That would require two things.
First thing to do was find the hit man currently on her trail, and the person who sent him. Blanton might have been the one to get the blackmail photo, but as for him being the mastermind behind this attempt to silence the blackmailer—or in this case the person they believed was blackmailing them, Sydney—he just didn’t see it. Like Matt, he’d met the Congressman once. Slick and politically savvy, the guy didn’t strike him as having the tech skills or the government connections to get Geist to take the assignment. Someone else was pulling the strings in this mess. He knew it down to his toes.
The second thing necessary to protect Sydney was find and deal with her brother. He was going to make him disappear from her life. One way or another.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The sun hadn’t quite broken the dawn outside the window when one rap sounded on the door, bringing Castello instantly awake.
Easing away from Sydney’s warm body, he drew the covers up over her and climbed out of the bed. As he stepped into his jeans, she murmured in complaint, pulled his pillow close, and snuggled back to sleep.
He pulled his holster on and grabbed his shoes, leaving the room barefoot so as not to wake her. A quick stop in the bathroom, then he headed downstairs.
Dave stood at the landing, holding out a mug of coffee.
“What’s up?” Frank asked taking the mug. He swallowed a couple of gulps of the caffeine-laden brew.
“Doyle’s face recognition came up with a name on the shooter in the black-and-white Sydney’s brother took.”
They headed toward the command center of Doyle’s house.
“Who?”
“Dimitri Kormenski,” Jake said, from his seat at one of the monitors.
Frank shook his head. “Don’t recognize the name.”
“You probably wouldn’t. He’s kept a very, very low profile since leaving Russia right after the turn of the century.” Jake hit a few keys on the computer, bringing up both the grainy black-and-white, and a clearer, color photo. “Right after the collapse of the Soviet Union back in the nineties, when chaos ran supreme throughout the area, a low-level KGB agent began working for one of the mafias that popped up.”
“Kormenski.”
Jake nodded. “He was an enforcer, at first. Then, he started gaining power. Took down his boss in a firefight and gained control over his business.”
Frank pulled up the chair, studying the face of the man when he was younger. “What was the business?”
“Anything. Everything. Gambling, girls, drugs, extortion. Then he got into illegal-arms sales. That’s when he had a problem.”
“Really?”
“Seems our man Dimitri forgot to tell the supplier of the arms that he was taking them, or that he was undercutting his sales to some not-so-nice Middle Eastern men. He left Russia for more lucrative shores just ahead of a hit squad. Had a brief stint in Brighton Beach, New York. There, he met some contacts, and seemed to drop off the radar right before the nine-eleven attacks.”
“Everyone was suddenly looking for terrorists. An illegal-arms dealer out of Russia suddenly fell to low priority,” Frank said, the lightbulb going off in his head. “So when did he resurface?”
“About ten years later, in D.C., as the CEO of an investment company.”
“He went from arms sales, to helping little old people invest their retirement money?” Dave asked, leaning one hip against the computer table. “Why am I not believing that?”
“Because you have a highly tuned bullshit meter,” Frank said. His meter was clanging like a fire alarm in his head, too.
“Damn straight.” Dave raised his mug in salute.
Frank returned the gesture.
“You’re both correct,” Jake continued.
“So what’s our boy Dimitri really doing?” Frank asked.
“His company has invested in projects around the country. Casinos in areas that before had tight gaming prohibition laws. Waste disposal plants. Some banks and mortgage companies that have popped up throughout the depressed economic Midwest.”
“Got his sticky fingers in lots of pies, doesn’t he?” Doyle asked.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say our honest businessman Dimitri might be trying to launder some money through those pies,” Dave said.
“The question is, which money is he trying to clean? Drugs? Prostitutes? Illegal arms?” Matt asked, following up with a loud yawn as he joined the group.
“The answer will become clear in a moment,” Jake said, opening a map of the state on the computer. He clicked a few buttons, and several large spots of wooded rural land came into view.
“What’s that?” Frank asked, very curious where his friend was going with this.
“Luke and Abby sent this as an encrypted email, after I sent them some information on our man Kormenski. They did what they do best.”
“They followed the money,” Frank said.
Jake nodded. “Right. What they found was very interesting.” He circled each of the highlighted areas with the mouse arrow. “These are all farmland and wooded land purchased by several companies in the past ten years. Each one of these companies, at first glance, is a local, legitimate development group. However, if you take a closer look, each is part of bigger companies that have plots all over the Midwest. And each of those are owned by another larger company, and finally, all of those fall under the ownership of one company, Shashka International.”
“Let me guess, the CEO is—” Frank started.
“Kormenski.”
“And the point?” Matt asked, sounding like a cranky teenager.
“The point is, this is an area that’s known for illegal marijuana growing,” Dave said, punching his brother on the arm.
“Ouch.” Matt moved out of arm’s reach from his older brother. “So Dimitri’s laundering drug money. My question still stands. What is the point of knowing this? What does it have to do with the murder of Annabeth Kelly? Didn’t the congressman have her killed to cover up his affair with the girl? This makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” a voice said softly behind them.
