Page 85 of Breaking the Rules
“I swear to you, Angel.”
She took a shuddery breath. “Okay. We’ll talk later.”
“You’re damn right we will. And no distracting me with sex.”
“Maybe we should have it out on the phone, then,” she joked.
“Funny.” When she moved for the door, he held her by the wrist. “Waverly, I haven’t heard anything yet that means Wrede wasn’t involved.”
She looked at him, her eyes still damp. “I haven’t either.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They returned to the conference room where Micah and Dante were discussing the Lakers’ chance at the playoffs.
“Where were we?” Xavier asked, holding Waverly’s chair for her.
“You were accusing me of abandoning my partner in a firefight.”
“As good a place as any to start,” Xavier snapped.
“Okay, how about I ask some questions?” Waverly suggested. “The five guns who showed up, did you get a nationality on them? Could they have been back-up for Stepanov’s men in the house?”
Dante shook his head. “They were American. Except for one Eurotrashy accent. They didn’t say a whole lot and took a great deal of pleasure shooting the place up.”
“Amateurs?” Waverly asked.
“More like overzealous new recruits.”
“So they fired on you from below. What happened next?”
“I had my piece on me, and I returned fire.”
“That must have been terrifying for everyone,” Waverly said dryly. “Dante here is a terrible shot,” she explained to Xavier and Micah.
“Let’s just say it’s not where my expertise lies,” Dante shot back. “Anyway, once the Russian goon squad realized I wasn’t part of the raid, they stopped worrying about me and started shooting, too.”
“Someone got hit upstairs,” Waverly said. “There was blood by the door and on the doorframe.
“One of the guards got clipped in the arm. We were taking fire from two sides and had to get out. They took my gun, dragged me out, and threw me in a van.”
“Not very trusting, those Russians,” Micah commented.
“My phone was upstairs in the office, I didn’t have a gun, and I had these three angry men shouting questions at me in Russian. It turns out they didn’t know who the welcoming party was either.”
“So you’ve been where since that night?”
“We rendezvoused with Petra and her guard Yurgei on the other side of the lake. Security called Grigory to report what happened. He certainly didn’t trust me, but when I told him I thought Petra was the target, he was less inclined to turn me over to the cops and more inclined to listen. He grudgingly believes I didn’t have anything to do with turning his Tahoe place into the O.K. Corral, but without knowing who exactly we were dealing with and what they wanted, we both thought it would be better if I stayed off the grid with Petra. I’ve been basically a prisoner, though a well-kept one since. I knew someone would try for her again, especially after Stepanov told me about a business deal gone south.”
“The drug manufacture licenses?” she asked.
“Very good, Waves,” he said with pride. “Those guys never learned that no means no. They’re prepared to go to war to get the licenses.”
“But the drugs sell for less than a dollar a pill. Why the strong-arming for a product that isn’t going to pay off?” she asked.
“Ah, that’s the reason Stepanov squashed the deal. Axion Pharmaceuticals was going to put the drugs in question into closed distribution and jack up the prices. With limited distribution channels and no generics available? They’d make billions on everyone who needs to manage their blood pressure or survive malaria.”
“Dicks,” Micah muttered.
