Unlawful Attraction: The Complete Box Set: Alpha Billionaire Romance (36 page)

Once that was done, I could focus on Dena. I’d figure out a way to make things work, even if she was with the DA’s office. There were ways. I just had to find them.

Mind made up, I swung around the landing for the third and last flight of stairs. In the natural pause between my steps, I heard a faint squeak. The same squeak I'd heard when I opened the rooftop door a few minutes ago.

Shit.

I didn't know why that guy had been looking at me, but I didn't want to be alone in a stairwell with him.

I wasn't an idiot.

I pulled out my keys and hurried down the last few stairs. I hadn't been in New York long enough to have any former clients or family members of former clients pissed at me. And I seriously doubted anyone from Chicago would've followed me. Most of my stuff had been white-collar crimes.

Then I remembered the threats Leayna had gotten.

Shit.

I pushed inside, thinking only about getting the door closed behind me.

If I'd taken a moment, I might have noticed a few things.

Like the fact that all of the lights were off even though I always left the entryway light on.

I might have noticed that the alarm wasn’t beeping its annoying little reminder to disarm it.

I might have noticed the shadow in the corner
before
he spoke.

“It would seem my associate was both right and wrong.”

At the sound of the voice, I tensed, but didn't run. I reached over and turned on the lights.

A man sat in a chair, a gun pointed square at my chest.

I didn't try to fight the panic that automatically came when I saw the gun. It was a human response. All I needed to do was hide it. Voice calm, I said, “I didn’t realize I had an after-hours meeting scheduled tonight.”

“You’re a cool one.” He jabbed the revolver at me, grinning wide enough to show a gold-capped tooth on the bottom. “Drop the phone.”

I glanced down at it, almost negligently and shrugged before tossing it down.

He didn’t say anything about the keys, and I wondered if he’d noticed them. I held them cupped loosely in my hand which meant it was possible he hadn’t seen them, although how he thought I’d gotten in, I didn't know. Not really my problem if he didn't notice them. I was more interested in what was going to happen next.

He held the gun like a man who knew how to use it, and I suspected he was a man who didn’t
care
if he had to use it or not. I didn't think he planned on killing me tonight, but I also didn't think he would care if his plans were changed. It wouldn’t matter to him if I lived or died. That much was clear.

“Have a seat,” he said, a faint smile curving his lips. “We should talk.”

There was a faint accent to his words, very faint. It was like he’d grown up speaking another language, but had long since switched to English. I couldn’t quite place it though.

“If we’re talking, mind if I get a drink?” I asked as I took a step forward. “I was planning on doing that as soon as I got home anyway.”

“Sit. I’ll get.” The words grew shorter, more tense and the accent was a bit more pronounced. “I’ll have drink, too.”

Slavic
, I thought. Maybe…

Fuck
. Everything came together all at once.

Leayna’s husband had connections to the mafia, the
Russian
mafia. And now I had an accented man with a gun in my living room. Probably a hitman.

Deciding it wasn’t wise to argue with him, I settled in a seat, still gripping my keys, and watched as he circled around the room toward the wet bar I'd set up in the corner. It was fully stocked already. He studied everything with a faint smile before cocking his head at me. I never once got the impression he was distracted. He was making a show of letting me think he was distracted by the bar service. I wasn’t that stupid, though. I’d wait to make my move.

“At least you have good vodka,” he said.

“Well, you never know when you’ll have your friendly local Russian mafia hitman stop by for a drink.” I shrugged as I said it, although I was hoping those wouldn’t be the last words I said.

He flashed me a wide smile. “Yes. I am the friendly one. If they had sent Olaf, he would have already just beaten the information out of you and cut your throat. I prefer...less messy tactics. We are more civilized these days.”

“So you don’t plan on cutting my throat?” I wasn’t buying it.

“Only if I have to.” He picked up a bottle and studied it. “You like this one?”

He’d picked up the Macallan.

“Yes.”

He opened it, sniffed. “Not bad. I shall try this instead of vodka. We’ll share a drink, talk.”

Wonderful.

As he splashed the expensive scotch into two highballs, I carefully lowered the keys so they were in the seat next to my thigh, out of sight. I wasn't considering using them as a weapon, not unless they were a last resort. I wanted to keep them with me because the key fob for the panic alarm was on it. He’d disarmed my system. Not just disarmed it, but deactivated it entirely. I could see the control panel was open, wires sticking out. But hopefully the panic button on the key fob would still work.

Once I pushed it, cops would be here in maybe ten minutes.

If it worked.

If it didn’t...well, I would just have to see what Mr. Civilized wanted, and maybe just how good I was at extricating myself from sticky situations.

“You look like a man thinking serious thoughts.”

I blinked everything back into focus as he came around the wet bar, holding both of the glasses in one hand. He paused by the chair where he'd been sitting, and after a deliberate look at me, put the gun down on the arm of the chair so he could relieve himself of one of the scotches. I didn’t do anything. He was too far away, and I wasn’t about to delude myself into thinking I could get to him quicker than he could pick up that gun and kill me. Or maybe shoot out my kneecaps so he could still question me.

“You are a cool one,” he murmured again as he picked up the gun before coming over to offer me my drink.

I accepted the scotch with a steady hand and tossed back half of it. Apparently, he had an iron liver because he’d filled the highball well over halfway. I drained half of it in that first swallow.

He chuckled as he backed away and then settled back down in the chair across from me. “Now, we can talk.”

