Chapter 32
ZINAIDA
“Are you going to answer that?” Charlie looks from my vibrating phone to me.
“If it’s important, they’ll call back.” I avoid her eyes, standing with my arms out while Lily tacks material around my body.
“It’s Luke.” Charlie folds her arms and gives me a rather belligerent look. “And he has called back. Several times today.”
When I don’t answer, she rolls her eyes. “This is Luke. He wouldn’t keep calling if it wasn’t important.”
As if to punctuate her remark, her own phone suddenly starts blaring the theme music from The Fly, the ringtone she uses for Luke in honor of their first movie-line exchange. That seems like years ago, though in reality it was barely two months ago.
“McTasty,” she greets him. Then she frowns.
“What the fuck?” she says blankly. Then, quickly switching to all business, “Yes. She’s still here; I’ll let her know.
Hang on, I’ll ask.” She turns to me. “Luke wants to know if he’s clear to use one of the basement rooms at the Quartier.
I take it he’s questioning someone who may need some .
. . persuasion.” She holds the phone out to me pointedly.
“There’s no need for him to ask permission.” Ignoring the proffered phone, I lift a shoulder, trying not to let my fierce surge of interest show. “Luke’s free to use any of the rooms as he chooses.”
Charlie continues to hold the phone out toward me, and I continue to pretend I don’t see it.
“Christ.” Luke’s voice crackles down the line, his frustration palpable. “I know you’re listening, Zin. If you won’t talk to me, then at least check your emails. And call Mak, okay? You need to be in the loop on this.” He ends the call without waiting for an answer.
I look up to find Charlie watching me with a reproachful expression. I stare coldly back.
“There’s no point giving me your death stare,” she says, entirely unmoved. “I’ve seen it all before. Why are you being so mean to McTasty?”
Lily the dressmaker almost spits out the pins in her mouth as she holds back a laugh. I glare at her, then turn my frown back to Charlie. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
She rolls her eyes. “The fuck you don’t. But whatever.” She throws up her hands and stomps toward the door. “I’ll wait in the car. Make sure you call Mak,” she says, pointing her phone warningly at me before she leaves. “Whatever is going on, it’s clearly serious.”
I barely wait until the door closes behind her before I snatch up my phone and hit Mak’s number, ignoring Lily’s small smile. She danced at the Quartier for years and remains close friends with Nadja and Charlie, which means she knows enough gossip to make me distinctly uncomfortable.
Mak answers on the first ring. “Zinaida.”
It doesn’t escape me that his greeting is significantly cooler than normal.
“I understand you have an update for me.” I match his tone.
“Luke has an update for you,” Mak says coolly. “One I’m certain, having worked with the man for years, he’s attempted multiple times to deliver in person.”
I clench the phone in frustration. “Just give me the update, Mak.”
“You know,” he says conversationally, “it would serve you right if I refused. I won’t, but only because Luke called earlier to warn me that his phone would be off tonight and to instruct me that if you called, I should fill you in.”
“Wait.” I frown. “What do you mean, he said his phone would be off? He just called asking to use one of the basement rooms for an interrogation, so he’s clearly still working.”
“If he’s already called, then why are you ringing me?” Mak asks bluntly.
I grimace, aware I’ve just messed up. “He rang Charlie,” I say tightly. “She passed on a message. What’s he doing? Why does he need one of the basement rooms?”
“Zinaida.” His tone implies he’s exercising considerable restraint.
“I run an organization specializing in high-risk intelligence operations and private security, not a fucking high school messaging service. If you want an update, check your emails. Luke has sent you the same summary he’s sent me.
And if you want to know what is going on in your own club, then I suggest you return the calls of the highly competent professional I hired to solve your problem, rather than interrupt the first decent martini I’ve enjoyed in a fortnight. I’ll see you at the ball.”
The line goes dead in my ear.
I stare at the blank screen. “He hung up on me,” I say incredulously to the top of Lily’s head. “The bastard actually hung up on me.”
Removing the pins from her mouth, she raises her eyes to mine. “Respectfully,” she says warily, “maybe you should just call Luke. Whatever has happened between you, he’s a good guy, Zin.”
“God.” I stare daggers at Lily until she colors and drops her eyes. “Is there a single member of my staff left who isn’t in love with Luke Macarthur?”
