Page 102 of Take the Sub and Run

“Take that to Colette and…” Andrei trailed off, rolling his shoulders. “Be safe, Angel."

Twenty-One

He loved her.

Maybe there would have been a hope, even a slim fucking prayer, that he would resist falling fully and madly in love with her. That chance evaporated when Sofie showed up dressed as an angel in a sea of sin, ready and willing to submit in every way.

But last night, she had shown up, and despite how it ended last night, he was hopelessly in love with her.

Andrei lay sprawled on one of the couches. It was the middle of the day and there was no one in the club. Club Alibi London was open again tonight, but no one would show up to start prep for at least another two hours.

He could have gone into the London Interpol offices to work, but he was too lazy. He'd been sleeping here at the club in the room Landon had used. That hadn't helped the situation, because he ended up staring at the connecting door, imagining what he would do if he had Sofie in the other room the way Colette had been just next door for Landon.

He was in love, cynical asshole that he was.

Still, he hadn’t changed personalities. He loved her, but God, he was pissed. He wasn't sure if he was angrier with himself for being the fool who loved her, or with her for being so stubborn and refusing to listen.

A more rational part of him said she had every right to be stubborn because, as she’d said, it was her life and her choice.

Would it have made a difference if he told her that he loved her, and it wasn't just her life at stake, but her life and his heart?

The part of him that was an absolute moron hadn't been able to let go of hope. The hope that maybe if she were able to take back even a few of her art pieces, that would satisfy her need to reclaim her life and she could move on from the mental place she was trapped in.

What he really wanted was to rescue her, but she didn't need to be rescued. She needed to be empowered.

And that's why he'd given her every single bit of information he'd been able to pull from Interpol's many databases about Father Noah Visser.

He’d started the file thinking it was merely performative. Something to do to make himself feel better.

But there was actionable intelligence in there.

The most critical was a customs declaration form that had been flagged for further assessment four years ago. The large shipment had been identified for further questioning due to the sheer size—seven oversized boxes, most one meter square.

The shipment was headed from Amsterdam to a large country estate in Lanaken, Belgium. Lanaken was just across the Netherlands-Belgium border from Maastricht, and the property was owned by Visser’s brother-in-law. The notes as to what had been done when the shipment was stopped were sparse, and there were no additional notes to go along with the original declaration of “personal household goods.”

Andrei was fairly certain that Visser had shipped all of Sofie's original pieces to his brother-in-law's house. Probably, he was planning to bring them in one or two at a time over the course of years, then periodically “discover” new art.

For their purposes, retrieving art from a remote estate in eastern Belgium was a far more doable task than stealing something from the Vatican archives.

When he first found this information, he'd almost said fuck it, and gone himself. Simply booked a ticket to Belgium, driven there, and busted in the door.

But doing that wouldn't help Sofie. She had a plan, had made a choice, and he would respect that.

Respect it and wait.

Well…wait as long as he could. Andrei wasn't a patient man. Assholes rarely were.

“Fuck it.”

He grabbed his phone from his pocket and called Landon.

“Andrei?”

“Let me talk to Colette.”

“Yeah, I'm good. How are you?”

“Are you being held hostage and trying to send me a message, or are you just being an asshole?” Andrei closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

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