Page 23 of Shielded Secrets

He set his hand on my injured shoulder and slightly squeezed until I groaned in pain. Grimacing, I shook him off.

“You can call it multitasking or whatever else you want. But it looks like you werenottaking it easy and keeping your distance from watching Kelly. Look, I’m glad she’s fine and you helped her the way you did. But you were supposed to be in the background, spying on that meeting and watching her from afar. Not rushing into fights and potentially further damaging your still-healing shoulder.”

“No one else was there.” I sighed, glancing at Kelly seated on the sofa and talking to both Eva and Irina, who’d come out from her room to visit with Kelly when she heard she was here. “No one else was close enough to help her. I didn’t plan this. I didn’t think. I just reacted.”

Lev patted my back but shook his head. “I get it, but?—”

“I don’t think you do,” I argued. “But it’s not like I missed out on anything. When you texted me that the meeting was happening soon, I left the area near her apartment and hurried toward that building where the meeting was supposed to be held.” I hadn’t updated him on the little I’d recorded yet. That was how fast things had progressed today.

“But you clearly weren’t there when that meeting happened,” Lev said, arching a brow.

The room had gone silent, and with a glance to the side where the women were, I realized they were listening in.

“The meetingdidn’thappen,” I replied. “I went to listen in and they were all splitting up because Marcus wasn’t there. He didn’t show up and the meeting was canceled. That was when I ran back to where I saw that first man following Kelly.”

Oleg spoke up from the other side of the room. He puffed his cigar, and with Vik at his side, he said, “Marcus was at thatmeeting because reports are coming in that he waskilledat that meeting.”

11

KELLY

Seeing Eva and Irina calmed me down. They were here, dressed in casual loungewear and completely at peace. They didn’t give off a vibe of being trapped here or anything like that. They called themselves Mafia princesses, but they looked like two friends, down to earth and relaxed, welcoming me here in the warmth of this enormous house and all these men around to protect them.

To protectus.

Rurik had rushed back to protect me on campus.

It sounded like he’d left his other obligation to get back to me. I had yet to thank him for that, but I was eternally grateful he’d split his duties like that. Being the center of someone’s worries was a new sensation to experience, but it wasn’t bad.

Seated between Eva and Irina, I felt special. Chosen, even, which was ridiculous.

Maybe Rurik hadn’t only been on campus for the sake of doing his job and spying on the drug scene there.

“Marcus was killed?” Irina asked, glancing at the man I knew to be Professor Remi. “Vik? Is that true?”

“Yes. Word came in from the men there. Marcus James was killed at that meeting,” Vik replied.

“Wait. Aren’t you?—”

Irina lowered my hand that I lifted to point at him. “He was undercover. That’s Viktor Baranov, my fiancé.” She wiggled her fingers to show off her engagement ring. “Eva and I will catch you all the way up later,” she promised with a wink.

“But Marcus wasn’t at the meeting,” Rurik argued. He played a recording on his phone.

“Maybe Marcus didn’t get there on time, but he was found dead there,” Vik said. “Our man closest to the scene saw the police arriving and declaring it a crime scene.”

“Where was this meeting supposed to happen?” I asked. As soon as I spoke, I felt awkward. What happened to minding my own business and keeping my head down? “It’s just, um, I’ve heard that name before.” And recently. “Marcus James is a politician?”

“Was,” Vik confirmed. “It sounds like someone killed him at that meeting with the Petrov and Ilyin dealers.”

Rurik shook his head. “He wasn’t at the meeting when I was there.”

“But you didn’t stay to see him come to it, either,” Lev said.

I saw the guilt flash over his face and I hated myself for being the cause of it. He’d come to check on me and saw me being followed when he was expected to go spy on this meeting. Being late to get there and then assuming it was canceled, he ran right back tome to fight off the man who’d attacked me. It was my fault that Rurik hadn’t been doing his job. I was too scared to analyze why he’d been so concerned about me. I was grateful he was, but I also hated this guilt that he hadn’t been where he was supposed to be because of me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, standing.

“No.” Eva reached for my hand to pull me back down, but I avoided her touch. “This isn’t your fault.”

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