He sighs, downs more of his drink, and comes to sit on the other side of her. Cason moves to stand near the couch, but he doesn’t sit, and my father stands near him.
My heart thunders in my ears. We practiced so much last night There’s no way I’m going to mess any of this up. I don’t even know if he’ll question me on what happened in front of Cason.
“Would you like a drink, Cason?” he asks as he gestures to the bar cart.
Cason shakes his head. “It’s only ten in the morning, sir, and I’m feeling a bit tired from the lack of sleep. I still need to drive home after this.”
My father nods and hums. “I’ll make this quick then so you can be on your way. I put a reward out for my daughter and you brought her back safe. I’m a man of my word, even if you weren’t around to hear it. Here is twenty-five-thousand in cash.”
He hands over three stacks of bills. I blink. I may have grown up rich, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much money in cash in my life.
Cason shakes his head. “I can’t take that, sir. Call it a favor since we’re family. Josie is like a sister to me. I would save her no matter what.”
Dimitri scoffs and mumbles something about me being like his sister his ass into his drink as he takes another gulp. My mother and I glare at him.
My father picks up Cason’s hand and presses the cash into it. “Take it, I insist. I’m not going to argue with you on this one. Do with it what you will. It’s cash after all. And I’ll be by your office later to discuss the other issue at hand unless you got both of them?”
He shakes his head. “No, sir. Sacha was the only one.”
“Good riddance!” My mother yells and I stare at her wide-eyed. She’s never been one to be outspoken like that. She knows he’s dead, right?
“Well, set our usual meeting time aside for tomorrow. I’ll let you get some rest so you can work tomorrow on a clear head. Thank you for your work in saving my daughter.”
Cason nods. “Of course, sir.” His gaze goes to us and he nods. “I hope you have a good day, ladies, Dimitri.”
Dimitri waves and stands to pour more himself more of his drink.
I frown. I know he can’t kiss me goodbye, but I was hoping for more than that. It’s going to be a long couple of weeks. I won’t even know how long it will be until he shows back up. God, I hope he’s safe while going after a man who had no part in my kidnapping.
Chapter Seventeen
Cason
Fifteen days,twelve hours, and six minutes. That’s how long I’ve had to be away from her. I was in town for a couple of days after dropping her off with her father. But I stayed away from the bakery. After Dimitri’s comment, I didn’t want to do anything that would anger the beast further.
I stowed the cash away for when I return. Once he finds out I want to be with my daughter and marry her, I’ll give it back. I’ve had time to think it over while tracking Petrov all around the globe, and I want to tell him everything. The truth of what happened. I can’t marry his daughter knowing I deceived him like that. It’s not an honorable thing to do. I won’t be a good husband if our relationship starts with lies to her family.
Killing Petrov, one of his main enemies, and making it look like an accident will hopefully put me in his good graces enough that he doesn’t have me killed. He’ll have to know killing me would ruin Josie, but I hope for that instance he’ll put her desires over his to have me murdered.
I won’t know until that comes. I’ve finally tracked Petrov down to a little house in Malta Italy. He thought he covered his tracks well, using aliases and disguises. The Bancrofts have been studying him for years so that we would know how to handle him when the time would come to kill him. And watching him over the last two weeks, I’ve learned even more of how he functions and throws the money around that he gets from his working girls. The man has never earned a cent of his money, it all comes from the women he enslaves. They never see any of the money that’s passed around because of them, and it makes me sick.
I’ve changed my appearance even though I’m a good half a mile from him, but with him so paranoid, I don’t want to take any chances. I put on half a fat suit, made myself look balding, and have taken up a seat on the roof deck seating to use my long-range camera. I may be far away, but it will look like I’m right in front of him.
The thing Josie said about potassium came back to my mind one night while I was trying to figure out how to kill this guy. Having him look murdered would set off too many flags and have countries sending in their agents to figure out who killed the American-Russian on Italian soil.
If he dies of natural causes and they don’t have a reason to dig deeper, the deal will be done and the case closed. I always knew she was a genius.
The carrier delivers my little basket of goodies to him. A gift from the private airline he traveled with. They do send out gifts, I just intercepted his before he could get it and put enough potassium into his fancy 1991 Merlot to give a glutton of his walrus proportions a major heart attack.
He’s a sucker for vintage wine if his past purchases of massive crates of the stuff has anything to go off of.
He comes to the door in a robe and signs for the basket while grinning like a fool. I take pictures of him receiving it. He shuts the door. Now, it’s time to wait for him to dig into his goodie basket and hope he goes for the wine first. One glass should start the job. Two should finish it, but I can’t move in closer until I’m certain he won’t freak and toss the wine.
I know he’s alone, so no one else will get into the wine. But when I sneak in to take confirmation photos I need to take the bottle with me, so no one gets a random hair and tries to test it.
* * *
Moving from the roof deck I slowly make my way through the village. Taking my time and letting the hours tick by. I buy hair clips I think Josie might like and shed my appearance along the way, so no one can pin-point me at any given area.
