Chapter 30 - Mikhail
I should have known from the moment my driver couldn’t contact the security guard I left behind at the hotel that something was off. It didn’t matter how late it was, Georgiy wouldn’t have fallen asleep. Not after we were both certain that Rand had run rather than face me.
Fury ripped through me at the state of my suite, with the things I had already unpacked stained with red wine. Laurel’s room had fallen victim to his vengeance too, and to make matters worse, her things had been tossed, some of the clothes shredded before they were doused and scattered.
Of course that asshole was there all along, probably using his local contacts to track me after I gave up waiting for him and left the vineyard.
Laurel could hardly stand, and I got control of my fury to face her calmly and help her sit somewhere that wasn’t covered in broken glass or soaked with wine.
“This is all my fault,” she said, breaking down into quiet tears. She put her face in her hands and refused to look at me until I peeled them away and tipped up her chin.
“No, it’s not,” I told her firmly. If it was anyone’s fault other than Rand’s, it was mine. I should have hunted him down instead of sticking to the social contract of not tearing people apart in front of witnesses.
Laurel was almost as distressed as in the aftermath of the shootout, which I was beginning to think was on the orders of Rand, and not the rogue operation that was bothering my family.
“It is,” she continued, inconsolable, finally pushing herself up from the chair on shaking legs and trying to get past me. “I should leave. He’ll never let me go; he’ll never stop. I can’t let you get hurt because of me.”
I didn’t laugh at the absurd suggestion that she return to LA without me for my safety.
Nothing was funny. Staying with Laurel, not sure what to do to help her calm down when offering a glass of wine was out of the question under the circumstances, I sent the driver to find Georgiy, hoping he was alive.
They both returned a few minutes later, Georgiy rubbing a big bump on the back of his head. “Found him in the stairwell two floors down.”
I nodded and helped lay him out on the bed, grimacing at the severity of the deep laceration showing through his blood-matted hair. “Call an ambulance,” I said to the driver.
Normally I would have sent him to one of the private physicians who worked for my family both in LA and Moscow, doctors who removed bullets and stitched up knife wounds without any pesky questions. But my closest cousins were fifty miles away, and Georgiy was badly injured.
Seeing him in that state, Laurel’s tears flowed harder, and she bit back sobs, trying not to draw attention to herself as she curled up in a ball on the armchair I led her to. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated softly.
Damn it all to hell. This was supposed to help her get over the shock of almost getting shot at her place of work, not make things worse.
If I could have breathed properly with her out of my sight for ten minutes without a guard, I would have put her in her own room, but with it being in worse condition than my suite, I didn’t think it would help.
For now, I filled a shot glass full of vodka from the bar and held it under Georgiy’s nose.
He revived enough to down it, shaking his head as if to toss off the pain. With a low moan, he started to slip back into unconsciousness, but not before he managed a few words.
“Not alone,” he said, his dilated eyes narrowing in anger. “Got the drop on me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “We’re going to get you patched right up and then…” I dropped my voice. “You can help me teach that asshole a lesson.”
It didn’t take long for an ambulance to arrive, and Laurel clung to me as I followed them down with my guard on a stretcher.
She refused to stay upstairs with the other guard, who was equally as deadly as Georgiy, but I made her stay in the lobby while I demanded to see the security footage leading up to the destruction of two suites and the attack on Georgiy.
The night manager was horrified to learn what happened, and brought me back to look at the many screens in the office.
She scrolled back, with long stretches of nothing happening in the hallway outside our rooms, until suddenly the screens went blank.
There was a solid ten minutes or so where nothing appeared, and no matter what she tried, it didn’t look like whatever happened was going to be recoverable.
The woman truly seemed devastated that something like that happened at her upscale establishment, and she apologized to the point she was fighting tears, promising everything under the sun to make it up to us and set things right.
I didn’t want anything to do with the local police since I wasn’t convinced that the missing footage wasn’t an inside job.
It was too convenient. We were getting out of there, and out of Napa Valley.
This attack almost seemed too much for a disgruntled ex, no matter how much of a psychopath he was.
But if it was him or the rogue Collective members had followed me and were trying to confuse me by using his wine bottles, or they were working together, it didn’t matter.
It could have been Mickey Mouse behind the attacks. Laurel wasn’t safe, so we were leaving. Despite it not being dawn yet, I called Lev.
“You do know what time it is?” he asked, still answering on the second ring.
“Well aware.” I filled him in, keeping my eye on Laurel, who had her arms wrapped around herself in a chair in the lobby, under the watchful eye of my pacing driver.
Lev was shocked and as pissed as I was, telling me to head to his house. Almost everything of mine was drenched in wine, and all of Laurel’s things were destroyed, so we left with only the clothes on our backs.
“Are we going home?” she asked, snapping out of her daze as soon as we were out of sight of the resort.
“San Francisco,” I said. “We’re going to stay with Lev and Jenna.”
She shook her head, a pitiful sound escaping her lips. “I don’t want to put a target on their backs.”
How could I tell her she wasn’t responsible and make her believe it without explicitly outlining just how many enemies my family had? Lev and Jenna were used to having a target on their backs, and their place was a fortress, the safest place we could go.
It was still early enough to beat most of the traffic, and after taking a few winding detours and watching for anyone who might be tailing us, we arrived at Lev’s mansion a little less than two hours later.
The sun was peeking over the rooftops and making the fresh morning dew on the carefully manicured gardens glisten, but Laurel was too exhausted to notice any of it.
She’d been too upset to fall asleep on the drive, and every time she started to doze off, she jerked awake with a start, worrying and fretting and apologizing some more.
Jenna greeted us warmly, wrapping Laurel in a hug she gratefully accepted. A guest room was ready and decked out for us, with some replacement clothes from Lev’s and Jenna’s own closets until we could find the time to shop, and the offer of pancakes and eggs if we were hungry.
Laurel turned green at the suggestion. “I can still smell the wine,” she said, holding her stomach. “It’s like it’s trapped in my nostrils.”
That pissed me off too. My girl lived for wine, its flavors, aromas—bouquets or whatever she called it so seriously. If whoever was behind this stole that from her, I’d make sure they suffered.
I sat on the edge of the oversized, claw-foot tub while she filled it with sudsy water and made sure she knew nothing or no one could get past me, even if they made it into Lev’s house.
“You don’t have to stay,” she said weakly, sinking to her chin in the steaming water. “You must want to talk to the police in Napa, or check on your driver, or—”
“The only thing I need to do is sit right here,” I said. “Don’t you dare rush, either. Soak until you’re a raisin if that’s what you want.”
Her weak laughter was a start, but a poor one, and she only stayed in the bath for a few minutes before getting out and walking into the plush robe I held out for her. She collapsed against me, whispering something I couldn’t hear.
“If that’s another apology, I’m going to be pissed,” I said. “Where’s the woman who knows how to fight? Believe me, I know she’s in there.”
Leaning back, she smiled at me a little more heartily, and I swooped her up and carried her to the bed to tuck her under the covers. The smile remained as her eyes drifted shut, her cheek nestled against the pillow, and a beam of sunlight cutting across her face.
As soon as she was fast asleep, I closed the curtains to blot out the sun and looked down at her. My sleeping beauty, exhausted from something that never should have happened. That was on me, and it wouldn’t happen again.
Now it was time to hunt down every last person involved in scaring my wife and go after them before they targeted us again.