knew she would back them with a ferocious fury if needed. There had to be something about this woman—beyond their brief friendship—that had her believing in her innocence. He hoped he believed just as strongly. He wanted that more than he’d wanted anything in a long time—for Ashe Bronte to be innocent.
The bedroom door was slightly ajar, and he opened it cautiously with one hand, staying clear just in case she was awake and had a weapon. The moment he touched the door and it moved inward, the overpowering scent in the room hit him and his leopard went wild. Wild. Insane. Crazy. He nearly fell to the floor as his body rippled and contorted, the cat desperate to claw his way out and take over their shared form.
Cursing, he kept a grip on the feral, snarling cat. His leopard was desperate, and he’d never felt the animal like that before. It was a new, puzzling experience and he took the time to breathe deeply and stay in control. He pressed his forehead to the wall and soothed his cat.
I get it. I understand. But we do things right. You don’t want to blow this.
He didn’t want to blow it. Ashe Bronte was theirs. She belonged to them. She definitely was leopard, and her emergence was very close, going by the powerful pheromones heavy in the air in the bedroom. Forcing the cat back, he once more went to the door, filling the frame. She writhed on the bed, her body restless and hot. She’d flung the covers off and was twisting first one way and then the other, a low moan escaping.
He resisted the need to moan as well. She was sexy without trying to be, and his body reacted.
She wore a lacy racerback tank and some little lacy shorts, leaving her legs bare. Her hair was tamed by a thick braid, although with all her twisting and turning, hair was escaping. That was sexy as well.
She flipped onto her stomach with another soft moan. Timur was on her before he could think. Need consumed him. His leopard’s fierce hunger for her. There was no other word for it. His cat had been starved, deprived, driven only by the need for blood, violence and killing. Now, something else took the place of that conditioned fury. Someone else. Ashe Bronte. And God help them both if she had come there to kill his brother.
He felt her stiffen the moment he stretched out on the bed, his body over top of hers, pinning her down. He reached under her pillow and withdrew the gun she had there. Her hand went to the left, and he caught her wrist as she found the knife she’d hidden.
“Don’t. You know who I am and why I’m here. I’m not going to hurt you. Just breathe. This has to be done and then we can talk.”
She turned her head to the side to look at him, her body relaxing when she recognized him fully. He kept his hand moving soothingly on her back, long caresses, careful not to touch her anywhere that might make her think he was going to harm her in any way.
“What has to be done?”
“Do you feel her?” He asked the question softly, his lips against her ear—the little shell of an ear he’d found fascinating and sexy. Who knew an ear could be either?
He had her top pushed off her back, up around her neck and he took advantage, kissing his way up her spine to her right shoulder.
Silence met his question, but he hadn’t expected her to admit she felt a living being inside of her. He wouldn’t have in her place, but he knew she did. She’d become aware of her leopard.
“Does she talk to you? Does she feel him close?”
His teeth scraped back and forth over her shoulder. His leopard was rising. Moving through him triumphantly. He let it happen, let the leopard have his form. Fur burst through his skin and slid seductively over her. Soft. Caressing. The leopard licked her shoulder and then bit down and held her still, waiting. Just waiting.
Timur’s heart beat as fast and as savagely as his leopard’s. The cat held Ashe in place, keeping her still while they all waited. His leopard was patient, and that surprised him. Ashe had gone very still, her fists clenched tightly on the mattress, her eyes squeezed shut and her breath hitching. Her heart had gone crazy and it echoed through his mind. He should have warned her, assured her all was going to be fine, that his cat would never harm her. She was probably the only person in the world safe from his leopard.
Then he felt her. Sleek. Sexy. Purring. She rose in Ashe, moving up to meet his big male. The two leopards touched and then she was gone. Just like that, she’d accepted his cat’s claim on her. The male slowly withdrew his teeth, licked at the spot several times and then subsided, allowing Timur to take his place.
He hadn’t wholly shifted, only his head and shoulders, so the cat disappeared fast. She still refused to open her eyes, and he found himself smiling as he kissed the bite marks before rolling off and striding into the master bath. He knew where the first aid kit was. Evangeline was very predictable and had first aid kits in every bathroom.
Ashe sat up in the middle of the bed, legs pulled in, tailor fashion. Her gaze jumped to his face the moment he returned to the bedroom.
“What was that?” she demanded. “What did you do to me?”
He shrugged and opened the case. “That was all my cat, not me. You felt her. She accepted him.”
She was quiet as he cleansed the wound with antiseptic and then put an antibacterial cream over the bite marks.
“Tell me your real name.”
“I did tell you. It’s Ashe Bronte.”
Leopards could hear lies—most of the time. It was rare that they were fooled, and his leopard had never failed to hear a lie. She seemed to be telling the truth, but he already knew Bronte wasn’t her last name.
