“And it worked.” Ric chimed in, “Russo Enterprises is doing better than it has ever done, illegal activities or not.”
“So what changed?”
“Well about six months ago information about our business dealings started to be leaked to the Volkov’s—they are Russian mafia—and the man who broke into the house that night was a member of the gang. I think that they were trying to entangle me in whatever battle they have going on to force me to do something illegal and they were going to use you to do it.”
It was a scary thought, one that I had never vocalized before. With opening myself up to Owen and Eloise I was also opening up weak spots.
Eloise seemed to be digesting the information that I had presented to her, her little worry line forming between her eyebrows. If it had been a month earlier I’d have ignored it, but now I reached out and smoothed the line with my thumb.
“Was it too much?” I asked gently, understanding if she wanted to leave.
“No.” She said firmly, “I’m a big girl, I can handle anything you throw at me. The Russian mafia is definitely a curveball but it’s a good thing I’m flexible.” Her expression was determined now as she met my eyes, “So what are our options now?”
Ouroptions. My god I think I’m in love.
“Cara,” I began, trying out the nickname I’d been calling her in my head for almost a week, “We’re kind of at an impasse at the moment. Gage and Ric have been working to cut off Volkov’s financial channels in California in hopes that it will force him to move elsewhere. But it’s slow going.”
“Whoa, whoa. Wait, can we just go back to the fact that we’re talking about themafia?”Link sputtered as he looked from my face to Eloise’s as if trying to figure out if this was some big joke.
“You’ll get used to it?” Dominic added unhelpfully, he looked a bit pale from where he was sitting on the end of the couch.
Link just ran a hand through his hair and muttered to himself, “I must have died and fallen into a mafia romance novel.”
“I love those novels!” Owen grinned, his words as equally unhelpful as Dominic’s had been, “It gives me lot’s of, er, ideas.” He made eye contact with me, his brown eyes mischievous. I’d get him later for trying to give me a hard on at the most inopportune time but I had bigger fish to fry.
“Is that going to be a problem?” I asked.
“If I said yes, are you going to kill me?” Lincoln’s words were playful but there was a hint of unease behind his surprisingly bright green eyes.
I snorted, “What? No, I'm not going to kill you. The whole point is toavoidcriminal activity. No if it’s a problem I’m putting you on Lucifer duty for a month.”
I loved the cat but he was a nightmare to everyone but Eloise and I.
“Lucifer duty?”
“I’ll explain later.” Eloise’s eyes were sparkling with laughter as she finally relaxed against the back of the couch, “So what do we do now?”
“Now we wait to see if we can make the correct moves to get Volkov out of our hair permanently.”
“If you want I can ask my boss to talk to her contact at the FBI—maybe we can catch the Volkov’s in some kind of criminal activity and get them tossed into a federal prison?” Lincoln offered, he was already thinking on his feet. If he kept it up I might actually find myself liking the beta.
“Who is your boss?”
“Aria Simmons.” I knew of her name, she was one of the most cutthroat corporate lawyers in California.
My knee jerk reaction was to tell him no. I didn’t care for law enforcement of any kind—it was beaten into me at a young age that they were almost as corrupt as we were as mafiosos. But if Aria Simmons had a contact it couldn’t hurt.
“Do it.”
We sat for a few minutes and I awkwardly held the fairy wand back out to Owen who plucked it out of my hands.
“Alright, it’s by my decree that I close this transparency talk. Thank you all for participating—may the truth set you free.” The beta nodded sagely as he opened the little cabinet that was on the flat side of the couch and tossed the wand inside before turning to all of us and declaring, “Group hug!”
No one moved until Owen began tugging on hands and arms and we grudgingly stood up and met in the middle of the circle of the couches in an incredibly awkward group hug.
“Ahh,” Owen said from the middle as he wrapped his arms tightly around a grinning Eloise, “This is nice, my emotionally stunted compadres, we should do this more often.”
Ric shot me a maniacal grin and piped up from the middle of our group hug, “Hey Owen?”
