Page 149 of Lethal Obsession

I begin to explain what happened in Granada.

“I know all of this. I’ve spoken to Mak.” He cuts me off barely halfway through. “What I’m asking is why, instead of returning Ofelia Borovsky to the safety of her father’s home, you just paid one of my teams an indecent sum of money to fly her out to your fucking yacht.”

“It was Ofelia’s decision.” I match his tone.

“One she wouldn’t have made unless my team had your location and she had good reason to believe she’d be welcome. David tells me you opened an account with them several weeks ago.” Luke glares daggers at me through the screen. “And paid extra to keep the account confidential, unless activated.”

I lift a shoulder. There’s not much point denying it.

“A more suspicious man,” he says slowly, “might almost think you saw this coming.”

“I feared it was a possibility.”

“You feared it was a possibility.” I don’t miss the caustic edge to his voice. “But you didn’t see fit to alert someone like, oh, I don’t know, her fucking father to that possibility?”

I stare at the screen, slightly taken aback. I hadn’t expected a warm reception. But Luke is the most even-tempered man I know. He’s certainly not given to emotional outbursts, so this one takes me by surprise.

“With respect,” I say rather coldly, “Red 24’s entire founding principle is high-risk rescue with absolute confidentiality. You personally gave me access to it. I don’t recall you placing a caveat on who I could, or could not, use your service to rescue.”

There’s a flat silence, during which I meet Luke’s stone-cold stare with one of my own.

Finally he shakes his head resignedly. “I should have fucking seen this coming,” he says, more to himself than me. “Zinaida warned me it would come to this, years ago. She warned me again on the night of Ofelia’s twenty-first.”

I don’t have anything to say to that.

“You know you have to tell Roman about this.”

I lift my chin in silent assent.

“Sooner rather than later, asshole.”

“I need to talk to Ofelia first.”

“Obviously.” Luke passes a hand over his face, and I realize how exhausted he looks, then remember what Dimitry told me in Paris. Suddenly I have a glimmer of understanding into his newfound protective instincts.

“I suppose this is a bad time to offer my congratulations, but you have them anyway,” I say cautiously. “I understand you’ve recently become a father. A girl, Dimitry said?”

“Mila. She’s just over a month old now.” Despite his very obvious frustration, Luke can’t help the gentle smile that spreads over his face. “Unfortunately for you,” he adds, “having a daughter of my own has given me uncomfortably acute insight into exactly all the ways Roman is going to want to kill you when he finds out about this.”

“I’m aware.” I meet his eyes again. “I do regret that you were put in this position, Luke. And I’m grateful your men acted as professionally as they did.”

“Oh, they’re nothing if not professional,” he says dryly. Rubbing a hand over his face, he shakes his head and checks his watch. “Here’s my best offer, Lex: it’s almost midnight, my time. I’ll give you until eight a.m. tomorrow morning and advise Mak to do the same. But if I don’t get confirmation by then that you’ve spoken to Roman, I’ll be calling him myself. Copy?”

I smile tightly. “Copy that.”

“Christ,” he says wearily, shaking his head. “I suppose I should thank you for giving me a close-up look at the hell the next twenty or so years holds for me. Now fuck off and let me go cuddle my daughter while I still have the illusion of control.”

By the time I return to the cabin, Ofelia is out of the shower and dressed in one of the silk cami sets she practices in, which have been driving me insane via camera for weeks now. She’s wound her freshly washed hair into a messy knot on her head and is sitting on the bed cross-legged, frowning at her feet. I follow her eyes and inhale sharply at the mess of cuts on the soles.

“Here.” I hand her the drink I made earlier. “Now move up the bed and let me look at those.”

“I can do it—”

“Ofelia.” I fix her with a stern look.

She bites her lip. “Fine.”

She scoots up the bed as I go to the bathroom for the first aid kit. When I come back she’s sipping her drink with her eyes closed. “Oh,” she says, “you have no idea how good that tastes.”