They all turned to see Sydney standing in the doorway, barefoot, her hair still messed from sleep, and the clothes she wore the day before slightly rumpled.
“How do you figure?” Frank asked, fighting the urge to scoop her up and carry her back to bed.
Sydney gave a little shrug and stepped into the room. “Simple. State Representative Kelly has been the one steamrolling the new medical marijuana bill through the State House and Senate to get it on the ballot again in the fall. Her husband died from cancer about five years ago, and his doctors couldn’t control his pain with drugs available to him. She has stated in many an interview that if he’d had access to legal marijuana, his end-of-life stage would’ve been more humane.” She sat on the overstuffed chair, drawing her feet up under her.
“And you know this how?”
“I did a fashion shoot for a cancer research charity, and she was one of the sponsors. We chatted between wardrobe changes for the models. Very nice lady.” Sydney yawned and stretched her neck to one side, then the other. “I felt bad for her, and have been following her in the news ever since. She’s having problems with getting other representatives to vote for her bill. Lots of big pharmaceutical companies don’t want that bill to pass, and have lobbied hard against it. The state wants to have tighter controls, especially stating who can or can’t grow the product, and that’s got some other people up in arms with talk about monopolies.”
Frank could see where she was going with this train of thought. “And if it passes, big illegal pot growers, like Dimitri, will lose customers and revenue. If he applies for a medical grower’s license, he’ll have to pay huge fees to the State, not to mention taxes.”
“Why kill the representative’s daughter? Why not kill the woman herself?” Doyle asked.
“Because killing a State Representative would make the news. It w
ould focus on her, and why someone would want her dead,” Jake said.
“But making her daughter disappear puts the stress on Ms. Kelly,” Sydney said. “It would force her to step down.”
“Then she’s replaced with someone more in line with stopping the bill,” Frank said, seeing the big picture. “Exactly what’s happening Thursday morning at the press conference she announced this weekend. Which means Dimitri needs to tie up this business of the blackmail photos before the conference. He can’t afford to have any of it go public before then.” Frank looked straight at Sydney, who’d gone a little pale.
She wrapped her arms around her body and stared back at him. “Which means he wants to kill me before then.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Reality sucked.
Sydney stood in the shower, letting the hot water spray over her as she worked the shampoo into her hair. The heat not only eased some of the tension that had settled between her shoulder blades as they’d laid out the intricate plot Dimitri Kormenski had weaved, but melted some of the cold that had settled deep into her soul.
The man wanted her dead. Today.
How had it come to this? She’d been minding her own business. Happily trekking off to the Green Mountains of Vermont to shoot too-skinny women in flimsy clothes in a dense forest while some jerk, who preyed on the weaknesses of others, manipulated the world as if he was some damn puppet master.
She slammed her fist against the stone tiles of the shower. “It’s not fair.”
“Sure isn’t,” Castello’s deep voice rumbled from the other side of the curtain.
“Eeep!” She put one hand over her heart as she screeched, grabbing the shower curtain with the other. Taking a deep breath she peered around it to stare narrow-eyed at the man who had invaded her private space without permission. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Sneak up on me. Invade my privacy. Scare the beejeezus out of me.”
“Which?”
Damn, he had that half-smirk on his face and was back to one-word conversation.
“All of them,” she muttered, and pulled the curtain closed once more, leaning back to rinse the lather out of her hair.
A moment later, the shower curtain rustled and Castello stepped in, virtually taking up all the space.
“I didn’t ask you to join me.” She took a step back under the water and stumbled against the inner edge of the tub.
“Whoa,” he said, gripping her by her hips to steady her.
“If you weren’t in here, I wouldn’t need to stand here.”
“Then come closer.”
Using his hands, he moved her to the center of the tub and up against him. Sputtering out the water that dripped down her face, she swatted at his hands, but he didn’t release her. “I’m mad.”
“I know.” A slow grin spread over his face.
No wonder the man smiled so rarely. It was a dangerous thing, his smile. Heat sizzled from her toes, over her body, and settled deep inside her core.
“Don’t smile at me. I’m mad at you.” She put her hands between them and pushed on his chest. Might as well be trying to move a granite wall.
“Because I scared you and invaded your private shower.” The smile had disappeared, except for the slight lift of the left corner of his mouth.
“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes at him. She was still pissed.
“What else?”
“I’m mad that my brother is a selfish pig.”
“Not going to argue with you there.”
“And that someone killed that poor girl over greed, and because they think they have the power to hurt others for their own needs.”
“Valid reason.”
Her ire dropped as he agreed with her. A shiver ran through her. “And I’m mad that I’m scared.”
He pulled her in close, the heat of his body helping to relieve the chill that had settled over her. “I know. I’m not going to lie to you. I’m scared, too.”
She leaned back to peek up at him. “You’re scared?”
“Yes.” He smoothed wet strands of her hair off her face, and stared down into her eyes.
