GEDEON prepared for the meeting with Elijah Lospostos and Fyodor Amurov by packing up everything in their hotel rooms and checking out. He wanted to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. They had airline tickets, but that wasn’t the only way they could escape. In fact, he wasn’t counting on that being their way out of San Antonio.
He didn’t trust easily. Fyodor and Elijah clearly had a long-standing relationship. Lola Morales was dead. She was the daughter of Pedro Morales, a lieutenant for Elijah whose family had worked for Elijah’s family for generations. No doubt he was demanding answers and wanted revenge.
Alan Cano had also died, a young man from one of Elijah Lospostos’s long-standing families that had also served for generations. His people would be seeking explanations and demanding Elijah go after whoever had killed their child.
Caleb Basco was also dead. His family knew he had had a hot temper. They also knew he had believed no one would ever notice when he drew a knife in a fight, yet he had been seen by two police officers as he pulled a knife on a witness who was telling the policemen that the other vehicle was at fault, not Caleb’s, but for some reason, Caleb had attacked him. The witness had been faster and had killed Caleb with Caleb’s own knife.
Georgi Chaban was slain in his own home, stabbed several times. There was evidence that he had been involved in a kidnapping. There had been a child living in the bedroom where he had been killed. Evidence had been left that he had been holding the child prisoner there. His parents didn’t believe it and wanted Elijah to investigate and exact retribution.
Four members of Elijah Lospostos’s extended family were killed without his prior knowledge. At the very least, even if he accepted that they were all guilty and deserved death, he wouldn’t be happy that he hadn’t been informed of what was going on in his own lair. He was a powerful man and would make a dangerous enemy.
Gedeon had run up against many of Lospostos’s kind in his career. One had to walk a very fine line between fear and respect. He could never back down, and he could never fully trust anyone. Now he had Meiling to protect.
They approached the bakery, where they would meet with Lospostos as promised. It was dark and after hours, so the bakery was closed. Gedeon and Meiling had scouted carefully. Timur, as expected, had his men on rooftops and patrolling the streets in anticipation of the meeting. Gedeon wanted to know the exact position of each of them.
Timur’s man Rodion let them in and indicated the empty tables. “Fyodor and Timur are running a little late but will be here any minute. Make yourselves at home.” He dropped the dark privacy screens in place over the windows, blocking out views of the streets. “Nice job getting that kid back,” he added.
Gedeon was fully aware that Rodion’s gaze continually swept over Meiling. Had he stepped closer to her? Did he sniff the air near her? She did have an unbelievable fragrance to her. Gedeon did his best to clamp down on what he had to consider were jealous traits. He hadn’t known he even had them. He went through women all the time. He made it known he wasn’t looking for a relationship, that there was no hope of one. He rarely saw the same woman twice, even if he had sex more than once in an evening. He didn’t kiss or share intimacies such as breakfast or coffee or “going out.” There were no dates. He was very honest with the women he had sex with. He didn’t do innocents. He was careful to ensure the women knew the rules up front before they had sex with him. The sex was never satisfying, and it was getting less so since he’d met Meiling. He felt as if he’d lost so much more between the two of them, yet he didn’t know how to stop the endless cycle with women that had begun so many years earlier.
Meiling smiled sweetly at Rodion. “Saving the little girl was a joint effort. You and your friends certainly helped us to get her home safely. Seeing her reunited with her family was such a gift. Thank you for that.”
Gedeon forced himself not to step between them when Rodion stepped closer to her, almost close enough to brush his body against hers.
“Are you hungry? Evangeline left some fruit and baked goods in the kitchen just in case,” the shifter said. “I could get you something to eat.”
“That’s so thoughtful,” Meiling said. She turned toward Gedeon. “Are you hungry? We didn’t have a chance to eat dinner.”
He took the opportunity to be alone with her. It might be the only one they had before the others began to arrive. “Did she leave any of her ham and cheese pastries?”
“I think she did,” Rodion said. He raised an eyebrow at Meiling. “The same for you?”
She shook her head. “I was considering one of her fruit bowls. She has the best fruit and berry bowls.”
“I’ll be right back. Just give me a minute. I have to heat up the ham and cheese pastry in the kitchen oven.”
