Mitya frowned and stroked his jaw. “Wait, I have to get this straight, Flambé. You don’t just go to greet the shifter coming into the country to be welcoming, you are there to serve another purpose.”
She nodded. “As a rule, when I talk to them and ask a series of questions, I can usually ascertain whether or not they are legitimately looking to fit into the program we’re offering or if they want a handout. We don’t give handouts. We expect everyone to pull their own weight. There are too many others waiting in line. That may sound harsh, but it’s true. If I can give someone an education and set them up in business and the contract reads they bring someone over to pay it forward, that helps someone else.”
“How can you tell if your investigation and your extraction team can’t tell?” Sevastyan asked. “Leopards hear lies, it can’t be that.”
“It has nothing to do with hearing lies,” Flambé admitted. “Even as a child, when I went on trips with my father, I could tell. There was something in the way their eyes shifted back and forth. I would tell my father and he would pass on that particular shifter. Not at first, but later, when I had a proven track record.”
“What you’re saying,” Ania mused, “is the shifter really did want to come to the US and was even willing to work for you or your father, but he wasn’t going to follow through and hire other shifters. You could tell that even as a child.”
She nodded. “They weren’t bad people. They just didn’t have the same vision as my father—or me. There were other ways for them to leave their lair.”
“These last couple of years, when things have changed . . .” Sevastyan continued, pushing his luck, seeing how uncomfortable she was. Flambé didn’t squirm or move restlessly. She sat very calmly, but he could tell this was the last conversation she wanted to have. She’d agreed to it, but was still unsure of all of them—him included. She wanted to take that chance with him, but everything about them was so new. This was her business, her passion, and she didn’t understand where they were going with it. “Flambé,” he persisted, keeping his tone as gentle as possible, using his low, authoritative voice that she responded to the most. “What changed with this particular woman? Shanty Jacobs. Who made the initial contact?”
“We first were contacted by a source at National Geographic. They had to run with their story and the photographs they had, but they sent word to us. Our extraction team immediately deployed into the field and were able to make contact fairly quickly with Shanty and the children. Her lair had been destroyed. There were so few left that there hadn’t been a way to protect them when they were attacked and those left were scattered and on the run.”
“Did your investigation team have time to do a thorough investigation before your extraction team picked her and her children up?” Sevastyan pushed.
Flambé hesitated. She set the water bottle very carefully on the table as if she was afraid of spilling it. Her hand didn’t shake. She looked perfectly in control, but that slight pause was unlike her. She was always sure when it came to her business. The hesitation added more knots to Sevastyan’s gut.
“No. We had to deploy our extraction team fast. Once we made contact with her and determined she wanted to leave, we realized it wasn’t safe for her to stay there. She was being hunted, not only by the government, but by poachers as well.”
“If you turned her over to the government, would they have protected her?” Ania asked.
“As a leopard,” Flambé said, “she would have been subjected to tests and separated from her children. They wouldn’t have known she was a shifter or that her children were.”
“But she could have escaped easily,” Ania pointed out. “If there was an immediate risk . . .”
“True, but our extraction team was right there and they provided her with an alternative.”
“But you told me she didn’t want to leave with them,” Sevastyan objected. “You told your workers that Shanty refused, at first, to leave unless you came personally to South Africa to escort her back to the United States.”
Flambé frowned again and rolled the bottle of water over her forehead. He knew her mind was puzzling out the steps that she normally would take on a rescue. This one had been different from the start. They had been contacted right before the photographs had gone public, putting the remaining strawberry leopards in jeopardy. The shifters had scattered, driven from the lair by poachers and now hunted by the government and tourists as well. They were frightened, not knowing where to turn.
There wasn’t time for a thorough investigation, everyone understood that, Sevastyan included. It was also the perfect time for a setup if someone was in a position to get there first. The questions were, how? And why?
“How would she even know your name, or for that matter your face, Flambé?” Sevastyan persisted gently. “It isn’t attached in any way to the extraction team. Why would she fixate on you and insist on you coming to South Africa instead of getting her children to safety as fast as she could? You said yourself you haven’t been going with the extraction team for close to two years now.”
Flambé didn’t answer. She closed her eyes, her long lashes, two thick crescents fanning down, making her look more vulnerable than ever.
“Could the extraction team have mentioned her name?” Ania ventured. “She’s a woman. If Shanty was frightened, she may have wanted a woman to reassure her.”
There was a small silence while the wind tugged at the loose dirt in the yard, whirling it into little eddies, making small dust devils, sending them bouncing and dancing in a wild display.
“That was the exact excuse I used when Etienne and Rory asked me why she had insisted on me meeting her in South Africa. They thought it strange as well. I said that very thing. She was a woman and she was frightened. I never thought to ask how she knew me. No one on the extraction team would ever mention me.”
“But you had acquired a reputation,” Mitya pointed out, playing the devil’s advocate.
