Pride blossomed behind his chest and the invisible fist gripping his lungs eased just a fraction. Rather than put the family at risk by sharing Kevin’s murder, she’d cleverly spun the truth to give her request more credence. “Did she give you her name?”
“No. But after I told her I’d give her the story if what I suspected panned out, she gave me enough clues to figure it out on my own. Her name is Via Ricci and she’s a costume designer. One who does a lot of stuff for Mardi Gras and masquerades.”
And the anonymous tip that had cost Cassie her job had come from the Midsummer Masquerade. The connection made sense.
Roman barked something low at whoever was on the other end of his call and frowned.
Not good.
“And the tie to Evette?”
“She came to the carriage house this morning and invited me to visit a costume designer with her. She said the lady called her a few weeks ago about volunteering her time for an upcoming charity event Evette is overseeing. If I’m a person who’s out to get revenge on Sergei, who are the top two people in this world you’d target?”
Roman ended his call and interrupted. “The guards were waiting for Evette and Emerson outside. They broke into the shop—there’s no sign of anyone, but Evette’s purse and Emerson’s phone are in the workshop. I’m calling Sergei.”
“You need to call the police,” Cassie said.
Roman already had his phone to his ear.
Dead ahead, the stoplight turned yellow.
Kir pushed the car faster and hung a hard left. “Cassie, repeat the address.”
“Kir, please listen to me. I know you want to handle this your own way, but I think you should call the police. If Via’s got Emerson and Evette, it’s a clear case of kidnapping. The police have more resources, and it’ll show Sergei being on the up and up and working with authorities. It’s also the last thing Via would expect from Sergei. That might make her panic and screw up whatever plans she’s got. It’s a win-win all the way around.”
Emotions clashed inside of him. The driving compulsion to stay focused and protect his vor’s beloved bride. The lightness that came from hearing Cassie think and act in the best interest of the family. The humbling gratitude that she’d gone to the station not for her name or her job, but to aid them all.
The buildings on either side of the street flew by, and Roman growled information into his phone, each word spoken in Russian. But his own voice was calm, grounded despite the tension of the moment by the woman listening on the other end of the line. “You underestimate me, malyshka. Certain things might be kept within family confines, but that does not mean we don’t leverage other assets when warranted.”
“You do?”
“Yes. We do.” He checked over one shoulder and shifted lanes for the upcoming turn.
Beside him, Roman hung up the phone, the tension in his expression indicative of how the conversation with Sergei had gone.
“I need to focus,” Kir said to Cassie. “You will go to the carriage house and wait for me there.”
“No, I want to meet you on Canal Street. Evette might need me.”
“Evette will need you at home and waiting for her when we get there.” He took the turn as quickly as he dared and lowered his voice. “This is what I do, Cassie. Trust me to handle it. Wait for me where I know you’re safe.”
She hesitated, but only for a moment. “You’ll call me when you find her?”
“The second we have her.”
“And you’ll be safe?”
Roman’s gaze slid to the display with Cassie’s name emblazoned on it, and his mouth crooked in a wry grin despite his grim focus.
“Yes, milaya,” Kir said. “I will be safe.” He disengaged the call before she could change her mind, steeled his resolve to keep his promise and looked to Roman. “Call our contact at the downtown precinct.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Waiting wasn’t Cassie’s strong suit. For as long as she could remember, she’d been taught to make things happen. To get up and dive headfirst into whatever needed doing. Not sit and wait and twiddle her fingers, which was exactly what she was doing plunked right in the middle of the living room couch.
Aunt Frieda paced from the kitchen to the living room’s picture window. She planted her hands on her hips, scanned the drive and the two men standing guard outside the carriage house door and harrumphed. “Where the hell are they?”
Well, at least Cassie wasn’t the only one fighting impatience. “No clue.” She checked her phone again, the only text on the display the one Kir had sent an hour ago that simply said They’re safe. Working out details. Be home soon.
Of course, it’d taken three hours of absolute, tension-riddled silence before they’d gotten that much. At least now they knew everyone would be coming home, which should have made the waiting a little easier. But after four years of working jobs where she was always in the know, being in the dark sucked.
She snatched the remote off the coffee table and thumbed through the local stations for any breaking stories.
Ellen DeGeneres.
Dr. Phil.
Jeopardy.
Judge Judy.
Zero news.
Not the most surprising outcome. You had to have something pretty major happen before you interrupted regular programming. Even with impending hurricanes, people didn’t much appreciate it if you robbed them of their routine.
She punched up her old station. Only five more minutes and the regular five o’clock newscast would start.
Frieda dropped onto the cushion next to her. “Surely, they’ll have something about it on the lineup.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Cassie upped the volume just enough to follow Ellen’s closing remarks, but not so much it would overpower her phone’s ringer. “After what Via said to the execs, they might be gun-shy about covering anything to do with Sergei.”
She handed off the remote to Frieda and took her own turn glaring out the front window. If she had a dollar for every time she’d been tempted to pick up the phone and demand information from Kir, she’d be able to fund the launch of her business without any outside help. Seriously. How hard was it for a guy to pick up the phone and knock out just a few more details? Maybe at least an ETA?
