by Sara Fawkes
Jeremiah finally stepped forward. I laid my hand on his arm and felt him tremble, the emotional upheaval locked deep inside. His attention was focused on Lucas, who had visibly retreated from the conversation, locking himself behind a familiar wall of congeniality. “Brother…”
“Do you know our mother is shopping around a biography about the Hamilton family dynasty to various publishers?” Lucas said, interrupting his brother. The sudden color in her cheeks betrayed Georgia’s anger, but he continued. “An insider’s look at our family dynamics, from our dear departed father to the current leader of the family business. She, of course, is the beleaguered heroine in this tale of drama, wealth, and corporate espionage. Reportedly the bids for the book were up close to seven figures before every last editor pulled out.” At Georgia’s shocked look, Lucas waggled his fingers. “You’re not the only one with industry contacts willing to help you screw somebody over.”
“What are you talking about? This is absurd…”
“And,” Lucas continued, his haunted smile widening, “she’s also selling access to her billionaire son. If a businessperson can’t gain an audience with the CEO, why, he or she can be an impromptu ‘guest’ at the family home, conveniently timed to run in to the new head of the family. All for the right price, of course.”
“This coming from a man who sells weapons to dictators and scum of the earth for them to use against innocent people?” The color on Georgia’s cheeks was high as she glared down her nose at her eldest son. “You dare come in on some high horse, spouting this load of lies, after what you’ve done?”
“At least I don’t hide what I am,” Lucas murmured, parroting his mother’s arrogant stance.
Georgia rounded on Jeremiah. “Tell me you don’t believe this drivel,” she demanded, hands on her hips.
Jeremiah’s gaze however was intent on his brother, ignoring his mother completely. Lucas didn’t flinch from the probing look. “You can prove this?” Jeremiah finally asked.
“I can,” Lucas replied as their mother huffed in outraged affront.
“You take his word over mine.” Georgia gave Jeremiah a disappointed look whose sincerity, given her previous outbursts, rang hollow.
Does she even realize how she looks to everyone? I wondered. Judging by the way she ignored the guards and other occupants of the room, I highly doubted it. The woman seemed locked inside her own little world; the opinions of others didn’t matter. What a horrible way to live your life.
Jeremiah stepped forward until he was standing in front of his mother. He leaned forward, and while I couldn’t see his face I did see Georgia flinch away. “I swear, Mother, if what he says is true, I’ll…”
“You’ll what?” she challenged back. “Throw me out? Cut me off? Do you really think you’re the first Hamilton male to make those threats to me?” Georgia snorted. “How do you think I stayed married to your father all these years? Good looks and charm? No, I always had something over him—it was the only security I had.” She met Jeremiah’s glare with one all her own, but the color had drained from her face, leaving only cosmetics to give her any color. “I knew that old bastard wouldn’t leave me a red cent when he croaked, but how was I supposed to know he’d go so soon? You two thought I was no different than your father, and maybe now that’s the truth, but I knew for certain the only person I could rely on was myself.”
“So you threw me under the bus.” Lucas’s statement wasn’t quite a question, but it was obvious he wanted answers.
Georgia blanched, as if the impact of her actions only then occurred to her. Her mouth moved silently for a moment. “It was never supposed to go this far,” she finally said, voice low. She fiddled nervously with her purse, grabbing a tube of lipstick and small mirror, but her hands were shaking too much to apply a new layer. “That bastard father of yours didn’t leave me a dime; in fact, he managed to tie everything I thought I’d secreted away into Jeremiah’s inheritance. I knew there was no way my sons would take care of me. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you act around me,” she added as an aside to Jeremiah. “Barring me from my own home, acting as if I’m an infant. You’re just as bad as your father, assuming I can’t take care of myself.”
The accusation jolted Jeremiah, but Georgia continued. “Everything happened so quickly. I managed to find the will and read enough before the lawyers came to know I’d been screwed. Over thirty years I’d been with that bastard, borne his children, overlooked his infidelities, played my part as the dutiful Stepford wife, and he left me nothing. I helped run some nonessential committees, the ones Rufus felt perfect for my distinct lack of any useful talent. Each had been allocated a certain amount of funds and combined equaled just over thirty million dollars.” She lifted her chin. “So I took it.”
