Page 54 of Bodyguard Baby Daddy

“So what really happened then?”

Luca shrugs. “I can only guess that once he tried to settle it with Petrov’s men that they killed him and took the drugs. It’s the only evidence to make things the way they are. But the offers were put through to Leandro and Kumarin’s men in separate phone calls an hour before his death. I couldn’t tell you how he had contacts.”

I’m so pissed off that I could break the damn chair. The room is too hot and humid. Luca is burning me up with this stuffy dark office. I need air. I need to escape from this chair and room. So I do. I head for the door in a quick bound. “I need air—”

“You need to stop,” Luca commands.

I stop. I turn back to him grim faced and pissed off. He gestures to sit in the chair and I return and slump back into the whipping post.

“He put offers in just before he met with Petrov’s men,” Luca says. “We know this from phone records and—”

“Let me guess,” I say. “He was hoping they’d jump at the chance to get such a steal?” I have to talk about the whole thing as if it were someone else’s. If I picture Carlos’ face on the body and in the burned van it just breaks my heart too much.

“He wasn’t so forthcoming,” Luca says.

My head snaps up. “You spoke with him?”

“Not with Carlos. Petrov.”

My eyes go wide. “Petrov called personally to say that he’d killed Carlos?”

Luca shakes his head. “You know we’re a much more subtle bunch than that. No, Alexei Petrov was calling about something else.” Now it’s Luca who looks slightly unsettled. Not nervous, I doubt only Sophie has seen him nervous, he appears to look more pissed off, if it were possible. “He was calling to humiliate me firstly.”

I suck my lips in.

“But secondly, he was calling onbehalfof Carlos. Alexei Petrov said that Carlos’ death makes it hard for him to pay his debt.”

“No shit,” I utter under my breath.

“The debt however needs to be paid…”

I begin grinding my teeth. I try to keep the fear and anxiety at bay by being more and more pissed off.

“Which means it still stands,” Luca adds.

“And he expects you to pay?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head only once.

“He expects—” My dumbass brain finally gets it. I sit up and my eyes snap open. “He expects Mimi to pay?”

Luca nods. “He says the debt has been transferred to her. And if not her, her mother.”

“That fucker!” I yell.

“I of course said that wouldn’t be happening. Mimi wouldn’t be paying a cent. Nor would her mother. That didn’t go too well.”

“Thank you,” I say, reaching over to shake Luca’s hand. But he keeps it out of distance.

“Alexei was still insistent that the debt had to be paid though,” Luca goes on. “He kept mentioning honor and order. The debt must be covered. So I’ve deemed that he means to get payback.”

“Let him try,” I growl.

“No, let him not.” Luca rises. “There’re ways to work about these things. Payback is not one of them. I will offer to take Mimi in though, to protect her. Her and her mother. I doubt if Alexei will send men all this way, being that he’s killed Carlos and taken my drugs. But then I don’t know. Until then, I mean to keep her safe.”

“I’m already thankful, Luca. Really. Mimi and I—”

“But only Mimi.”

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