Lily’s warehouse is barely two streets from the Quartier. I read Luke’s email on the way, feeling sick, relieved, and confused all at once. The summary throws up more questions than it answers.
Eva, of all people.
Normally I’d speak to her straight away, but for once, I’m not entirely sure what I want to say. And I’m damned certain we don’t yet have the full story.
I’m torn between wanting to shake her and a desire to pull her close and make her feel safe from the sadistic bastards who have clearly been threatening her. I know that Lowbridge is somewhere behind it. I can feel the bastard’s murky hands all over this.
No wonder Luke was trying so hard to get ahold of me.
Had I seen his earlier message about the leak, I actually would have called back, but lately I’ve taken to leaving my phone on silent in my bag. I don’t want to know when Luke calls. I’m too scared that talking to him will weaken my resolve to let him go.
Charlie pulls up at the entrance just past ten p.m. I walk past Anatoly and one of his new recruits, getting little more than a morose nod from either, only to then find both Nadja and Enzo staring at me balefully from behind the front desk.
“What are you doing here?” I ask Enzo, frowning.
He folds his arms and glares at me. “Helping Nadja put the final touches on tomorrow night’s schedule, since you’ve been so far off the damned reservation for the past two weeks that the poor darling was practically drowning.”
Seriously?
From the earliest days of their acquaintance, Nadja and Enzo have enjoyed not only an extremely competitive relationship, but a strict separation of powers. Asking anyone for help is unusual for Nadja, let alone Enzo.
I’m still searching for an appropriate response when Charlie comes to stand on Nadja’s other side, and suddenly I’m faced with three mutinous faces.
Make that five, I think, as I glance behind me to find Anatoly and the new guy both leaning around the door to listen in.
“If we’re not making it clear,” Enzo says, arching an extremely disapproving brow, “when Mummy and Daddy fight, all the kids suffer. Whatever is going on between you and Luke, for fuck’s sake, sort it out.
Otherwise, come the New Year, you’ll have a sheaf of resignations on your desk—starting with mine. ”
Fuck.
I’ve been pulling long hours at the office ever since the night Ofelia sobbed herself to sleep in my apartment. But clearly, I’ve also been falling back into my old habits, of working on the business without a second’s thought for what is happening with my staff.
The truth is that without my brief daily meetings with Luke, I’m off-kilter. I don’t know what everyone is doing, nor where to begin asking. Somewhere over the past weeks, Luke has taken over the operational side of the business so completely I’ve ceased to worry about it.
But since that night, I’ve stopped briefing him. Stopped the daily meetings, the many small conversations that not only served as feedback and comfort for me, but also kept him in the loop.
Cutting him out was a deliberate decision, an attempt to wean myself, and my business, off the Luke Macarthur habit we all seem to have developed. I’m trying to prepare myself and everyone else for the inevitable end.
I couldn’t hear my own words to Ofelia and not know they applied to me, too.
And no matter how desperately I might wish it was different, my staff are going to have to get to grips with reality, too.
“Anatoly,” I say, “close the front door for a moment. I need to speak to all of you.”
For once, he doesn’t argue, just shuts the doors immediately and comes to join the small group around the desk.
“Sorry I haven’t communicated well these past weeks.” I meet each of their eyes in turn. “Particularly during such a busy period. But we’re facing some changes in the business you should all be aware of.”
They all watch me expectantly. I feel like a rabbit trapped in the headlights.
“As you all know,” I say, trying to keep my voice even, “or at the very least suspect, Luke was hired for a particular reason: to work out who is trying to kill me and who in our organization has been leaking information to help them.”
They all nod.
“We already have the answer to the second question.” I steel myself for the next words. “The leaks were coming from Eva.”
Watching their faces fall is heartbreaking.
“She was brutally coerced,” I go on. “For now, she’s still in our care, and I promise you all that no harm will come to her. We’re going to take care of Eva, not punish her.”
“That’s shit,” Charlie says grimly, and everyone nods. “But at least we know. What about the other part of the question?”
“We’re still getting to the bottom of that.
” I tilt my head down toward the basement.
“I imagine whatever is happening in the basement has something to do with it. Either way, I expect we’ll have this wrapped up very soon.
” I take a deep breath. “Which means that Luke’s role here will be at an end, and that he’ll be leaving. ”
I’m not sure what I was expecting. Questions perhaps. Maybe some resentful, muttering asides.
Instead, I’m met with stone-cold faces and frigid silence.