“And left me taking the blame?” Lucas demanded.
“I didn’t think that far ahead,” she snapped. “I knew I was on borrowed time so spent as much as I could. Turns out it was tougher to get rid of the money than I thought, at least without attracting too much attention. By the time I found out you were the prime suspect—I didn’t bother to participate in the investigation for obvious reasons—you’d already fled the country and I still had a sizeable chunk of money left. So I kept it.”
Lucas put his hands over his heart. “I feel for you, I really do.”
“Can the bullshit, Lucas. I messed up, plain and simple.” She turned to Jeremiah. “Now what?”
“Yes, Jeremiah,” Lucas added. “What do you want to do about these new developments?”
The CEO didn’t seem in any condition to talk, still obviously startled by the turn of events. I had no advice to give, only tightened my hold on his arm in silent support. What a horrible choice, I thought, sympathy pouring through me as Jeremiah looked from his mother, tapping her foot impatiently, to Lucas, who stood quietly with raised eyebrows and obviously expected an immediate answer.
Then the front door burst open and a familiar woman’s voice shouted, “Lucas!” Every head turned toward the sound, and a moment later a disheveled Anya Petrovski stumbled in through the entryway door, flanked by a large guard. Gone was the dressed-to-the-nines beauty from the ball; very little makeup graced her face, and the elegant clothes were rumpled and disheveled as if she’d just thrown them on haphazardly. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, and while her natural beauty still showed as plain as day, her features were less severe, making her appear younger and more vulnerable. Her eyes quickly scanned the room and it was obvious the moment she found Lucas that he was all she was interested in.
Lucas, however, eyed the girl coldly. “I told you to stay away from me,” he said, voice devoid of emotion.
His reaction toward the woman surprised me but Anya endured his scorn. She was babbling in Russian, back stiff and face stoic, but tears had pooled in her eyes at Lucas’s icy rebuff. Russian beauty moved toward him until he held up a hand to ward her off. “I’m sorry,” Anya finally moaned in English, her eyes haunted.
“I told you I never wanted to see you again,” Lucas growled. His glare was frightful to behold—in that instance he looked and sounded very much like his brother, and Anya quailed back. This wasn’t the haughty, annoying woman I’d met before; the desperation and pain in her tones bled through, even if the exact meaning remained a mystery. I exchanged a look with Jeremiah, who looked as baffled as me. What is going on?
Lucas pointed at Jeremiah. “He’s the one you should be begging for forgiveness,” he said, voice dark, but Anya continued speaking to him in Russian. She kept clutching the Orthodox cross I remembered hanging from her neck at the gala in Paris, pleading with a stone-faced Lucas to no avail.
“Why is she here?” Jeremiah finally asked. At his words Anya grew quiet suddenly and seemed to withdraw in on herself, looking at the floor and wringing her hands.
Lucas gave the blond Russian a look of contempt. “You were wondering before who hired the assassin to kill you?” Lucas jerked his thumb at the cringing beauty
, giving his brother a tight smile.
“Surprise.”
3
At first, I didn’t understand what he meant. The whole room was silent for a moment, then Jeremiah snapped his fingers and pointed toward Anya. Immediately the two men who had escorted her into the building each grabbed an arm, holding her firmly in place. Only then did Lucas’s meaning sink in, and I gasped at the revelation.
“Anya hired the assassin.” The words, summing up my own confused understanding of the situation, came from Jeremiah. Incredulity crept into his voice, as he repeated it as a question. “Anya hired the assassin?”
“Never cross a Russian,” Lucas replied, rolling his eyes and sighing. “It seems as though the truth of that saying extends beyond my current profession.”
“I did this for you,” the blond woman said toward Lucas, struggling to free herself from the guards’ grip. “I thought this what you wanted!”