“Would you mind grabbing me a bottle of water out of the cooler?” Meiling asked.
“No problem.” He waved them toward the tables again and disappeared behind the double doors leading to the kitchen.
Gedeon came up behind Meiling. Close. Too close. Telling himself he had to in order to ensure they weren’t overheard, not because he wanted to inhale her fragrance and fantasize that she was his. Maybe it wasn’t a fantasy if he thought of her that way.
“I never should have agreed to this meet,” Gedeon whispered, his lips against Meiling’s ear. “This could be a setup. We’re on their home turf. Since they’ve done their massive remodeling job, I don’t know the layout of the building. I’m not familiar with attics or whether they have hidden passages. We have to assume they do.”
“There’s a vent in the ladies’ room. I can slip inside the vent and take a look around that way, map out as much as I can and get it to you.”
Gedeon thought it over. No doubt they were being watched through the cameras right then. If she disappeared for any length of time, Timur would send someone looking. He shook his head. “We can’t trust any of them, no matter that they helped us. Lospostos is going to be pissed that he didn’t know what was going on. Amurov kept his word to us. He doesn’t want bad blood between him and Lospostos, so he could very well have made another deal to sell us down the river.”
“I’m not all that trusting, Gedeon,” she said softly.
He knew she wasn’t. He didn’t fully have her trust. He sometimes thought they were close, but then she pulled away from him. She became careful around him, would distance herself from him. He detested those times and would patiently build their relationship back up again, telling himself he couldn’t blame her. He hadn’t done anything—like save her life over and over—to show he had earned her trust.
Rodion returned from the kitchen, placing the ham and cheese pastry on the table in front of Gedeon and a fruit bowl and a water bottle in front of Meiling. Gedeon tried not to notice that the shifter crowded close to Meiling, his body brushing up against hers. She wasn’t sitting down, but she still had to look up at him. She looked very small and delicate beside the man. Gedeon cursed silently, despising his reaction. He had to stay on his guard, not be worried about whether the shifter was flirting with Meiling.
Men began to file into the bakery from the kitchen, having come in from the alleyway entrance. Timur had brought more security than Gedeon had anticipated, and it made him uncomfortable. He signaled to Meiling not to slip into the chair Rodion had pulled out for her.
The table the shifter had placed the food on was in the exact center of the room. They would be surrounded. Meiling caught the consequence of that immediately. The amount of security guards filing in and spreading out around the room already seemed too significant a force and Lospostos hadn’t even entered the bakery yet.
Timur stepped in from behind the kitchen doors, Fyodor right behind him. They came around the counter, Timur leading his brother straight to the table where Gedeon and Meiling were standing. At the same time, the front door opened and Kyanite strode in. Behind him came men Gedeon recognized as Joaquin and Tomas Estrada, personal bodyguards to Elijah Lospostos. Elijah was right between them, his gaze riveted to Gedeon’s face, and he didn’t look happy. Behind him, at least ten more shifters followed.
Gedeon instantly signaled to Meiling to leave. She was very slight, and although she was the only woman in the building, she had a way of disappearing into the shadows. Most of the shifters were big men in terms of density. They took up space in the bakery. If Elijah wanted to bluster at him, that would only draw attention his way. He was fine with that. It would give Meiling the opportunity to slip out of the bakery and set up with a sniper rifle across the street to cover him. She didn’t miss if she was needed—and she would be needed.
Elijah was about halfway across the room to him when there was a disturbance at the front door. Gedeon spun toward the sound and saw a young shifter clutching at Meiling’s diminutive form, holding a gun to her temple.
Gedeon exploded into action, using gifts he rarely showed other shifters. He launched himself at Elijah with blinding speed, using Timur’s taller form to go over the top of Joaquin and Elijah. He landed behind the notorious head of the crime family and had a gun to his temple.
“I’ll fucking end him right now if you don’t drop your gun now.”
There was instant silence. Fyodor cleared his throat. “Gedeon . . .” he began cautiously.
“Don’t talk to me. You know me. I’ll kill Elijah, Timur next and then you if that asshole doesn’t drop his weapon now. You fucking betrayed us, Fyodor. I don’t take that lightly.”
“This is bullshit,” Meiling said. There was a flurry of movement, and the young shifter was on the floor and Meiling had the gun in his mouth.
