Her hands slipped into his hair as he pulled her closer, pressing lightly against her back until her breasts brushed against his chest.
She flicked her tongue against his lips, requesting entrance. He parted with a rough groan, and Christine took advantage, licking inside his mouth, exploring. He tasted like rich coffee, hot and deep.
Her soft exhales sounded loud in the quiet room. The rustles as they shifted, the gentle sound of their lips meeting, the low sounds that Paul was making at the back of his throat, wrapped around them. She could hear her heartbeat pounding, wondering vaguely if Paul could hear it too, it was thundering so loud.
Her hands tightened in his hair as she deepened the kiss further. His hands fisted in the fabric of her shirt. Christine let one hand loosen from his hair, trailing down his neck, lingering on his chest, continuing a steady downward path. They never broke the kiss.
Not until Christine reached her destination, the waistband of his pants. As soon as her fingers were tracing the top edge, he gripped her wrist, lightning fast, and tore his mouth from hers.
“What?” she asked, panting.
He took a few tries to get his breath back. “Not now,” he managed.
“But…” She looked down and saw that he was primed for her. She blinked in confusion.
“You’ve had a tough night and—”
Christine pulled back abruptly, her ardour cooling. “You think that’s all this was?” Her voice sounded small.
Paul cleared his throat. “No, not necessarily. But any part of you that might be unsure is too much.”
Her heart melted a little at that. As frustrated as she felt—both emotionally and sexually—she couldn’t fault a guy for wanting to be sure he had her complete consent.
She sat back in her own corner of the couch. “What about you? Your night was just as tough as mine at the end there.” She knew she sounded a little put out, but didn’t care. She expected him to completely blow her off. Instead, he nodded slowly.
“I have more experience with it, but it’s true that adrenaline can make you do things you wouldn’t normally do.”
“Like…like kiss me?”
The side of his mouth quirked up into a self-deprecating smile. “No, that was all me.”
She relaxed into a grin. “Good to know.”
He was silent for a minute, hesitating. “It’s not just that. I’m not entirely sure I’m ready for us to go in…that direction.”
Christine frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I haven’t been with…not since the accident.” His sentence seemed to be missing a few words, but Christine understood just fine.
“Oh.”
“Is that…pathetic?” His gaze flickered up to hers, then returned to his fingers, which were drawing some kind of pattern on his thigh.
“No! Of course not. I was just surprised.” She paused, then ploughed on. “It all still works, though.” It was more of a statement than a question. She’d seen firsthand that it all seemed to be in working order.
“Seems to be, but I don’t think there are any guarantees. Not these days.”
Christine nodded. “That makes sense. Your body went through a lot of trauma. Goodness knows how it might have changed.”
He nodded, and they lapsed into silence.
Christine’s mind wandered, thinking over Paul’s bravery, not just during his service, but in the victories he’d had since coming home. It made her like him even more, showed a strength of character that she wasn’t sure she’d encountered before.
It also made her want him even more badly.
Her parents had tried to raise her as a ‘no sex before marriage’ type, but that had gone out of the window even before they’d died. A failed experiment during her rebellious phase. She’d been too busy to have that many lovers, as it had been a low priority for her for most of her life. Perhaps her Catholic upbringing had more to do with that than she’d suspected.
But, now, for the first time in a long time, Christine could not only see a man she wanted to get naked with, but one she genuinely liked. A man she could see herself spending more time with in the future.
It was a terrifying thought for a woman so used to being alone and independent. Not even the hint of a long term relationship had ever bothered her focus and determination.
Still, she’d already resolved to create more permanency in her life, with her friends and her next job. Perhaps Paul could be added to that list, too.
Heat still coursed through her veins, distracting her from her thoughts.
“I should shower,” she announced.
“Right. I need to double check the security feeds.” He manoeuvred himself back into his chair, not looking at her.
“Hey,” she said to get his attention. He stopped moving. “I’ll see you in the morning.” She tried to inject as much flirtation as she could into the line, but had no idea if the message was received. Christine couldn’t bear for them to leave what had been such a magical moment with awkwardness between them. She turned to go.
“Yeah,” he murmured in reply, his voice hoarse. “I’ll…I’ll look forward to it.”
“Me too,” she said with a smile, tossing it over her shoulder as she sauntered away.
Chapter 16
The next morning a heavy grey cloud hung over the city, but it was completely unable to dampen Christine’s mood. She’d awoken smiling, and it hadn’t dropped from her face all through her morning routine. In fact, it wasn’t until she was sipping a hot mid-morning coffee and flicking through the files from the previous evening that her sunny disposition faltered.
The folder of financial amounts that she’d found was an exercise in frustration. Though, she was reasonably competent at money matters, she’d never been a numbers whiz. And this was way above her pay grade.
One of the other files she’d grabbed was partly written in some kind of shorthand code—with abbreviated references to things that Christine wasn’t familiar with. She’d already set that one aside for later.
