I worked most of the day, fielding calls, driving out to the barge, having last-minute meetings with Carl and Bastelli. Mica had come to get Sasha. My biggest concern, if things went south, was how mobile we’d need to make Olivia. She would go nowhere without the dog, and he’d be a nightmare on the run.
I needed to spend more than ten minutes with her at a time, but the timing couldn’t be worse. Everything was happening at once. I started to wrap things up for the day, with the goal of hunting her down, when Viktor appeared in the doorway of my office.
“Two of our wiretaps crossed this afternoon.”
We had wiretaps on everyone and anyone. We keep careful track of who was talking to whom. It was a messy and complicated way to figure out if someone was crossing our backs.
I lifted my head. “Who?”
“Amelia and Vlad had a twelve-minute conversation this afternoon.”
I was momentarily stunned silent. “You’re shitting me.”
“What do you want to do about it?”
Thinking, I sat back. I had hoped on some level that Amelia wasn’t involved in any of this shit. The fact that she was talking to Vlad, who I was convinced was dirty, wasn’t a good sign for either of them.
“I need to talk to Amelia.”
She was renting a suite at the Sheraton that went for no less than two grand a night. She answered the door, wearing a nearly sheer robe tied over a long, thin negligee. Her makeup was perfect, and her hair swung down her back.
“I knew you’d come.” She spoke with such a satisfied smile that I wondered momentarily if I was being played. She grabbed me by the collar and tried to drag my mouth to hers, but I resisted.
She pouted at me and leaned on the door.
“Mind if I come in for our talk?”
She held the door open wide, and I stepped into the living area.
“Would you like a drink?” she asked as she moved to the bar.
“Vodka on the rocks.”
“Your usual.”
She padded across the room towards me and handed me a glass before elegantly settling down on the couch across from me with her own glass of vodka.
We studied each other, taking in the ways the last eight years had changed us.
“I was a stupid fool when I left you,” she said.
Why is she talking to Vlad?
I needed her to feel that she could tell me the truth. If she was involved with Bunko, it could be the difference between life and death. I forced myself to relax. I needed Amelia to believe I was here for her. If she trusted that, she would open up to me.
I slowly swirled the liquid in my glass, debating how I would work this angle. “I was pretty destroyed when I found out you married him.”
Her eyes lifted to mine. “You were?”
“You were my fiancée, and you married someone else. I lost my shit. What did you think would happen?”
Her lips were parted. “How did you lose your shit?”
I took a sip of my vodka, moving the conversation to her. “What was he like?”
She frowned. “Why do you want me to talk about him?”
“I need to know, Amelia. You have no idea how many nights I tortured myself, thinking of you with him. What was your life like?”
She took a deep breath. “He was kind. And old. His first wife was the love of his life. He didn’t love me. I know that, and he knew that, but he was lonely.”
Real curiosity made me ask. “How was that for you?”
She gave a little shrug. “He had more money than he knew what to do with. He left most of it to me.”
“So, you got what you wanted?”
She stared at me. “I never got the feeling I was making the right decision.”
Money didn’t buy happiness. It didn’t ask for cuddles. It didn’t ask you on cute little dates. “We all make decisions in life that we come to regret, but most of the time we have to live with the consequences.”
She leaned forward. “Did you make any decisions in your life that you regret?”
“I live with the consequences every day.”
She ducked her eyes. “You’re different.”
“How so?”
“You are harder, more in control.”
“At lot has happened in the last eight years.”
“You’re still so elusive.” Olivia and Amelia had both called me elusive. But I needed to know why Amelia had shown up in Vancouver.
“What did you really hope to accomplish by coming here, Amelia?”
Her cheeks flushed. “Haven’t I made that obvious?”
“Tell me.”
She looked momentarily trapped. “I came here with foolish dreams that you’d take one look at me and fall back in love with me.”
“That hasn’t happened yet.”
She gave me a tight smile. “Then I was hoping I could at least get you into bed.”
“Honesty is critical in a relationship, don’t you think?”
She nodded. “Yes, I couldn’t agree more.”
“I am a lot more wary about whom I can trust.”
She moved to sit on the couch beside me. “You can trust me.”
I swirled the ice cubes around my glass. “So, do you mind telling me your version of why you were talking to Vlad this afternoon?”
Her head snapped back an inch before she caught herself. She was trying to gauge how much I knew. “Have you talked to Vlad?”
I lifted my eyes from my glass, not even trying to hide the frost in my gaze. “Show me that I can trust you.”
Her hands trembled in her lap. “Vlad makes me feel better. He tells me things.”
I didn’t move a muscle. “What kind of things?”
“He suggested that your current romance would come to an end shortly. He encouraged me not to give up on you. He told me to fight for you.”
Why was Vlad so obsessed with Olivia? “He encouraged you to pursue me?”
She put her hand on my arm. “Yes. And I’m glad I didn’t give up.”
Vlad was using Amelia to meddle with Olivia in hopes that she would stop trusting me. I still did not have confirmation that he was in bed with Bunko, but it was starting to look like more than a hunch. What are you planning, old fox?
I stood up. “If you want a shot at this working with me, never talk to Vlad again.”
If Amelia had come to get me back, she’d heed that warning. If she was involved with Bunko, she’d keep on talking to Vlad, but they’d be more careful about it.
She rushed to stay by my side as I moved to the door. “When will I see you again?”
Never. I stared down at her, thinking of how much danger she had put Olivia in. I swallowed my impulse to tell her to piss off. I needed to keep her interested until I was certain she didn’t have anything to do with Bunko. “I need to take care of some business, but if you’re patient, I promise I will call you.”
Her eyes glistened. “I’ll be here, waiting.”
