by Emmy Ellis
“Yes. He said he had an errand to run.”
“Suddenly?”
“Yes.”
“And you believed him?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” As I’d spoken, I realised how stupid that made me sound. Why should I believe anyone?
“A diversion was created, to take him out of the equation.”
I said nothing. Embarrassed for Sutton. He should have known about diversions, what with his line of work. What had he been thinking, buggering off like that? Yes, I’d come here willingly with the Albino—I’d had to, for Guilia’s sake—but given the choice, without her being in danger, I was sure I’d have stayed with Sutton.
“I hope…” I took a steadying breath, erasing what I’d been about to say from my tongue. “I hope my things are retrieved without incident.”
“I will know shortly.”
The Albino took over my job of tea-making. I didn’t have the energy to do it, and besides, he was here to care for me, not the other way around. And I hated that—me, acting like the spoilt rich girl I’d been brought up to be, but it was all I’d been used to. Maybe it was something I could address when this was over. Become a better, kinder person. Wonders would never cease.
He passed me a mug filled with tea—thankfully the British kind; he’d done his homework—and I sipped gratefully. Sitting opposite, he drank his, staring at me as though imprinting my face in his mind. Far from giving me the creeps the way he had when I’d first encountered him, his scrutiny put me at ease. I told myself he was making sure he studied my face so that in the future, if we got separated, he’d spot me in a crowd instantly.
A melody chirruped. The Albino reached into his pocket and produced a phone. He glanced at the screen and rose. “Stay.”
He vacated the room, returning with not only my handbag but an armful of my clothing. “Everything that is yours has been collected.” He dropped them onto the table, barely missing my cup, which threatened to topple over.
I reached out for my handbag, settling it on my lap. “Thank you.”
If Sutton realised what was going on, would he have put a tracker in here?
I could only hope so, yet at the same time I wanted him out of the picture. The Albino was the one I needed to be with in order to protect Guilia. Sutton had no such intent as far as I knew, and he didn’t even know she needed protection. Or maybe he did and hadn’t cared to tell me. Or just didn’t care full stop.
I didn’t like that thought.
To distract myself, I stared at my clothes, mentally counting each item. Yes, it was all there, so whoever had collected them had been thorough—and had had time to do so. Why hadn’t Sutton heard the Harley as we’d driven off? Was he still roaming about outside Father’s house, trying to complete his nonexistent errand? Or was he inside, wondering where the hell I’d gone? Or, more disturbingly, was he…?
No, he’s not dead. He’s too clever. He’ll come and find me.
“Your man is all right,” the Albino said. “He was last seen outside the property, scratching his head.” A small smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Probably wondering how you escaped when he had locked you inside.”
“Why didn’t he hear your bike? I heard it but thought it was lawn mower.”
“Perhaps he assumed it was another visitor.” He sipped his tea, boldly staring at me.
“You know about them?”
“Yes. Someone has been watching. Your father needs to scale back his…fingers in pies, isn’t that what you say?”
“Something like that.” I smiled.
“Too many fingers has resulted in this.” He gestured to me. “Us, here. I should be on a beach somewhere, but instead I have been called from my holidays to work. I do not mind helping you, but I do mind the fingers in pies. They disrupt things.”
“Yes, it seems they do. I’m not particularly fond of them at the moment, I can assure you. I also should be on a beach somewhere, or better still, sourcing product for my new business, not holed up inside a wooden cabin.”
“A metal cabin.”
“What?”
“The wood is just a façade. It is steel-lined. This place is used by people who…really must not be harmed. It has to be safe.”
The idea that I was sitting in a steel box brought on the jitters. Who the hell needed to build such a property—and what kind of people were they?
“Your boss,” I said. “Does he help many people?”
“Yes, but only if he is paid a handsome price and he deems that they deserve it.”
“And who is paying this handsome price?”
“That is not for me to know.” He shrugged.
He didn’t have a clue and neither did he particularly care, I could see it in his strange eyes. “And I deserve it, do I? I’m considered worthy of protection?”
“Yes. You are an innocent woman. My boss is a man who makes things happen that are not always…within the law, but he is a good man. No women or children hurt, that is his rule, you understand?”
“I understand.” That was something in my favour then.
“Unless, of course, the woman has fingers in pies.”
Chapter Seventeen
The steel-box cabin heated while the next hour passed. My clothes clung to my skin.
“Is there no sodding air-conditioning in here?” I fanned my face with a copy of a Harley magazine that had been lying on the table.
“Probably.”
“Well, should we find it? Aren’t you boiling?”
“I do not like the sun, but I like the heat very much.”
“This isn’t heat, this is suffocation.” I stood and grimaced, my jeans sticking to my legs and the embedded glass nipping at my heel.
“I grew up in Siberia. Heat was expensive and rare. My mother used to say, ‘Kolya, when you find warmth, take it right to your bones and keep it there for as long as you can’.” He nodded seriously.
“That’s your name? Kolya?”
He nodded.
