Page 75 of Caged in Desire
“Shhh.” She interrupts, her finger covering my lips. “It’s okay. I know you were worried.”
“It’s no excuse. I should never have behaved that way toward you, and I swear to you, I never will again. I love you so much, darling.”
“I love you too.” She brings her mouth to mine.Fuck I’ve missed her.I deepen our kiss, as if I’ll never get the chance again, and she returns every ounce of passion I give.
Someone clearing their throat breaks us from our little bubble of bliss. I place one more chaste kiss on her forehead before setting her down on the ground, turning her to face the room, then pulling her back into me, my arms securing her in place.
“Alright, everyone, lock in. There’s something here we’re missing. We’re all intelligent enough individually, so there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to put our heads together and figure out who is after my wife.”
I’m about to walk us over to an empty seat when Ivan speaks up only loud enough for Katarina and me to hear. “Before we start, would you mind if I had a moment alone with Kat?”
She looks up at me with pinched brows, then at her uncle.Fuck,father.
“Ivan, I know this is a tender moment, but since this pertains to our case, I think we should all hear it,” I say. “Let’s just go sit down. Sorry, darling, this is going to be a lot.”
I pull Katarina into my lap, holding her close while Ivan sits beside us, retelling the account of him and her mother. She’s being strong, but can’t stop her tears from falling. A quick look around the room confirms she’s not the only one. In fact,except for Ledger and me, everyone has tears in their eyes. I was expecting this from the women and Sasha, but Jack…I have to force myself not to laugh in the middle of this incredibly emotional story at the sight.
As Ivan wraps up his story, I give Katarina a pat on the outside of her thigh, signaling her to hop up and hug her father. I sit patiently waiting for their embrace to end as the rest of the family continues blubbering, wondering how we are ever going to reel this back into business, when Katarina snaps around, narrowing her eyes at Sasha.
“You knew this, didn’t you?”
Sasha opens his arms, trying to bring humor to the situation despite his tearstained cheeks. “What? Your long-lost brother doesn’t get a hug too?”
I watch as Katarina walks over to Sasha, her smile obviously fake. As she gets closer, she raises her arms as if to return his hug, but at the last minute, she smacks him on the side of the head.
“Ouch!” he cries, backing away from her slowly with his hands raised in surrender. “I promise, I only found out when Pavel died, and Dad made me promise not to tell you until he could. Meanie.” He sits slumped over in his chair, pouting with his arms crossed over his chest.
With my hands rubbing my brows, I sit back down in my seat, pleased as my wife finds her spot on my lap soon after.
“Okay, everyone, let’s get it together. We’re wasting precious time. Let’s start with what we know. Someone is obviously after Katarina, and they have taken extreme liberties to get to her. Weknowsomeone broke into her room and ransacked it. Weknowthey were able to hack into our security system. Weknowit’s someone who had easy access to my mother’s home and who knew Katarina would be here. We also discovered that someone using the name Dilan B. Sims was collaborating withIvan to release her from our marriage contract and posing as my representative. Does anyone else have anything to add to that?”
“I do,” Sasha says, his voice hushed. He’s no longer pouting, instead sitting straight with a deadly gleam in his eyes. “Two things, actually. One is that the groundskeeper who died was planted there by me. I wanted someone to keep an eye on Kat and make sure she was doing all right. I know he isn’t a suspect of yours anymore, but I just wanted to clarify. He was in excellent shape and basically an expert in martial arts. One of the best security units I had. I would also be shocked to hear of him causing any harm to himself.
“Two, I lost my keys one night while I was at your club,” he says, nodding his head toward Ledger and Jack. “As you guys know, we made plans for me to check out Rendezvous when I visited Kat a few weeks ago. I never made it past the bar, though. I chatted with a lady and then felt way too intoxicated to play. I remember getting to my hotel room, but when I woke up the next morning, I was missing my key. This was shortly before Pavel died. I never said anything, but I’ve always felt like there was a link between his death and that key.”
Sasha pauses, giving my wife a look. “And actually, there is a third thing. Kat?”
Katarina turns to look at me, and mouths, “Sorry,” before turning her attention back to the room at large. “Sasha and I snuck out yesterday. I don’t know how you guys didn’t catch us.” She pauses when I squeeze her thigh, a warning to her that there will be consequences for that.Hopefully some we both enjoy.“We went back to search through my room for any clues and found one. A book was removed from my shelf. I can’t remember what it was, but I know it was related to the history of the Sinclair estate. I’m sure we were in too much of a shock to notice it before, but the bookshelf was actually the only thing in the room that hadn’t been destroyed.”
“So whoever this is wants Kat out of this marriage, either dead or alive. And was after a book about the property?” Jack asks, looking up from where he had just been writing in his notebook like a proper detective before turning to Ledger. “Did you notice anything strange about the footage from the library when you went through their system?”
“Hmm, nothing stuck out to me, but I wasn’t exactly putting a ton of focus on the library.” My brother, who is pure genius when it comes to any software hacking, pulls his arm from around Sloane and gets up to grab his computer. The room is silent as he runs footage, and although the suspense makes it feel like much longer, it takes him no time.
“I found something! I went back to several hours before you found your room, and there’s a cut in the surveillance from your library feed. Unless someone was lookingvery preciselyat the library time stamps against that of other feeds, you would never notice it. But it’s here.”
“And you don’t have any idea what it could’ve been about?” I ask, as my wife shakes her head.
Everyone is quiet as we take in all the information. We need to determine which book is missing and who it was that contacted Ivan. We can’t do either of those things from my mom’s house, though.
With a deep breath, I break the silence lingering in the room. “Sasha, Ivan, Katarina, and I will leave tomorrow morning to go back to the estate. We’ll have the Taranovs’ security with us. The rest of you should stay here until it’s safe.”
Chapter thirty-six
Since our huddle last night with the whole family, I’ve been itching to get back home. Something about us all coming together made me feel like a real-life detective. All of my fear and anxiety about the danger of the situation is gone, and I’m ready to solve this puzzle.
The car ride here was dreadfully silent, with everything confessed last night still hanging in the air. Ivan is my father. It’s still so strange. I never knew much about him. Sasha never had anything but positive stories about his,our,dad, but he was always so reserved around me. I promised him we would work on building a relationship, and I plan to do so, but I’m still a bit nervous about the whole thing.
The only positive thing about the quiet car ride was the chance to daydream about the makeup sex Henry and I had last night. It had been over twenty-four hours since he left, which is byfarthe longest we’ve been separated since I moved in. Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep last night.