“So had Drake Donovan. A much bigger one than mine. His security company is very well known all over the world. Why ask for me? Why not him? It’s true he mostly goes after hostages, but he’s been known to bring out shifters from troubled areas,” Flambé said with a small sigh. “He would have gotten there fast, probably faster than our team.”
“Why would this woman want to set you up?” Ania said. “She doesn’t know you.”
Flambé shook her head.
Knowing she wasn’t used to physical comfort, Sevastyan still couldn’t help offering it to her. He leaned toward her, sliding his arm around her shoulders. “Come here, baby.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re not. Come sit on my lap.”
She gave a little shake of her head.
He kept the pressure on her shoulder and didn’t say anything else. He simply waited. Flambé took time to work it all out. To make up her mind. She had committed to him. She was still in the process of deciding just what that meant to her, what their relationship would be. She did derive comfort from him after being in the ropes. They’d established that over the last few weeks. He had that going for him.
With a soft sigh, Flambé capitulated, sliding from her chair to curl up on his lap, pulling her legs up the way she did, making herself small, cuddling into him. He wrapped his arms around her, giving her firm pressure. His arms were like the ropes, binding her, making her feel safe.
“Most people will betray others for money, power, revenge or if their loved ones are in jeopardy,” Mitya supplied into the silence. “This woman could have any of these motives.”
“Not power or revenge,” Sevastyan ruled out immediately, nuzzling the top of Flambé’s head with his chin. “She doesn’t know Flambé, and what kind of power would she achieve? So, money. Someone could be paying her a good amount, or her mate is being held hostage. Where is her mate? What’s the story on that, plamya?”
Flambé had begun to relax into him by slow increments. Her body was used to the feel of his from all the nights they slept together so close, Sevastyan refusing to allow so much as an inch between their skin. She had been shivering, but even that was slowly dissipating. She rested her head against his chest, her palm pressing into his thigh.
“According to the extraction team, every time they asked about her mate, she became hysterical. She would cry and talk about guns and poachers and everyone being dead.”
“Others escaped the massacre because at least nine other strawberry leopards were caught on separate cameras in various areas, isn’t that correct?” Ania asked.
“Yes,” Flambé said. “As far as I know, the teams are trying to find them. You know as well as I do, shifters are notoriously difficult to find when they don’t want to be tracked.”
“How does it work on your end?” Sevastyan asked. “You don’t use your private cell phone. You said someone at National Geographic gave you the heads-up. How?”
“I was working at the club when the call came in. There are only two of us who can answer that phone. Blaise Brodeur, my foreman, or me. He’s worked for us for years. My father brought him over years ago, when I was starting into my teens. He went to college, really excelled and came back to work with my father. He loves the landscaping business the way we do. My father gave him enough money to start his own business, but he wanted to stay on as the foreman and has. No one else has been there that long and knows both sides, the rescue and the landscaping.”
“So, Blaise took the original call and he set the investigators to work,” Sevastyan said.
“Yes, right away. He called me as well. I told him to alert the extraction team and put them in the field as they might have to track the leopards and get to them very fast. We didn’t know what was happening. Blaise called me back a few minutes later and told me about Shanty and the children. At that time, we didn’t know her name. He just said the contact at National Geographic had her picture and a location and she was separated from the others.”
Sevastyan exchanged a long look with his brother over Flambé’s head. He didn’t like the way this was beginning to shape up.
“Sevastyan?” Flambé’s voice sounded tired and worn. Hurt and betrayed. “Do you remember the day we were working on the property and I was talking with Rory, Etienne and Blaise? You came up behind me? That was when Flamme was really showing herself.”
“I remember.” He kept his voice strictly neutral.
“They were all looking at a picture of Shanty. Blaise acted as if he’d never seen her photograph, but he had to have. He was the first one to take the call. There was no way he didn’t see the photo and know the location. He had to send it to the investigation and extraction teams.”
“Blaise is a strawberry leopard.” Mitya made it a statement.
Ania looked at him, clearly puzzled, but she didn’t say anything.
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re really quite beautiful, Flambé,” Mitya said. “You don’t seem to realize that you are. You also own a very successful business. Your father gave Brodeur the start-up money for a new business, but it would be nothing in comparison to what your business makes. In his mind, he paid his dues. He hung in there, worked hard, did what he was supposed to do and he should have gotten it all. You and the business.”
Sevastyan was extremely glad he wasn’t the one to have to point out to her that Blaise Brodeur was most likely the man who had betrayed her. He knew why Mitya was the one taking that chance. Once again, he was protecting his little brother, risking bringing Flambé’s wrath down on him rather than Sevastyan for even suggesting that Blaise might betray her.
She shook her head. “That makes no sense. He asked me out a couple of times, but after I turned him down, he stopped. He’s never made a move after that. And this entire thing, the poachers, the setup, all of it, the cost would be prohibitive. No way would it be Blaise.”