“Well, Kolya, I’m sure that advice is all fine and dandy living in the tundra, but it doesn’t wash in Florida.” Moving carefully around the room, I scanned the wall for a control panel. Nothing, though there were a few vents low down which gave me hope. I headed into the hallway, exploring. Ah, there was something promising.
Set flush from the sickly green-painted wall was a white dial with a glass screen. I flicked it on, set the temperature at eighteen, and hit the small red button.
An ominous clanking sound came from a cupboard to my right, then a low hum. Within seconds, a cool breeze hit my bare feet. “Oh, thank God for that.” I pushed strands of hair from my face. The relief at knowing our oven-house would soon be bearable washed over me. “Have you got some tweezers?” I called.
“What?”
I started. Kolya was right next to me. I hadn’t heard him move—he was like some kind of ghost and not just because he was so pale. “Tweezers, you know.” I made a pincer movement with my fingers. “To get this bloody bit of glass out of my foot.”
“No tweezers, but I have this.” He produced a small chrome contraption from his pocket, flicked a switch on the side, and released a slim, shiny knife.
“I don’t want my foot chopped off,” I said. “Just the glass out.”
“I will do it.”
“I don’t think so…not with that.”
He shrugged. “It will only take a minute. This knife has dug out bullets in the past. It is an efficient tool. Very sharp, too.”
I accidently put pressure on my heel and winced. That damn bit of glass needed to come out, and soon. I couldn’t think straight with it nagging away in there.
“Here,” he said, pushing open a door on his right. “Lie down.”
I looked into the shadowed room. A double bed with plain white sheets was flush against the wall. The only other piece of furniture was a long dark dresser on the opposite side to the bed.
“I’m sure I can just sit on the chair out there.” And when had
I agreed to him digging it out, anyway?
“No, facedown is best for your heel. I can see it properly.” He placed his hand into the small of my back and urged me into the room.
I glanced at the knife again then tiptoed along in a half hobble. “Were the bullets in you? You know, the ones that thing has dug out?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
He set the knife on the bed—it looked extra lethal on the virginal white sheet—and turned on a small spotlight. “Here.” He gripped the base of his top and dragged it up and off.
I stared at his colorless chest. He had a scribble of the palest blond sternal hair, and his nipples were such a delicate shade of pink they almost blended in with the rest of his skin. But there was nothing insipid about his muscles.
A shiver of desire went through me, and heat that had nothing to do with the air around me slewed through my system.
“Got slugged in the arm,” he said, twisting a little and showing me a raised scar on his right biceps. “And here.” He turned, indicating another dented welt on his back. “Missed my kidney, just.”
“Oh, that’s good then,” I said. “That it missed your kidney.” I’d never seen a bullet scar before.
“It would have been better not to get shot.” He huffed.
“Who shot you?”
“I do not know.”
“You don’t know. Damn, if I ever got shot, I’d want to know who bloody well did it.”
“I was at work. Part of the job.”
God, I’ve heard that before.
“Treacherous job you do, Kolya. I hope they pay you danger money.”
He faced me again and inclined his head slightly. “It pays the bills.”
“And did you always want to have a job where getting shot, stealing rich girls, and worrying about fingers in pies filled your days? Was that your ambition as a child?”
“Let us just say I fell into it.”
“Fell into what exactly?”
He smiled. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“That’s because no one tells me anything.”
“I have told you what you need to know. Probably more than your man Sutton did.”
“He wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“So…” He nodded at the bed. “That proves that you are now in the right place, here with me.”
I wanted to believe him. And part of me was invested in his words. Sutton had hidden Guilia’s pictures from me, Kolya wanted to protect her. Sutton had clamped up when I’d asked him anything, Kolya’s tongue seemed looser.
But who was paying Kolya’s boss? And why? I was in no doubt that these services didn’t come cheap. What benefit to them was saving a little girl and a sex-crazed rich girl?
I turned and lay facedown on the bed, my spine sagging on the soft mattress.
He seized my ankle, holding it steady, and I squeezed my eyes shut, preparing for the discomfort of having glass gouged from my foot.
He fiddled, the scratch of the knife an unrelenting sting. “Keep still.”
A knife probed my flesh.
A tiny ting: metal blade on glass.
“Ah,” he said. “One…more…got it.”
“Ow, fuck.” It stung like buggery for a split second, then it was suddenly gone. Just a bruised ache lingered.
“Nasty,” he said.
I twisted onto my front.
“Here.” He pulled a tissue from his pocket and passed it to me. “Should not bleed much.”
“Good.” I crossed my ankle on my knee and dabbed the blood then rested my foot on the floor, tissue beneath.
He set the knife on the dresser and dropped the shard of glass into a wastepaper bin.
This man before me could be my treasure chest. If I got close, would he reveal even more? I needed to know who his boss was. What pies my father was fiddling with. Where Guilia was, and what I needed to do to protect her.
Protect her. That urge was stronger than anything I’d ever felt before. Nothing had ever gripped me with such sure fastness as my desire to safeguard my child.
