Page 31 of Echoes of Sin

Lara laughed. “Look at you with all the hip lingo.”

“At least I have that going for me.” I thought back on all those days when I wished for a little excitement in my life, a little bit of adventure, and I laughed. Now, I craved the simplicity I used to have. “More wine, please.”

Lara refilled our glasses, and the more wine that disappeared, the better I felt, at least until I thought about it again.

Chapter Nineteen

Ilya

I glanced down at my Rolex for the tenth time in as many minutes because Brooke was late. She was never late. Typically, she showed up right on time at the absolute latest, but now she was fifteen minutes late. My first instinct was worry, but not that she’d blown me off. After the man—who I still hadn’t identified—accosted her on the street, I was worried that she’d been accosted again. Or worse.

The first time I called, it rolled over straight to voicemail. The second time it rang and rang until the voicemail picked up. Two more calls went unanswered, and she was more than thirty minutes late. I was beyond worried at this point, and I rushed from the Vietnamese restaurant I’d chosen to be this week’s meeting place, as fear slid down my spine.

“Take me to Montrose Accounting.”

Sergei, my driver, nodded and ten minutes later I rushed into the lobby of Montrose Accounting, expecting to see something other than complete normalcy. My brows furrowed just as the receptionist approached me.

“Mr. Kuznetsov, are you here to see Mr. Montrose?”

“What? No,” I barked, and her eyes widened with fear at my tone. “Sorry, Marnie. I’m here for Brooke.”

Marnie’s eyes flashed with worry. “She’s, uh, in her office.”

“Thank you,” I bit out before I made my way down the small hall, beyond the cluster of desks to the left and turned right. The door was closed, but a quick look through the glass wall showed her on her knees with papers spread out before her on the floor. Her brows furrowed with frustration as she nibbled her bottom lip. Something was definitely wrong, and I was right to be worried, but she was safe.

That was a fucking relief.

I opened the door and stepped inside, but she didn’t look up. “You missed our meeting.” I kept my voice even, yet firm, and waited for her to respond.

Brooke froze for a long moment before she reached over and tapped the screen on her phone. Another frown darkened her features before she looked up at me. “I don’t think we should meet anymore, Ilya. It’s too dangerous, and, honestly, I’m not sure that’s going to change anytime soon.”

I tamped down my initial instinct, which was to accuse her of trying to get out of our meetings for personal reasons, but everything about the scene before me said she wasn’t doing that. “Has something else happened? Dmitri looked into Maria’s Cantina, and it wasn’t bugged.” He’d gone over every inch of the place just to make certain, and the place was clean.

She shook her head too fast.

“Are you listening to me, Brooke?”

“No.” She was still shaking her head as she reached for a stack of papers. “Ilya, this is bad. It’s really bad and I don’t want to get caught up in whatever this is.” She motioned to the papers on the floor. “It’s worse than I thought, but I’d like to be sure about it all before I say anything. I’m sorry about missing the meeting, I honestly didn’t realize what time it was. Can I call you when I’ve had a chance to go through all this?”

I snorted my disbelief, wondering if this was another ploy to distance herself from me. But then I took in her general countenance again. She was genuinely worried about something.

“Seriously, Ilya. This is concerning, and whatever I think of you and what you do, I really think someone is trying to screw you over.” Her concern was palpable.

“Okay,” I sighed. “You have until six o’clock. If I don’t hear from you by then, I’ll come looking for you.”

“I will,” she insisted. “I promise.”

***

I reluctantly returned to my office at Envy and looked through my own records in search of what Brooke thought she had found. There were irregularities that she’d already pointed out, but beyond that it was mostly a jumble of numbers. It pissed me off that I couldn’t see what she saw, and I vowed that, moving forward, I would make sure I understood every line of my accounts.

Instead of focusing on the numbers, I focused on what I knew I could see. People. I could read them as well as any book, so I left my office and watched the people who rushed around making sure the club was prepped to open this evening. I thought of Dmitri’s warning that some of the men here with me were loyal to my uncle first, and that forced me to look at things with fresh eyes.

I strolled to the bar where the bartender, a good-looking blond man with a charming smile that kept our female clientele ordering expensive specialty drinks, was setting up. “Jordan, what do what we have that’s new?”

He turned with a smile. “Hey, Mr. K.” He launched into a long description of the new bottles that arrived yesterday. “The Brotherhood vodka is doing well, along with the celebrity tequilas. We can hardly keep ’em on the shelves. In fact, I’d recommend we stock up on those more than the bottom shelf booze. No one at this place wants to be seen drinking bottom shelf booze, it’s all big names they ask for.”

He sounded sincere and astute. “Thank you, Jordan. I’ll take that under advisement.”

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