Chapter 18

Emma

Nick was down for his afternoon nap when an idea hit me. Mail. Uncle Charles’s mail. I haven’t even checked it since we got back.

It was a long shot, but it was possible that somewhere in there would be a clue as to where my uncle was. I grabbed my keycard and stepped into a pair of sneakers, then hurried out to the elevator.

The rain had finally stopped, and the lobby was filled with sunlight. A few people crossed toward the doors or the main elevators as I entered, a concierge I didn’t recognize sat behind the counter. I walked over to her, my heart pounding a little.

The small, dark-skinned woman looked up at me and put on her best customer-service smile. “May I help you, ma’am?” she asked. Her voice had a hint of an accent, West African maybe.

“I’m Emma, Charles Graves’s niece. I’m staying here while he’s away. I forgot to check his mail. Has he gotten any deliveries?”

She looked thoughtful. “Let me check.”

She disappeared into the back and reemerged after a few minutes with a fat stack of mail and two packages. “We’ve been holding some of these for two weeks now. Do you know when he’s going to come back?”

“He’s currently in the hospital in a coma,” I said almost automatically. “So we’ll have to see.”

Her face fell in sympathy. “Oh. I understand. So you’ll be handling his affairs? I only ask because…” she hesitated. “Well, our paychecks are late.”

Crap. That bastard didn’t even set anything up for his staff before he ran for the hills.“Oh God. I had no idea he didn’t have anything set up with his staff. I’ll go deal with it today.”

She smiled with relief. “Thank you, ma’am.”

The next hour was filled with a flurry of phone calls, there was hotel management, my uncle’s accountant, and his bank to speak to. I got all his employees paid, and then sent messages to everyone in his employ, requesting interviews. His business had been dumped into my hands unexpectedly, and I had a lot more to do with his staff than ask questions for Viktor.

Finally, I was able to sit down and start opening that bundle of mail. I tossed the junk mail aside, sorted out the bills and correspondences, and then opened them one by one.

There were receipts for a large transfer of money to an offshore account in Barbados. My thoughtful frown turned into a scowl at the sight of it.

The bastard had socked away a lot of the money he’d stolen into a private account overseas. Money he’d stolen from me. Could I get it back? Clearly, if Viktor had his way and my uncle died, then everything would probably come to me anyway, unless his will stated otherwise. But despite his betrayal, that still didn’t sit well with me. I wanted my money and my parents’ inheritance, but I wanted it legally and without violence. I started going through the rest, eyes open for any further clues.

His bank and investment statements totaled out to $2.8 billion dollars, minus the roughly six hundred million he’d run off with.

I could definitely find ways to get my hands on that, especially if Viktor would help. As for the missing money, we would have to see. I already had the chance to get the majority of my own back, and meanwhile, I had already started taking over one of his businesses just to get his poor employees paid.

There was nothing else of interest in the bills and business letters pile. I looked at the small stack of private correspondences, then at the packages.

I grabbed one of the packages and tore it open, it was filled with medications. I frowned and went through them. Heart medications, diuretics, blood pressure pills, medication for high cholesterol. I was at med school before I went into psychiatry as my specialty, so I knew what this all meant. He was on quite high doses, and given the combination it looked like he was in end stage heart failure.

How was he going to get his meds while hiding overseas? He could try getting them black-market, but the risk of receiving fake or contaminated medication was high. My uncle was paranoid, especially about his health. That meant he would try to get them from a legitimate overseas source.

But how?

An idea surfaced in my head, and I smiled. The new doctor would probably call his old doctors looking to verify his prescriptions and diagnoses. With the amount of medical fraud circulating in the world, they wouldn’t just rely on a copy of his medical records.

We needed to question his doctors. They would at least be able to tell us what country his new doctor was in.

I smiled. Finally, a solid lead.

I opened the other package, there were more medications. Everything from Viagra to hemorrhoid cream. I shuddered a little, but they were all prescription too. More things to ask about—though I wondered about the doctor who had prescribed the Viagra, in a man with an underlying heart condition, that could lead to potentially dangerous side effects, though I guess that money talks, and everyone has a price.

I quickly realized that I would have to go through Viktor. Trying to get the information via legal channels might be difficult. As a doctor I could probably try and gain access to my uncle’s medical records, but the risk of being caught and the potential ethical violations made that more of a last resort. I felt bad about the doctors needing to have the details tricked or scared out of them, but we had little choice. This was the first truly solid lead we’d gotten in days.

At least I would have some good news when Viktor came home.

I started opening the correspondences. My heart sank when I saw them. Two of the letters were in Russian, which confused me, because why on earth would my uncle be getting mail in Russian? Viktor could take a look at them later. The third was more interesting, it was a vague letter from a yacht company about how his new yacht would be waiting for him in Barbados. I checked the details on it, and then looked up the company—Caribbean Yachting—online. They looked legitimate and were based in Key West.

