“Everybody in place?” I ask her, holstering my gun.
“Yep.” She rushes in front of me. For a tiny thing, she’s as tough as they come and isn’t afraid to speak her mind. I can see why Andie trusts her as a friend. “For the record, I don’t like this one bit.”
I acknowledge her concern. Andie wants to run her own show. Doesn’t mean that I’m not going to crash the party. But first, I have something else to deal with.
Rafael makes a scoffing sound through his nose. “This cryptic shit is annoying. You gonna fill me in anytime soon? If it involves Andie, I need to know.”
Instead of taking the elevator, I head for the stairs. To answer his question, I say, “Ready for a little family reunion?”
His countenance turns hard. “My father is here?”
A huge smile spreads across my face. “Something better.”
Our bootsteps echo in the stairwell as we go up. Declan has men assigned to guard the stairwell exits on each of the top five floors, and more men are stationed on the levels below at every tenth floor. I bump fists with the guards as we ascend and stop at the thirty-fourth level when I spot Pearson waiting for us.
The man is one scary-looking badass. Scarred face, bald head, tatted-up from scalp to ankle. He’s a hell-beast wearing a thousand-dollar suit. With a name like Pearson, you’d assume he was some prissy English butler. His real name is Nikolai Volkov, and he’s ex-Bratva. He’s also Declan’s lover. The two of them have been together for as long as I’ve known Declan. It’s not a secret. Everyone knows. Declan swings both ways, so it’s not uncommon for them to share women. Oh, to be a fly on the wall.
Pearson stares down Rafael as we approach. It takes a while for him to warm up to new people, but I doubt that’s the reason why he’s watching Rafael. Pearson is also very protective of Declan, and by association, Andie now as well. Being Declan’s daughter, he would take a bullet to the head for her, and she hasn’t even met the man yet.
I pause in front of the hulking Russian. “Heard you have a present for me.”
Pearson grunts and we follow him inside. This floor of the building is set up for business, and not the nine-to-five desk job variety. Rafael halts in his tracks when he sees the dark-haired woman bound and gagged on the floor. When she notices him, she starts screaming and yanking on her restraints.
“Why the fuck is she here?” he says with alarm.
Mickey, one of our men, nudges her leg with his shoe until she takes the hint and sits up. She’s crying so hard now, snot is bubbling out of her nose. She may have been a beautiful woman, but I don’t see the allure.
Rafael’s stoic mask slips a notch, and I can see the brief flare of panic. “Where’s Sarah? Is she okay?”
I jerk my chin to Mickey, and he bends down over the woman and rips the duct tape off her mouth.
“Fucking nasty,” he sneers in disgust when a string of mucus trails a line from her face to the tape. He tosses the whole lot in her lap and wipes his hands off on his blue jeans while grumbling curses under his breath.
“Rafe, please.Please. Help me.Please,” the woman, Meribella, uselessly begs. She’s not making it out of here alive and she knows it.
Rafael jerks his eyes away from the pleading woman. “She’s Sarah’s nanny. She’s harmless.”
I almost laugh in his face. Even the tiniest kitten isn’t harmless. It still has claws and sharp, pointy teeth.
“She’s Maximillian Rossi’s mistress. Or was,” I helpfully add for her benefit and wink at her.
She cries even harder when she realizes what I mean. Fake tears that don’t fool me one damn bit. This woman is a viper in disguise. A whore who will spread her legs for anyone that will help her live a life of luxury. Jewelry, cars, a rent-free room in a luxurious mansion, a weekly allowance. Not a care in the world. The only jobs she had to do were to suck Rossi’s dick and babysit.
As if seeing her for the first time, Rafael crouches down in front of her and grabs her chin. He twists her face left, then right.
With trembling lips, Meribella stutters something in garbled Spanish about him being the only man she cared about. That screwing Rossi didn’t mean anything. That she and Rafael could run away together. Live off the money Rossi gave her.
I keep my hand on my gun just in case Rafael decides to grow a conscience. Luckily, he doesn’t. He pushes her face away and stands back up. The mood in the room shifts as anger rolls off him, so thick you can taste it.
Switching back to English, Meribella continues her pathetic begging. “Please, Rafe. Tell them to let me go. I promise not to say anything. You won’t see me again. I swear.”
It’s hilarious, the look of hope in her red, tear-swollen eyes.
“If you think because I fucked you a few times, you mean anything to me, you value your worth on this earth way too much. The only woman I care about is Andie.”
Rafael’s disgust is apparent. I would be too if I found out I had stuck my dick in one of Rossi’s fucktoys.
As Meribella continues trying to convince him to let her go, I find it funny how she hasn’t, not once, asked about the little girl she was in charge of caring for.
