Chapter 17
All this forehead and I still can’t remember anything.
— Cutter’s secret thoughts
CUTTER
I was putting the finishing touches on the front room’s row of shelves when I heard the door open behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder, fully expecting my wood delivery to be the one arriving, and came to a stop when it was one I wasn’t expecting.
Milena looked…terrified.
And that look sent my stomach into razor sharp knots of dread.
“ What’s wrong?” I asked.
The door opened behind her and her bodyguard arrived.
Shasha jerked his chin up at me and said, “ Clayborne .”
“ Semyonov .” I rolled my eyes.
I never understood the point of using the last name as a form of greeting.
“ You can say no,” Milena blurted. “ Absolutely , you can say no.”
I frowned.
“ What are you talking about?”
That’s when Shasha started talking, and I realized what play he’d taken.
He may not have shared the whole truth with her, but he’d shared enough of it that she was now terrified and agreeing to marry me without a single protest.
I listened to Shasha’s entire speech, acting like I was learning the information for the first time.
I did have to admit, I was a particularly great actor because I played the part perfectly.
She moved forward and grabbed my hand when Shasha finished. “ You don’t…you don’t have to agree to it if you don’t want to. I will not be the reason your life is ruined.”
That’s when I’d had enough.
I cupped her cheek with my hand and said, “ The very last thing I’ll ever do is tell a woman in need that she’s not important enough to put my life on hold for.”
She softened.
“ You know…my sister…” I didn’t say the words.
Her expression melted. “ Shasha didn’t tell me it all. Only the basic facts. I know .”
“ Then you know that I’ll never, not ever, tell someone that needs help that they can’t have it,” I said, turning to Shasha . “ How certain are you that he’ll get out and come after her?”
“ He’s spent the last six years trading favors, pulling strings, and ultimately meeting every single bad guy in the goddamn system,” Shasha said. “ When I say that this was the worst possible place he could’ve gone, I’m not exaggerating. What you thought was punishment was actually a goddamn networking thing for him. If possible, he is coming out with more contacts than he had when he went in, and he now has an army at his back ready to do his bidding.”
I watched as Milena’s face closed down completely.
Honestly , it was a bit worrisome with just how perfectly she’d been able to clam up. I could practically see the walls getting higher and higher, and I knew, even if I didn’t get anything out of this other than the opportunity to protect her, it would be enough.
“ I’ll do it,” I accepted. “ Now , do we move into my place or yours?”
That’s when Shasha and I started talking logistics.
Milena stood there, listening to everything, yet not.
Absently , I reached up and tucked my pencil behind my ear, and then touched her hand. “ Come look at this and tell me if you’re okay with placement on these shelves. Counter height for me is too short, but since you said that you were going to be making coffee on them, I took the liberty of raising them up so that the height of the counter will be at a more natural level.”
Milena tilted her head but followed me to the counter.
Shasha nodded his head, mouthed that he’d be outside, and waited until I had her full attention to slip out the door.
“ Oh , I guess you’re right about the more natural height,” she said as she held her hands up. “ It’s really tall. But I like the idea of it being taller because then I can lean against it when I’m making drinks.” She paused. “ Or , more hopefully, when I hire some reliable people that will allow me to come up here when I want, and not all the time.”
“ Reliable people?” I teased. “ What are those?”
“ Exactly ,” she sighed. “ I had a promising interview last week. It’s one of my sister’s castoffs. Not in a bad way, but in a way that she wants more hours and different hours than what my sister is capable of giving.”
“ I have a few suggestions for you if you’re looking for some reliable people…” I paused. “ But they’re men.”
I saw her wince.
But if I could get some people that I trusted in here to work that would also have the benefit of knowing how to protect her if shit hit the fan…
“ How reliable?”
I chuckled. “ They’re prospects for the club. They’re all good kids, but they don’t exactly know what they want out of a career. We’ve been cycling these twins through our various businesses, but they haven’t found anything they like yet. And if the jobs they have are early, they can still do their classes in the afternoon, and their club duties at night. That would be the best case scenario for them.”
“ Tell them to come out and interview on Wednesday . Early morning, though. I have another interview mid-morning.” She looked at me then, making me wonder if she knew why I’d suggested those two.
I’d been thinking about it for a couple of hours now.
Since Shasha had told me that Lyle Pennington had put a hit out on Milena .
I’d thought about what would be the best way to keep her safe, without actually telling her that I was trying to keep her safe.
One of those initial thoughts was getting people around her that I could trust implicitly.
I made a mental note to call Simeon and Conway , the twins, and tell them that I needed them after she left.
They’d get a giggle out of the fact that I needed help for my ‘future wife’s coffee shop.’
They were actually twenty-year-old future engineers that were in college to later go into the Navy as officers.
They knew exactly what they wanted out of life.
But they got bored easily, and they liked getting passed around to all of the businesses. They were born with a thirst for knowledge that I’d never seen before in my life and soaked up everything like a sponge.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they went into the Navy with more knowledge than any other person before them.
My second “protect Milena ” moment this morning came when I’d had the great idea to professionally and expertly make it to where there were hidden cameras everywhere in the shelving that I was installing. I’d messaged Shasha with the dimensions of the smallest cameras he could find, and together we’d figured out the best way to install them.
Within an hour I’d had the cameras in hand, and a man that knew what he was doing with wiring, and we’d completely installed eight cameras in the front of the building, got them all online, and then planned out where the ones were going in the back so he could follow up behind me and wire them when needed.
That way, if someone so much as blinked in any corner of the shop she was in, we were going to know about it.
“ Okay , what now?” Milena asked softly. “ Where do we go from here?”
I grinned at her.
“ Since you’re here, can you help me find my pencil?” I quipped.
She smiled then, revealing a set of perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth.
It almost made me feel self-conscious.
My own teeth weren’t straight.
I’d been in the process of getting braces when my sperm donor had decided to commit his final crime that would take his life.
When the dust had settled, the estate had been frozen solid, and no money had come in or gone out for a whole year while the vultures fought for their pieces of pie.
In the end, my braces had been one of those things that I’d placed to the wayside, meaning to come back for them later, yet not bothering when the world looked different after Copper went to prison.
Moving forward with her eyes on me, she reached up and pulled my pencil from behind my ear.
I laughed.
She watched me laugh and said, “ Are you sure about this, Cutter ?”
I grinned. “ I don’t do stuff that I don’t want to do, beautiful.”