His Ania may have been tough, but it had taken a toll on her. Jabbing a blade into a man’s throat wasn’t as easy as it looked in a movie. She’d seen the results instantly. The horror of what she’d done had spread across his face. She’d been splattered with his blood. There were repercussions to being brave. He cursed that he needed to shore up their defenses instead of sharing the bed with her. She needed to be held. Or maybe he needed to hold her.
The others made noises about leaving, but it took close to an hour for Drake, Jake, Eli, Joshua and Elijah to actually leave. The moment they were gone, Mitya and his cousins made their way to the den, where the room was smaller and warmer. The fireplace was lit to combat the cold the dripping rain outside brought with it. As always, because he was rightfully paranoid, Sevastyan made certain there were no listening devices in the den. He’d already swept the meeting room and declared no listening or recording devices had been left behind.
“Jake has to have spies in his camp,” Timur announced. “He doesn’t want to think that he does, and I can’t blame him.”
“It’s insane not to believe us,” Mitya said.
“He believes us,” Timur said. “He’ll be careful. No, he’ll try to set traps. He’s a smart man and he won’t tolerate a traitor near his family.”
“He may have had a succession of them,” Mitya warned. “It sounds like they trained with Drake to put all suspicion aside. From Drake they went to Jake. All of us have men that trained in the Donovan Security Company. His word has been gold. There aren’t that many shifters, and they needed jobs that would allow their leopards to have some freedom. Drake provides that as well as a very real service to those families who need them. Not just bodyguards; kidnappings have become so prevalent that someone is needed to deliver money or take back the victim.”
“For some of these men to have worked in Borneo for at least a year, this has gone back far before Jake and Drake got together with the idea to rid the crime world of shifters. That’s too recent. Elijah was the first the idea was pitched to. So why were these men being sent through Donovan’s training?” Fyodor asked.
“He is the best in the world,” Timur said. “His reputation is impeccable.”
“Do you suppose whoever is behind this began to get suspicious when Jake began taking apart companies that laundered money?” Sevastyan asked.
Mitya shrugged. “We can speculate forever, but the bottom line is, we have an enemy who is coming after us. We might not be the main target, but we’re in their sights because we’re seen as being friendly with Drake and Jake.”
“We’re leaving out Eli Perez,” Timur said. “He was DEA. He had to have made enemies. He has an impressive arrest and conviction rate. I spent a good deal of time investigating him. He took down Rafe Cordeau, although he’s not gotten credit for it, nor does he want it. He could have enemies.”
“He came on the scene too late,” Mitya pointed out. “At least for the start-up of this thing. To get sleepers in place, someone began orchestrating this a few years ago. Eli became part of it recently.”
“We’ve got a big fat ugly spider sitting in his web somewhere, waiting for someone to step into it so he can devour them,” Gorya said.
“I believe Lazar has stumbled across them once or twice but doesn’t know the significance of them,” Mitya said.
He knew his father. He made it his business to know him. Lazar believed he was far superior to any other man walking the earth. He thought himself stronger and more intelligent. The best at everything. He believed he had the right to do anything he wanted because he was that entitled. He would never think that anyone would be able to suppress an ego in order to further their agenda. Whoever this spider is, he doesn’t need the spotlight, and that makes him doubly dangerous.
“Lazar coming at us at this time is nothing more than a coincidence?” Sevastyan asked, but there was the merest hint of disbelief in his voice. Like Mitya, he didn’t believe in coincidences.
“I didn’t say that,” Mitya said. “I think this spider uses anything to his advantage. Lazar wasn’t quiet about trying to find us. It wouldn’t be that difficult to help Lazar find us and even offer to help him get into the country quietly. Lazar would think the spider was afraid of him and wanted favors owed. I think it doesn’t matter to our spider what happens to Lazar or us. He wants his notebook.”
There was silence. The cousins looked at one another for a long time. “We knew it was coming,” Fyodor said with a sigh. “I’m sorry about Ania, Mitya. You need to be looking after her and her leopard, not worrying about your father trying to kill you.”