It wasn’t until a grim-faced Paul came into the room that the rest of Christine’s morning joy dissipated.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I told Duncan about yesterday’s escapade.”
“And?”
“He wasn’t too thrilled. As you might imagine.” The tension in his jaw told as much of the story as the lurking frustration in his words. He’d no doubt been chewed out by his boss, a man he seemed to both like and respect. A rare quality.
“Are there any consequences?”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “Not for now. Once this case is over, he’ll reevaluate.”
“Reevaluate what?” she asked, though she was afraid she knew the answer.
“My continued employment.” He said it so matter-of-factly that Christine almost couldn’t process the words.
“He’s going to fire you? For helping me?”
“Potentially fire,” he corrected her. “And for disobeying instructions, putting my charge at risk, endangering the good name of the company, and, well, not telling him.”
“That seems really harsh. I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “Actually, I can see it from his point of view. If it had gone badly, which it could have in a lot of ways, then it would have reflected on him and Soldiering On.”
“Still…”
“And don’t apologise. I’m an adult and I made a choice to be there.” He sighed, rolling his shoulders and making an effort to ease some of his tension.
Christine straightened, feeling more determined than ever. “All the more reason to find some useful information in these folders. Prove the risk was worth it.”
Paul came up beside her and glanced over the folders laid out in front of her. “Anything good so far?”
“My instinct tells me there’s something here, but I just can’t seem to figure out what.”
“Show me what you’ve got.”
Christine walked him through the various fol
ders. Particularly, she focused on the two she’d already singled out; the one with the numbers, and the one with the abbreviated words.
“I just don’t know if I can figure out what it means,” she finished.
Paul sighed. “Zack would be good at this. He’s our resident numbers man.”
“Zack?” The same large, shy man that had been completely comfortable holding a large weapon?
“Yeah. He’s not quite a math genius, but he’s close. He’s always been a nerd that way.” It was said with affection, not malice.
“You’d never think it.”
Paul laughed. “Perhaps not.”
“Why don’t we invite him over?”
Paul’s expression darkened. “We’re both in trouble for yesterday, so Duncan won’t allow contact between me and any of the other team members that doesn’t go through him.”
“Let me guess, you don’t want to call Duncan right now?”
“Nope,” said Paul, a self-deprecating smile on his lips. “Let’s see how far we can get ourselves.”
He leaned closer to her, and tentatively ran his hand along the back of her chair. Christine didn’t do anything to discourage him.
After examining the folders more closely, Paul was the first to speak. “If there’s anything I learned from Zack, it’s to look for patterns.”
“All right, that makes sense. That might help us identify the code.”
Paul agreed, so Christine grabbed paper and a pen and began making notes as she and Paul spotted repeating words and abbreviations. They tried to find correlations between the folder with the number amounts and the one with the odd code.
‘AV’ appeared a lot in both files, both next to columns of monetary amounts and also embedded within the document. They eventually parsed out that the memo document was notes of interactions between various people, but they had no idea who they might be.
“Does this document still make sense if we assume that AV is Anatoli Vovk?” Christine asked eventually.
Paul glanced at her and then quickly back down at the pages, eyes narrowing in thought. “I think it makes a hell of a lot more sense if we assume that.”
She pulled the pages of monetary amounts towards her. “So, does that mean that money is going to or from Anatoli?”
“God knows. This must have been years ago, anyway, judging by this journal.”
Christine sighed. “You’re right. Maybe we are just wasting our time with these.”
“Maybe not. It’s possible that having the backstory might help us figure out why present day events are happening. The Vovks and the Disiks are both involved in this in some way, so maybe the history of their relationship is the clue.”
“Right. So, from this ledger, we can surmise that lots of money over a long period of time went from either Vovk to Disik, or Disik to Vovk. Four million dollars, in fact. But Vovk wasn’t the only one.”
“Do we recognise any of the other names in here?” He peered over her arm, leaning closer as he did so. Christine was close enough to smell his tempting autumn scent.
She cleared her throat. “I don’t. But it makes me think that Disik was the one collecting this money. From researching his company, it’s clear he has been a prominent businessman for decades. Or was, until recently.”
“Makes sense. That means he would be unlikely to shell out this much cash to people.”
“So, why was he collecting so much money from all these people? He only lives in a modest home now, and he told me once he’d lived there most of his life. From what I’ve seen he doesn’t have anything expensive. Where did the money disappear to?”
“Good questions.”
“We can’t ask him. I doubt he’d remember unless we caught him on a very rare day,” Christine murmured thoughtfully.
Paul’s fingers began drifting lightly over her back, making it hard for her to concentrate. She wasn’t even sure whether he was aware that he was doing it, as his brow was deeply furrowed with thought as he stared down at the files. Christine bit back any mention of it. She didn’t want him to risk him stopping.
“We don’t have to ask Disik,” Paul said after a moment. “There’s one other person who will know what that money was for.”
