Page 47 of Chasing Danger

Almost as soon as the question popped into my mind, the answer immediately followed. Oliver had used his arm as a shield, but not for himself. His arms had been occupied with protecting his brother, leaving his face completely exposed. Since skin on the face was more delicate than the rest of the body, it hadn’t stood a chance without protection.

The image of a younger version of Oliver stumbling his way unprotected through a raging fire brought an unexpected wave of emotion surging up in my chest. I wasn’t usually the type to get so interested in other people’s struggles, but something about this man had cut right to the heart of me from the very first moment I met him.

Cupping his face, I pressed a quick kiss to the scarred skin of his check, then tucked the sheet around him and left him to sleep.

Then I stood from the bed and threw my clothes back on. They were wrinkled, and my hair was a mess. There was no hiding what I’d just done, but it didn’t matter.

Eva and Gavriil had certainly seen me in worse condition.

Stepping out of the bedroom and closing the door behind me, I found my bodyguards waiting in the penthouse’s office.

We regarded each other silently for a moment until Eva lowered her eyes to the floor. “I won’t apologize. It’s my job to take care of any threat to you, and I’m not yet convinced that boy isn’t a threat.”

For the moment, I ignored Eva’s use of the word ‘boy’ to describe Oliver. While he was younger, and much more inexperienced, he was far from being a child. Especially not after what we’d just done. However, there were bigger concerns to worry about.

Brushing some of the wrinkles from my clothes, I gave both of my bodyguards a hard look. “He’s not a threat to me. However, this is unusual for you. In the past when you suspected one of my lovers to be a traitor, you brought it to my attention and let me handle it. Why take it into your own hands this time?”

Eva and Gavriil shared a glance, looking unusually bashful.

This time it was Gavriil who spoke up, stepping forward just enough to ensure he had my attention. “Well, Boss, you seem more... invested this time. You’ve never put so much effort into dating someone before.”

“And you think I lack... conviction.”

My clothes were as fixed as they could be. With one last tug at the cuffs of my shirt, I stepped closer until I was almost in the pair’s personal space. Without warning, I grabbed each of them by the lapel. “I will say this once. Any threat will be eliminated without hesitation.Anythreat.”

Silently, both Eva and Gavriil nodded. Although I was indirectly threatening them as well, they actually seemed comforted by my little display.

Like a pack of wolves, they needed to be reminded that their Alpha still had the power to lead them.

Smoothing their clothes back into place, I patted them both on the shoulders and then took a seat behind the office desk.

“Now, tell me everything you’ve learned about Oliver’s family. I know you two wouldn’t have just left it alone after finding out about Arturo Radcliffe. He supposedly died a few years after stealing from us, right? Is that really the truth?”

Eva and Gavriil sat in the chairs on the other side of the desk, spines as straight as iron rods.

“It seems to be true,” Gavriil said. “We’ve found the coroner’s report. Arturo Radcliffe really did die of cancer.”

“Karmic,” Eva added with a wry twist to her mouth.

Gavriil paused for a moment to see if she had anything else to add, then continued with a bit more exasperation in his voice. “However, we did come across something odd. The reason we didn’t immediately make the connection between Oliver and Arturo Radcliffe was because the whole family switched to using the mother’s maiden name. Including Oliver’s Grandmother, who is actually his father’s mother.”

Pulling out the knife stored on the desk, disguised as a letter opener, I idly twirled the blade between my fingers.

“That is odd. Changing her name would make sense if she doesn’t want to be connected to someone who stole from theItalian mafia, but why change to her daughter-in-law’s maiden name instead of her own?”

Eva slid an actual paper file across the desk toward me, which held even more info than what I’d seen on Gavriil’s phone earlier. “We looked into that, too. Oliver’s Grandmother currently goes by the name Ingrid Grant, using her daughter-in-law’s last name. Her married name was Ingrid Radcliffe. But her maiden name was Ingrid Falke. When we looked into the name Ingrid Falke, we got an odd response.”

Looking through the information, I watched Eva and Gavriil over the top of the file. “Odd, how?”

The pair shared another look that had the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.

“Well...” Gavriil hesitated, which wasn’t natural for him. “When we asked our contacts about the name Ingrid Falke, they were unusually keen to avoid talking about her. A bit too... insistent that they knew nothing.”

“Your contacts?” I repeated. “You mean your Russian contacts.”

Although they were loyal to me, Eva and Gavriil had originally been a gift from my Russian relatives as a sign of good faith between our organizations. That meant they had Russian connections that even I couldn’t contact. It often came in handy, and in this case, it added to my suspicions.

“What do the Russians have to do with Oliver’s Grandmother? I don’t like having so many questions without answers. How was Oliver’s father, a low-level enforcer, able to get away with stealing so much from us without getting caught? How are the Russians connected? Why has information been so hard to get a hold of?”

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