“Wait,” Elijah said. “Don’t kill him. He’s a kid. He’s just training. Seriously, don’t kill him.”
“Get moving to the door, Elijah. Meiling, back out of here. I’m coming to you.” Gedeon’s cold blue eyes met Fyodor’s. He wanted him to see he meant what he said. Fyodor would be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his days. Elijah and Timur too. They’d come after him. So many others had. He was still alive—they weren’t.
“Gedeon, this wasn’t a trap,” Fyodor said. “I can see that it would look that way. We brought the men who helped you to show Elijah you weren’t in this alone. That’s part of the reason there are so many here tonight. It wasn’t for security reasons.”
“Yurik is a cub, still learning the ropes,” Elijah added his voice. “I don’t betray my friends. Fyodor told me there was a child involved and they couldn’t give me a heads-up, and I believe him.” He moved toward the door with Gedeon, waving Joaquin and Tomas back. “Was I pissed that I wasn’t in the know? Hell yes, but I understood.”
Gedeon continued to make his way through the crowd of shifters. They reluctantly parted for him. Meiling crouched in the doorway, eyes continually moving, scanning the crowd of shifters.
“You can hear lies, Gedeon,” Timur snapped. “You’re starting a war.”
“You fucking started a war. I kept my word. I always keep my word and you counted on that.”
“Hear us out,” Elijah said. “You can’t think I came here to kill you and your partner for rescuing a kidnapped child. A favor, Gedeon. I offer you a favor for staying and just talking.”
“A favor from me as well,” Fyodor offered. “You deal in favors, Gedeon.”
“And me,” Timur added. “We don’t go back on our word.”
Gedeon went still inside. His eyes met Meiling’s. What these men were offering was huge. Huge. They were some of the biggest names in the business and they’d made the offer in front of their men. If they lied, they would never save face.
Meiling’s nod was imperceptible. Very slowly Gedeon lowered the gun and made a show of indicating to Meiling to do the same. She pulled the barrel from the kid’s mouth and stepped back to give him room to get up.
“I don’t like anyone putting their hands on me without permission,” she said in a low tone. They were all shifters and all of them could hear her, which was her intention. She smiled sweetly at the kid and waited by the open door for Gedeon to give her an indication of what he wanted her to do next.
Gedeon released Elijah from his grip. He was abnormally strong, even for a shifter, and he knew the moment he was out of their sight, Elijah, Fyodor and Timur would be discussing how he had managed to get over the tops of Joaquin and Elijah and manhandle the crime lord so easily. He hoped they would be so intrigued by his abilities they wouldn’t wonder how a woman as small as Meiling was able to throw a grown male shifter to the floor and take his weapon away from him. He didn’t want them thinking too much about her at all.
Fyodor indicated a table with six chairs. “Gedeon, please come to the table and allow me to explain.”
Timur shifted his gaze to Meiling, who watched the young shifter, Yurik, slowly climb to his feet. Yurik glanced warily at her and then at Elijah as he worked his jaw back and forth.
“Join us, Meiling.” Timur issued the invitation, completely ignoring the young shifter.
She looked to Gedeon. If both sat at the table, it would be much more difficult to fight their way out. He doubted they would have to. He gave her the signal to come join them. She flashed Timur a heart-stopping smile.
“Thank you, I think I will. It’s getting rather chilly standing here in the doorway. Or it could be the three unmarked cop cars patrolling up and down the street pretending they’re not really cop cars and not really interested in anything going on here.”
Elijah sighed. “Seriously, Fyodor? Couldn’t you have paid off that cop who’s always after your wife so we don’t get raided every time we have a late-night meeting?”
Fyodor groaned. “Don’t even joke about him. I keep thinking he’s going to go away, but he’s very persistent, even after all this time. I think he hopes someone will kill me so he can console my widow. I made Timur promise me that if I do get murdered, he kills the cop first thing. That sanctimonious son of a bitch does not get my wife.”
Gedeon waited until Meiling was beside him. He loved that she came to him rather than to the other side of the table. He seated her first and then waited until Fyodor and Elijah pulled back their chairs before seating himself beside her.
