Chapter 20
Kasimir~
Capturing Marcelle Jensen had been a lot easier than most people would like to believe. Even after the little run-in that I’d had with her the other day, she still hadn’t taken any precautions to safeguard her wellbeing. Instead, she’d been continuing as if she hadn’t landed in our crosshairs.
At any rate, we were lucky that she had the next two days off, buying us some time before she was reported missing. Granted, it wasn’t as if the police were ever going to find her or pin it on us, but it always made things easier when the police were a few days behind on an investigation.
Now, because Marcelle was like most people who never imagined that anything bad would ever happen to them, she’d left work per usual, had driven home without a care in the world, then had entered her house, believing that she was safe.
However, the second that she had shut the door behind her, I’d been there with a syringe full of Propofol, which most people knew as Diprivan.
Once Marcelle had fallen unconscious, it’d been nothing to carry her towards the kitchen, then dump her in the trunk of the non-descript gray sedan that’d been parked in her garage.
With Aurora always on point, she’d been tracking Marcelle’s movements, memorizing her habits, and she’d found out that Marcelle never parked in her garage, always choosing to park in the driveway.
Then, after placing her in the trunk of the car, I went back into the house to grab her purse and car keys.
Leaving those items behind was a sure sign of foul play, but by taking them, it would look like it was possible that she’d taken a trip somewhere.
Plus, by leaving her car in the driveway, it could be argued that she’d left with someone willingly.
Poppy had also done a digital surveillance of the neighborhood, and though a few of Marcelle’s neighbors were equipped with security cameras, only the neighbor to her left had been a concern.
Luckily, Poppy had managed to scratch the feed, having been doing it for three days to avoid a glaring coincidence.
So, now we were at one of our warehouses, the one closest to Marchetti territory because Viktor was taking no chances with his wife. If she went into labor during our quality time with Marcelle, then her family would be able to come and get her quickly.
Marcelle had also woken up about an hour ago, and tied to a metal chair, we’d left her there for that long on purpose.
Nothing was more torturous than leaving somebody to their own wild imagination.
With no one to answer any of her questions, she was probably going crazy with all the possibilities of what this could be.
Meanwhile, Zoya and I were hanging out in the empty office, waiting on my brother and his wife, and if Aurora wasn’t damn near ready to pop, I’d be irritated by their lateness.
Granted, normally, I wouldn’t care, but I could tell that Zoya was strung tightly right now, regardless of how she was trying so hard to appear unaffected.
Just then, I heard a lyrical laugh echoing throughout the deserted building, and only Aurora Marchetti Korolev would be in a happy mood on her way to torture someone.
Gotta love her.
Once they reached the office, Aurora immediately sobered up when she noticed Zoya. “Hey, Zoya,” she greeted. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m fine,” Zoya lied. “Just...you know, I’ve never done this before.”
“We’re aware,” Aurora remarked, but not unkindly. “Are you certain that you still want to go through with this?”
“Yes,” she answered, doing her best to sound confident, but I knew better.
After I had secured Marcelle, I’d gone back home, had told Zoya everything that had happened, then had asked her three times if she was certain that she wanted to go through with this.
She’d been adamant about not wanting to change her mind, and a part of me had to wonder if it wasn’t just her stubbornness at work here.
After all, no sane person should ever want to be a part of something like this.
“Okay, then let’s get the show on the road,” Aurora sing-songed, and like the good little ducklings that we were, we all followed her out of the office, not stopping until we entered the refrigeration unit, though the refrigerant had been drained years ago.
Upon entering the room, Marcelle immediately stopped struggling in the chair, and her blue eyes widened comically when she finally got a good look at who all had joined the party.
Now, while just one of us was enough to garner that kind of reaction, I wasn’t sure if Marcelle was surprised to see three Korolevs knocking on her door or if it was Zoya that had her shocked.
