Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
JAMES
W hen Ana changed the subject the moment I asked her a personal question, the alarm bells set off a siren in my head. Something isn’t right about any of this and the alley, the subsequent events that followed and her caginess tonight, triggered something inside me.
I’m not ashamed of my methods of extracting the information I need. It’s always been about survival of the fittest and I’ve done pretty well until now. I suppose it was the accent that changed when she dropped the facade. The constant edging around her past and the completely white apartment.
Annabelle Starling was always trouble for me. I knew it from the moment I met her, but I didn’t realize just how much until now.
I peer at the last text message she sent to a man named Titus .
The conversation makes for interesting reading and disappointment in her hits me hard.
“You’re spying on the business.”
I glare at her in shock and she shakes her head vigorously. “Let me explain.”
I carry on reading and then flick to her contacts, searching for one name.
It glares out at me from the list with a violent warning attached.
Mikhail.
I punch it into her messages and it reveals a steady stream of conversations that make my head spin.
“Who are you?” I hiss as I stare at her with retribution weighing heavy on my heart.
“Untie me and I’ll tell you.”
I note the defeat in her eyes and the tears brimming inside them.
“No.”
“No?”
I nod, my eyes greedily absorbing every single one of their conversations.
“You know him.”
“Who?”
She is pretending, even now, and I shout, “That man! Mikhail. The man who rescued us in the alley and took over my life. You are working with him.”
She says nothing, but I sense the defiance in her expression as she turns her head to one side .
“Who is Titus? Is he part of your—I’m not sure what to call it, group, gang, family perhaps?”
The dots connect and her accent is placed and I groan, feeling like the biggest fool that ever lived.
“You’re Russian. You are working for him.”
“James, please, let me explain.”
“Oh, you’ll explain alright because I’m not untying you until I have the whole story.”
“Fine.”
Her eyes flash as she hisses, “Yes, I am working with them, not for them. I took on a different identity to gain access to The Rose Foundation. That had nothing to do with you, by the way.”
“Then why?”
I stare at her incredulously and she spits, “Because my family needs answers.”
“Your family?”
“Yes, James. Mikhail and Titus are my brothers and our father was Andrei Romanov.”
“Fuck!”
It’s as if everything explodes at once as I realize the full extent of the shit I’m in and I shake my head and whisper, “So, you used me.”
“No.” Her voice breaks. “I didn’t even know who you were that night in the bar. My instructions were to discover the secrets the foundation is hiding and report them back to my brother. We are not the enemy here, James. Please, you must believe me.”
“Believe you?” I stare at her in shock. “Why should I believe anything you say to me, Ana, if that is your real name?”
“It is.” She sighs. “But not Annabelle Starling. It’s Anastasia Romanov. I’m pleased to meet you.”
The pain in her eyes disarms me a little and for some reason, it makes me look at her a little differently. Is she also being used? Is this what her family does? After meeting her brother, I can guess the kind of upbringing she had and I sit on the edge of the bed and exhale sharply.
“I’ll untie you on the condition you tell me everything from the beginning. Then I’ll work out where we go from here.”
“Okay.”
As I remove her ties and unfasten the handcuffs, I am already questioning everything she has told me until now.
As she rubs her wrists, followed by her ankles, I toss one of my t-shirts in her direction and nod toward the living area.
“Come. I don’t know about you, but I need a drink.”
She follows me silently and I try desperately not to react to how desirable she looks dressed in my shirt. Her hair is messy and wild and the flush on her face resembling a freshly bloomed rose. She is bearing my mark on her neck that won’t be going away anytime soon and the red marks from the ties will fade but are now a reminder of my possession. I can’t shake how good it was to fill the inside of her mouth with my cock and knowing I was extremely close to fucking her all night doesn’t help my mood at all.
I splash whiskey into two glasses and hand her one, nodding to the couch.
She sits without question and I take the one opposite and glare at her with disappointment.
“Tell me.”