“Thank you for not killing young Yurik,” Elijah said to Meiling. “He’s a good kid and he’ll be a good bodyguard when he stops trying to show off and allows someone to actually instruct him.”
“Send him to Borneo with Drake’s men,” Timur suggested. “We had to put up with Jeremiah for far too long before he started exhibiting any kind of sense.”
“Hey,” said the young man with blond hair who was part of Timur’s team guarding Evangeline. He grinned good-naturedly, as did the men around him.
“He still hasn’t learned to keep his mouth shut,” Fyodor pointed out.
“I don’t think that’s going to happen with the way the women coddle him,” Timur pretended to grouse.
Gedeon wasn’t a man to relax and trust because those around him were acting like they were all friends. He could appear that way to others and normally would. He did this time, but catching Meiling’s eyes and communicating silently, needing her to understand he wanted her on guard. She appeared to be genuinely entertained by the banter going back and forth by the men at the table. Observing her closer, he realized that as he was doing, she was assessing the best way for the two of them to fight their way free should they need to. He looked tough and gave nothing away. She looked sweet, open and friendly. That was one of her many gifts.
“I see why you brought so many of your men with you tonight, Fyodor,” Elijah interjected, sitting back as he indicated the shifters, most of whom had settled around the tables, while a few were still trying to appear casual draped against walls. Yurik had been led to the counter by two others. A first-aid kit sat beside him while he was examined for injuries other than where the thin trickle of blood came from his mouth and down his chin.
Gedeon raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t getting why there were so many shifters. He looked to Fyodor for an explanation.
“Meiling, of course,” Fyodor replied, his tone calm. Very casual, as if they were discussing the weather.
Meiling’s head jerked up and her sweet expression disappeared, her dark gaze flicking around the table at the men sitting with her and then around the room at all the shifters between her and the door. Gedeon could almost read her mind. She instantly went from being his partner to being that wary, on-the-verge-of-flight woman he had spent a great deal of time coaxing to work with him.
Gedeon allowed one hand to slide under the table in order to curve his palm around the top of her thigh. He didn’t look at her. “I’m not certain what you mean by that, Fyodor. There’s no ‘of course’ that I’m aware of.”
“She’s leopard and she’s unattached. We’re fairly desperate for female leopards here. Most of the shifters in this room have been all over the world looking for their mate and haven’t found her yet. It’s possible Meiling’s leopard is in her first cycle and would respond to one of the leopards who also has been without a mate. Or her female would recognize one of the male leopards and rise enough to allow a claiming.”
“You didn’t think to ask her if she was willing to have these males check her out? That maybe it would make her feel uncomfortable to know you were setting her up without even consulting her?” Gedeon asked. He kept his tone reasonable. Mild. His fingers dug into Meiling’s thigh, conveying his outrage on her behalf, but no other body part gave away the tension in him.
“Well, if it’s any consolation, Meiling,” Elijah said, leaning toward her, “my good friend Fyodor didn’t mention that you were unclaimed. Notice I didn’t bring a host of shifters looking for a mate. I just brought a small crew, several of whom are being trained. You see how well that worked out. Unless you think you’re compatible with Yurik. If he got bossy with you, you could wipe up the floor with him.”
“Tried to get bossy with her,” Timur corrected.
Fyodor frowned, his gaze switching from Gedeon to Meiling and then back. “I thought you would consider it an honor, Meiling.”
Gedeon gave a grunt of annoyance.
Fyodor shook his head. “That wasn’t the right way to put it. It was an honor for my men to be introduced to you. I thought you would be looking for your mate. Don’t women want to find their mates?” There was genuine curiosity in his voice.
“Is that what you found with Evangeline? Was she looking to find a mate for her leopard?” Meiling asked.
Timur flashed a quick grin at his brother. “If Evangeline hadn’t been so sweet, Meiling, I think my brother would still be standing out in the back alley with his hat in his hand and that silly-hopeful-desperate-pleading look on his face.”
“I have a gun, Timur,” Fyodor warned. “I’m not opposed to using it on you. Someplace your wife won’t get too upset with me shooting you.”
Gedeon’s eyebrow shot up. “She would be okay with you shooting him?”
“Ashe wants to shoot him half the time,” Fyodor explained. “Don’t you find him annoying?”
