Nick nods, agreeing with her, but it isn’t enough for me. I want answers, and I want them now. “Who you know more than a fan?”
He licks his lips before spilling a secret he should have shared months ago. “Do you remember that girl I told you about, the one who broke into Dad’s house to make me breakfast?”
I lift my chin so quickly, it adds to the thick cloud of doom floating above my head.
Nick nudges his head to the door Travis just walked through. “That was her.” I’m already on the verge of clapping him up the back of his head with my palm, so you can imagine how perverse the urge becomes when he adds, “She’s also the girl who claimed I fathered her child last year.”
“Nick—”
“It wasn’t my fucking kid. I told everyone I don’t have sex without protection.” He acts like the situation is nowhere near as dangerous as it is when he says with a trademark Holt smirk, “Well, not back then. Now…” When he rubs his hands together like a kid in a candy store, I slap him up the back of the head. A whimper pops from his lips, but it shifts to a groan when I nudge my head to my office, telling him precisely where he’s going to spend the next hour or two. “Isaac—”
“Now, Nicholas!” I snap out, my mood too unhinged for a less volatile response. If he is the cause of the knot in my stomach, he is going to fix the injustice.
With the stomp of a child and a pouty dropped lip to match it, he marches into my office. I follow closely behind him, but my steps slowly detour to advise Tina I don’t want any interruptions for the next hour. She looks pleased with my request. I doubt that will be the case when it’s Isabelle I’m inviting into my office instead of my brother.
We’ve christened the desk in my home office over a dozen times the past month, so it’s only fitting the sturdier desks in my multiple business premises get the same level of attention.
53
After a long conversation with Nick about personal safety, numerous requests for him to place Jenni and his unborn child’s well-being above his hope for fame, and an hour sidestepping Tina’s impersonal yet still annoying line of questioning, I slouch in my office chair, wondering if it’s too late for a reset of my day.
When I had Isabelle bent over my desk this morning, I never anticipated my day to turn out like this. It’s been one challenge after another, and the buzzing of the landline phone on my desk has me cautious I am not close to claiming victory just yet.
That phone rarely rings, and when it does, it never comes with good news. But despite the remembrance, I answer it with a clipped greeting, “Yes.”
“Teremok. Two o’clock. Come alone.”
My brows join when the clunk of a pay phone sounds down the line before a lengthy silence. It takes longer than I care to admit deciphering my caller’s message, but when I do, the niggle in my gut that hasn’t quit all morning makes sense. My caller’s accent was thick and Russian, and Teremok is a popular restaurant chain in Russia, so that can only mean one thing. Albert Sokolov, Vladimir’s number two, has finally organized our meet, and he’s only given me thirty minutes to make sure I’m not being lured into a trap.
As I snatch up my untraceable cell, it commences hollering. I’m not surprised when Hunter’s deep timbre sounds down the line a second after flipping open my phone and squashing it against my ear. “Russians have landed at Ravenshoe Domestic Airport. They didn’t lodge a flight manifest, but the plane isn’t a cargo plane as scheduled. It is a private jet.”
“The same private jet that arrived last month?”
My veins throb with a surge of adrenaline when Hunter mutters a distinct, “Yes.” He strokes his keyboard several times before announcing, “They put up blockers to jam surveillance signals, but I still have enough for facial recognition.”
“Send me what you have.” I roll my chair in close to my desk, mindful a sharp mind will always outperform a computer program. I studied Albert’s many aliases the days following his request for us to meet. I’ll recognize his face even if it is disguised, and I am also frantic to learn if he is traveling alone.
“The first five are goons. You won’t find them on any database, though.” More keystrokes and abrupt breaths. “The next three seem more important. Especially the guy in the black suit.”
“That’s Albert,” I inform Hunter. He’s a little plumper than the photographs I studied, but the scar in his eyebrow is the same, not to mention his arrogant sneer. Even while doing an activity he should thoroughly enjoy, he portrays the face of a man having his time woefully wasted. “Has facial recognition brought up anything for the other two men?”
I can’t see Hunter, but I visualize him shaking his head when a whoosh sounds down the line. “They have the same air of arrogance, but it is clear who is giving the orders.”
I nod, agreeing with him. “Which is good. It means Vladimir isn’t with him.”
Hunter hums in agreement before he highlights the direction a fleet of dark SUVs travels out of the airport.
“Where are they going?”
They’re not heading toward Ravenshoe CBD, but they’re not leaving it either. “Fuck,” I curse under my breath when Hunter follows their race through the backstreets of Ravenshoe.
He tracks them on security cameras mounted outside the handful of mansions surrounding my private estate. Only residents travel out that way, and they’re far and few between since I’m selective with the people I allow in my inner circle.
“Don’t jump ship just yet, boss,” Hunter requests when he hears my temperature rising in my heated breaths. “Hugo lost a handful of tails in this area the past month. If you jump—”
“They’ll assume they’re close.”
He hums again. “Let’s see how much they know before responding.”
