There was not a goddamn thing about him in here, or any other room of the house. I sat back in his chair, feeling defeated. How the fuck was I supposed to marry a man I didn’t know?
The door creaked as a pair of eyes looked in on me, and then the shadow was gone.
“Wait,” I cried.
Plavko returned, his face an enigma.
“Can you help me? I can’t read any of this.” I held up a handful of papers.
He made his way into the room, scanned the page, and dropped it to the desktop like he was unable to read it. “Latvian.”
I snatched up a new sheet in a different language. “What about this one?”
“Bill of sale.”
“For what?”
“Sig P two two nine.”
I scrunched my forehead. “Which is what?”
He slipped a hand inside his suit jacket and withdrew a very sophisticated, very deadly-looking handgun, and set it on the desk. “Looks like this.”
My heart hammered against my chest. “It lookslikethis,” trepidation filled my voice, “but it’s not this?”
“Not this. Safe.”
Safe?My eyes widened. “Where is the safe?”
I’d somehow missed it in his closet, just behind his rack of ties. The black box had a simple steel handle and a digital keypad on the front.
“Do you know the code?” I asked. He was wordless and unmoving, and desperation broke into my voice. “Please. We’re getting married tomorrow, and I don’t have a clue who he is.”
Plavko drew in a deep, preparing breath. He punched in the code and turned the handle, but he hesitated before pulling the door open. “I hope this helps.”
I didn’t hear him leave.
The first thing I saw was a U.S. passport. I flipped it open, and the picture inside chilled me to my core. My hair was blonde, it fell much farther past my shoulders than it did now, and there was a glassy look in my eyes.
Was I drunk? Or drugged?
My name wasn’t Laurel Hayward. According to this passport, it was Rebecca March.
I set it to the side and dug deeper, pushing aside bottles of prescription drugs with labels in languages I couldn’t read. There were more passports. Italy, Russia, Maldives. Some were for me and some for Ryan, all in different names.
I flipped through them faster, my pulse skyrocketing with each one. Where did these come from, and why did he have them? I jerked my hand back when it touched the metal of a gun and collapsed back onto the floor, horrified.
Who the fuck was this man, and had anything he’d told me been true?
Abruptly, Plavko’s footsteps echoed in the hall, as if he were being noisy on purpose. Oh, shit. He waswarningme.
“Laurel?” Ryan’s voice rang out.
There wasn’t time to panic or wonder why he was back early. I threw the passports in the safe, shut it, and darted across the way into his bathroom.
“In here,” I replied, trying not to sound out of breath.
As soon as he came into sight, I felt a crushing need to run.
