Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84901 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Ransom?
Ra—
Not ready to allow my mind to drag through the mud, I tussled my fingers in his hair. My fingerprints slid over the side of his face and a jaw cut in marble. My thumbs brushed over his mouth, and he planted his hands over the back of mine, kissing my thumbprints. He inhaled. Deep. Good. I surveyed his handsome face, wishing I held a camera but also wishing I didn’t—that we could remain this way forever. He’d become my living photograph. Always mine. I delighted in how his massive chest rose between us in another deep exhale. The sort of exhale he probably denied himself last night while worrying over me.
My fingertips brushed over his lashes, the tip of his nose, and back to those lips my eyes once darted toward and away from without my consent.
He pressed another soft kiss to my fingers. Reverent and sure.
Before a moan could fall from my lips, Lachlan stepped back, torture tightening his features.
“What?” I asked.
“I … don’t know what he intended to do.”
Lachlan’s Adam’s apple moved, strained. And the relaxed look that washed over him while I loved him with my hands vanished. He was as keyed up as ever, and we’d both fallen into a trap of dark imaginings.
“Lach—”
“I remember when Lorenzo wanted you.”
The pulse at my throat rocked. Wasn’t that name taboo? A sore subject?
“He’d called my job, my career, a game.” Lachlan locked his hands behind his head and paced away from me, only to softly thump his forehead against the door. Regret groaned past his lips. “The lad was right. It’s a game.”
“Excuse me? You’re both wrong.” I took his shoulders, but I’d never have the strength to turn him around. Luckily, he did my job for me. Faced me. Stared down. Way down. Though an entire head taller than me, he didn’t meet my eyes.
“Look at me.” I tapped his chin. “That game is your passion. Your passion is my delight. And you have this face.”
A smile wavered. “How is my face relevant?”
“Don’t be conceited.” I chuckled, hoping to add levity to our conversation. Happiness always came easy with us. “This trustworthy face and this heart.” I tapped his steel chest. “You’re honest, Lachlan MacKenzie. You’re mine, and your face is adorable. Even while sleepy. So, sleep.”
“Don’t want to.”
“I’ll lie with you?”
“Call your dad. Who knows what they told him.”
39
VASSILI
“Tell me again what happened?” Spittle flew through my snarled teeth. My enforcer sat on his knees, wearing only his tighty-whities, in the warehouse area of my Beverly Hills furniture store. I forced a mental prayer because I needed to.
Sometimes it seemed God sat too high to hear us. When I found out about the Chelomeys, I waited for God.
A … few hours. Of course, Simeon and I had to put a plan together. But I … waited.
Now, at a quarter to six a.m., my daughter had been missing for over four hours. For most of those hours, I was in the dark. Zariah and her no-cellphone-on-movie-night policy.
Annoyed at how soft marriage made me, I seized the bottle of Resnov Water from Yuri and sipped the last drop, then raised the bottle.
The goon flinched.
The glass crashed to his left, scattering around him. A large fragment bounced against my tennis shoes. I placed my hands into my basketball shorts. “Scoot to the left, please.”
His gray eyes flicked to the glass. “Sir?”
I turned around and rubbed my brow. At my side, Yuri removed the Grach from beneath the back of his suit jacket. The safety clicked off.
“Okay, okay …” the man said.
Again, I faced him, greeted by the sound of rough breaths, whimpers, and groans.
“Get comfortable.” I gestured with a head tilt.
Sorrow rumpled over the man’s brow as he knelt all the way down, shins sinking into the sparkly jagged bottle pieces. A tear bubbled in his eye.
“Again, the story. Please.”
As he spoke, Yuri stepped toward a showroom table cluttered with floor vases and took a call.
“You’re telling me,” I said after he concluded, “the MacKenzies drank my wine and blue label …” At my every word came a vigorous nod. “And at some point the brother—”
“Da, the pretty one slipped Natasha a drug at the bar, away from the crowd.”
“She sat by herself?” I asked.
The bobblehead reminded me of one created for my brand years ago. I snarled, saying sarcastically, “Lachlan wasn’t there yet when the pretty one drugged her?”
“Nyet.”
“Where was Jamie?” I’d trusted him. The Marine.
“He and his wife didn’t attend.”
I scrubbed my thumbnail across my brow. “When Lachlan arrived, he accused Borya?” Borya and Baran. Yuri had gotten the best for Natasha. Said his brother, Baran, protected Simona since she was a baby. For many years, he’d said.
“Da. Da,” the guard replied. “That is what the MacKenzie did. Lies, Mr. Resnov. All―”
“Tut-tut-tut!” I snapped. “And somehow, Borya fell from the building, during a fight none of you could win by—” Since he offered no further elaboration, I whipped my Grach from the shoulder holster and poked the barrel against his eye. “You couldn’t finish this fight?”