Page 85 of Her Silver Fox Mountain Men

“Kara,” I say as I reach her table.

She looks up from her phone and damn near jumps out of her seat. “Elise!”

“I need to know what you’re doing here. Did Igor send you?” My voice trembles with emotions I’ve kept bottled up for far too long.

“Not here, Elise,” she says, frowning as she cautiously looks around. “We don’t know who’s watching.”

I ignore her, pushing for answers. “Why’d you drop your security detail after Candy’s? What the hell is going on? I am really confused.”

“So am I, believe it or not.” She takes my wrist. “Come on, let’s go someplace more private.”

“No,” I resist, anger coursing red-hot through my veins. “Not until you look me in the eyes and tell me you had nothing to do with my parents’ death.”

She stills, her eyes wide with shock and grief as she looks at me. “So that’s what this is all about?” Kara whispers. “Igor? You think—”

“I don’t think. Iknowhe was involved. I’ve got proof. That’s why he’s after me.”

Kara scoffs, shaking her head slowly. “No, Elise, I didn’t know. I was much too young to register our family’s business movements at the time anyway.”

“What are you doing here, then?”

“Looking for you, obviously. I tracked Igor into town, I figured he was up to something. I also found it suspicious that he wasn’t sharing any of his intel with the rest of the family. He knew how worried we all were about you.” She pauses and looks around the café again. “Seriously, we need to go…”

“Igor’s men are busy tailing a decoy,” I reply.

She raises an eyebrow at me. It’s the signature Kara look that says I’m not even in the ballpark with my assessment. “Honey, Igor has an entire fleet of men stationed in Rustic. Only a handful of them were loyal enough to our father to let me in on their movements. He’s paying them all out of pocket to keep his entire operation a secret from us,” Kara tells me.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that Igor may be a cold-blooded bastard, but he’s still our father’s son. He plans ten moves ahead. Always.”

That’s enough to get my heart rate spiking in the blink of an eye. I let Kara take me out of the café. We rush down the street, mingling with the passersby and constantly looking over our shoulders until we turn a corner into an alley. It’s dark and damp, the November drizzle running down the brick walls.

“Where are we going?” I ask her.

“I managed to get a couple of my most trustworthy guards into Rustic last night. We were supposed to meet right here,” she mutters as we stop in front of a large metal door. “This is the back entrance to Maury’s hardware store. Picked it off a satellite view on Google.”

“Well, where are they?”

She checks her phone again, concern etching across her features. “They should be here already.”

“Kara, why’d you come here? You said you were looking for me, but I don’t understand—”

“You don’t understand what exactly?” she shakes her head. “You’re family, Elise. We came up together. We ate at the same table. How could you possibly think that I would knowingly let Igor, or anybody else for that matter, hurt you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything at this point.” I shudder, blinking back tears. “I tried to go to the cops about him. I tried to bring it up with you, too. I just didn’t know how. He’s your brother, Kara. He’s going to inherit the entire Bratva. Who would believe me? And even if I showed you all the evidence I have, what good would it do?”

“It doesn’t make him immune to being indicted.”

That gives me pause and I need a moment to process what she just said.

“Wait, what?”

“If there’s one thing I remember from when your parents were still alive, it’s that my father was really close to yours. They were best friends, not just partners within the Bratva. It tore Papa apart when your dad was killed. He turned the whole of Chicago inside out to try and find the bastards who did it.”

“I thought he took Michael and me in out of guilt.”

“No, Elise. I promise you. I swear we had no idea about Igor’s involvement. And it bothered me that my brother insisted on coming after you alone, without any of us present or aware of his movements. I found it suspicious. And then I went over past conversations that we’d had, and things started to click. I can vividly recall the moments when you tried to tell me about Igor.”

---