Mikail unlocked the doors with a mechanical thump, and Colleen shoved hers open and hurtled out of the car, trotting for the hotel.
When she glanced back, Tristan was following her at a much more sedate pace, and he pressed something into Mikail’s hand as he passed. In a few strides, Tristan caught up and escorted her into the hotel lobby with his hand resting on her lower back.
Colleen controlled the urge to demand to know what the hell was going on.
Fuzz shrouded her head and drifted across her vision as they walked through the austere lobby. When they’d crossed halfway, Jian Laio appeared from the elevator, his bun bobbing as he whipped his head around looking for them, and then hurried over to where they stood. “What happened?”
Tristan shrugged. “Some things are not going according to plan. We need to get up to the room.”
Jian herded them into the elevator and used his key card to unlock the elevator’s top buttons. The elevator ascended, and the row of lights flashed to the last number on the right.
Once they were safely inside the living room area of the penthouse suite, Tristan said to Jian, “I’m not sure what the hell is going on. I don’t know whether to get on a plane back to Monaco right now or whether I should continue this charade because it’s safer to do so.”
Jian said, “Tell me what happened.”
Before Tristan could even talk, Colleen grabbed his arm and demanded, “What the hell happened back there?”
Tristan shook his head. “I don’t know what was going on.”
Anger rose in her throat. “Well, I knew that.”
Tristan’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, you knew that?”
“Well, you were obviously not informed that was going to happen. Because, you know, you got more—you.”
Tristan frowned at her and then related the story to Jian, leaving out the several instances when he tried to let Colleen escape. He did, however, include that Sergey and his criminal friends had identified her even though Tristan had tried to use a fake name for her.
When Colleen interjected, “I thought we were being kidnapped,” Tristan held his hand out and included her in a circle to continue with the discussion.
Tristan said, “Some of the bratvas sent their kids to boarding school at Le Rosey. I know several people who should be in the upper echelons of those organizations by now. I’m not sure who’s running things or whether someone from school gave them my name. I don’t see why they would come calling for me, otherwise.”
Jian shook his head. “My previous employer, Mr. Kalu, tried very hard not to associate with people in that circle.” Jian turned toward Colleen. “Do you have any idea how they got Mr. King’s name?”
Colleen spread her arms out from her sides helplessly. “I am nobody. I don’t know who these people were. I don’t know how they got anybody’s name, especially mine.”
Tristan waved his hand, dismissing Jian’s suspicion. “It’s not her. It’s me. I don’t know where this is coming from, but it’s got to be connected to Le Rosey or the Scholarship Mafia.”
Colleen’s jaw dropped. “Dude! You’re in the Mafia? No wonder the Russian mob is after you.”
Tristan chuckled, and he closed his eyes like the moment of levity was a relief. “Not the real Mafia. I got a scholarship to a boarding school in Switzerland for high school. It’s the most expensive school in the world for extremely rich families. Essentially, it’s billionaire boarding school.”
Colleen said, “I guess that explains the private plane and the yacht in Monaco. Did you say you were thinking about going back to Monaco? Like Princess Grace, Monaco? And did that guy say you went to a royal wedding?”
Tristan waved his hands. “I met a lot of people at that overpriced boarding school who have obscene amounts of money. I mean, these are the people who rule the world. Yeah, I went to school with the Prince of Monaco. Well, with the guy who is now the Prince of Monaco. At the time, he was second in line and did not expect to inherit. His job was to look pretty, and he did that extremely well.”
“You said you’re in the Mafia. You don’t look Italian,” she said, waving at his faintly tanned skin and blue eyes.
Tristan shook his head. “I’m not in the Mafia. It’s just a joke. There were four of us at the boarding school on scholarship in my class. My family was not rich. I mean, my dad was a literal farmer. I grew up on a farm on the unfashionable west side of Iowa City, Iowa. We weren’t cool enough to hang out with the Amish kids. I got a scholarship to Le Rosey for high school. The four of us stuck together because some of the rich kids were prigs who didn’t want anything to do with the poors. When you hang out with very wealthy people, it is driven home just how very insignificant you are to them every day. We were never going to rule the world, so we weren’t worth their breath or their time. So the other scholarship guys and I stuck together. We felt like we needed a name, so we called ourselves the Scholarship Mafia. I’m not even Italian. I am your basic Midwestern German, Norwegian, and Swedish livestock.”
That explained his blue eyes, then. “Okay, okay.” Colleen tried to file all this information in her head and somehow correlate it with what happened at the law firm’s office. “So, if you’re not in the Mafia, then what the hell was all that?”
Tristan shook his head. “I’m not sure what that was. I might be in the Russian mob now. I don’t want to be, but that’s never stopped them when they wanted to recruit somebody.”
“I thought you said you were Norwegian or German or something. You’re not Russian. You can’t be in their Mafia.”
Jian shook his head. “The Russian bratvas are much more egalitarian than the Italian syndicates. They’re more concerned with loyalty and access to power than they are with genetics. It’s one of the reasons they’ve outcompeted the Italian mob so well.”
Tristan turned and raised his eyebrow at Jian.
