Page 53 of Wicked Heiress

Please, don’t say it.

“He knows Katarina Adams Romanov is Grace Hale.”

I gasped, a shiver of fear rushing through me. “No.”

“Yes.” His expression darkened. “That’s why Viktor is getting closer to finding his daughter. Maverick must work for The Lucaya Group. Or, at the very least, he made a trade for the information. People like Maverick do this for profit.”

Viktor Romanov put out feelers on Grace on the Dark Web. He had been looking for her for so long that anyone who came across the request could have contacted him.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about why Fitzy has kept Grace around for so long,” Drake said, his deep voice wavering. “He hates her. Treats her like shit. There’s no love lost between them. I think Viktor has something on Fitzy.”

I drank a few more sips and added the half-full snifter to the collection of empty glasses on the coffee table. “What does he have on Fitzy?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s something big. Viktor was KGB, a trained intelligence officer. He came to the United States to get information on The Founders. Maybe he got more than he bargained for, and that’s why Fitzy locked him up on Skull Island.”

All Knights train on Skull Island before becoming members of the organization. I did horrible things there that still haunt my nightmares. We kept prisoners on the island who were too dangerous to allow a fair trial through the judicial system.

Plus, we couldn’t kill them until we got what we wanted. Men like Viktor were not that easy to break. He was on the island for several years, made friends with a guard, and escaped.

The island was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. But he must have had help from others because we never found him—only the handcuffs he’d left behind. Like a ghost, he vanished. We thought he had returned to Russia until he appeared on our radar looking for Grace.

“We’re missing something, Cole. Bastian should be the heir to the Adams fortune, not Grace. It has something to do with Viktor. Maybe even her mom.”

I patted his thigh. “We’ll keep digging. Eventually, we’ll find something useful.”

He laid his head back on the leather cushion and yawned. “You said there’s an emergency. What is so important it couldn’t wait?”

“Rhys had sex with Grace and filmed it.”

“That’s fucked up.” He studied my face briefly and said, “What are you not telling me?”

“Remington Vanderbilt sent the video to Fitzy. I need to get Grace out of Devil’s Creek before something happens to her.”

Drake lifted an iPad from the table and started typing feverishly. “He could use this to leverage Fitzy into a payoff.”

I nodded. “Exactly. They need the money. Can you help me get Grace out of here?”

Drake drunkenly pushed himself up from the couch, iPad tucked under his arm as he staggered to the desks on the opposite side of the room. At least a dozen monitors hung from the ceiling and on the walls. Around fifteen desktop and laptop computers were scattered throughout the messy space.

My cousin wasn’t usually so unorganized. But he thrust himself into chaos whenever he went on a bender like this one. Staring at the chip bags, open soda cans, and snack wrappers gave me the sudden itch to clean.

“I can create a new identity for Grace.” Drake sat in front of one of many monitors and started typing so fast the keys pounded. “A new passport and license. Medical and dental records. Credit history. The complete package.”

“Yeah, great. Just do it. I don’t have much time.”

Eyes flicking between the monitors, he said, “But how are you going to explain to your parents and Fitzy that she just disappeared from Fort Marshall? It would start an inquiry with The Founders Society that could jeopardize your future. And who will protect her? She’s more vulnerable now than before.”

I propped myself against the wall by my hip and watched Drake work his magic. He was so brilliant I sometimes envied him until I realized his life was a complete mess. He couldn’t have the woman he loved. People were trying to kill him for his technology. And because of his secrets, he carried the world’s weight on his shoulders.

He glanced at me. “If you’re unwilling to uproot your life and go with her, there’s no point in sending Grace away.”

He was right.

If I wanted to protect Grace, I had to do it myself. I had to give up everything for her.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

GRACE

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