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Persy wouldn’t say her day had been boring, because there was always something to do, and she had her cell phone to be able to do it on. Which meant her day spent outside the Batcave wasn’t a total bust.
She spent some of that time checking up on the four people on Casper’s list. She’d initially been surprised that it was such a small list. But she hadn’t sensed any deceit in Casper when he gave it to her.
She found nothing in any of the information on those three women and one man to suggest they might be responsible for the vandalism to Casper’s car and the cut brake lines that had eventually caused his accident.
Even so, it had been a long day, and Persy was more than happy to pass her bodyguard duties on to Caleb and Richie at seven that evening, allowing her to travel back into the city with Jeff.
They parted in the Kingston Security underground car park to go to their separate vehicles and drive to their respective homes. An apartment in town in Persy’s case, and a house somewhere in the suburbs for Jeff. Persy liked her coworkers well enough, and they occasionally went out for a drink together at the end of a long week, but she certainly wasn’t close enough to any of them to have visited their homes or have them visit her apartment.
Nevertheless, she knew Jeff had a wife and three-month-old baby waiting for him at home.
Usually, Persy didn’t have anyone at home waiting for her, but currently—
“Thank God you’re home!” A tall and beautiful blonde-haired woman rushed toward Persy the moment she’d taken a step inside the hallway of her apartment.
Persy’s focus instantly sharpened. “Did something happen?”
“No,” the other woman instantly assured. “I’ve just been terrified all day that he might somehow find out that you’d helped me and come looking for me here.”
He being Vadim Morozov.
And the frightened young woman in Persy’s apartment was Martyna Morozova, his wife. The same one he’d claimed earlier today had been kidnapped.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Persy had absolutely no reservations about rescuing women who were in immediate physical or mental danger from a spouse or relative. Although she didn’t usually accommodate them in her home, but instead booked them into a hotel under an assumed name until she was able to help them either move on or find the strength to bring charges against their abuser.
Martyna Morozova was the exception.
Her husband was known to be a powerful and vicious man, and there wasn’t a hotel in the country where he wouldn’t be able to find Martyna and drag her back to their home, kicking and screaming for help, if necessary. If that happened, Persy had no doubts the other woman would never be seen or heard from again. Which was why Martyna was currently taking refuge in Persy’s apartment.
It had been part of the plan. As had Persy taking three days’ official leave so as to be able to help facilitate Martyna’s escape during her shopping trip.
Persy usually trawled the internet and social media in search of these endangered women. Men too, if the situation arose. But in Martyna’s case, her husband’s treatment of her was public record, after he had been seen striking her in a restaurant the previous month.
It could have been the couple’s consensual dynamic, of course, but somehow, Persy had doubted it.
Contacting Martyna to ask her that question had been much more difficult to do. But again, that had been achieved by a private message on social media.
Martyna had been skeptical at first, suspicious that Persy’s offer of help could be part of a trap contrived by her husband. But Persy had persisted in her claim of innocence in such a plan. Eventually the other woman had believed Persy’s offer to help to be sincere.
No doubt that belief had been pushed along by the fact her fifth wedding anniversary was looming large, and she was frightened her husband might kill her before he allowed her to leave him and sue for a divorce that might result in her being awarded half his fortune in the settlement!
That fear for her life had been enough for Martyna to put aside being suspicious and terrified and instead help Persy to formulate a plan for how she could escape from the bodyguards—whom she explained were more like jailers—that followed her twenty-four-seven. It had been Martyna’s suggestion that she could make that escape during an afternoon of shopping in the city.
A simple but effective plan, the other woman having managed to escape out the back door near the fitting room of one of those stores. That door opened directly into an alley where Persy had been waiting in an SUV to transport Martyna to her apartment.
No matter what Morozov had told Sinclair Kingston yesterday on the telephone or today in his office, Persy knew there had been no telephone call from any so-called kidnappers.
Because there were no kidnappers, only a terrified wife and another woman willing to help her.
Maybe Persy should have told Sinclair yesterday or first thing this morning that she knew where Martyna was. She had initially refrained from doing so because she still didn’t know the Kingstons well enough yet to have blind faith in them. That uncertainty had been added to when Morozov turned up at the Kingston Security building this morning, leading Persy to fear they might be going to take Morozov on as a client.
She should have had more confidence in them.
Because she’d learned from Casper later that morning that none of his family had liked the Russian, nor would they be taking him on as a client.
That knowledge had put Persy in a difficult position.