Barbados. Could he be holed up there? Certainly, he had to be somewhere in the Caribbean if he had used that yacht to get out of the states. Maybe he was using it to move from place to place. I tried checking the yacht’s details online. He’d named it The Silver Queen—it was huge, powerful, and had room for not only the crew but several guests, along with food, clean water, and fuel stores. He could have stayed aboard it for weeks without landing anywhere, but that was it.

He’s definitely in the Caribbean. And I would be able to give Viktor that information as soon as he returned.

I especially wanted to find out what he made of those two letters in Russian. It couldn’t be a coincidence. There was simply no way at all.

I was cleaning up the mess when I heard the beep of the keycard reader and the door open. Viktor walked in, looking so haggard that it shocked me.

I stood up at once. “Oh God, what happened?”

He sighed, turning to the foyer closet to shed his raincoat, gun holsters and boots. “There was a bombing at my club.”

“A bombing?” Dear God. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I have a couple of injured men, and we have to have the foundations and elevator checked. The club will have to be closed until it’s been cleared, but it could have been much worse.” He finished putting things away, stepped out of his boots, and walked over to the couch, flopping down on it and crossing his legs.

I sat down gingerly. “I’m sorry.”

“How was your day?”

“Well, I set up appointments for all of Uncle Charles’s staff, got his employees paid after spreading the story that he’s comatose in the hospital, and took in his mail and started going through it. And I found some things.”

I went through it all and saw some of the tension and anger drop away bit by bit from his expression, until he was even smiling a little.

“Trace his medications? That’s a great idea. And you managed to track some of his activities to Barbados. Not a bad day’s work at all, Emma.”

“Thank you. But um... that actually isn’t all.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“There were two old-school letters sent to him, in Russian. I hoped maybe you could—”

“Let me see those.” He took up the letters and read through them rapidly. “Hmm.”

“What is it?”

“This handwriting. It’s familiar. It discusses continued compensation, which sounds suspiciously like bribe money.”

“Uncle Charles was being blackmailed by someone?” I asked.

“Yes, it appears so. And they are absolutely determined to keep getting their money no matter where he moves to.”

“I see.” I shook my head. “Every time I turn around it seems like Uncle Charles is into something else. I really didn’t know him at all—for God’s sake, I didn’t even know he knew Russian!”

“The man’s been putting on an act for you since you were a child.”

I nodded slowly, and looked down at the letters in his hand. “Whoever sent these is older,” I said. “They may be computer literate, but it isn’t their preference. Do you know anyone like that?”

He hummed again, eyes thoughtful. “Maybe a few. One of whom is already a suspect in the things going on. I’m going to take these correspondences and compare them against some documents of mine. See if my suspicion is true.”

“What is your suspicion?”

“A former friend of mine. A man named Igor. He is older, and though not exactly a Luddite, he used to send me physical letters all the time. Said he didn’t trust computers so much—too easy to hack.”

“I guess he didn’t figure on his mail being intercepted.” I felt a little too self-satisfied for managing to do so.

He laughed. “No, I don’t imagine he did. And neither did your uncle think of the possibility. Good work, Emma. Have you had anything to eat since breakfast?”

“We had sandwiches before Nick’s nap. I need to get started on dinner soon, though.”

“I’ll order in. You made breakfast.” The twinkle was back in his eyes, and the sight of it relieved me.

“Okay.” One less thing to deal with when I had a million of them.

“How in the world did you convince your uncle’s people to let you handle payroll matters?”

“I’m his next of kin and I told them he was hospitalized. Comatose.”

His eyebrows went up. “Really. Just like that?”

“Nobody questioned me, plus I wasn’t authorizing new payments, only ones that came out of his accounts monthly. His doctor, though, may be a bit trickier. While doctors are allowed to treat family members in an emergency, and I could think up reasons why I would need to know about his medications to avoid the whole confidentiality issue, I’m not sure if I want to draw that kind of attention to myself. Especially if Uncle Charles is involved in something that could impact me and Nick.”

“That’s true,” Viktor muttered as he sent a message on his phone. Always busy—just like me, in a way. He looked up from his phone, “I know how to handle it.” He appeared so untroubled that I was immediately curious.

“How?”

“I have an associate who is a police officer. If he shows up with us with an official-looking court order in his hands, we can get the information that we need, no need to directly involve you at all.”

He’s friends with a cop?Then I realized, he was friends with a dirty cop. Everyone knew that the LAPD had corruption problems. Not as bad as up north in Oakland, but still bad. But this was the first time I’d ever thought of police corruption as a benefit—in this situation, anyway.

“What about his money?”

He looked back at me sharply. “What about it?”

I showed him the bank statements. “Between this and what’s on his computer, we could very well find a way to get into his accounts. He’s only transferred a small fraction of his accounts to Barbados so far. We could get the rest. We could even get the rest of it back, if we’re clever enough and you have the right resources.”

He was staring at me in astonishment. A smile played on his lips. “So you aim to pull his fortune out from under him?”

