Page 39 of Evil Beautiful

I had been looking at Kell’s face as I spoke but at the end I looked up and met his eyes. He gave me a decisive nod.

“He has it. We don’t get to choose who we love and as long as you treat him right we won’t have any problems.” The threat was right there in his voice.

I smiled, it wasn’t a good smile and I knew my eyes stayed cold and distant.

“No need for the threats, he’s safe with me. Always.”

That’s all I would give him.

How I felt about Kellen was not for him to know.

Letting go of his hand I brought a chair over to the bed and sat down then picked up his hand again. Brendan sat down on the opposite side of the bed and picked his book back up. He gave me what privacy he could without leaving the room. And by the look on his face I knew he wouldn’t be leaving.

Strangely I liked that he was sticking around.

I was about to continue our discussion when my phone buzzed insistently.

“Damn.” I pulled it from the inside pocket of my jacket and seeing Dom’s name immediately answered.

“Yes?”

“Get back to the office. There’s been a development.” Dom’s voice gave nothing away.

“I just got to the hospital. Is it really necessary?” I truly didn’t want to go back to the office. I was tired, still pissed off and I wanted to spend time with Kellen. Even though he was asleep.

“Yes it is. Like I said, there’s been a development. Kellen is safe. His brother and two guards are on him. You know we have surveillance in his room. Once we’re done you and Darren can go back to the hospital.”

His voice was cold but I heard the stress beneath the chill.

“I’m on my way.”

I slid my phone back into my pocket and stood.

“Unfortunately I have to go back to the office. Please stay with him and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

I stroked a hand over Kell’s forehead, pressed a soft kiss to his mouth, then left.

The sooner I got to the office and sorted what needed to be sorted the sooner I could get back to him.

I felt Brendan’s eyes on my back as I walked away. I hadn’t given him a chance to say anything. Why? Because I wasn’t interested in whatever he had to say anyway.

Twenty minutes later I walked into Dom’s office.

The entire team was there and that was not what I had been expecting.

Darren and Lex joined those already against the wall and Dom engaged the privacy screens over the windows to the outer office. The minute they were closed he pointed the remote in his hand at the screen that came down from the ceiling. He spoke while he did so as photos of two men came up.

“This is Sergei Demidov Orlov and Claude Delamotte of the Demidov Bratva. I had a very interesting meeting with them late this afternoon. They want to do business with the Maingarde Corporation, specifically with our interests in Singapore. I informed them that we were no longer in the business of transporting anything of an illegal nature. According to Delamotte they deal in tea, spices, furniture and antiquities but we all know a lot of shit can be hidden inside a shipment.”

I was about to interrupt but he held his hand up.

“I ended the meeting saying I would talk to my advisors then get back to them. As we shook hands Orlov slipped me a micro SD card. I handed it to Rico to investigate and he has found some very interesting information on the card.” He turned to Rico. “Tell us what you found.”

Rico pointed his own remote at the screen and it flipped to a document. He had all the pages displayed next to each other. Pages filled with information set out point by point.

“It starts with a warning to not believe any promises made by the Demidov family then goes on to set out their objectives. Their end goal is to have the Maingarde Corporation under their control. We hold a strategic position that they want. If they take control of MGC they not only have their foot in the door to South Africa but it will be a gateway to the rest of Southern Africa. And our shipping company means transport to the rest of the world. He warns that it won’t be easy to turn them down. According to this list it will start with promises of seemingly lucrative deals and even go as far as trying to marry off one of the daughters to Dominick or one of the sons to Pixie. If that fails there will be threats and finally death squads. The targets will be Dominick and Pixie as they are the sole owners of MGC.” He grinned and winked. “As far as they know.”

Before Rico could continue I had to jump in. “Why would he warn us? He’s a Demidov, what’s his deal?”

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