This is what I do, Cassie. Trust me to handle it. Wait for me where I know you’re safe.
Doing the dangerous stuff wasn’t all he did. She knew from the discussions they’d shared since moving into the carriage house that he was more of an overseeing manager these days than an enforcer. A by-product of the type of family Sergei was determined to create.
But he was also capable of actions no ordinary man would ever take on. Had gone well beyond the shades of gray some might dabble in and had welcomed the dark.
Most of the time he masked it. Presented himself as an affable and carefree bachelor with a penchant for fashion and more money than he knew what to do with. But every now and then, the hard edges he’d honed him bled through, and her heart ached at the past that had shaped him. So, if he wanted her to sit and twiddle her thumbs so he could focus, then she’d by God sit, twiddle her thumbs and wait.
The five o’clock newscast music kicked in and the male anchor’s customary light delivery droned the standard welcoming spiel she’d done herself in one form or fashion. His female counterpart was a whole lot more no-nonsense when she spoke, cutting right to the chase.
In breaking news, a kidnapping and ransom attempt involving the wife and child of local businessman and philanthropist Sergei Petrovyh, was foiled tonight by local authorities. Live on the scene at Bucktown Harbor with all the latest is Lizbet Montlake.
Cassie spun and slid back into her spot next to Frieda who’d already upped the volume and was leaning in with both elbows on her knees.
Behind Lizbet, the east horizon was already darkening to an early evening sh
ade of blue, but the setting sun shimmered off the harbor waters. Her scarlet dress suit was still as immaculate as it’d been earlier, and not a single hair was out of place even with the heat, but there was obvious fatigue on her face.
“Earlier this afternoon, local authorities received information indicating that one of New Orleans’s most sought-after costume designers was suspected of abducting Evette Petrovyh and her minor son. Using GPS tracking, police tracked and apprehended Via Ricci at Bucktown Harbor just before she managed to smuggle her victims onto a private yacht kept at Bucktown’s marina.
“Upon further search of the yacht, investigators found a drafted email on Ricci’s computer addressed to Sergei Petrovyh, demanding ten million dollars in exchange for his wife and child’s safe return. Authorities also arrested the man hired to pilot the boat who later advised authorities of Ricci’s plan to sail to the southernmost Texas border and pass into Mexico.
“I spoke to the lead investigator in the case just after Ricci and her pilot were apprehended and questioned, and here’s what he had to say.”
The live scene cut to a bold afternoon sky and a swarm of police cruisers and ambulances crowding the edge of the parking lot closest to the marina.
Before Lizbet could ask the officer her first question, movement through the living room window caught her eye. Guards hustled toward the driveway and a second later, the throaty hum of more than one car rose above Lizbet’s handoff back to the station.
Cassie abandoned Lizbet’s segment and beelined it for the door. “They’re home.”
By the time she made it outside, a small crew was already gathered. Four guards from the main house surrounding Sergei’s BMW. Abel, Patrick and Sam approaching Kir and Roman as they alighted from his Audi behind the BMW. Olga pushing her way through all the men and, of course, Evette and Emerson at the middle of it all. Sergei stood between Evette and Emerson, his hands planted on each of their shoulders as though he didn’t dare risk letting either of them go.
Cassie hesitated just beyond the threshold, an awkwardness she couldn’t quite name holding her feet in place.
Frieda paused just two steps ahead of her and looked back. “Cassie, baby. What’s wrong?”
It was surreal, memories of coming home from school each afternoon and trips she’d made back to Houston to visit her parents layering themselves on the current moment. She’d always been an outsider before. Had fortified herself with a shield of emotional indifference just to walk through her parents’ front door. Pretended she was someone she wasn’t or steer clear of her interests to avoid censure.
But she didn’t have to anymore. Those old survival skills no longer held value. Were not just unnecessary, but unwanted.
Kir strode into full view, his jacket gone, his shirtsleeves rolled to his forearms and his resolute gaze locked on her.
Her lungs surged on a full breath of air, and her feet got in motion. In less than four strides his arms were around her and the steady thrum of his heart beneath her ear. His woodsy scent was a balm to her senses. His warmth and strength a comfort that unwound the afternoon’s tension in an instant. “You’re okay.”
“I promised you I would be.” An utterly arrogant statement that might have rankled and started an argument if she hadn’t been so overcome with relief, but there was appreciation in his voice, too. A loving lilt that said he found her concern as heartwarming as it had been for her to lay eyes on him again.
He kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry I couldn’t call you. There was much to deal with, and Sergei wanted to get Evette and Emerson home.”
She shook her head against his chest and hugged him tighter. “No. You did what you needed to.”
Footsteps sounded on the pavement, growing closer.
Kir slid his hands up her arms and squeezed her shoulders. “You have company.”
Evette.
Seeing Kir she’d forgotten everything except the need to feel him against her.