I hesitated. Was this me? Was this what I became when someone wronged me?

But then my heart hardened. That’s my goddamned money anyway. And anything above that is asshole tax.

I nodded. “If anything in the world is going to draw Uncle Charles back to the States, it will be losing access to his funds.”

“And if he goes after you legally?”

I scoffed at the irony of that. “If he goes after me legally, he’ll have a lot of explaining to do when I prove he stole my inheritance. I don’t even think he’ll bother with that.”

“Take his money. Force his return. Anything else?”

I showed him the boxes of pills and creams. “Prescriptions. Several of them are crucial to his continued good health. He has a heart condition apparently. He never told me, of course.” Every day that passed I seemed to learn another secret he had kept from me.

I wanted to punish him for it. I wanted to make my uncle know what it felt like to suddenly, without any warning, lose everything.

“So. Trace his medications, find a way to stop them if we can.”

“Or find out where and when he picks them up and be there. My uncle is a paranoid bastard, and he’s not going to let anyone else pick up his meds. There’s only a window of a week to pick up most prescriptions in pharmacies, and nowhere in the Caribbean is likely to have home delivery available. Especially not to a yacht.”

He burst out laughing, shocking me—and shocked me even more when he started clapping his hands. “Hah! My God, you’re brilliant at this.”

I blushed again. “I mean, it’s not that difficult to see where his points of contact—”

He put a finger over my lips. “Take the compliment, Emma. Most people would not even think of such things.”

He was so close to me right now that I could feel his warm breath on my face. I was flustered. He had to be flattering me. There was no way he could be that impressed with a simple deduction.

Was there?

He took his finger from my lips and I blinked up at him, stunned into silence not just by his reaction but by his nearness. He smiled down at me—and then leaned down and kissed me.

It was light, sweet, almost tender—but intensified suddenly as I returned it. My whole body seemed to float off the ground as his arms slipped around me. My hands were on his chest, and I could feel his heartbeat pick up as he stole my breath.

“Are you guys kissing?”

Oops, Nick was up.

Viktor didn’t show even a bit of embarrassment, breaking the kiss gently and then looking over with a smile as I struggled to catch my breath. “Yes, yes we are. Does it bother you?”

Nick screwed up his face thoughtfully. “I guess it’s okay if you’re not mean. But if you’re mean, you’re gonna have to go away.”

The irony of the situation made me a little dizzy—and so did that kiss. I looked between them, still trying to figure out what to say.

“I promise I won’t be mean,” Viktor said with amused warmth.

Nick smiled. “Okay then.” He peered at the stack of paperwork and the two packages. “What are all those bottles?”

Viktor and I reluctantly stepped away from each other. “Uncle Charles’s medicine for his heart. They got sent here.”

Nick’s smile faded a little. “Is that why he’s turned so mean? Cause his heart is sick?”

“No, he just decided to be mean. The heart stuff is just illnesses.”

“How’s he gonna get better without them, though?”

I hope the bastard never gets better. I hope this heart thing kills him. But there was no way I could say that to Nick.

“He’s rich. He can pick more up wherever he is.” Until we found a way to interfere with it, of course. Or take advantage. Either way, I was not exactly feeling bad that he would spend the next week or so feeling lousy until he could clear things up.

“Okay. I wish the pills would stop what’s making him mean too.” He looked a little regretful. I could understand why. He was young and innocent. I wasn’t, and even I had a part of me that wished that this was temporary, not really my uncle’s actions—that one day soon he’d turn back into the man I thought I knew.

But I was an adult and had to stick to reality.

“They don’t have pills for that,” I said almost apologetically. “I wish they did too.”

Viktor smirked. “Well, they do, but they’re large, made of lead, and you don’t exactly swallow them—”

I shot Viktor a look and he went quiet, chuckling.I knew as well as he did that there was no treatment for the kind of heartless greed that had prompted my uncle’s actions. No cure for his cowardice or his selfishness. He had chosen this, and he would keep choosing it, until he was captive or dead.

And Viktor, as I’d suspected, genuinely wanted my uncle dead. Understandably, if he’d told me the truth about his brother.

I didn’t have a problem with that anymore. I probably should have, even as badly as Uncle Charles had wronged me, but I just couldn’t manage it. He’d personally screwed over me and my sister financially to the tune of billions—and that had only been the beginning. My morals were strong, my conscience bothered me, and I still had trouble admitting my true feelings, but—he could rot.

Still a little wobbly from the kiss, I hugged Nick and then went to lie down. He hopped up on my one side, and nestled against me. Viktor sat on my other side, and trailed his fingers along my shoulders as he slipped an arm around me.

It felt good. It made me feel strangely complete. But even as we talked over what to order for dinner, and even as the warmth of both my child and the man who was an inch from becoming my lover seeped into me from either side, I knew. Today I had truly declared war on my uncle. Law be damned—I was taking back my money, and I was going to force him to face me, and Viktor, and answer for what he’d done.