Meiling’s laughter slipped out. “I think you’re all a little bit crazy.”
Heads turned toward that sound. Conversation ceased again. Meiling didn’t seem to notice. Gedeon despised all those hungry male eyes on her. He rubbed at her thigh, needing the connection with her more than she needed it with him.
The men at the table looked at one another. It was Elijah who answered for all of them. “That’s true. We probably are a little insane. But that’s because we married women who won’t do a damn thing we tell them. Before Siena, I was perfectly sane. Unhappy, but perfectly sane. She does things without consulting me first. Just does whatever the hell she feels like and damn the consequences. Think about that, Gedeon, before you ever decide happiness wins out over sanity.”
“What did she do without consulting you?” Meiling asked.
Her feathery lashes covered her dark eyes and then were back up, making Gedeon’s heart ache. He could fixate on her lashes if he let himself, which was odd. He never missed little details, but he didn’t let them occupy his mind to the point that he was consumed recording that image in his brain perfectly—especially right in the middle of a room filled with potential enemies.
The other thing he found very odd was Slayer, his leopard. In a roomful of shifters, Slayer would normally be insane, fighting for supremacy, wanting to tear everyone apart, especially after Meiling had been threatened. Not now. His violent, dangerous, scary leopard was rolling around as if he were a kitten at playtime, nearly purring. It made no sense. He made no sense, and his leopard made no sense.
“Yeah, Elijah, give us one of the many things Siena dared to do without consulting you,” Timur urged. There was laughter in his voice.
Gedeon glanced over at Joaquin and Tomas, the two men who probably knew more about Elijah Lospostos than anyone else. They had known him since childhood and had been his bodyguards for years. Normally, it would be impossible to tell what either man was thinking, but even they had matching ghosts of grins on their faces, even if it was just for a moment.
“She decided to have triplets. That would be three babies, Meiling. To make matters worse, all girls. Daughters. Can you imagine me with daughters? I’ve doubled up on the guards for now, but those girls become teens and I’ll have to quadruple the bodyguards. It’s a fucking nightmare. Everyone thinks it’s funny, but my little girls have a way of twisting me right around their little pinkie fingers. I give them my sternest stare and they tear up and it’s game over. One starts to cry and all three of them cry.”
Meiling pushed at her hair and regarded Elijah with her dark, velvet-soft eyes. “She decided on having triplets all on her own, did she? And she gave you daughters on top of that very bad decision.”
Elijah frowned. “I wouldn’t call it a bad decision. I never said it was a bad decision, only that it makes me a little insane. Siena scares me. The pregnancy scared me. Carrying that many was tough on her body, and she wouldn’t even hear of doing anything but carrying them. I tried to tell her that she was important, but that woman can be so damn stubborn. Then girls. What the fuck do I know about girls?”
“I imagine you learn fairly quickly if you want to,” Meiling said, giving no quarter. Her voice was very low. Her palm dropped over Gedeon’s and then the pad of one finger traced his knuckles, the only indication that she found the conversation difficult.
“It isn’t a matter of reading a few books,” Elijah objected. “Not if you want to be a good father. I was born into a certain position. In the business I’m in, women are used as commodities. Bargaining power.”
“For what purpose?”
Elijah shrugged. “To acquire more territory. Power. Secure a truce. Any number of reasons. I know it’s expected. I already have other families reaching out to me in the hopes of securing an alliance.”
Meiling’s hand tightened on Gedeon’s beneath the table, pressing his palm deeper into her thigh. He felt her shock. She wasn’t the only one. Fyodor and Timur stared at him, just as shocked as Meiling that a man they called friend would consider such a thing.
“They’re just babies,” Timur murmured, scowling.
Elijah nodded. “It’s expected in this business. I’ve had very lucrative offers from families in South America and Europe.”
Meiling shook her head. “How does your wife feel about these offers?”
Elijah shrugged. “I don’t worry her with things like that. She doesn’t need to know crap that will never touch her. No daughters of mine will ever be used for such things. Siena should never have to worry, and neither should the girls. My men know they won’t be used in this manner, and they’ll guard them for me as if they were guarding me.”
Elijah rubbed his forehead and then pushed back the dark hair falling nearly into his eyes. “The biggest problem with having treasures is it makes you vulnerable. An enemy manages to get his hands on them—”
“You call us,” Gedeon interrupted. “It’s what we do.”