Immediately, Viktor walked over to grab another chair for Aurora, and as he got her comfortably situated, Zoya and I just stood off to the side, giving Aurora the floor. After all, we were here to list all of Marcelle’s poor choices.
“While I’m sure that you’re already aware, I’m Aurora Korolev,” my sister-in-law announced, her voice smooth and solid. “I want to be clear about that.”
“What...what am I doing here?” Marcelle choked out, her voice a raspy mess from the useless cries of help that we’d been enduring for the past hour.
“Well, you’re here for a couple of reasons, Marcelle,” Aurora answered happily.
“Firstly, I don’t appreciate how you orchestrated the plan to get Zoya into the auction unnoticed.
” Marcelle’s face immediately paled at that.
“And before you try to insult my intelligence by denying that you were behind it, we know better. Not only are we not stupid, but it wasn’t all that difficult to connect the dots. ”
“But...but...it was to...to help Zoya,” she sputtered, already skipping the denial stage and going straight to trying to save herself. “And...she agreed to it.”
“She did,” Aurora conceded. “But what Zoya did, like many of the women who sign up for the auction, she did it out of desperation. You did what you did for entertainment purposes.”
“That’s not-”
Aurora put her hand up to stop her rambling. “Did you or did you not ask Zoya to enter the auction because you didn’t want to go by yourself? And before you even think of lying to me, know that my hormones are all over the place, and this could become a lot uglier than it needs to be.”
“I just...I really thought it’d help Zoya out,” she lied, still not clear on what this was as she looked over at Zoya. “Tell them, Zoya. Tell them that I just wanted to help you out.”
“See, now there’s a problem with that version of your story,” Aurora tsk’ed. “If you were so hellbent on helping Zoya out, then why would you send two men to rob her of the auction money not a few days later?”
Marcelle immediately began shaking her head. “No...no, that...that wasn’t me.”
“What’d I say about insulting my intelligence by lying?” Aurora sighed. “You’re not very bright, are you?”
“But...but on the news...it said...they said that it was two masked men,” she screeched brokenly. “I...I wasn’t there. I swear...I had...I had nothing to do with-”
“She’s irritating me,” Aurora announced, cutting off Marcelle’s ramblings.
I placed a kiss on the side of Zoya’s head before stepping forward to take over, which was a simple motion to establish ownership. As the person in charge of the auction, Aurora had made her objections clear, and now it was my turn to take over.
Stopping only a couple of feet away from where Marcelle was tied to the chair, I slid my hands in my pockets as I broke the news to her.
“You need to shut up and listen, and I mean really listen. Unfortunately for you, the two men who you hired to rob Zoya talked too much. Instead of just going about their business once they realized that there was no money in the house, they’d chosen to force the issue, exposing a lot more than what they should have. ”
“Amateurs, really,” Aurora remarked disappointedly.
“So, not only did they mention the money by a specific amount, but they also mentioned how Zoya should have gotten her money that night, something that only people participating in the auction would know,” I went on.
“If that wasn’t stupid enough, Zoya heard one of the men on the phone with you when he thought that she was still unconscious, further proof of how you were involved. ”
“But-”
“Shut the fuck up,” Aurora snapped, making Marcelle’s head rear back and making me grin. “Didn’t he instruct you to fucking listen?”
After a second, I said, “Plus, since Zoya had entered the auction under the name Montana Hughes, there was only one way that these men could have possibly made the connection, Ms. Jensen. Now, since I didn’t tell anyone, and since Zoya didn’t tell anyone, that leaves only one other person.
Again, as my sister-in-law pointed out, it wasn’t all that hard to connect the dots. ”
“No, no, no...” she chanted, a sob on her lips. “It...it’s not like that...I...I didn’t do this. I swear, it wasn’t me. They...someone else must have told...told them. Someone else from the...from the auction. Maybe they noticed her...her from the diner or something.”
If it weren’t for Zoya, I’d be happy as hell that she was denying her involvement in the shooting because Aurora really was a craftsman at her job, and this woman really was too stupid to live.