The Lion in Russia (10 page)

Not for the first time in the past couple of
days she wondered where Deringer was. She hadn’t heard from him
since that annoying phone call a couple days ago, though she could
see signs that he was about; she’d even picked up his tail when
they returned from the show the day before. That would never have
happened unless he wanted it to. Presumably he wanted her to know
he was still working the case. Deringer moved in mysterious ways,
but right now she’d prefer he just used the goddamned phone. She
shook her head as she walked out the door. Thus far this case had
gone smoothly. Well except for the sleeping with the client part,
there had been no hiccups in the plan at all. No wonder she was
terrified.

Vries leaned her head back against the
impossibly soft leather in the luxury sedan. Leo was holding her
hand as Pushka drove them to the opera. Leo’s dark charcoal
business suit contrasted nicely with his light hair and eyes,
emphasizing his striking good looks. His pleasant mood was
infectious and she joined him in humming along to the music
streaming through the speakers. He apparently had an affinity for
lounge music, particularly Dean Martin. Given everything she’d
discovered about him in the past couple of days, she didn’t even
bat a lash though when he broke out in song, she couldn’t help but
laugh even though he made up for in enthusiasm what he lacked in
talent.

He pulled her closer on the seat. “I’m deeply
wounded that you’re laughing at my singing,” he said, glowering at
her.

His facial expression only made her laugh
harder. “I doubt that I’m the first,” she said, still giggling.

“That’s why I’m hurt,” he said, then without
warning he leaned forward and began tickling her. Vries gasped and
tried to wiggle away. Suddenly there was a strange cracking noise
she immediately recognized. Without a conscious thought she
reacted, dragging Leo to the floor of the car and sprawling on top
of him just as though in slow motion, the glass of the back
windshield cracked in a familiar spider web pattern. As each bullet
hit the windshield it generated its own web. One. A pause. Then two
and three in rapid succession. The way the pattern bloomed was
almost artistic. The glass was bullet proof and the laminate
coating held the broken shards in place, but just from the way it
cracked she could tell it was a high-caliber weapon. Illegal as
hell here in Italy and not particularly easy to acquire or bring
into the country. Those factors severely limited the list of
possible suspects. Government or Mafia. Given what Leo was up to,
it was easy enough to check off
All of the Above
. Despite
the fear that had stalked her almost from the beginning of this
assignment, she moved with calm efficiency to neutralize the
situation as quickly as possible. As always the fear was gone the
moment the action started.

“Hit it Pushka!” she yelled at the driver
unnecessarily. The sedan accelerated with the alacrity of an RPG.
Obviously Pushka had taken defensive driving courses. As she looked
around trying to tell the direction of the gunshots she grabbed her
minaudière from the seat and opened the small purse with practiced
movements. Within seconds she had a small, but lethal
semi-automatic handgun in her hands and climbed up on the backseat
trying to determine the direction of the shots. The traffic was not
as congested as usual and she saw a motorcycle with a passenger
turned backwards facing her wearing a ninja mask, but she didn’t
see a weapon. The driver was weaving in and out of traffic anyway,
she had no chance of getting off a clear shot. She looked down to
where Leo was trying to climb up from the floor.

“Stay down honey, Pushka should have us home
soon,” she said, still distracted by her quest for the culprit.
Where the hell was Deringer?
She knew he had to be somewhere
nearby. She hoped he’d managed to follow the shooter as her first
responsibility was to get Leo somewhere safe. Leo stopped trying to
move, but he stared up at her, his expression puzzled and then
fiery hot. She knew there would be hell to pay, but she couldn’t
worry about it right now. Maintaining her vigilance, she watched
the traffic as Pushka drove them back to the palazzo.

Chapter Eight

When they arrived home Vries wasn’t surprised
to see a full complement of Leo’s security detail waiting at the
house, especially when she’d heard Pushka speaking rapidly in
Russian into his headset almost immediately after the shooting.
She’d hoped they would be there, relieved at least for the moment
of her responsibility to secure the perimeter, she thought she’d be
able to escape to the bedroom while Leo talked to his men. Now that
the excitement was over she felt just a bit disoriented. It was the
first time she’d had to protect someone she cared about. She kept
replaying the events through her mind. If Leo hadn’t leaned forward
in just that moment the bullet might have hit his head. Knowing the
glass was bulletproof did nothing to ease her dismay; it had been
known to fail. And there was some ammo especially designed to
pierce it. Even imagining such a thing made her nauseated.