She nods miserably and as she gulps the liquor back in one, she sets the glass on the table and exhales sharply.
“It all began when my father was murdered.”
She winces, but I remain impassive, too angry to care right now.
“We are a powerful family in Russia, James, and have the latest security in place, but somehow he was poisoned at the dinner table in front of our mother.”
She stops and plays with her fingers and then gulps, “It was inconceivable that anyone could have carried it out. My brothers were mystified and hell bent on revenge, so we began to delve into my father’s past for answers.”
She lifts her eyes to mine and says softly, “We discovered a connection to a company called Burning Roses, but that wasn’t all we found. He was also living a double life and had a mistress.”
I shake my head and say in a low voice. “That must have sucked.”
“It did.” She shrugs. “The trail led us to The Rose Foundation because my brother Valentin found a photograph with the images of four women. My mother, my father’s mistress, the woman who founded Burning Roses and Adele Heatherington.”
I sit forward, instantly aware of the significance of that photograph, and say gruffly, “Go on.”
“Two of the women are dead. Marsha Steele, the founder of Burning Roses and Veronica Scott-Stanley, my father’s mistress.”
She takes a deep breath. “My brother, Arman, discovered links to The Rose Foundation and Adele’s involvement in it. I am considered the information gatherer of the family and my day job is as CEO of my own accountancy company back in Russia.”
“That figures.” I roll my eyes, disguising how impressed I am with this woman, and she sighs, leaning back against the couch cushion and fixing me with a ruthless gleam in her eye.
“I will not apologize for my family or who I am. We are tracking a murderer which comes with associated risks.”
“So, was it worth it?” I ask, my earlier anger turning to interest, and she nods.
“I have only scratched the surface, but the cracks are freshly painted over and easy to find. It helped that Eric is an incorrigible gossip and his mouth is loosened by alcohol. He pointed out many anomalies and was spot on with his assessment.”
“What did he find?” I’m curious and angry at the same time because I should have known what was going on under my roof and Ana appears to know a lot more than me about the company I am supposed to be in charge of.
“It’s a long story, but we think The Rose Foundation is laundering Russian money.”
“What the fuck!”
She leans forward, her eyes bright. “There are too many coincidences and if, like Eric suggested, you turn your attention to the gossip columns, they reveal far more than was probably intended.”
“Such as–”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing, and she says with excitement. “I saw a photograph online of Anthony Gold in deep discussion with Boris Fedorov, the head of the KGB and Denislav Orlov, the current president of Russia.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
I’m disappointed if that’s what she’s basing this on and she fires back. “Anthony Gold is heavily involved in Vulcan Industries, the weapons manufacturer. Their profits are huge and I’m guessing if you followed the paper trail, some of their funds will be tied up with Gold enterprises. You see, James–”
I note the animation on her face as excitement takes over and she has never looked as beautiful as she does now.
“Anthony Gold invested three hundred thousand dollars of his own private money into Gold enterprises last year, apparently to steady the ship and to keep it from going under. He has done the same thing every year for six years, but the company is still running at a loss.”
“The exact sum he is donating to The Rose Foundation.”
It’s as if the mist clears and I’m hit by a giant wake-up call and I see where this is leading. “His weapons company is injecting money into our system, but why?”
I’m still none the wiser about where this is leading and Ana huffs, “Because we’re convinced there is a select group of men who are working for a far higher prize than laundering money, James. You see, there was another group of men who were also in Switzerland at the time that photograph was taken.”
I lean forward as I wait for the missing link.
“My father, Governor Kenricky, Boris Fedorov and Denislav Orlov and we don’t believe in coincidences, James because one is about to be sworn in as the President of the United States if the polls are correct and one is already controlling the most formidable superpower in the world.”
I exhale sharply. “This could just be a coincidence but my family believes something is happening behind the scenes. Three of the people involved are dead and we are in possession of a devastating truth that if it ever came out, could destabilize the world. So, I’m sorry about the subterfuge, James but when you’re fighting a cold war, anything is acceptable.”