Page 50 of Queen's Ransom

Celia cast Hawes a warm smile, figuring all that chill had to be a heavy burden. “More than ever.”

The ice cracked and the man she knew as Chris’s fiancé returned to the surface. “Like I said, better.” He squeezed Celia’s shoulder as he stepped past them, speaking to Holt over the comm. “You got a location?”

Remy’s smile was equally genuine, the first Celia had seen on the other woman all night. She was quite attractive when she set the blunt-weapon persona aside. “Helena’s a lucky woman.”

“So am I.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Dimitri not answering your calls?”

Adrian spun from the window he’d been staring out of for the last ten minutes, and the glow of the orange sodium lamp outside reflected in his dark eyes. “What did you do?”

She’d shrug if she could, but the one zip tie binding her arms behind her back and the other binding her to a bolted-down prep table in the vacant catering space Adrian had brought them to didn’t allow her much movement. And she didn’t want to drop the courthouse pen she had just extracted from her sleeve. “I didn’t do anything,” she said, keeping Adrian focused on her words and not on the movement behind her back. “But let’s talk about what you were trying to do. Win points with Dimitri? And if that didn’t work, with Frank?”

“You’re a threat to the Bratva. If I removed the queen, then maybe the Madigans wouldn’t be coming after us. I thought Dimitri would see that.”

Confirmation the Bratva hadn’t turned on them and that Frank was effectively an afterthought, not directing this either. “We weren’t coming after the Bratva,” she said. “Unlike you, we’re not stupid. That’s why we negotiated with Remy and Dimitri.”

“You limited us.”

“Ohhh,” she drawled. “You mean you want the ability to kill indiscriminately with no consequences? Sorry, dude, that’s not allowed.” She got the cap off the pen, held it in reserve in her one hand, and with the other positioned the pen to press down on the tab of the zip tie holding her to the table, attacking that one first. “We don’t care what you do amongst yourselves,” she said, continuing to talk and distract while she worked. “But if you harm innocents, we have a problem. Dimitri understands that.”

“We didn’t have these problems before your brother and you took over.”

She smirked. “That’s evolution, baby.”

At the other end of the prep table, similarly bound, a regrettably awake Dex cursed. “I can’t believe Celia is involved with you.”

“She told you that?”

“Said she was moving on. Well, not with my kids and you. I’m gonna tell the judge and get them back.”

Helena rolled her eyes. “Oh please. You have a rap sheet. None of us do. And you’re a fucking idiot. I’m guessing you led them to us in the first place.”

“I didn’t!” He strained against the zip ties, rattling the table and almost making Helena lose the pen. “They came to me, asking all sorts of questions about the shop and you and Celia.”

“So you did know who I was at the station Sunday?”

His eyes grew wide. “No!” At least he had the good sense to be frightened of her, even cuffed. “I didn’t know that was you they were talking about. Not at first.”

He really was fucking dumb, but not her priority right now. She turned her attention back to the man by the window. “Is that right, Adrian? What’d you tell him?”

“Someone’s always watching,” he said, sparing her a half glance. “Like at that party in November.”

Helena froze. Mia and Lily’s party. She made a mental note to have Holt check the waitstaff from that night. “Well, they’re gonna keep seeing me and Celia together. Her brother’s marrying mine, and if I’m lucky, she’ll marry me one day too.”

“Fuck that,” Dex spat. “You can’t have her.”

She clutched the pen so tight she almost broke it. “She’s not a fucking possession, you asshole. Neither are your kids for that matter. She, they, get to make those decisions, not you and not me.”

“The both of you shut up!” Zima yelled. He stood in stony stillness, glaring out the window. Waiting. Poor guy thought the cavalry was coming for him. When it didn’t after another minute, he got back on the horn again. “I need to talk to Frank,” he told someone on the phone.

“Newsflash,” Helena said. “He’s still not going to take your call.”

“Stop egging him on,” Dex urged, but she ignored him, keeping her eyes on Zima and her hands busy, detached from the table and working free the second zip tie around her wrists.

Adrian cursed and lowered the phone. Headlights shone through the window and he looked hopeful for a moment, until the car drove past and the lights disappeared.

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