Hot Protector(81)

Androv looked suddenly defiant. “You threatened to kill me. These men heard it.”

Mendez’s eyebrows went up. “Really? Did I?” He turned to look at them. “Did I threaten this man’s life?”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Richie Rich said.

“Me neither,” Ice said.

“Didn’t hear a damn thing.”

“See?” Mendez smiled. It was anything but friendly. “No threats here. Only a promise, Androv. Fuck with Sophie Nash and you die. Painfully.”

And then he said something in Russian, and Androv’s expression changed. He wasn’t defiant now. He was terrified. And, fuck, Chase didn’t know what the hell the colonel had said, but the angry harshness of his voice and the shock of hearing him speak another language was disorienting enough for Chase. He hated to think what his reaction would be if he could actually understand the message.

Androv cowered in his seat. Chase wanted to punch the motherfucker for good measure, but there was no way he was getting through his teammates to do so. Probably a good thing since he likely wouldn’t stop if he did.

“Fiddler,” Mendez barked, and Chase’s head snapped up. “With me. Now.”

Fuck.





GRIGORI ANDROV WAS FURIOUS. It was after three in the morning, and his lawyer had finally gotten him released from the jail where he’d spent the past several hours since those military assholes had handed him over to the police. He’d had a lot of time to think and to plan.

Open Sky would get to work immediately. They would discover the identities of every man who had been in that room with the asshole who’d threatened him—and then they would pay. He would not be the one destroyed, because he would destroy them first.

Yes, this was a huge mess now. His files were in the hands of the police, and no doubt now in the hands of the prosecutor in New York who’d pushed that bitch of a maid to file charges against him.

But he had money and power, and he was willing to use them. He would not lose everything he’d worked for because someone thought they could threaten him. Oh no, he would show them a thing or two—and they would be the ones who died painful deaths, not him. Even if it took him ten years, he would get them all. The last thing they would hear would be his name.

After his lawyer dropped him off, he called Sergei from the hotel phone. He’d had his cell phone returned to him when he’d been released, but the battery was dead. He tossed it on a table and dialed from memory.

The phone rang and rang, but Sergei did not answer. Grigori curled his free hand into a fist as anger whipped through him like a tornado. Sergei had failed at everything he’d been asked to do. He’d returned from Paris with nothing to show for it. He’d failed to get the flash drive back. He’d sent men to capture Sophie and her protector, but they’d failed to do the job and gotten themselves killed in the process.

Failed, failed, failed. Everyone had failed, and Grigori was ready to rip someone apart for this disaster.

But Sergei did not answer. He stabbed the disconnect button with a finger when it went to voice mail. Then he dialed another number.

This was not one he should dial tonight, but he was too angry to care. The voice that answered was cold, deadly. “You are not calling from an authorized number. Who the hell is this?”

“Androv.”

The voice on the other end chilled even further. “What the fuck is this, Androv? Are you insane?”

“You are going to find out some things for me. If you do not, the money I’m pumping into your campaign will dry up, do you understand me?”

“I’m listening.”

When he finally hung up the phone, Grigori was quite certain that Mark DeWitt understood precisely where he was coming from. He started to remove his suit and prepare for bed, but there was a knock on his door. He went over and looked through the peephole. Then he yanked the door open when he saw who was on the other side.

“Where the fuck have you been? And what went wrong in Paris?” Grigori demanded. “What has happened to you, Sergei? You have never been this incompetent, this stupid—”

His mouth snapped shut at the sight of Sergei—his right-hand man, his coconspirator, the architect of so much of what they’d built—leveling a pistol at him.

“You’ve said quite enough, Grigori. It’s time to shut the fuck up.”

Sergei jerked the pistol and Grigori took a step back. Another man stepped through the door then, a big, hulking man who also held a pistol. This one had a silencer on it.

“What is this, Sergei? You would betray me? I built you into what you are today!”

Sergei laughed. “No, I built you. And now I’ve been ordered to tear you down. We’re done, Grigori.”