“What I wanted?” Lucas sneered at Anya. “You did it for yourself—don’t try to lay blame at my feet.”
Anya eyed the bodyguards around her but kept speaking to Lucas. “You said you hated him, that you wished—”
“I never wanted him dead,” Lucas roared, and Anya flinched.
“You always talk about him,” she persisted. She slipped into Russian for a second then caught herself. “When you drunk, you always talk about how you wish to go home…”
“And killing my brother will get me my place back?” Lucas barked a laugh. “Anya, you’re not a stupid woman, all evidence to the contrary in this situation aside. Look at me!” He spread his arms. “Thousands of people are dead at my hands. Maybe my finger wasn’t on the trigger but I provided the bullets, the guns. I’m covered in blood—how can I come home after what I’ve done, what I’ve allowed to happen?”
Anya’s chin trembled as my own heart constricted at the man’s obvious pain. She crooned something softly in her native tongue and reached out to Lucas, but he slapped her hand away. “Don’t flatter yourself, my dear.” His cold fury sliced through the air, designed only to inflict pain. “I never loved you. Why would one have any affection for a clever tool?”
The blood drained from Anya’s face as she gaped at Lucas in disbelief. “You said…”
He waved a hand through the air, rolling his eyes. “Words mean little, you should know this. Your usefulness, as well as my patience, has run out. I no longer need your drama.” Lucas regarded her coldly, then made a shooing motion with his hand. “You can go away now.”
Wow. I watched the scene, uncertain anymore what to think. As much as I’d detested the woman when I’d met her in France, my heart went out to her now…which was silly, given the fact that she’d done so much to hurt us. But at that moment, I had trouble believing that the woman would do such a thing.
Anya drew herself upright in a facsimile of her previous pose but the devastation in her eyes was terrible; the backbone of steel and attitude that sustained her was gone, broken by his words. A single tear worked its way down an ivory cheek. “I give you everything,” she whispered brokenly in a thick accent. The fingers where she gripped the ornate cross around her neck were pale and trembling. “I become anything you need, do things that shame me and my family, all for your love. Now you tell me it was a lie?”
I remembered Ethan telling me that Anya was a simple country girl when Jeremiah hired her to help with Russian translations. Looking at her now, I didn’t see the haughty, condescending beauty at the party, but a young girl thrown into a world against which she had no defenses. The way she clung to the necklace, a symbol of the religion to which she obviously still clung, made my heart ache for her. Is this where I’m headed?
“We Hamilton men corrupt anything we touch.” Lucas gave Anya a pitying look. He spared me a glance before continuing. “You were caught in the crosshairs and that was unfortunate.”
“This is not how it was supposed to happen,” she whispered. “He said this was what you wanted, that…”
She trailed off, but in the dead silence her words carried through the room. “Who said?” Lucas and Jeremiah both replied, echoing one another.
At that moment, several things happened simultaneously. The lights all went out in the large room, casting odd shadows from the muted light streaming in through the window. I had time to realize the glass lining the back of the room, which had stayed opaque for the last several days, no longer hid its view of the ocean behind the house, then it struck. There was a small pop and Anya toppled forward onto the ground, a stunned look on her face. Then I was suddenly grabbed and flung sideways into the kitchen, pressed behind the tall marbled-topped island by a heavy body. Something whistled past my head, the air singing with its closeness. I gave a startled shriek as a jar of flour on the counter behind me exploded.
The room erupted into motion as people scrambled for cover. Guards dove toward the kitchen or the entryway foyer, piling through the narrow passage. There was another pop and a young guard tripped, falling motionless to the ground. He was dragged through the doorway by his comrades, disappearing from my view.
“What’s going on?” I asked, heart threatening to tear from my chest.
“Sniper.”
Oh God. I trembled against Jeremiah, who pulled me tightly against his body. I heard a loud thock inside the island and jumped, but no bullet exited on our side. Beside us one guard broke from his position by the door and headed toward us. Another pop sounded and he spun around, landing gracelessly on his back half inside our cover spot. Surprise and fear flashed briefly in his eyes before his face went slack, and the sickening realization I’d just watched somebody die was almost too much to bear.
