“What?” Bas jumped to his feet, running a hand through his hair. “Are you fucking kiddingme?”
Drew was paralyzed by shock. He was vaguely aware of Bas’s agitation, but he could barely process it.Mark?The fucking idiot who looked like a turtle?Mark, with the stupid dog? He’d hardly processed the idea of that self-absorbed creep being the kind of person who’d drug him, though he knew logically that date rape wouldn’t be so rampant if you could tell that sort of thing about a guy bylooking.
Still. To think he’d been texting with someone who worked with Alexei was nauseating. He had to swallow before he could force out the words, “What the hell could Alexei want withme?”
Bas sat back down and wrapped an arm around Drew’s shoulder, and Drewknewthat Bas was pushing down his own anger to give him the support heneeded.
Drew leaned into his solid body, and thanked his lucky stars for Bas’s caveman instincts. They’d saved him from… God only knewwhat.
Cort raised his eyebrows at Cain. “This is your part of the show and tell, bud.” He looked at Drew and Bas. “Damon already called and filled me in on this part, so I could get the ball rolling with Sean. But I wanted you to hear it straight fromCain.”
Cain nodded. He looked down at his hands, which were clenched tightly in his lap, the picture ofnervousness.
Damon pulled his leg down from the ottoman and leaned forward, bracketing Cain’s body with his own. He leaned his chin on Cain’s shoulder. “Remember, baby, everybody here knows you’re not your father. And nobody blames you for the shit he’s done.” He glared at everyone else in the room, as though challenging them todisagree.
But of course, no onedid.
“Damon’s right, Cain,” Cam said encouragingly. “You’re braver than all of us puttogether.”
Cain snorted, but he leaned back against Damon, looked directly at Drew, and said, “I heard from my father thismorning.”
Drew looked from Cain to Cort and back. “And that’s a badthing?”
Cain had mentioned that his dad had been trying to “salvage” their relationship, calling at Christmas and even inviting Cain to bring Damon if he agreed to visit his parents. Cain had also told them that he didn’t feel right cutting off his parents completely, though he wasn’t sure there was any relationship there to “salvage.”
“Yeah. He wasn’t calling to chat. He was calling to warn me.” He rubbed the back of his fist over his mouth. “Alexei made contact with my dad lastnight.”
Bas’s hand clenched on Drew’s shoulder, but otherwise his body locked down. Drew wanted to soothe him, but couldn’t. He could tell from the look in Cain’s eyes that whatever he was about to say was going to bebad.
“You know the way my father and Alexei left things after Damon and I had that confrontation with the senator.” He looked at Damon. “Alexei has information on him, he has information on Alexei. They agreed on a standoff. A ‘you don’t fire, I won’t fire’ kinda thing, with the understanding that none of us would move against Alexei either.” He nodded around theroom.
“Another Cold War,” Cort said. “Or so wethought.”
“Right.” Cain agreed. “And we knew it wouldn’t last forever, because Alexei Stornovich is a crazy bastard. But we hoped it would last long enough for us to find the information to take SILA down. Acting under theradar.”
“But that changed?” Drewasked.
“Well, yes and no. I think it’s safe to say that Alexei was running his own game under the radar all along. He wanted Sebastian to work with him again.” Cain looked at Bas. “If he could get you to make the same mistake your dad made, he’d own you, just like he owned your dad. You’d never be able to move against him without ruining Seaver Tech and sending yourself toprison.”
Bas shook his head in disgust. “That’s what those emails wereabout?”
“Yup. But you didn’t take him seriously,” Cainsaid.
“Because I didn’t even know that Michael Paterkin had anything to do withAlexei!”
“Maybe he thought your dad had shared more of that with you,” Damon suggested. “I mean, he was leaving you and Cam the company the way his dad left him SILA. It stands to reason he would have shared this big, dangerous secret withyou.”
“But he didn’t!” Cam said. He shook his head once, sadly. “Maybe he thought he had time. Or that he could resolve thingshimself.”
“Or maybe he never intended to tell us at all,” Bas said harshly. “Because he was tooashamed.”
Drew leaned his head against Bas’schest.
“In any case, you didn’t respond favorably to his requests, so he came up with a backup plan. Getting to you throughDrew.”
“Me?” Drew demanded, but then he understood. “Mark.”
“Yeah,” Cain said. “Seems that way, putting together the other stuff we figured out today. He was going to blackmail yousomehow.”