“I accept that your name could be Ashe Bronte, but is Bronte your surname?” Because there was no record of Ashe Bronte that they could find that would fit with the woman sitting so still on the bed.
“No, but that isn’t your business.”
He let his breath out slowly. Again, that was the truth. Well, the fact that her last name wasn’t Bronte. “Fyodor’s security is my business. I take it very seriously, Ashe. I have to know everything there is to know about the people coming into his life.”
“I’m not a threat to your brother. How could I be? What could I possibly do to him?”
Those amber eyes of hers fairly snapped and crackled with shocking intensity. Her leopard stared out at him and she was as furious as her human counterpart. That made the dominant in him flare to life faster than anything else could have. His leopard leapt toward the surface, showing himself through Timur’s eyes. The two leopards stared at each other, unblinking.
“Stop.” Ashe pressed her fingers to her eyes, covering them for a moment. When she took her hand away, the female leopard was gone. “I don’t understand what’s happening and you clearly do. Would you mind if we moved this inquisition to the living room?”
“Yes. You stay right where you are.”
The living room was all glass. Anyone could see in if those drapes were open. He had the feeling she planned to do just that. In the bedroom, she was trapped. She was also more vulnerable. Both of them knew it. He had the psychological advantage as long as she sat on the bed dressed in her skimpy, lacy pajamas and nothing else. That made him a dick as a man, but a very good bodyguard for his brother.
Her chin went up. “My last name is Mostafa. I’m fairly certain that last name was made up, but I could be wrong. My parents were survivalists living up in the mountains. They didn’t believe in walls. They lived free, off the grid and raised me to be the same. I know they had my birth recorded because I do have a legitimate Social Security number. I try to stay off the grid as much as possible, but I got into some trouble and had to find a place to work and live under the radar. I read about Evangeline getting married to a man named Alonzo Massi, and I knew immediately I could go to her. I knew she wouldn’t turn me away. Evangeline is … amazing. I know her husband changed his name, or took back his original one, but he has nothing to do with why I came. It’s not like I have many friends.”
Timur listened carefully for one note of deceit. He heard annoyance, anger that she had to give him anything at all on her, and hope that he would believe her. He didn’t hear deceit … but … there was something, one note or two off. There were lies mixed with the truth. It was entirely possible a leopard couple had lived off the grid all their lives. Other than …
Pay attention, Temnyy , Timur said to his leopard. Is she lying about the last name?
No.
But she is lying .
She knows that her surname is correct.
His leopard was bored, but paying attention. This had to do with his mate’s keeper. He was going to make certain she didn’t give Timur any reason to kill her. Timur decided not to call her on whatever the deception had been for now, but the fact that she’d made one meant she might skate a lie alongside the truth another time.
“What happened to your parents?”
For a moment grief washed across her features. It was new. Close. They had died recently. She pulled back from the memory and shrugged, trying for casual. “Both are deceased.”
He had known that just from an earlier conversation, but she hadn’t told him exactly how they’d died. She was forcing him to drag the information from her. “How did they die?”
“Is that pertinent?”
That chin of hers was going to get her in trouble. He felt a throb start in the vicinity of his cock. He’d been doing a good job of keeping his body under control, but she brought out the worst in him.
“Anything I ask is pertinent, Ashe. You want to stay, you get cleared by me.”
She was silent for a long time—long enough to make him wo
rry, although he didn’t allow that to show on his face. He’d grown up in a household where it was very necessary to hide all emotion, and it had become second nature.
“They were murdered, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
He heard the pain in her voice. He wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her, but if he made a mistake and let his own needs, or any compassion, keep him from doing his job and he lost Fyodor or Evangeline, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.
“Ashe, we’re going to talk about anything I say is needed. You arrived at a very bad time. It just happens to coincide with the arrival of an old enemy of the family. That enemy is out for blood. I can’t take the chance that you have anything to do with him. Do you? This is your one opportunity to tell me everything. You get one . So talk to me now.”
She rubbed her palms on her thighs, her eyes on his. She was mesmerizing. She could see him, the killer in him, and she hadn’t flinched. She was utterly still with the exception of her hands moving up and down her thighs, calling his attention to her bare skin. That wasn’t a good idea for either of them.
Ashe was a truly stunning woman. It wasn’t just her physical body—and that was gorgeous—it was the way she held herself. The way she looked him straight in the eye. She couldn’t cover fear, because he was leopard and could smell it, but she didn’t flinch away. She didn’t retreat. She sat very straight and looked at him. There was no panic, which meant she was thinking all the time. She held herself carefully, the daughter of survivalists, not giving anything away.
“I don’t know what you want me to say. I would never harm Evangeline or Fyodor. Why would I? They’ve never done anything to me. I know he’s reputed to be a crime boss, that he supposedly took over Arnotto’s territory. I was never convinced that Antonio Arnotto was involved in the mafia. He was never convicted, and I believe he was investigated several times.”
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