However her efforts to escape Leo’s wrath, at
least temporarily, were thwarted when without a word he quietly
followed her up the stairs. The double doors leading into the
bedroom closed behind him with barely a sound and he paused beside
a chair to slip his suit jacket off his shoulders. Tossing it onto
the chair he walked over to the coffee bar in the adjacent suite
and poured a couple fingers of vodka then returned to her side to
hand her the bottle of water she requested. She walked into the
dressing room on the other side of the bedroom suite, and began
removing her evening gown. The bedroom, with its California
king-sized bed was probably her favorite room in his house. The
bright blues and greens and soft yellows were cooled with the
strategic placement of white pieces throughout the room. The room
was the complete opposite of her house, but somehow it managed to
have the same soothing effect. At least it had. Until now.

Leo took a seat on the bed. “Am I to assume
that you have no intention of telling me what the hell that was all
about?”

Vries came back into the room having pulled
on a silky pink robe. She stood near the bed still drinking the
water. “What do you want to know?”

He stared at her as though she’d suddenly
sprouted horns. “What do I want to know?” He closed his eyes for a
moment as though struggling to compose himself. “How about we start
with why my girlfriend of just a few days was suddenly playing
bodyguard tonight, complete with a gun she somehow made from a
purse,” he roared gesturing toward the minaudière she’d placed on
the dresser when they entered the room.

“I wasn’t playing bodyguard. I
am
a
bodyguard. Amongst other things,” she said with a sigh, and sat
down in the chair next to the bed.

“Yes, that’s obvious. My question is who are
you, and why are you guarding me? I thought you were a model? Just
what the hell is going on?”

Vries lay her head back on the plush white
chenille chair. The stark black worsted wool of his suit jacket
contrasted sharply with the lush fabric of the chair, and she
stroked it softly fairly certain this was as close as she was going
to get to touching Leo for a long time, if not forever. “I’m a
model too. And a bodyguard and a lot of other stuff you probably
don’t what to know about. And yes, my job is to keep you
alive.”

“Who hired you? I’m a busy man, but I think I
would’ve noticed had I done so.” His accent was getting thicker
with each sentence and Vries really had to focus in order to
understand him.

“I was assigned through the agency I work
for, as to who signed the contract, I have no idea.” That was the
literal truth, she suspected she’d been hired by the U.S. State
Department, but she certainly couldn’t swear to it.

“Someone hired you to protect me? Why do I
need protecting?” he said.

Vries put the bottle of water to her lips and
drained it. Then rose to get another one from the small
refrigerator in the coffee bar. Noting that Leo had finished his
vodka, she brought the bottle over to give him a refill placing the
bottle on the bedside table before resuming her seat.

“I assume that you’re not asking that
question seriously,” she said with a wry twist of her lips.

“Yes, actually, I am serious. Who do you
think would want me dead?”

Vries pinched the bridge of her nose. This
was worse than she had thought. “Putilin.”

Leo shook his head, then took a sip of his
drink. “Putilin doesn’t want me dead. He wants my money, and he
wants me neutralized.”

“I can’t think of anything more neutralized
than a dead man,” she said, then leaned toward him needing to
convey the urgency of the situation to him. “For God’s sake Leo
you’re going to testify at a trial that will expose all the
corruption in his government.”

“Expose? There is no need to expose it.
Everyone knows what he has done. He has made no attempt to hide
it,” he said.

“So why on earth would he allow this trial?
What is the point?”

Leo’s sigh seemed to come from the depths of
his soul. It infuriated Vries because he sounded as though he’d
given up. “It will give him an excuse to arrest me. Obviously in
exposing these crimes I shall have to divulge my own
complicity.”

“Your complicity?”

“Surely you didn’t think I was an innocent?”
he said.

“No, but if you were a criminal I doubt you’d
be going back at all. Russian politics make
Game of Thrones
look like hopscotch, but you’re not an idiot.” she said.

