Lori attempted to put Trina at ease with a smile. “It needs to stay that way.”
“I know.”
“Do you want us to stay while you talk with your parents?”
Trina closed her eyes. “No. I need to talk to them on my own.”
“We’ll go, then.”
Trina’s eyes opened wide in protest.
“To one of the spare rooms,” Sam assured her.
“Okay. Don’t leave.”
Lori stood. “We won’t. We’re here for you, Trina. We’ll get you through this.”
Sam and Lori kept quiet until they were shown the rooms they were going to occupy. Once alone, they started to plan. “She looks awful,” Lori said straight out.
“She’s a sensitive soul.”
“Does she have any friends here?”
“Not close ones,” Sam told her.
Lori looked around the dark walls of the old estate. The black clouds outside didn’t help the somber mood inside. “We’ll have to get her away from here as soon as possible.”
“I think that’s a sound plan. Someplace warm and sunny . . . and far enough away that people won’t recognize her.”
“And where is that?” Lori wasn’t sure such a place existed.
“Europe, on the sea . . . I don’t know. Let’s help her get through the funeral, give her the support she needs to dig out of this mess, and remove her from this sadness.”
Lori leaned against the dresser. “I’ve never transitioned a client after a spouse’s suicide.”
Sam blew out a slow breath. “This is going to take more than one-on-one. She’s going to need more than you and I talking her through this.”
Lori thought of the client she’d left in LA. “Let’s include Avery . . . it’s hard not to smile around that woman.”
“I like that idea. Take them both—” Sam’s phone buzzed. She reached for it.
“You know who else would be helpful?”
Sam glanced at the screen on her phone, promptly dropped it onto the bed. “Who?”
“Shannon.” One of the highest profile divorces Lori had to date. If anyone could be a sympathetic shoulder, it was the former first lady of California. The one client that Lori had failed to help readjust after her marriage was over. Not that she’d stopped trying. “Maybe this would be helpful for all of them. An intimate group in the know about their marriages.”
“I like this idea, Lori.”
They both heard Trina sobbing from across the hall when someone opened a door.
Lori’s heart sank in her chest.
An angry male voice pulled Lori from the few hours of broken sleep she’d managed.
Trina was yelling, her voice wavering.
Lori jumped from the bed, grabbed the robe, and shoved her arms into it as she fled into the hall and down the stairs.
Before she reached the bottom step, she caught sight of Ruslan Petrov, Fedor’s father, shaking his fist in Trina’s face. Lori remembered the man from his pictures, big, unmoving . . . a man you didn’t want to find yourself alone with in a dark place.
“Your fault. My son was fine before you.”
Trina stepped away.
From behind Lori, someone barreled down the stairs, nearly knocking her over. Trina’s father, a man half the size of Ruslan, shoved his frame between the two of them.
“Get away from my daughter.”
Ruslan shoved his chest forward and said something in Russian that Lori didn’t understand. From the way he spat the words, she assumed the insult would have resulted in a thrown fist.
Trina winced.
Lori found herself inching forward.
“My son is dead.” Ruslan squared his shoulders, looked past Trina’s dad, and glared.
“My daughter did not pull the trigger.”
Ruslan looked at the crowd that had gathered behind Lori on the stairs, and then directly at Trina. “I will find his reason. And that person will pay.” He shook his meaty fist toward Trina.
As threats went, that was one for the courts.
“You need to leave.” Trina’s father pointed toward the door, which was flanked by two of Petrov’s suit-wearing bodyguards, who were easily the size of small buildings.
“This is my son’s house.”
Trina lifted her chin. “A house you’ve never stepped foot in.”
Ruslan glared.
“My husband was quiet about many things, but his distaste for you was something we spoke of often.”