Elijah smiled. “I guess it is. And you’re damned fast. Timur said you were ready to go in two hours.”
“Just under two hours,” Timur corrected.
Elijah shook his head. “I detest that those guilty were from my lair and specifically from within my organization. Not the four of them. Their parents. They worked outside the organization. I didn’t recommend Georgi Chaban or, for that matter, Lola Morales, to anyone. If I don’t know them personally or feel they do a good job, I would never vouch for them. Georgi quit every job he’s ever had since he graduated from college. His parents paid for his education and then pulled strings to get him jobs, but he never worked for more than a few weeks before he quit, disgracing his parents. They pay his lease.”
“It must be difficult being the head of a massive organization and trying to know everyone in it so this type of thing doesn’t happen,” Meiling said.
“There’s a hierarchy in place, but I like to know most of those in my employ,” Elijah said. “At least the key people. As I said, these four were not employed by me and never were.”
Meiling pushed at loose strands of her shiny hair escaping. “We couldn’t take the chance that you were involved. The child’s life was at stake. Everything pointed your way, and we only had a very short window of opportunity to rescue her. Gedeon and I believed they were going to kill her in the end rather than return her. She knew who took her and Lola was too bitter.”
“You were right about that,” Timur said. “Jeremiah managed to retrieve the orders Lola had given to Georgi. He tore them up and tossed them into the garbage cans, remember? You marked the cans, Meiling. The moment the okay was given, he searched the cans and was able to retrieve the scraps. We put the scraps together for evidence. Lola instructed him to take pictures, and as soon as they were sent to her father, he was to kill the girl and dispose of her body.”
There was a small silence. Gedeon gripped Meiling’s thigh with hard fingers. “At least she told him to make certain the photographs got to Lilith’s father before Georgi was to kill her. We might have been too late.”
Meiling shook her head. “We would have saved her. It would have been messier, more traumatic for her, but we would have taken her from him.”
“This was supposed to be a simple case of finding who was stealing money,” Gedeon said. “We weren’t told about Lilith until we arrived late at night and were escorted into a private meeting. We found the room bugged. Our client had been systematically drugged. Then the case took a very sinister turn when we discovered Lilith had been taken and her father had paid the ransom more than once.”
“Atwater must have been certain that I was involved,” Elijah said. “I can’t blame him for that. I would have thought the same thing. Did he suspect Lola?”
“No, but Harold did,” Gedeon said. “Female leopards are just as passionate and capable of fury as males are. She believed Atwater was exclusive with her. She believed they were a mated couple, and he would marry her. He selfishly didn’t disabuse her of that notion, because it suited him to have her at his beck and call, until she caught him with a couple of his other women. The passion she felt for him turned completely to hate. She wanted revenge and she planned it out very carefully.”
Timur looked around the room at the unmated shifters. “We should have talks with our men, Fyodor. You’re head of the lair and they follow your lead.”
“I never led a woman on in my life,” Fyodor declared. “My leopard wouldn’t have allowed it even if I was that kind of man.”
“But the men don’t know that. You never talked about that with them. The only talk you ever had with them was that you would never tolerate the abuse of women in this lair. You never wanted what went on in our home lairs to happen here. What happened to Atwater, or nearly happened to him, is a lesson for all of us,” Timur pushed. “We don’t want any woman to suffer what Lola suffered or to carry out a murderous plot of revenge because we didn’t want to have an uncomfortable talk with our males.”
“It isn’t just the males who should be talked to,” Meiling spoke up. “You’re head of your lair, Fyodor. That means you or Evangeline should speak to every female before there is a chance her leopard goes into heat, so the female knows what to expect and no male has the opportunity to trick her.” She switched her gaze to Elijah.
“Siena is sweet, but getting anything past her is nearly impossible. She has built-in radar for bullshit. And if I opt not to say anything about what is going on, she suddenly asks me. If there were a woman somewhere, she’d know in a heartbeat. I think it would be intuitive with her.”
“She doesn’t even bother to try to hide the way she feels about you. If you betrayed her, how would she react? She’s passionate. Her leopard is passionate, what would happen if she caught you betraying her?” Timur persisted.