When I got back to the warehouse, I found Viktor counting ammunition. I hated giving him more bad news. It seemed like that’s all we got these days. “I just got word from the legal team. Bunko was released on bail two hours ago.”
He glanced up at me. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
I shrugged and crossed my arms. “Easier to cut the head off the snake.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s just been dropped off at his residence by three of his men. They ordered food and women, but there has been no sign of them since. Tomorrow night is the night. We’re going to move our fake shipment, giving him limited time to prepare his attack at sea, and counterattack, hopefully when our barge is out of reach of the coast guard.”
He shook his head. “I’ve got such a bad feeling about all of this.”
You and me both. I always respected my men’s hunches. “You want to sit this one out?”
He shook his head. “It is what it is. Have you fed the intel to Vlad yet?”
“Tonight I am going to tell him that we have a huge secret shipment going out, and I will feed him fake information. If Bunko or anyone else gets this information, I will be able to link it directly back to him.”
While it all seemed like an elaborate plan to trip up Vlad, he wasn’t the end goal. He was the worm on the end of my hook. And I was using him to catch a much bigger fish.
“I saw him sneak in your office earlier.”
I headed up to my office and found Vlad sitting at my desk, drinking my vodka. He shot to his feet when I walked in the room. “What are you doing here?”
“Isn’t that my question?”
He walked around my desk. “You don’t mind an old man drinking your vodka, do you?”
No, but I mind you sitting at my desk.
“Nope. You’re welcome to it anytime. Night or day.”
He nodded. “Thanks.”
Here it was. The moment of truth. I would put detailed information into Vlad’s hands about our fake shipment. If he was as corrupt as I thought he was, he would deliver the information to Bunko. I wanted him to have exact timing and coordinates about our route. Since I hadn’t filed these yet with the marine office, there is no way Bunko would be able to put together a coordinated attack unless Vlad had gone rogue.
Come and get us, asshole. We’ll be waiting for you.
“We have a big shipment going out to one of our top customers. It’s high risk, but the payoff will be insane.”
Vlad got a gleam in his eye. “So you took my advice.”
“It was good advice.”
“How are you transporting?”
“I hired a barge.”
He nodded and swiped his fingers across his forehead. “Smart.”
I opened my safe and pulled out a folder with all the information. Vlad’s gaze was glued to it. I shoved the folder in an envelope. “Well, I’d love to stay and chat, but I need to get our charter itinerary to Viktor.”
“I was just heading downstairs. Did you want me to give him anything?”
I stared at Vlad, pretending to debate. I wondered if he knew how transparent he was. “Yeah, sure.”
He walked out of the room.
I texted Viktor: Rat has the package. Tomorrow is a go.
The only light, the only thing of beauty in my world, was Olivia. Sometimes we had only a couple minutes to flirt in between interruptions, but those moments were the fucking highlight of my day.
So, when I opened the loft door and saw her awake, I felt joy.
I bent down to kiss only her lips. When her hand stole around my neck, I pulled back. I didn’t want my day to touch her. “Let me shower, and I’m all yours.”
Ten minutes later, after the fastest shower of my life, I was crawling onto the bed with a towel around my waist.
I fell onto my back, wondering if I would ever move again. My body was so tired. I fought to keep my eyes open.
“Want a drink?” she asked.
Yes, I want a drink so bad. “I can get it.”
Her voice was teasing. “Just let me do this for you.”
“Vodka, ice, thank you.”
A couple of minutes later, she handed me a drink. I lifted my head to give her a kiss before taking a sip. “If this is a date, it’s starting out well.”
She looked at me. “It can be a date.”
“What should we do on our date?”
She leaned back on her elbow. “Why don’t we start with you having your drink and us talking.”
I adjusted the pillow beneath my head. “What do you want to talk about?”
“You.”
I grinned. “Boring. Next topic.”
“Mica said you were the troublemaker in your friendship.”
I started to laugh. “We had the worst luck as kids. No matter what we tried, we got caught.”
“He said you were wild.”
“That’s the pot calling the kettle black. What about you? Any wild stories from your past?”
She shook her head. “It was all about dance. Wake up, dance, eat, study, dance, practice, sew our shoes.”
“You really loved it, didn’t you?”
“It kept me out of trouble.”
I could just imagine her with her ballet bun and little outfits. Working and hanging out with only her ballet friends. How pure and sheltered that life must have been. And then she got thrust into the world of stripping.
“What happened when you left your mom’s?” I wanted to know what went wrong.
“I answered an ad to live with two dancers. I didn’t know they were strippers.”
I had to tread carefully. “Why not stay living with your mom?”
“We don’t really get along. And things with Danny got worse.”
My eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “He was my mom’s new boyfriend, and he didn’t like me.”
I felt like she wasn’t telling me the entire story. “So you moved in with two strippers.”
“I spent weeks looking for a job, but my knee was still sore, and I wasn’t in a position to teach dance for hours at a time.” She looked down at her hands. “My roommates were coming home with hundreds of dollars every night. I was down to my last few dollars before one of them got me an interview.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You interviewed to be a dancer?”
“My interview was me dancing on a pole in broad daylight, in front of some guy who seemed more interested in the food he was eating. But he hired me.” She gave me a sad smile. “The first night was terrifying. I hated it, but in a week, I had enough money for rent. I kept looking for a job, but one month turned into two months. And then two years went by.”
She looked so sad that I reached out and touched her face. “Not all men are bad like me. There are some good ones out there.”
She shook her head. “You’re not bad, Andrusha.”
I kissed her mouth. I wanted to believe her, but look at the life I lived. One day I would give her the fresh start she deserved.
