“Has Taylor been able to identify who attacked him?” was Lara’s first question when she, Malachi, and Thom joined the rest of the Kingston family in the penthouse apartment Darius owned in London.
She’d introduced Thom to all of them when they arrived. But if her brother was intimidated by all the alpha males in the room, and the three beautiful Kingston wives, he didn’t show it.
Sinclair nodded. “He gave a description to the police. On that basis, Casper has been able to single out several valuable security recordings from last night and this morning. One of them was of the two men as they left the club last night. From those images, Casper has been able to identify the man with Taylor as Tony Mancini, a low-level employee of Rome’s Italian Mafia.”
“Taylor did something to piss off the Mafia?” Malachi frowned.
“Transpires Taylor’s second victim, Sienna Russo, has an older brother, Riccardo, who happens to be an important member of the hierarchy of Rome’s Mafia,” Sinclair explained ruefully. “The sister was initially too ashamed to tell her brother what Taylor had done to her, but it seems Riccardo must have picked up on something being wrong, because he arrived for an unexpected visit a few days ago. We believe Sienna must have broken down and told him everything.”
“So, this Riccardo Russo was the person who attacked Taylor?” Thom prompted, obviously as nonplussed by this talk of Italian Mafia as Lara was.
“Eventually,” Sinclair agreed. “Russo obviously discovered Taylor had employed a security company to guard him, so instead of just going to Taylor’s house, removing all the damning evidence, and then beating the hell out of him—as I’m sure he must have wanted to do—Russo behaved more cautiously and had one of his men follow Taylor to the nightclub last night.”
“The same man he took home with him?” Lara realized.
Sinclair nodded. “We believe his instructions were to entrap Taylor into doing exactly that. We’re pretty sure this man then unlocked the door at the back of the house before he told Taylor he was leaving. Three hours later, a security camera picked up on a car driving slowly along and then parking on the next street over from Taylor’s house. Four men got out, one of them Riccardo Russo, before they made their way through to the alley at the back of Taylor’s house and let themselves in. Russo is clearly carrying a baseball bat in his hand.”
“It’s like something out of a gangster movie.” Thom had become paler and paler as the events of the previous night unfolded.
“As the security company hired to protect Taylor, the police allowed myself and Sinclair to enter the house earlier today,” Casper continued. “Russo must have beaten the code for the safe out of Taylor, because it’s been completely emptied. Taylor’s cell phone and laptop were also both smashed to oblivion, probably by the same baseball bat used on Taylor, and the hard drives removed.”
“Have you told all that you know to the police?” Thom asked.
“There’s a slight problem with us handing over some of that information,” Casper admitted with a grimace. “Not everything I do is legal,” he explained to Thom. “Riccardo Russo left the country early this morning, taking his sister with him. Obviously, the police, if they manage to identify him as the attacker as we did, will be able to talk to him in Rome and extradite him if they get that far. But I somehow don’t see the Rome Mafia allowing anyone to arrest one of their own.”
“So, the original recording and copies have all been destroyed, but Taylor gets away with his crimes, and he can do it all over again to other unsuspecting victims?” Thom sounded outraged.
“It might look that way—”
“It looks exactly that way,” Thom snapped at Casper. “Russo should have fucking killed him when he had the chance, not just beaten him unconscious!”
“Thom!” Lara had never heard her brother sound so vehement.
“The man is a monster, Lara,” he reminded forcefully. “Dammit, I want to see him. Want to look him in the eye and tell him what a fucking monster he is and that he won’t get away with this or be allowed to hurt anyone else—”
“I don’t think it was Russo’s intention to kill Taylor last night, only to beat him enough for it to hurt badly,” Casper cut in softly. “But only Russo and his sister have returned to Rome, Thom. He left Tony Mancini and several of his other men here in London.”
Thom blinked. “What does that mean?”
Casper smiled. “That there will be plenty of evidence available of Russo and his sister’s return to Rome today. That evidence will give them both deniability when Tony finishes the job and Taylor is found dead a few weeks or days from now. No one messes with the family of the Mafia and lives. In other words, Taylor is a dead man…well, obviously not walking.” He shrugged.
“Oh.” Thom sat down heavily.
“It’s over, Thom,” Casper assured. “No one is going to hurt you again.”
* * *
“I asked your father’s permission to marry you after lunch today,” Malachi said softly.
“What?” Lara sounded incredulous.
The two of them had come back to Lara’s apartment once they parted from Malachi’s brothers and Thom, all of them accepting that it was now a question of waiting for the police to catch up and press charges against Gerard Taylor. With the evidence Casper had ensured would be easily and quickly found, that was sure to happen before the day was through.
Which meant that Malachi and Lara could now concentrate on their own relationship.
Malachi looked down warily to where Lara sat beside him with her head resting on his chest and her arm about his waist as they sat together on the sofa in her sitting room. “I thought it was polite to ask the father’s permission when you want to marry someone?”
“It is. I’m just surprised— What did my father say?” she prompted curiously.
“He said that if I’m who you want, then he and your mother will be happy for you.” He frowned. “Did he mean that to be a yes?”
Lara chuckled. “You really are the best, Malachi.”
“Was that a yes?”
Lara sat up and turned to look at him as she took his hands in hers. “You are the most persistent, but also the best man I have ever known, and as I love my father and brother unconditionally, that is the highest compliment I could ever give you. You’re a little too rich for me to ever be completely comfortable with that wealth—”
“Too rich?” he echoed.
“I looked you and your family up online after we first met,” she admitted. “The millions you have in the bank is the only thing that might cause me to hesitate in accepting the proposal you haven’t actually made yet.”
“My wealth is much more than Casper has ever allowed to become public,” he admitted with a wince. “But I could give it all away if that would make you feel more inclined to marry me?”
Lara stared at him for several long and searching minutes. “You really would do that, wouldn’t you,” she realized incredulously.
“Of course.”
She gave a shake of her head. “I would never ask you to do such a thing. Besides, I could never keep you in the life to which you’re obviously accustomed on my nurse’s wages,” she teased.
“I don’t need much,” he assured. “I already own all the cars and property I want anyway, and my part ownership of Kingston Security pays me very well.”
“How many cars and how much property…?”
“I have about thirty classic cars stored in a building on the Kingston Estate, along with half a dozen motorcycles, including the Harley. I own a penthouse apartment in London, a villa in the South of France, another apartment in New York, a jet—”
“Stop!” Lara protested weakly. “That’s just— I can’t even imagine having that sort of wealth.”
“Does that mean you won’t marry me?”
“Well, of course I’m going to marry you.” She chuckled. “I’m just letting you know that I’m a little uncomfortable about you being so rich, you can apparently buy whatever you want.”
“What’s mine becomes yours after we’re married.”
Lara grimaced. “Strange as this might sound, that isn’t a selling point in your favor.”
She really was completely unlike any other woman Malachi had ever known. Most of the other women he’d dated in the past had been very interested in his money. “How about I put half my money into a separate account, and you can decide what charities to give it away to?”
Her eyes were wide. “You would do that?”
“In an instant. You’re the only thing that means anything to me, Lara,” he told her intensely. “With you, I have everything. Without you, I have nothing.”
Tears now glistened in those beautiful blue eyes. “I love you very much, Malachi Kingston.”
“Enough to marry me, Lara Myers?”
She threw herself into his arms. “Yes. A hundred times yes!”
Malachi kissed her, knowing he would cherish and love this woman, the woman who had just agreed to become his wife, for the rest of his life.