“Like civilized men.”

“Exactly.” He took his scotch and lifted it in my direction in a salute.

I saluted him in similar fashion, and held still as he took a slow, savoring sip.

“It is good,” he said approvingly. “I cannot do business with a man who doesn’t have decent taste in alcohol.” He took another sip and then put the glass down. “We need to discuss your client.”

“I can’t discuss my clients.”

He grinned. “Client confidentiality. You will use that when I have this pointed at you?”

Dropping my gaze to the gun, I swallowed. I’d never thought I might have to consider client confidentiality over my own life, but I’d taken an oath.

“It is a good thing they sent me instead of Olaf,” he murmured.

I looked away from the gun to meet his eyes. He was nodding to himself as if he’d reached some deep, meaningful conclusion.

“He would have decided to beat you on principle the first time you showed any sign of having a spine. Me, I appreciate a man with courage. But it might end up getting you killed, Mr. Porter.”

Yeah, that's about what I expected.

He leaned forward and pinned me with cold, hard eyes. His accent thickened. “Don’t discuss the case. I do not give a flying fuck. Here is what we need to discuss. Your client needs to plead out. We already told her this and she was ready to do it. You must have talked her out of it. Change her mind again. She will plead out, plead guilty to murder, manslaughter, whatever the fuck. She pleads out.”

I stared at him, working at keeping the blank expression that usually came so easily to me.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

That was easy enough to answer. “I understand what you’re saying.”

His lids flickered. I had a feeling he wasn’t fooled by my response into thinking I was agreeing to do what he said.

“Her husband had something that belonged to my employer. And because the son of a bitch decided to play hardball, he’s dead. We told him what would happen. He didn’t believe us. Now she gets to suffer the consequences.”

My mind had been piecing everything together and with this, the rest came together. “Are you telling me that Leayna has been caught up in this solely because her husband was an asshole?”

“She married the asshole. She stayed with him.” He shrugged, looking unperturbed. Scraping his short nails down the stubble on his cheek, he said, “You know, I have a good relationship with the boss. I could…well,
perhaps
I could suggest he leave her alone if she’ll give him what her husband tried to cheat him out of. He tried to find it already, but it wasn’t there.”

The final piece. “The break-in.”

His eyes gleamed. “She is lucky she wasn’t there. Olaf had been given permission to do whatever was needed.”

Olaf could get fucked.

“Would you like to know what my boss is looking for?” he asked softly, leaning forward.

Chapter 10

Dena

Solve the puzzle
.

My mind kept going back to those words Arik had spoken during my little nap.
Solve the puzzle
. Personally, I would've preferred to linger on that crop and all of the wonderful things I was sure my imagination would've come up with, but first things first.

The puzzle of Bethany and her desktop lover.

It wasn’t surprising that she'd already found somebody to take Pierce’s place. Although, it was highly possible that Pierce had never really had a place. Not that he'd known that. There'd been real surprise in his eyes when I’d mentioned the other guy. No denying that.

Solve the puzzle,
Arik’s voice whispered again.

Not his voice, really. My subconscious.

“The puzzle of
what
?”

I knew it had something to do with Bethany and the guy, but what about them? Or was it more him than them?

“The guy,” I mumbled, answering my own question.

The swaying of the subway came to a stop. Automatically, I looked up to make sure I hadn’t missed my exit. That was when I realized a couple of people were watching me. The second I looked up, though, they busied themselves with something else, anything else, even if it was just to study their own fingernails.

Apparently, I'd been musing my problems out loud. Looking out my window, I rolled my eyes and ignored the other people. It was the New York subway, for crying out loud. All sorts of people talked to themselves on the subway. Granted, not too many of them were dressed in a chic little suit and carrying a briefcase that cost a few hundred dollars, but seriously. If you couldn’t be eccentric on the New York City subway, where could you be eccentric?

As the train started to pull ahead, I took note of where we were. One stop from where I needed to get off. Gathering my things, I stood up and moved closer to the exit.

Once through the doors and onto the platform, I went through the tangle of people, and started for the surface, my mind already back on Bethany and her man. More specifically, on him. I'd seen him somewhere before. Where did I know him from?

The jangling of my phone interrupted my reverie, and I came to a halt in front of a big, plate glass window as I stopped to tug my phone free. Eyes on the TV on the other side of the window, I answered the phone without looking to see who was calling. It was Carrie's new ringtone.

I didn’t get it out in time to keep Carrie’s call from rolling over to voicemail. Sighing, I pulled up my call log and hit her number, eyes still on the daily news that the electronics chain had blasting across the screen.

I rolled my eyes at some of the headlines, fought a pang at one of them. Typical day in the Big Apple. A cop was in trouble in this precinct, while in another, one had taken down some career criminal who never should have been released from prison to begin with.

There was another terrorist threat, and the mayor was assuring New Yorkers and our numerous visitors to continue life as always. We’d mourn, we’d get pissed and we’d carry on.

Carrie came on the line just as a prominent NYPD lieutenant’s face came on the screen. The text down at the bottom of the screen read:

Second alleged NYPD snitch found murdered, dismembered in dumpster in Harlem precinct.

“Hey, stranger,” Carrie said. “You never write. You never call...”

“You too good to talk to voice mail now that you're engaged to a seriously hot and rich man?” I asked distractedly, my head cocked as I stared at the TV. Every single thought in my head seemed to stutter to a stop.

Solve the puzzle
.