“You want another cup?” he asked Chase, pouring the dark, sludgy brew into his own mug. He added two tablespoons of sugar.
“How can you drink that? It tastes like—” Both his and Chase’s cell phones started pinging at the same time. “Something’s up.”
“Yeah, let’s hope we finally caught a break.” Nate retrieved his phone from the table. Not a break, not a break at all. “Sounds like Bri is in rough shape,” he said, reading through the texts from Mrs. M and Ryder about Ellie’s sister.
Chase nodded. “Sadie said they nearly lost her. They were just lucky that her cousin Jace called his friend to check on Bri.”
Nate called Ellie, and just as his calls had over the past twenty-four hours, he couldn’t get through to her.
Chase glanced at him. “Ellie still not taking your calls?”
“No, but she will now.” He called Ryder. “Hey, buddy. You doing okay?” He listened as Ryder relayed what had happened. He sounded pretty shaken up. “I’m sure she’ll pull through, buddy. She’s in good hands.” Ryder said the nurses had told them the same thing. Bri’s surgeon was supposedly one of the best. Nate prayed that he was.
“I’m glad you’re there for Ellie, Joe, and the judge. What do you mean she’s not there? Where is she?” He glanced at Chase while listening to Ryder. Chase was on the phone with Sadie. He shook his head as if confirming what Ryder had just told Nate.
“No, I’m sure Ellie’s fine. But I’ll try and get a hold of her now.” How Nate was going to do that, he had no idea. Ryder was still talking, and what he’d just said shocked Nate. “She what? Yeah, send it to me now. I’ll see you in a bit, buddy. Call me if you need me.”
“Does Sadie have any idea where Ellie is?” Nate asked Chase when he’d disconnected from his wife.
“None. Supposedly she was waiting for her mother at the inn and they were going to the hospital together, but she hasn’t shown up. Neither of them have.”
That didn’t make sense to Nate. “Her mother lives five hours away. Why wouldn’t Ellie just meet her at the hospital?” Nate asked as he opened the video file Ryder had just sent him.
“According to Sadie, the hospital called Miranda when they discovered Bri was missing, and she left for Highland Falls as soon as she got the news. Sadie can’t reach Ellie either. Nate, what is it?”
He turned the screen to Chase, a flood of adrenaline rushing through his veins. “I think I know where she is.” As he raised the volume, he prayed his feelings for Ellie were messing with his objectivity and that he was overreacting. “Listen closely to what Richard says to her.”
“Damn, and I thought Sadie was a good shot,” Chase said as he viewed the video.
If Nate hadn’t already been half in love with Ellie, seeing her standing on the porch expertly handling the rifle with a fierce expression on her beautiful face would have done it for him. Ryder was right. She was a total badass. He just wished the video ended there.
Chase leaned in, angling his head to listen. He slowly raised his gaze to Nate. The look in his eyes took away any hope that Nate was wrong.
* * *
Ellie drove up the long, winding mountain road to Dimitri Ivanov’s vacation home. They were in the middle of nowhere. She’d given her mother some time to pull herself together, but she couldn’t afford to give her any more. They were less than ten minutes from their destination.
“Mom, there’s something else you need to know.” Ellie told her about Dimitri’s reaction to Nate and Ryder. “I don’t know how, but I think he’s connected to the organization that supplied the drugs to the people responsible for Brodie’s death.”
Her mother shook her head. “No. He wouldn’t be involved with drugs.”
Ellie was a little surprised that her mother didn’t scoff or belittle her for talking about her ability to read the man’s mind. “Why do you say that?”
“Because he lost a daughter to drugs.” Her mother twisted her purse straps around her fingers, then glanced at Ellie. “You said he was afraid of Nate, but not for himself?”
“Yes. Do you know who he’s protecting?”
Her mother nodded. “His son, Adrian. He’s the one who’s blackmailing me, Elliana. Not Dimitri.”
“Why didn’t you tell Dimitri?”
“He doesn’t know that Brianna is his daughter.”
“If he doesn’t know, how did his son find out?”
“His mother. Dimitri’s wife. She died last year. He asked her for a divorce two months after our affair began.”
“He loved you.”
“He did,” she said with a soft smile. “I loved him too, Elliana.”
“Were you going to leave Dad?”
“Yes. Your father and I hadn’t been happy for a long time. I know that’s a terrible excuse. But I honestly didn’t go looking for another man. I was content with my life. I had you and your brother, a job that I enjoyed, and in my own way, I loved your father.”
“So why didn’t you leave?”
“Dimitri’s wife had grown suspicious, and she hired a private investigator. She threatened me, you, Jace, and your father. They weren’t idle threats. Her family was involved in organized crime. Dimitri wasn’t, if that’s what you’re thinking. He had nothing to do with his wife’s family. He was a self-made man and very proud of his accomplishments.”
“So you ended your affair with Dimitri to protect us?”
“Yes. But his wife still had us watched. That’s how she discovered I was pregnant. Someone sent a photo of me grocery shopping when I was six months pregnant. I kept that and the threat that accompanied it in my safe-deposit box to be opened if anything happened to me.”
Ellie reached for her mother’s hand. “I’m so sorry, Mom. That must have been horrible for you.”
“It’s why I was terrified when you figured out your father wasn’t Brianna’s biological father. It’s no excuse for the way I treated you, but for me, the threat never ended. Not until the day I read her obituary in the newspaper. That was the best night’s sleep I had in…well, sometimes it feels like forever. But that ended last month when Richard introduced me to his clients. I knew the moment Adrian looked at me that he knew about his father, me, and Brianna. I think it’s why he convinced Dimitri to let Richard handle the deal for them. He’s his mother’s son, playing all the angles.”
Her mother’s confession shone a new light on what she’d put Ellie through as a teenager. While she couldn’t forget the pain she’d caused or how that had affected her life, Ellie thought, in time, she could forgive her. Maybe once all this was over they’d be able to rebuild their relationship. She didn’t feel the same about her parents’ marriage. But that wasn’t something she could think about now. “Is Adrian still connected to his mother’s family?”
“No. Dimitri didn’t want them anywhere near his family or his business. He blamed them for his daughter’s death. He believed they were involved with the drug trade and wanted no part of it. He divorced his wife months after their daughter died. He wouldn’t…Wait. I just remembered something.”