Chapter 8
I hate when I lose things at work. Like my favorite pen or my will to live.
— Keely to Cutter
KEELY
I grinned when I saw my brothers—all three of them—in my kitchen cooking.
Cutter’s wife, Milena , was absent, and I wondered if she was working today.
She’d had a soft opening for her coffee shop—a place that she’d had built that connected to her sister’s bakery—last week, and the hard opening was set for this Friday .
It was possible that she was busy getting stuff ready for that or going into work even though she wasn’t supposed to.
In the time that I’d known Milena Semyonov , I’d come to think of her as a good friend—and a great sister-in-law to have. However , she seemed a little bit hyper-fixated on work, as if her entire life, her personality, was what she’d accomplished.
That was why I thought I was crazy in the head.
I didn’t have that kind of drive—at least not when it came to work.
I wanted to experience life. I wanted to spend time at the beach every spring, and the mountains in the summer. I wanted to get married, stay at home, and raise my family. I wanted to raise chickens and ducks and have a single mini cow that danced in the morning when I brought him food.
I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom with a husband that wanted to spoil me.
Was that too freakin’ much to ask?
“ Hey there, sister,” Chevy said as he backed away from the counter and saw me. “ What’s your poison?”
I looked at the eggs that were being made and said, “ Over hard.”
“ Gross .” Chevy rolled his eyes.
“ What’s gross is the thick yolk that makes a mess and doesn’t even taste good,” I countered, lying through my teeth because I liked all kinds of eggs now except scrambled.
“ If you say so,” Chevy rolled his eyes. “ We paid your rent for the next month. Also , you got a notice in the mail that your rent is back to what you’d expect. No more rent hike. Also , did you know that Castanon Enterprises owns this place?”
My mouth dropped. “ We do?”
“ We do,” Copper said, turning around with my over-hard eggs. “ And it’s so well hidden, buried so deep in legal mumbo jumbo, that it would’ve been impossible to find had someone not brought the information to our attention.”
My brows rose at that.
“ Actually , I don’t know. I just got an anonymous email with the information in it this morning,” he continued.
A flash of insight hit me. Another person that’d sent me an anonymous email came to mind.
But I immediately blocked off that train of thought.
It wouldn’t do for me to think about such things.
Even worse, I was so hyper-fixated on this man that thinking about him only gave him power.
And I would not condone his actions.
I would not.
Even if I wanted him to repeat his actions over and over again on me.
How sick in the head did that make me?
“ What are you over there thinking about so hard?”
I glanced at Cutter and said, “ Just the usual, I guess. Work . What I’m eating for lunch today.”
The lie slipped off my tongue so easily that Cutter didn’t suspect a thing.
I’d been lying to them for years, though. I’d perfected the art of lying.
They couldn’t spot a lie on me from a foot away anymore.
Cutter nodded. “ Actually , I was going to ask if you had any problem with me borrowing your SUV today. All of us can’t fit in my truck comfortably, and we’re going to head to Fort Worth and spend the day doing brotherly things.”
I was already nodding my head as I said, “ Sure . As long as you leave me your truck.”
Cutter rolled his eyes and said, “ Of course. But please try not to hit any more curbs. Those dings on my rims aren’t attractive.”
“ You let your wife drive your truck,” I pointed out.
“ But she’s yet to smash it into any curbs. Plus , if she did, she’d give stellar…”
I held up my hand, unable to process him talking about his wife and dick in the same sentence.
Luckily , I was saved by the bell.
I headed to the door and found Cutter’s brother-in-law on the other side.
“ Hey , Shasha ,” I greeted him as I stepped back. “ I’m assuming you’re here for my brothers?”
“ Kind of,” he said in his deep, melodic tone.
There was something intrinsically familiar about it that hit something deep inside my chest.
Something that I’d kept buried for a week now…
I looked away from Shasha and gestured to the room beyond. “ They’re in here.”
I didn’t bother to ask how he’d known they were here.
Either one of them told him, or he used his top secret spy skills to find out.
Either way, I was better off keeping my opinions to myself.
Shasha didn’t seem like the type of man that would indulge me and my smart mouth.
He was, quite frankly, scary as fuck.
Though he was nice when I’d met him at Cutter and Milena’s place, he didn’t strike me as the type of man to allow disrespect.
“ What are you doing here, Shasha ?” Cutter asked. “ Is Milena okay?”
