No, dammit to hell and back. This whole situation was a mess. Breath heaving, he stormed toward the stables. He’d been so close to having everything he wanted. Then Simone had truly screwed his plans. This was all her fault, and he would be sure that she suffered.
As he drew nearer, he realized that one of the large, wooden doors to the stables hung open. Squaring his shoulders, he entered, shouting, “Alexei, how dare you drag my good associate Ryan into this?—”
But then his words stopped. He stopped. Because Frederick had just caught sight of Alexei. A very bloody, unmoving Alexei. A knife appeared to be lodged in the man’s chest.
Frederick gaped. And gagged. Because…
First dead body.
He yanked a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it over his mouth and nose even as Hugo shoved past him. Hugo crouched next to the body. He…
“Are you touching him?” Frederick demanded as disgust and nausea rolled through him.
“Yes, that’s how I determine if he is alive or dead!”
“He’s in a pool of blood!” His other guards rushed inside. “There is a knife in Alexei’s chest, and I can see the inside of his throat. He is dead.”
Hugo yanked the knife out of Alexei’s chest.
“What are you doing?” Frederick stumbled forward. “Now your prints are on it!”
Hugo squinted at him. “We’re calling the cops? That’s what you want to do here, boss? Call in police officers to handle this scene? Because I’m pretty sure only the authorities will care about prints. Though I have to tell you, calling them in will just raise a whole lot of questions that I don’t think you want to answer.”
No, he did not want to answer any questions that the authorities might have.
Hugo grunted. “Thought so. And if we aren’t going to let the police investigate the scene, then who cares if my prints are on the knife? We’ll just make all of this vanish.”
“I’ve never made a body vanish before.” He’d been thinking of killing Alexei moments before, but that had just been…anger. A temporary rage. He had never actually murdered anyone.
“Sir.” Hugo inhaled. “Do you see the ropes near his body?”
Yes, he saw the damn ropes. “What of them?”
“Simone Sailor and Ryan Quinn were no doubt tied to those empty chairs. They are gone. They are kidnap victims. If we call the authorities, we’ll have to explain how and why two people were kidnapped.”
Okay, Hugo could stop it already. His case had been made. “We aren’t getting the authorities out here. We’ll have to handle things ourselves.” While he might not know how to make Alexei’s body vanish, Frederick did know someone who had experience in that area. His gaze darted around the area. Was that a discarded, bloody tux coat? Oh, no. If Ryan had been hurt by Alexei…fuck me. This could be disastrous. “We have to find Simone. And Ryan.” This was going from bad to worse. “They can’t get to the police!” If Simone and Ryan reached the authorities, if the police came out to the stables and discovered Alexei…
Frederick’s breath heaved in and out. “Clean the scene. We have to clean the scene first.” No way could any police arrive to find blood and ropes and a dead man. He whipped out his phone and called the person he really, really did not want to call.
Alexei’s boss.
And…the man currently in charge of my life. Konstantin Volkov.
The phone rang in his ear.
“Boss.” Hugo stood right in front of him. “Boss, we have a big problem.”
He was aware. He’d seen the body. “Trying to deal with the problem.”
“Boss, who killed Alexei?”
“Hello?” A low, rumbly voice in his ear.
Frederick blinked at Hugo.
“Hello?” The voice in his ear had sharpened.
“Who did it?” Hugo wet his lips. “Because Alexei was one tough bastard. Who did that to him? You think it was that silver-spoon guy, Ryan? You think it was Simone? She’s tiny.”
