“Oh, come now. Last night you told me you never wanted to see him again. He must have made a very strong impression indeed.”
“I am not interested in discussing Seth Mackey. Now or ever.”
“He is using you, too, you know,” Victor said. “Or if he is not, he soon will be, the world being what it is. Does he deserve such stoic loyalty from you just because he is capable of giving you an orgasm?”
He was doing it again; twisting the world around himself like a black hole with his low, insinuating voice. Making her doubt herself. “What you ask is inappropriate,” she said. “This whole conversation is inappropriate.”
Victor's laugh was beautiful, rich and full. It made her tight, nervous voice sounded ineffectual and prissy. It made her feel dull and humorless. A fool for not agreeing with everything he said.
He pointed at the photos. “Look here, my dear.” The faint Russian flavor in his voice intensified into a perceptible accent. “See this? My mother. And this boy here, my little brother, Peter. Nearly forty years ago I ran away from the Soviets. I worked and schemed, made money for the bribes and the papers to bring my mother and brother here. I built this business for them. To do this I made many compromises. I did many, many inappropriate things. One must, because the world is not perfect. One becomes accustomed to it—if one wishes to be a player. And you do wish to be a player, no?”
She gulped. “On my own terms.”
Victor shook his head. “You are not yet in any position to dictate terms, little girl. The first step toward power is to accept reality. Look the truth in the face and you will see your way more clearly.”
She clenched something deep inside herself and resisted the pull of his charisma. “What on earth are you talking about, Mr. Lazar?”
Her voice was clear and sharp. It broke his spell.
He blinked, and an appreciative smile flashed across his face. “Ah. The voice of truth. I talk too much, do I not?”
She wasn't touching that one. Not with a ten-foot pole. She kept her mouth shut and concentrated on inhabiting her world, not his.
He chuckled and placed the picture back on the credenza. “No one has had the nerve to tell me that in years. How refreshing.”
“Mr. Lazar... the letters?” she reminded him. “The ferry will be here soon, and I—”
“You are welcome to stay here tonight, if you wish.”
Her skin crawled at me thought of a whole night at Stone Island with no one but Victor for company. “I wouldn't, ah, want to put your staff to any extra trouble.”
He shrugged. “My staff exists to be troubled.”
Your world, not his, she repeated to herself, with a deep, calming breath. “I would prefer to go home tonight”
He nodded. “Good night, then.”
She was bewildered. “And the dictation?”
He gave her a charming smile. “Another day.”
The man at the marina flashed through her mind. “Oh, yes. Mr. Lazar, I met a man this morning who gave me a message for you.”
His smile hardened. “Yes?”
“He was a well-dressed blond man in his thirties. He wouldn't tell me his name. He was missing a forefinger on his right hand.”
“I know who he was,” Victor said curtly. “The message?”
“He said to tell you that the opening bid had doubled.”
The humor and charm that animated Victor's face was gone. Beneath it was cold, hard steel. “Nothing more?”
She shook her head. “Who was he?” she asked tentatively.
“The less you know, the healthier you will be.” In the fading light, he looked suddenly older. “Do not encourage this man, Raine. Avoid him in every way possible if you should see him again.”
“You don't have to tell me,” she said fervently. “Ah. You have good instincts, then.” He patted her shoulder. “Trust them. With trust, they grow stronger.” He picked up the frog glasses, turning them over in his hands. “Another thing. Take these.”
“Oh, no, please.” She backed away, alarmed. “They're a memento of your niece. I couldn't possibly—”
He pushed the glasses into her hand, closing her fingers around them. “You would be doing me a service. Life marches on, there is no stopping it. It is very important to be willing to let go of the past, no?”
“Ah... yes, I suppose so,” she whispered. She stared down at the glasses, afraid that the strange panic would seize her again.
They lay quiet in her hand. Cool, inanimate plastic.
“Good night, Raine.”
It was a clear dismissal. She hurried out of the room. God forbid that the boat leave her here, stranded on an island full of ghosts.
She thought about Victor's cryptic words on the ferry, with icy wind whipping through her hair. Let go of the past. Hah. Her hand dug into her pocket and closed around the frog glasses. As if she hadn't tried. As if it were that easy. Her life got more complicated by the day. Now she had the mysterious blond man to watch out for, as well as Victor.
And then there was Seth Mackey. Her knees buckled, and she grabbed the railing. She shouldn't get involved with Seth. He was a wild card, strong and restless and arrogant. He could derail her. But he countered the sad, lonely chill Stone Island had given her. He was a roaring furnace of life-giving heat She craved it, even if it burned her.
Her heart hurt when she thought of the halting, bare- bones story he had told her of his mother's death. She ached for the pain he'd tried so awkwardly to gloss over. It made her furious. She wanted to punish anyone who had ever hurt or neglected him, to protect the innocent little boy he had once been. Tears sprang into her eyes. She thought of Victor's long-ago words at the dock.
Toughen up, Katya. The world is not kind to crybabies.
All her life she had tried to follow Victor's hard advice. She was finally realizing the truth. The world was not just unkind to crybabies. The world was unkind to everybody.
She blinked as the wind blew the tears out of the corners of her eyes, mourning for all that foolish, wasted effort at self-control. The lights on the shore melted and swam into a soft wash of color. So did something inside her chest that had been brittle and frosted for years. She let it melt, with a dawning sense of wonder. More tears slipped out, and she let them fall. She might as well cry. It didn't necessarily mean that she was weak. It meant that her heart wasn't dead.
And that was good news.
He was going to kill them. Both of them. Then he was going to kick his own ass, hard, for having been stupid enough to collaborate with such dickheads as the McCloud brothers.
Connor stopped limping up and down the room, and flopped into a chair with a disgusted sigh. “Get over it, Mackey. She's the best bait we're ever going to find. You saw the tape. You heard them talk. He wants her. We could wrap this up quicker than we thought if—”
“She froze him out He may never approach her again.”
Davy McCloud grunted and crossed his long legs. “Nah. Not Novak. Now he probably wants to teach her a lesson.”
Seth’s stomach rolled. “That's why she's leaving town. First plane to anywhere out of SeaTac tonight.”
The two brothers exchanged long, knowing looks. “Oh yeah?” Davy asked. “Gonna tell her everything?”
Seth spun around in the chair, and rubbed his reddened eyes. His mind swam with grisly images of what that man had done to Jesse before he killed him. He couldn't stop the images, couldn't block them. Couldn't let Novak get his hands on Raine. Couldn't.
“Look at it this way,” Connor said, in the voice of one trying to reason with a lunatic. “She's bait whether we use her or not. Now you have a God-given excuse for sticking to that chick like glue. It's all you ever wanted to do, so get into it, already. Enjoy it.”