“Breathe,” Jeremiah ordered, and I let out the air I hadn’t realized I’d kept trapped. He nudged sideways and checked for a pulse in the guard’s neck, then grabbed the small ear microphone. “Ethan, report.”
“Somebody sabotaged the electrical system, including the backup generators.” Ethan’s voice was tinny and faint but I was close enough to Jeremiah to hear. “We’re working to sort that now. What’s the situation in there?”
“A sniper has us pinned in the kitchen,” Jeremiah bit out. “We need that glass back as cover to get out.”
There was a pause, then, “Roger that. Randy says ETA on the power is two minutes.”
Jeremiah cursed, dropping the comm onto his lap. “Two minutes,” he repeated, and I nodded. “Might as well be forever.”
“Visiting with you is always such a pleasure, brother.”
Lucas’s voice was light and Jeremiah’s head whipped around to glare, but the scarred man wasn’t even looking at us. All his attention was on Anya, still lying prone in the middle of the floor, clutching her bleeding belly and moaning softly. Lucas had somehow managed to overturn the thick coffee table and one chair as cover, but neither afforded him much protection. Anya reached one arm toward him, sobbing softly as her other hand clutched the gunshot wound in her belly.
“I’m coming, baby.” Lucas made a quick in-out movement with his head, peeking very briefly from cover, and an instant later a bullet tore a hole into the wall behind him. He cursed, then cast about and grabbed a pillow nearby. “This would really be easier without the cuffs, brother,” he called out.
Jeremiah dug around in his pockets and tossed a small keychain across the room to land behind the coffee table. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Probably getting myself killed,” replied Lucas, quickly unlocking his cuffs. He paused for a deep breath, and looked over at Jeremiah. “Wish me luck,” he added, then tossed the pillow sideways into the open area beside him. It exploded, sending bits of stuffing flying everywhere, but Lucas was already moving, grabbing Anya and pulling her toward his hiding spot. Another pop through the window and Lucas hissed, but he was back behind his barrier and managed to pull Anya with him behind the long table. Two bullets in rapid succession struck the wood table Lucas hid behind with loud thocks, but neither appeared to make it through.
Careful to stay hidden, Lucas moved to inspect the wound on Anya’s stomach. From the bleak look on his face, I could tell it was bad. Anya sobbed softly, one hand fluttering over her belly while her other hand held tight to Lucas’s arm. Out in the entryway, Georgia’s screaming reached truly operatic levels. “Mother, be quiet!” Jeremiah shouted, and instantly the screaming stopped. I wondered if it was fear for her life or that of her children that had the woman in hysterics, but right then wasn’t the time to consider that.
“Stay with me, Anya,” Lucas murmured, carefully removing his shirts and pressing it over the wound.
“I’m sorry,” Anya whispered, bloody hand fluttering weakly through the air. Tears tracked down the side of her face into her hair, and the bleakness in her eyes was heartbreaking. “I should have known, I never wanted…”
“Shh, don’t talk. You’re going to be fine.”
The lie was obvious; even from this distance I could see the amount of blood pouring from the wound and the increasing pallor in the Russian woman’s face. “I never should have listened to him, I only wanted you to be happy…”
“You’re going to be fine,” Lucas grit out, but the reality of the situation was increasingly apparent in his desperate gaze. His hands left the blood-soaked shirt against her belly to cup her face. “Who told you to do this? I need a name, Anya, stay with me here.”
She didn’t answer him as her breathing grew labored. Her body grew slack, her free hand falling to her chest. “I gave you everything,” she whispered, exhalations coming in uneven gasps. “Don’t forget me.”
“Anya,” Lucas said, smoothing back her hair, “stay with me. Hey, you never took me to that little town you were from. What was its name again?” Anya, however, didn’t seem to hear his question, her pallid face growing slack. “Everything,” she repeated, eyes staring off into nothing. Her hand slipped off the Orthodox cross below her neck, and she drew in a rattling breath. “I sold my soul…”