Page 34 of Kairo's Billionaire

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She smiled at him. “Ed created a hammock out of one of his T-shirts for him. He’s snuggled up asleep in Ed’s room for now. He went out to get Joey a proper cage for while we’re here.”

No amount of money would be enough to pay these men back for all they’d done for him and his sister. Kairo had risked his life to save them. Charlie, Ed, and the others had already been incredibly accommodating, making sure they were comfortable and felt safe. Dr. Will Monroe had also been diligent in checking that they had sustained no injuries. Like Kairo, he was a little battered and sore in places, but nothing permanent. When he’d reached out for help, he’d never expected this.

“Izzie,” Athena started softly, and by the sudden hesitance that had entered her tone, he knew she no longer wanted to talk about Kairo. “Do you have any idea who might be behind this? Who hates us so much that they would want us to be kidnapped?”

Wrapping an arm around her slim shoulders, Isidore pulled her against him in a tight hug. “I don’t know that it’s hatred. It could be just a matter of greed. The person’s goal could have truly been the encryption algorithm so they could steal from our customers.”

She looked up at him, her full lips pursed and her smooth brow wrinkled in pain. “If someone hired those assholes to grab us, they had to know we’d be killed. No matter what Vanko said, he was going to kill us. We saw their faces. We could easily describe them to the police. He couldn’t risk letting us go.”

His heart clenched at her words. He’d known that deep down, but he’d hoped that maybe she hadn’t. That she’d clung to the hope that if they cooperated, they’d be able to walk away at the end.

But he agreed with her. He’d known that Vanko planned to kill them. It was why he’d selected Kairo rather than trying to hire some random hacker. There had at least been a chance that the mercenary would try to save them. He figured that a hacker would do the job and walk away after getting paid, not caring what happened to his clients.

The idea that someone wanted him and his sister dead—even if it was just for money—was hard to swallow. Who had they offended so badly that it was worthy of a death sentence?

“I’ve been wracking my brain for days on this,” she murmured. “I…I’m afraid to mention anyone. It feels disloyal.”

“You think it might be someone on Mother’s side of the family,” Isidore filled in when it seemed as if she couldn’t continue.

She snorted. “Actually, I was thinking Father’s. Uncle Yiorgos was super pissed at the reading of the will. He’s the one who got the lawyer first to attack the will, right?”

Isidore grunted. Their father had two younger brothers and a sister. Yiorgos was the oldest of the siblings, but the other two had been quick to fall in line behind him. They’d tried to sue, saying that his father hadn’t left a will behind and that everything should be fairly divided up across the family.

Sadly, their mother’s side of the family had been no better. She had two older sisters, Maria and Katerina. Eleni had inherited an olive farm and a vineyard from a grandmother while she was married to their father. After the death of their sister, Maria and Katerina had both demanded that the farm and vineyard be returned to their family rather than be handed down to Eleni’s children.

It had been a fucking mess. More than once Isidore had been tempted to agree to their demands just so Athena didn’t have to suffer their vicious comments and attacks, but his little sister had been strong, stating that their parents had made their wishes extremely clear. The law had been on their side, and all the cases had been thrown out.

But their family was forever damaged. They managed to act civil in public when they were forced to meet. Otherwise, they largely tried to ignore each other.

The bad blood had simmered for roughly four years. Had someone finally had enough and was now willing to act in a more devious manner?

“Has any of the family contacted you recently? Particularly just before the kidnapping?”

Athena made a noise that seemed to be half sigh and half groan of frustration. “Uncle Nico’s wife made some passive-aggressive comments online about my choice to complete my graduate schooling in the States when I should be more focused on giving back to my home country since the wealth of Greece has given me so many opportunities in life. Aunt Katerina sent me a text a couple of weeks ago about getting together for lunch. She was being nice, but I have a feeling she’s arguing with Aunt Maria again. The only time she’s nice to me is when she’s pissed at her sister.” She paused only to groan louder. “Oh, Dimos messaged me, begging for money for college. He said it was for books and living expenses.”

“Is that Uncle Yiorgos’s son Dimos or Aunt Maria’s Dimos?” Because of course they had to have two different cousins named Dimos. They had eighteen cousins and a gaggle of second cousins. Not to mention the extended family who were often called uncle, aunt, or cousin but were just friends of the family.

“Yiorgos.”

Isidore closed his eyes and swallowed a groan. He had his doubts as to whether that Dimos was smart enough to get into college in the first place. The other Dimos he didn’t know well at all, but he thought that cousin did fine on his own.

“I sent him a copy of the form your lawyer worked out and told him that any scholarship requests or college assistance needed to go through those channels. My accountants and lawyers wouldn’t allow me to just randomly send money.”

Some of the tension relaxed from his shoulders. After the family had failed to steal their inheritance through the courts, they started making random requests for financial help. Knowing his weakness to help anyone who asked, he got his accountants and lawyers to cook up a series of lengthy request forms. If someone wanted even a single euro from either of the orphaned Panopoulos children, they needed to fill out the forms, which required more lawyers to even complete. This helped to weed out the con artists and leeches very quickly. It also helped to alleviate his feelings of guilt while protecting his sister.

“Good job,” he murmured. “Don’t worry about talking to Kairo and his team about our family. I’ll handle it.”

Athena pulled away from him enough to meet his gaze. “What about you? Do you have any ideas?”

He shook his head slowly. “No one immediately springs to mind. I haven’t had any recent encounters with the family that stand out as different for me. It’s been at least a month since I’ve heard from any of them. They’ve largely stopped trying because they know that all their messages go through my assistants first.”

Sadly, he also had business partners, associates, and even employees to consider. So many people he interacted with on a daily basis. Did that many really want his money badly enough to kill him?

Athena squeezed his arm, pulling him from his dark thoughts with her sunny smile. “Don’t worry. We’re not alone anymore. All those men downstairs will help us. Kairo is not going to let anyone hurt us.”

“You’re right. We’ll be okay.”

But it did create a new little doubt in his brain that he did not need. After Kairo spent countless hours digging through his nightmare of a family, would he want anything to do with him? That seemed…unlikely.


Tags: Jocelynn Drake Romance