She didn’t want it to be someone she knew. Sevastyan tightened his arms around her, wishing he was alone with her and they were upstairs in their master bedroom where he could tie her with his rope. Arms and rope, more ties to comfort her. She was beginning to shiver again because she already knew the truth. She looked up at Sevastyan and there was despair in her eyes. Hurt. Tears swimming.
“He isn’t the one behind it all,” Sevastyan said softly. “You know that already, Flambé, but he took the money. He’s angry and he took the money.”
19
I DON’T like this, Flambé,” Blaise said, looking around. “It feels too open here. You’ve always met the clients in a safe house.”
“It’s the best I could do. You know my leopard’s in heat. I can’t exactly go out into the public, Blaise,” Flambé snapped. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. She makes me very moody. This came at such a bad time for everyone. I tried to get out of meeting Shanty. I was going to have you handle it, but she was very insistent. I told you, she would have preferred I meet her in South Africa. There was no way with my leopard so close to emerging.”
Blaise nodded his understanding. “Sevastyan wouldn’t just leave you, though. Where is he? I can’t imagine that with your leopard rising he’d just go work at his cousin’s house.”
She made an exasperated sound. “I didn’t want him where anyone could see him. That would just scare her off. In any case, you know how he is about his cousin. Mitya’s house is right next door. It isn’t like the time between houses isn’t minutes.”
Not one word she said was a lie. She’d practiced what she would say when the question of Sevastyan came up. She knew it would. They all knew it would. She’d implied Sevastyan was at Mitya’s, she hadn’t said he was.
“I don’t like any client knowing where you live,” Blaise reiterated. “Let alone one we haven’t checked out thoroughly.”
“She won’t know this is my home,” Flambé pointed out. “I’ll meet briefly with her. The rest of the extraction team will have the children with them and they’ll take her to join them at the safe house, where we can decide what to do after I’ve talked with her.”
Blaise nodded. Flambé hadn’t stepped off the verandah. She was tucked back in the security of the alcove, which couldn’t be seen from any of the trees or rolling hills. Sevastyan and his team of security guards had made certain, looking from every angle, making absolutely sure that no one could get a shot at her if that was the intention. Blaise had left the alcove several times to lean out over the railing, shading his eyes in spite of his sunglasses to peer down the road.
“Why are you so nervous?” Flambé asked curiously. “This isn’t that different than any other time.”
“I don’t know. It just feels off to me.”
Flambé tried not to feel hopeful. Or elated. Maybe they were all wrong about Blaise after all. She didn’t want him to be working against her. She felt real affection for him. He might not be what she wanted in a life partner, but she felt close to him.
“You realize I don’t have any family at all, Blaise. No siblings, no cousins. No one. You’re the closest thing to family I have.” She meant it. There was an ache in her voice. She couldn’t help it. Blaise heard it and he turned around to face her, his back to the railing.
“What’s wrong, Flambé?”
“I don’t know. Nothing. Everything. I don’t think you’re happy and I want you to be. Why don’t you date anymore? You used to go out all the time.”
He hesitated. Like Flambé, he was well aware leopards could hear lies. “I want a life partner, not a one-night stand. I got damn tired of those.”
“Can I ask you a personal question? It’s really personal,” she warned.
He shrugged, looking wary, but he nodded. His gaze on her face was very focused, indicating his leopard was close.
“Are your nerve endings in your body close to the surface?”
He frowned. “I don’t know what you mean exactly.”
“In some strawberry leopards”—Flambé chose her words carefully—“nerve endings are very close to the surface. It can cause real pain if touched the wrong way. It can also develop into a need for sex all the time. I just wondered if that happened to you.”
Those eyes didn’t blink. Didn’t leave hers. He shook his head slowly. “Do you have that problem?”
She had been afraid if she asked, he would retaliate. It was natural that he would. Male strawberry leopards seemed to have a healthy sex drive, like most shifters, but they didn’t seem to suffer the genetic affliction some of the women did.
“Are you a hemophiliac?”
He shook his head, frowning now, worry creeping into his eyes. “Flambé, what the hell? Are you? Your father never said a word.”
“My mother hemorrhaged in childbirth, Blaise. It was genetic, so yes, I am. I take iron, of course, but I need more than that if I’m going to stay alive. They have a few newer things to try than they did in my mother’s time.”
Blaise shoved his hand through his hair in agitation. “I wish your father had told me. You shouldn’t have been working with all the equipment, Flambé. Too many accidents can happen. One slip of a pruning knife and you’ve got a dangerous cut.”
“I try to take precautions.”
“But you didn’t tell anyone. You should have at least told me.” He swung around, his fingers biting deep into the wooden beams of the railing. “I didn’t understand your father. He put you out of the house, left you on your own and then never once reined you in when you needed it. Hell. You could have died.”
There was real caring in his voice. Again, she didn’t want to believe he had anything to do with betrayal.
“I can’t live my entire life shut up in my room, Blaise.”
“No, but you could be more careful,” he said. “A hell of a lot more careful. What did you mean about nerve endings and needing sex all the time?”
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