She practically vibrated with excitement and Logan laughed as he looked down at the dog by his leg. “I have a feeling Billy wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Sam smiled up at him and his heart melted. How the hell had he thought he’d be able to pull away from her? He didn’t have it in him. He might be a strong man when it came to a lot of things, but putting up walls where this woman was concerned wasn’t one of them. He shook his head and rubbed her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs as his hands cradled her head.
“You didn’t need to release those pictures for me, Sam. God, I wouldn’t have you relive those moments, that fear, for anything in the world. Sure as hell not for me.”
He wanted to be the one protecting her, not the other way around.
As if reading his mind, she placed her hands on his wrists and squeezed. “Hey, you were there for me. You stopped those men during the scariest thing I’ve ever had to live through. I won’t have you paying for it now. Not if there’s anything I can do about it.”
Her eyes were fierce and strong as she looked at him and he knew if he had any little ruins of the walls left around his heart, she’d just knocked them all down. He might not deserve her and he might not be good enough for her, but somehow he’d been blessed to find her. He couldn’t walk away now.
“Come on,” he said, slipping his hand in hers, aware there were three sets of eyes on them as he pulled her toward the kitchen. “Show me what you found out while I had my head up my ass.”
Chapter 21
Lazarus Alonzo was frighteningly easy to lure out of the woodwork. In only three days, Diya, Yoshi, and Peter had not only traveled to Connecticut themselves, they’d set up a meeting with Lazarus.
He responded as planned to the code words planted in online chat rooms and reached out to one of her father’s old email accounts.
Diya sat in a bare office leased solely for the purpose of setting Lazarus up, and watched as Yoshi opened the door to let the man in.
He was younger than Diya thought he’d be. She expected him to be old and ugly, perhaps because the nature of his former business was so ugly. So repulsive.
But, before her stood a young, incredibly good-looking man. His eyes were dead, though. Flat, dead, and cold.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Alonzo,” she said, not rising from her chair. She tilted her head to indicate the chair across from her and waited a beat while he lowered himself into it. She could see how wary he was, how his eyes took in Yoshi, and then Peter.
That was fine. She didn’t actually need him to trust her to make this work. She needed a few fingerprints of his around the room. Needed to have his presence here verified on the cameras the building had in the lobby and parking garage. That’s all it would take.
They had wiped the room of their fingerprints before he arrived and she and her team were being careful not to touch things while he was there. They would open the door to leave with a rag once he was gone.
It had been simple for Peter to hack the cameras and show them how to enter the building out of range of the cameras. The place didn’t have stellar security.
“I’m here out of respect for your father, Ms. Bogolomov, but don’t mistake my tolerance for anything more than that. Say what you need to say and get on with it.”
“I’d like to hire you for a job, Mr. Alonzo. I know money’s been a little tight for you lately.”
She didn’t really know why she was toying with him. Perhaps it was simply entertaining to see a man who had once been so powerful taken down to nothing. The narrowing of his eyes, the hard glint in them, was rewarding, nonetheless.
When he didn’t answer, she continued. “I’d like to hire you to eliminate someone for me.”
Alonzo stood abruptly and laughed. “You’re playing at things you obviously know nothing about, Ms. Bogolomov. Your father may have been someone in this business, but you clearly were not. Eliminated. Did you learn that on television last night? Go back to your dolls and your teacups, little girl.”
He strode toward the door. Yoshi looked to her, one eyebrow raised, but she gave a slight shake of her head. She didn’t need him to stop the man. She could do it herself.
“I’d like you to take out BillieBurke.”
Lazarus Alonzo froze, one hand holding the doorknob. Diya had to school her expression and resist the urge to get up and dance. He stood there, most likely putting a perfect handprint on the door. What more could she hope for?
At this point, he could walk out and she needed nothing more. But she had a feeling, once he had Samantha Page’s name, he’d immediately attempt to confirm she was BillieBurke. That would only serve Diya’s plan. Any evidence of Alonzo looking into Samantha only helped demonstrate his guilt.
Diya continued. “My father spoke very highly of you. BillieBurke’s attack on you saddened him. I thought perhaps it was time for you to have your revenge. You’ve had trouble identifying her, have you not?”
He turned back to her, eyes narrowed. “You have his identity?”
Diya grinned. Leave it to him to assume the person who took him to his knees was a man.
“BillieBurke is a woman. And yes, I have her identity.”
“And what’s in it for you? Why do you want BillieBurke taken out?”
Diya pursed her lips. She wouldn’t be sharing those secrets today. “I have my reasons, but for now, they’ll be mine to understand. You don’t need to know them.”
Alonzo surprised her. He shrugged. “I’ll need money up front.”
Ah. The man thought he could play her for a fool here. Thought he could take her money, use her funds to rebuild his business and crawl back out of the hole he’d been in for the last two years. Idiot. Diya’s father had not raised a fool. Not by any means.
“Certainly,” she said with a nod. “I would expect nothing less. My father has left me very well-funded. Give the details of your account to Peter. I’ll see you have what you need.” She nodded to Peter, who thus far had sat quietly in the corner.
Alonzo smiled at her and wrote a series of numbers out on a piece of paper before handing it to Peter.
“I’ll expect results, Mr. Alonzo.”
He smiled, the cocky smile of a man who thought he was taking advantage of a naïve woman. “Certainly, Ms. Bogolomov. Certainly.”
“Very well. If you’ll provide Peter with an email address, he’ll see that you’re sent the identity of BillieBurke promptly. You’ll find the information in your email box shortly.”
In reality, Peter would set it up to look like Alonzo had received that information months ago. From an anonymous source.
She watched him leave, but held up her hand when Peter would have spoken. “Wait. Yoshi, check to be sure our friend is gone, but use care on that doorknob.”
Yoshi used a tissue and two fingers to ease the door open and peered into the hallway. With a nod, he returned, leaving the door ajar so he wouldn’t need to touch the knob again. She was impressed.
Yoshi seemed to get what she was thinking without the explanation. Peter, who didn’t seem to be able to understand much other than computers, looked at her with a question in his gaze. She rolled her eyes.
“All we needed was his presence in the building and his prints somewhere in the room. When they figure out where the shots came from, they’ll run the security video. They won’t be looking for any of us, but with his connection to Samantha, they’ll spot Alonzo. Yoshi, when you come back tomorrow, be sure you wipe the gun clean and don’t touch that doorknob with your bare hands. We just need enough evidence to point back to Alonzo. With Peter creating a trail leading to him, this should be enough to convince Logan of Alonzo’s guilt. That’s all we need for now.”