She straightened on a jolt and found not just Frieda, Sergei, Evette and Emerson closing in on her, but Olga, the guards and Roman as well. She wrapped Evette up in a hug that would have been foreign to her even a month ago and squeezed her eyes shut. “I was so worried about you two.”
Evette’s arms shook, but the strength of her response was no less powerful than Cassie’s. While there was still an indomitable spunk and spirt in her voice, there was a solemnness to it as well. “Yeah, well, Emerson and I would be almost to Mexico by now if it hadn’t been for you.”
Cassie pulled away enough to grip her shoulders and scan Evette and Emerson head to toe. “I just caught Lizbet talking about it on the news.” She looked to Sergei. Then Kir. “Does anyone know what her motive was?”
“Money,” Kir said. “And revenge.” He cast an almost bewildered expression at Sergei and Roman before he shared the rest. As if he couldn’t quite yet fathom the story himself. “Via Ricci was Alfonsi’s mistress.”
“I knew it!” Cassie said. “I asked one of his bodyguards if he might have had one, but he couldn’t give me any specifics.”
“Well, that’s because Via wasn’t just his mistress,” Evette said. “She was his Dominatrix, too.”
“His what?” Frieda said, scanning the entire group as though she wasn’t sure she’d heard right.
It all came together for Cassie in a single whoosh. “He was a submissive. A male submissive—especially one doing what Alfonsi did for a living—couldn’t withstand that kind of information getting out.”
“Ricci kept his secret for years,” Roman said. “In exchange, he paid for all of her needs.”
“And when Alfonsi went poof, so did all of his support,” Frieda said, finally piecing the last of the information together.
Kir dipped his head in a slow nod. “Correct. And she blamed Sergei for the situation, so she decided to use Evette to extort the money she needed to make up for the loss.”
“Holy crap. It’s almost too crazy to believe.” Cassie shook her head, still reeling from the unexpected turn of events. She scanned Evette and Emerson once more. “What do you two need? A punching bag? A bath? Ice cream?”
“I want ice cream,” Emerson said, looking up at his dad.
Olga, who’d braced herself behind her young charge, tapped his shoulder. “You will have ice cream. And cake. And anything else you want.”
Evette smiled down at her son and ruffled his hair. “Probably for dinner and all three meals tomorrow. For both of us.” She faced Cassie and her expression sobered. “Seriously. Thank you. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t figured things out and tracked down that lady’s name. She was batshit crazy.”
“It wasn’t just me. Lizbet had a hand in it, too. But yeah. I’m glad it all came together, too.” She looked to Kir then Sergei. “What happened to Via?”
Where the mood had been thick with fatigue and relief before, a chilling darkness swept in. A sinister pall weighted by deeds too dark to be spoken.
Sergei looked to Kir, a silent communication moving between them she had no hope of translating.
Kir’s voice dropped, but rather than resonate with its usual warmth there was a brutal finality to it. “At the moment, she is in custody, but I had an opportunity to...talk with her before she was taken away.”
“And?”
He hesitated only a beat. “And she eagerly admitted to taking Kevin’s life.”
And she will pay.
He didn’t say the last part out loud, but the message hung in the air as sure as the strike of a judge’s gavel.
Cassie cleared her throat, nodded and shifted her attention to Emerson who looked like he could either pass out on the spot, or run laps around the pool. “You should all rest. Or dig into the ice cream at least.”
“God, yes.” Evette said moving back into the curve of Sergei’s arm. “You should come over and ha
ve some with us.”
It was tempting. Feeling the unbending protection of those around her and their warmth was a welcome sensation, but she needed Kir more.
She shook her head. “No.” Beside Evette, Sergei stood rock solid. His hard expression no doubt hiding all the pain and panic he’d felt throughout the afternoon. Cassie smiled at him and shifted her attention back to Evette. “I think your guy needs some alone time with you and Emerson. And frankly,” she said laying her hand on Kir’s where it rested on her hip, “it’s going to take an hour or two before my adrenaline tapers off.”
Standing slightly to Sergei’s right, Roman chuckled and shot Kir a knowing look. “I suspect my brother would be more than willing to help you with that.”
Apparently, Evette had the same idea because her laughter was just as wicked. “Yeah, that might be on Sergei’s agenda, too. Right after ice cream.”
Emerson frowned as if confused at what everyone was talking about.
Sergei released Evette, stepped forward and gripped Cassie by both shoulders. The hardened mask he’d kept in place slipped, revealing a man who’d fought many fears over the last hours and wrestled with terrible outcomes.
Kir squeezed his hand on Cassie’s hip, and the group got frighteningly quiet. Even the cicadas stopped singing and the wind rustling the leaves overhead seemed to still. “You saved my bride and my son. Both halves of my heart. I am in your debt.”
Cassie couldn’t move, the strength of Sergei’s hold and the reverent sincerity in his words leaving her mind and her body utterly dumbfounded. To some degree, he’d always been the one she felt least confident with. The most hesitant to approach. But in that second—hearing the tenderness he’d so openly expressed for those he loved in front of others and seeing the depth of emotion play across his face—she wasn’t afraid at all.
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