Elijah looked as if he paled under his olive skin. “I wouldn’t want to think about that too much. She isn’t the kind to plot out something like Lola did, and she wouldn’t involve her friends in something illegal, but there would be consequences.”
“Ashe would cut off Timur’s balls,” Fyodor announced. There was some satisfaction in his voice when he made the announcement.
Elijah and Timur both nodded in agreement. “No doubt she would,” Timur added, real curiosity in his voice. “What about Evangeline, Fyodor? There isn’t anyone sweeter. As much as I’d like to say I know her, I honestly have no idea how she would react to betrayal of that type.”
Fyodor sighed and shook his head, both hands going up to rake his fingers through his hair in a continual motion, betraying agitation. “It wouldn’t happen. I would never hurt her like that. I just wouldn’t. My leopard would go insane if I didn’t first.”
“Everyone knows that,” Timur persisted, waving his brother’s obvious discomfort away. “This isn’t about your reaction. We’re talking a woman’s reaction to betrayal. What would someone as sweet as Evangeline do if she caught you red-handed going at it with another woman?”
Gedeon thought about the woman he’d met multiple times over the last few years when he’d visited San Antonio. He always made a point of making his presence known to the heads of the crime families in the area if he wasn’t investigating anything to do with them. He’d stumbled across the little bakery before it had become so wildly popular. Evangeline was just getting started. There wasn’t so much space back then—but she’d always been the same welcoming, warm, kind, considerate person. It was impossible not to be drawn to her. He hadn’t known she was leopard when he first met her. He honestly couldn’t imagine Evangeline’s reaction to betrayal. He could imagine his.
Gedeon’s gaze slid to the woman beside him. He would strangle her with his bare hands, but not before he tore apart the man she betrayed him with right in front of her. Could he kill her? To his shock, his heart accelerated, rejecting the idea. Every cell in his body rejected the idea.
Meiling suddenly turned her head, those dark chocolate eyes drifting over him. He swore he felt her touching him, almost like a physical caress. She rubbed her palm over the back of his hand, reminding him that he was still gripping her thigh—hanging on to her—maybe a little too tight. Still, he didn’t let loose, turning his attention back to the conversation about Evangeline.
“Fyodor?” Timur prompted.
Fyodor shook his head. “I have no idea what Evangeline would do. She’s a fierce protector when she feels her family is threatened, and that includes my brother and Ashe. Also my cousins.” He rubbed his chin in the palm of his hand. “Her leopard is a fierce little thing. I don’t know what she would do—anything to protect Evangeline, including killing me.”
He raised his head to look directly at Timur. “You’re right, we need to talk to the men. Being head of a lair sucks. I much prefer to be an enforcer. No talking, just cracking heads.”
Everyone at the table nodded in agreement except for Meiling. She started to laugh again. “Seriously? If you don’t want to crack heads tonight, you might want to break out the decks of playing cards you have stashed somewhere under the tables. I think the cops are about to pay us a visit.”
Annoyance flickered across Fyodor’s face. “I know it’s that damned Brice Addler hoping to catch us at something illegal.”
“One of these days he’s going to set you up,” Timur warned.
“Even if he managed to send me to prison, Evangeline would never desert me,” Fyodor assured them. “If there’s one thing I can count on, it’s that my wife would never leave me while I was in prison. She isn’t that kind of woman.”
“I didn’t mean for prison,” Timur said. “I think eventually he’ll set you up to be killed.”
Gedeon noticed that the moment Timur voiced his very real concerns, the security detail around Fyodor, Kyanite and Rodion alerted instantly. Elijah did as well. Timur was serious, Gedeon decided, and he wanted his brother to be serious, but Fyodor instantly rejected the idea.
“Addler is a straight arrow, Timur. He won’t bend the rules, not even for a man he despises. He’s just too perfect.”
“He’s obsessed with your wife,” Timur snapped, out of patience. This was obviously an argument that had been going on for some time. “I’m your head of security. You should trust my judgment.”
Fyodor sighed. “I do, Timur. It’s just that this cop has a long history with our family, and you have every reason not to trust him.”
“It’s always best to trust your security man,” Elijah counseled as decks of cards appeared on the tables and were dealt out to those supposedly playing.