“Anatoli Vovk,” Christine breathed. She digested that information for a moment, excitement creeping up on her.
Paul nodded. “Duncan wouldn’t like us to call. Not now. He’s basically told us to butt out.”
“But?”
“But I don’t think there is any harm in us contacting him directly. Do you?”
Christine shook her head, once again brimming with the anticipation of doing.
“I’ll find his number online.”
Ten minutes later, Paul had the phone number, and Christine had a handwritten list of all the questions she wanted to ask the man.
Paul had explained that the phone was as untraceable as a human could make it. She hadn’t understood much of his explanation, but she trusted him and that was enough.
The phone sat on the table between them, drawing her eyes.
“Ready?” Paul asked.
Christine nodded. She took a deep breath as he dialled. He left it on speaker so that they could both hear the shrill ringing.
A man’s voice answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
Paul leaned forward. “Mr. Vovk?”
“Yes?”
“I’m with Soldiering On. I’m protecting Christine Ramirez.”
“You’re with her now?” His voice sounded tinny, like it was coming from a long way away. Either it was a bad connection, or Paul’s encryption software was messing with the line. Though Christine had never met the man, she could tell by his voice that he liked command. When he said jump, he expected people to do it, without even asking ‘how high’.
Christine interrupted before Paul could answer. “I’m here.”
“Christine, where are you? I want to apologise in person for having you watched. It was unacceptable of us.”
Paul practically growled. “She’s not going anywhere until she’s safe. And right now there are still dangers out there. No thanks to you.”
There was a pause. “I’m not sure what you’ve been told, but we had nothing to do with Miss Ramirez being attacked.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you are responsible either directly or indirectly. There is little difference in my mind.”
Christine put a gentle hand on Paul’s arm where it lay on the table. The tension that had been humming through him lessened slightly at her touch.
“Did you call today just to threaten and insult me? Or did you have some higher purpose to your call?”
Christine and Paul shared a look. A silent communication passed between them. She was the one that leaned over the phone to deliver the trump card.
“There is a little matter of four million dollars.”
The only sound through the line was a slight hitch of Vovk’s breath. “Did you find it?” he whispered.
“What was it for?” Christine countered.
Vovk scoffed. “Protection money, blackmail, whatever that bastard Disik felt like at the time.” The sneer in his voice practically dripped with hatred.
Shock slammed into Christine, freezing her breath in her lungs.
“That sounds like he was…”
“Mob? Oh, yeah, big time.”
Christine thought of dear Mr. Disik with his vacant eyes and sweet smile. It was impossible to imagine him as a hard mafia man, extorting money from people. But goodness knows what he’d been like before the dementia had begun to take its toll on his mind.
Christine felt rather like her world was crumbling at the edges, messily rearranging itself into a new form she didn’t quite recognise.
Vovk’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “How did you find out about the money?” he was attempting to sound casual, but Christine could hear the anticipation of her answer even through the bad connection.
“There are files at his h—”
/> Paul interrupted her with a strong grip on her wrist. But it was too late. Vovk’s breathing changed.
“And the money itself? Did you find it?”
Christine and Paul shared another look, this one deeply confused.
“What do you mean?” Paul asked carefully.
“I mean,” he replied through gritted teeth. “The bastard was famous for never spending the money he collected from us. One last kick to the face, I guess. So, where is his stash?”
“Surely only he knows that. And I’m not sure that even he does anymore,” Christine told him.
Vovk went completely silent. “I’m not sure I understand,” he said after a long moment.
“Mr. Disik is ill. His memory is going. You won’t get your money back now.” She’d thought he’d known.
“He’s losing his mind?” Vovk practically yelled.
“Yes, the money will be untraceable now, I’m sure.” Christine felt suddenly defensive and a little scared. Some itching, primal instinct told her that she’d made a terrible mistake.
“There’s no way that old bastard is going out that way.” It was a vow.
“I assure you—”
“No. I’ll tell my father about this, and we’ll take action. After that, we won’t need to bother you anymore.”
The line clicked and went dead. Christine and Paul were frozen in silence for a moment.
“Shit,” Christine muttered, unable to even muster up some lapsed-Catholic guilt because the phrase was just too damn apt.
“Did he just say…his father?”
Christine squeezed her eyes shut. “Did we just tell all that to the wrong Vovk?”
Paul swallowed. “Not sure Anatoli still has a living father.”
“Shit,” Christine said again. She reached for the cross that she’d long ago worn around her neck and encountered bare flesh.
“Agreed,” said Paul.
“What do we do?” she asked.
He let out a breath. “I suppose we tell Duncan.”
“Do you think the ‘action’ that Klim mentioned will be bad?” Christine put her hand over Paul’s, taking comfort from the heat radiating from him.
“I’m not sure. But I think it is more likely to be bad than good.”
Station Alpha: (Soldiering On #1) Page 13