And nothing would prevent me doing so.
Nothing.
I stared up at Kolya.
He was staring down at me, his pale face set serious and his watery blue eyes burning into mine.
I swallowed and reached for the button on his trousers.
He remained utterly still as I released it then pushed them down to his thighs.
I took that as a good sign, his stillness.
It was.
I pushed at his boxers, too.
Ten minutes later, he flopped onto his back, breathing heavily. “We must go to Europe tomorrow.”
“Europe?” To Austria? To Guilia? “Why?” I drew the covers up to hide my nakedness and worked to catch my breath.
“It is where we need to be.”
“Says who?”
“My boss deems it necessary.” His frown deepened.
“Who is your boss?”
“His name does not matter, but he can see the big picture, so we must trust his wisdom.”
“Trust. That word gets banded about like they’re ten a penny.”
“I do not know what you mean.”
I hesitated. I needed to think carefully about my next question. My story was moving along now, and I needed to keep it that way. “So these men who are putting me and Guilia in such grave danger, they are doing business with my father?”
“Yes, and if they have you, and your daughter, they have control over your father and that business.” He unfolded his long frame from the bed and stood. “They want control over that business very much, I believe.”
“What is this business exactly?”
“How would I know?”
He pulled on his boxers. It seemed Kolya’s boss worked on a need-to-know basis, which wasn’t good for me and my plan to wheedle information from him.
Even so, I thought about what he’d said, and a knot of regret curled in my stomach.
So Sutton had been telling the truth. He had wanted to protect me, on behalf of my father. But the trouble was, Kolya and his boss thought they could do the job better. Which was why I was here now. They also seemed concerned about Guilia, and Sutton didn’t, which for me, made Kolya the man I wanted to have my back.
And that was a damn shame. I had a lot to offer Sutton, if he’d let me give it. There was something undeniably appealing about him. A man lost to himself who needed a good woman to help him find the person he was inside again.
But he wouldn’t ever have me now; I wasn’t to be that woman, so it was his loss.
And, judging by the way my Russian was humming a happy tune as he strode from the room, I was pretty good at helping a man find himself.
Chapter Eighteen
I was expecting a jumbo jet, economy class, where I’d have to sit next to people I’d never imagined sitting beside, complete with cramped leg space, squealing children with snotty noses, and a decidedly distasteful scent to the air. Instead, I sat inside a private plane, all chrome finishes and leather upholstery. Carpet on the floor, too—cream, shag pile, expensive.
“This is a nice surprise,” I said to Kolya, who sat close to me on an aisle seat.
“It is. We are lucky to be travelling this way.”
I stared out of the window to my left at white clouds, which had patched together to form one large quilt that covered the world beneath. Somewhere below, Father was plotting to save his own skin and, I suspected, not giving much thought to me or Guilia, except to send Sutton my way. And also somewhere below, my little Guilia was possibly about to be dragged into a terrible thing, something Father, her grandfather, had created.
“Of course,” I said, blustering on, “I’ve been in a similar plane before. Father has one. But I generally use public flights when on business.”
“You are not on business now. Not your usual business, anyway.”
No, I wasn’t, not for Blooms. But this was still my business. This trip now
, everything that had happened previously, was my business because it involved me. I could have said that to him, but this man sitting not three inches away…it wasn’t his fault. He was almost as much of a puppet as I was.
“When do you think I’ll be able to return to my own business?” I asked. “I have work to do, believe it or not.”
“I am not sure. My boss will let me know when or if you can go back to your old life.”
“When or if?” I’d taken it for granted that things would go back to normal once this bloody awful situation had been cleared up. What was he saying? That I might not be able to continue with Blooms? To live in Juniper Hall and commute to London? Have a staff of my own?
“Yes. When or if. Sometimes things can go wrong.”
I hated the sound of that. “What kind of wrong?” My heart was speeding.
“People do not do as we predict. Plans are made but are not followed through. Plan A turns to Plan B, then, if they go wrong and Plan C is not in place…”
Anger boiled, and bile raced into my throat, burning, so bloody hot it hurt. “Then plans for the whole of the fucking alphabet ought to be drawn up, because there is no choice here but to make sure Guilia is safe. I will not settle for anything less.”
One of the pictures of her rose from my subconscious. The idea of my little girl knowing even one ounce of terror screwed with my head, and I resisted the urge to knuckle my stinging eyes.
“I will tell my boss that you want the whole alphabet.” He reached over and patted my hand.
“Thank you.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. Took a deep breath to calm myself. “She’s innocent. She has no idea what her grandfather is up to and doesn’t deserve to be dragged into this…whatever it is.”
“She is the same as you then.”
Yes, she was the same as me. In the same damn boat. And my father had put her there because he’d refused to do as he’d been asked and was prepared to risk the lives of his child and mine. He wasn’t a good man. Oh, I’d always known he wasn’t the best, but this…this crap had cemented my suspicions. Father only thought about himself.
“Are we going to Austria?” I asked.