The worry in my brother’s tone had my heart constricting.
“ She’s fine,” he promised. “ At least, from what I know of. I haven’t had any reports that she wasn’t. I’m here for a different reason.”
Then his eyes focused back on me, and I felt something start to flutter in my chest.
“ Is it about me?” I asked, surprised to have his entire focus on me.
It was disconcerting.
I didn’t know whether to look him in the eyes or not.
And I certainly didn’t know what more to say.
“ Yes and no,” he looked away and focused on my brothers, allowing me to draw a full breath.
“ What’s going on?” All three of them turned to survey Shasha .
And , showing the type of man he was, Shasha didn’t flinch when he saw he had all three’s attentions.
Nor did he back off or flinch as I’d seen so many other men do.
“ Have you watched the news at all today?” he asked.
The four of us shook our heads.
“ Allow me.” He gestured to the TV . “ Pick a station.”
Cutter grabbed the closest remote, which happened to be the one that controlled the television in the kitchen—why I had one in the kitchen, I didn’t know. But my brothers spent a lot of time here, and they’d been the ones to install it, even though the living room wasn’t too far away, and would’ve worked just as well.
He flipped the television to a news station and froze.
“… Police and FBI are investigating the assassination. Alexander Pettigrew was a former aide for one of the top real estate companies in the country. He went to prison for raping a nineteen-year-old…”
Cutter muted the TV and turned to me.
I stood there, mouth open in surprise, and stared at the screen as the newscaster continued to talk.
I read the subtitles, and figured out that early this morning, when Alexander Pettigrew had been let out in the “yard” to get some free time, he’d been shot by a sniper.
One shot, one kill.
The guy had been dead in seconds.
Plus , from what the newscasters said, his head had exploded on impact and sprayed in a six-foot arc all around him.
The smile that grew on my face was nothing short of euphoric.
“ Well , hot damn,” I breathed. “ There are miracles.”
I pulled my gaze away from the TV and studied the men who remained quiet.
“ What ?” I asked.
“ This feels too good to be true,” Copper said. “ Why now? Are they trying to implicate me for the shooting?”
“ Why would you think that?” I asked.
“ Because we had a beef in that prison. And all of a sudden I’m out and oh, whoops. He gets shot?” Copper shook his head. “ This isn’t good.”
“ About that…” Shasha turned to me.
“ What ?” I asked.
“ Do you know my brother, Dima , at all?” he asked. “ I know that y’all weren’t there at the same time as each other when we all met as Cutter and Milena were set to be married last month, but…”
I was already shaking my head. “ I can’t say that I do.”
“ Hmm ,” he said.
“ Why do you ask?” I wondered.
Cutter’s , Copper’s , and Chevy’s eyes were also on Shasha .
“ Why do you ask?” Copper asked carefully when Shasha didn’t reply fast enough for his liking.
“ It’s just that…” He shook his head, his eyes going around my apartment. “ How secure is this place?”
“ Secure ,” Cutter said at the same time Copper said, “ Very . I checked it out myself when I got here.”
Shasha looked like he struggled with some thoughts for a long moment before saying, “ I’m trusting you with my brother’s life here.”
“ Okay …” I hesitated. “ Why ?”
“ Because if who took that shot is who I think it is, you could incriminate him,” Shasha explained.
“ Why do you think it’s your brother?” Copper asked.
“ That’s the thing,” Shasha admitted. “ I feel like he’d have only done that if she meant something to him.”
Shock tore through me.
“ Is that why you’re here?” I asked. “ To ask how we know each other?”
“ Partially ,” he admitted. “ But also, I wanted to talk about some of the information I sent Dima up there to get.”
I looked at my brothers. “ In that case, I’m headed to bed. I’m too tired to listen in on this one. Also , no, I’ve never met your brother. But if he did kill Alexander Pettigrew , I’m eternally grateful. And I’ll also name my first kid after him.”
Shasha’s lips twitched. “ There are very few people in the world that could’ve taken that kind of shot. Even less that would’ve been in the area. If my brother didn’t do it, it would be too coincidental that he’s there at the same time as another trained sniper. Anyway , his name is Dima Semyonov . You’ll know him when you see him.”
With that cryptic comment, I left the men alone to do what they would, forgoing the breakfast that they were cooking.
I’d eat later…when my excitement at the thought of Alexander Pettigrew being dead wasn’t riding me so hard.