He nodded. “You are correct, to a degree. The
things I did, the things all my friends did, were not illegal at
the time. Putilin will bring me up on charges of the acquisition of
state owned oil and mineral wells.”

“He’s going to have you tried retroactively?
How is that possible?” she said.

“Putilin is a force onto himself. He wants my
money and he wants me in prison. He wants to make an example of me.
I’m worthless to him in prison,” he said.

Vries frowned. “And you’re just going to
go?”

“I must. This trial and the ones to come will
be the only record of what he has done. Everyone knows, but there
must be a legal process, otherwise it is as though it never
happened. I’m too well known for him to kill. He wants to put me in
prison on some trumped up charges like he’s done to several others.
Having me killed will arouse too much suspicion.”

Vries stared at him for a long moment, her
brain not wanting to process what her ears were telling her. This
was absolutely insane.

“If that’s the case, who do you think was
shooting at you tonight?” she said through gritted teeth.

Leo shrugged. “I am a wealthy man as you are
so fond of pointing out. I have many enemies. It could’ve been a
kidnapping attempt gone awry. We are in Italy after all. Is it not
well-known for kidnappings?”

“Kidnappers don’t come in with guns blazing.
It pretty much defeats the purpose. And Italy hasn’t been the
kidnap capital of the world for thirty years.”

“Right now I don’t really give a damn who was
shooting tonight. I’m leaving Italy in a couple of days, anyway,”
he said.

Vries stared at him in shock. “Where are you
going? I thought you were staying here for a couple more
weeks?”

He sighed again, then pinched the bridge of
his nose. “I have no reason to remain here. I’m going to Pitr.”

“What? Who is Pitr? And what do you mean you
have no reason...”

“Did you really expect me to continue our
affair knowing that you’re only with me because you were paid to
be?”

“That’s not true! Sleeping with you is not
part of my job and I’ll probably get fired for it.” Nausea bubbled
up in Vries’s throat and she took another sip of water to counter
it. Was that really what he thought of her? Tears burned the back
of her eyes and it was all she could do not to give in to the pain
of his rejection and the abject terror of knowing someone was
trying to kill him and she might be unable to stop them.

“I’d heard about women like you, but never
thought I’d...” he broke off the sentence with a sharp shake of his
head. “Anyway, you can leave now. I’m going to St. Petersburg, my
home. You will stay here in Milan and that will be the end of it.
I’m going downstairs to talk to my men, when I come back I’d
appreciate it if you’ve packed your things. Pushka will take you
home.”

“No, that won’t be the end of it. If you’re
in St. Petersburg, I have to be there too.”

“For this nameless person who hired you to
protect me from a nonexistent threat? As you’ve seen I have more
than adequate security.”

“Yeah, and that’s why you almost came up
short by a head tonight! I don’t have a choice. I have to stay with
you, and if you won’t let me come with you, I’ll have to come on my
own. Considering the forces against you, that puts me in danger
too.”

“Goddamnit. I have told you, there is no one
trying to kill me.”

“You couldn’t prove it by me, Leo,” she
snapped back. How could someone so obviously brilliant be so
fucking stupid at the same time? Of course the answer was obvious.
Lelia was right; he was driven by patriotism. Willing to die for
his country. God she hated the true believers, they always fucked
up even the best-laid plan.

“And I’m supposed to care if a treacherous
woman like you is in danger. Why would I?”

“Because you do. It’s a habit of yours, one
you couldn’t break if you tried.”

He sprang from the bed and grabbed her arms
pulling her to her feet and into his embrace. “Goddamn you woman,”
he said his jaw clenched so tightly she was surprised his teeth
weren’t ground to powder. “I don’t know whether to kill you or fuck
you until we both lose consciousness.” He took her mouth under his
so brutally she tasted blood in her mouth. His muscled body pressed
along the length of hers inciting a longing that was never far
beneath the surface. It was this reaction that forced her to end
the kiss, damned if she would lust after a man who thought so
little of her. However, before she could push him away he groaned
against her lips and the kiss gentled. Before she could respond he
raised his head, staring down at her with a peculiar combination of
rage and pure lust contorting his features.