She waited. One word wasn’t going to suffice this time, but she wasn’t going to pry it out of him, either.
“I’m scared I won’t be able to protect you.” He swallowed, all hint of humor gone, replaced with an intensity she’d never seen in him before. “If we’re wrong. If we’ve missed something. If Geist or Kormenski get to you before we stop them…”
Seeing the raw fear in this usually stoic man’s eyes tore at her heart. Her need to comfort and reassure him suddenly dissolved whatever fear and anger she held inside. Reaching up she cupped his face in her hands.
“We’re not wrong. You, Jake, Abby, and Luke, everyone, have done the nearly impossible in such a short amount of time. We have the advantage. They think they’re anonymous. They’re not.” Standing on her tiptoes, she pulled his head down and kissed him, willing some of her sudden confidence into him.
He broke the kiss, searching her eyes. “You’re not mad anymore?”
“Nope.”
“Not scared?”
“Nope.”
“Why?”
“Because I have something Ian, Blanton, Geist, and Kormenski don’t.”
He cocked his head slightly to the side. “What?”
“You. I have you.”
That’s all it took. He crushed her to him, his mouth claiming hers. Heat and need soared through her. She moved her arms around his neck and held on tight as his hands grasped her ass cheeks. He lifted her high and she wrapped her legs around his waist, feeling the blunt head of his erection pressed against her slit.
He kept her poised there, teasing her, his mouth changing position to taste more of her, as if he was starving and she was the only thing to ease his hunger. Never in her life had she wanted something so bad, but Frank devouring her sounded like the perfect antidote for the fear and anger that had filled her since the fire.
Suddenly he broke away, panting. “Dammit.”
“What?” she gasped out past her own need to draw in breath, clinging to him.
“We can’t do this.”
A giggle escaped her and she wiggled her bottom, teasing the tip of him. “Seems like we’re perfectly poised to do just that.”
He let out a groan. “No, I mean I can’t do this here, now. Not like this.”
“Oh God, your knee and thigh. I didn’t realize my weight would put such pressure on them.” She started to move her legs down.
He grasped her and held her in place. “You don’t weigh more than a minute. Hell, I can leg lift more than that at my PT appointments.”
“Then what?”
“I left the condoms in my bag in the other room.”
Always in protector mode.
“I’m on the pill. I don’t have any STDs.” She cupped his face in her hands once more, staring into the dark depths of his eyes. “I trust you.”
Before he could argue, and she knew he would, if given half a chance, she pressed downwards, slowly pulling him inside her.
He groaned, digging his fingers into her bottom as he held her impaled upon him. Eyes closed tight, as if he was fighting between his desire to bring them both great pleasure and his own sense of honor. She knew he’d never taken the risk of unprotected sex. It went against everything he stood for. And that’s what reassured her this was the right thing.
She did trust him. With this. With her life. Completely.
Just when she thought he’d withdraw and insist they move to the bedroom, he pulled back and thrust in tighter.
“Yes,” she moaned, pulling his mouth down to hers.
No further talk was needed. The only sound the soft slap of wet skin against wet skin as she rode him, his powerful legs keeping them safely vertical in the shower. Need and passion built inside her, rising her higher and higher to the crest of the wave, then slamming her down hard as she convulsed with her orgasm on him, clen
ching his body with her arms and legs. He held her tight with one arm, the other braced against the wall, as he joined her in white-hot completion.
The water temp cooled as they slowly recovered. With a slight movement he eased from her body. Sydney kept her arms around Castello’s neck as she slipped first one leg then the other down to the tub. He steadied her with one hand on her hip and the other turned off the water.
Stepping out of the tub, he grabbed two towels from the open shelving. She shivered from the loss of his body’s heat, only to have him quickly wrap her in one towel and hand her the other.
“For your hair,” he said, before turning and grabbing a towel for himself.
As she rubbed her hair, she watched him move—toweling off his body, then pulling on the clothes he’d discarded to join her in the shower. Every naked muscle defined, not from hours in a gym, but from a life of maintenance to protect others. He didn’t have the body of a twenty-something model or sports player. No, his was the weathered body of a warrior. The scars. The strength. Even the slight limp in his walk spoke volumes about him.
He’d put her need for him before the pain it must’ve caused him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, holding the hair towel in front of her.
He froze.
She rushed to fill the silence that loomed between them. “For making you do that. For straining your legs—”
In one stride he was in front of her, his hand gripping her head from behind and his mouth crushing hers. It seared her. Calmed the embarrassment. Eased her own insecurities.
Slowly he lowered the fervor, turning it from a claiming to a tender kiss. Their lips clinging together for that glorious millisecond of connection at the end. He pressed his forehead against hers. “Don’t ever do that.”
“What?” she whispered.
“Apologize for making love with me. Don’t qualify it. Don’t excuse it. I never do anything I don’t want to do. And making love to you wasn’t forced upon me, Syd. It’s something I wanted.”
He stepped back, staring at her with such fire in his eyes, she wondered if she’d ignite from passion again. “God, you’re glorious.”
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