Switched (17 page)

“Not all men into the scene are like
this Victor guy. I don’t know exactly what he did to Laura, but it was enough
to cause her to move across the country to hide from him and change her name.”
Amy didn’t seem to want to talk about it anymore.

Alexi thought it best not to push it. “I
know Victor. I am pretty sure I know what he’s capable of.”

Gary handed Amy another drink. She
immediately took another sip.

Just then the front gate buzzed the
intercom. One of his guys by the door took it, said something back then turned
to Victor, “
Militsiya
.”

“Make sure there’s a female with them
and let them in.” Alexi said. “Don’t bother patting them down. I imagine
they’re armed.” He smiled at Amy who seemed to be getting a bit anxious despite
the alcohol. She still had a third of her drink left. He nodded toward the
glass she held, “Do you need more?”

She shook her head. “I need my head
clear.”

“Rory, take Amy up to Helena’s study and
keep her up there for now. We don’t want her in any danger.”

Amy’s wide eyes denoted the inevitable
protest coming. “But I have to talk to Kal- Laura!”

He shrugged. “I might send her up, but
I’ll need to see what she’s wearing,” Alexi said thoughtfully.

Rory took Amy by the elbow and firmly
led her from the room. Minutes later the door opened and several of the
security staff led four men and a woman into the house. Alexi stood to greet
them.

The agents pulled out their badges and
flashed them as feds and cops often did. “I’m Brocco and this is Salazar,” the
older one said.

Alexi nodded politely. “Come in and
sit.”

The two nameless agents, dressed in
slacks and nice shirts, stayed by the door while Brocco, Salazar and the woman
entered the living room.

“This must be this Laura who Victor is
so enamored with. You look familiar,” he observed.

She gave him a curt nod. “I was there
the night Victor told you the deal fell through and screwed you out of your
money.”

“Ah. Yes, now I remember.” He looked her
up and down. She had auburn hair and fine features. She was actually a striking
creature and it would be fun to play act with her, but the clothing she wore
was common. He shook his head. “This won’t do. If I’m going to pretend this
creature is one of mine she will need finer attire. Victor is not an idiot.
He’d see through the charade.”

“Sorry, I don’t own any designer gowns
or diamonds,” Laura countered with a frown. “Where is Amy?”

“Upstairs,” Alexi said offhandedly.
“I’ll have Gary take you up in a minute. You’ll have to put on some of Helena’s
things. You look to be about her size. If not, you can look through Anastasia’s
things. I think both Anya and Galina are much shorter than you. None of my
girls are here. I left them all in Saratoga. I plan on being back there by
tomorrow night.”

“We’ll try to make this as quick as
possible,” Brocco said. “We appreciate your cooperation Mr. Amelin.”

“I do what I can. Dangerous men like
Victor Kolknov need to be taken off the streets,” Alexi agreed.

“We’re glad you think so. Here’s what we
need from you,” he started. “We need to catch Victor committing an act we can
arrest him on whether it be attempted murder, attempted kidnapping, assault,
something of this nature. We have two murder cases we already think we have him
on, but we need this to be solid. One of these charges has to stick so we can
put this guy away.”

“I understand. So the story is that I
took his woman, she took his money, and all of this was my payback to him for
taking my quarter of a million dollars.” Alexi smiled.

“You’re a fast learner, Mr. Amelin.”
Brocco returned the smile.

“I don’t have all that I have by being a
stupid thug, Agent Brocco.” He motioned to Laura. “Gary, take Ms. Laura
upstairs to Helena’s room to put on something better than this and then let her
see her friend. I want Laura back down here when Victor arrives.”

“Yes, sir,” Gary said. He turned his
head to Laura. “This way, ma’am.”

Brocco nodded to Laura. She got up and
followed Gary.

“What else do we need to know?” Alexi
asked.

“Do all of your men wear vests?”

Alexi chuckled and opened his button up
shirt a little to reveal the vest beneath. “Indeed they do.”

“Interesting, considering you’re just a
legitimate businessman,” Brocco said with a sly look.

“It isn’t the nature of my business that
makes my friends and employees cautious, Agent Brocco. It’s the people who want
a piece of what I have that I have to worry about.” He rubbed his hands
together, feeling how dry they were. “Now, let’s consider ways to provoke my
old friend Victor. Shall we? Or is that entrapment?” 

Brocco narrowed his eyes. “If you don’t
say anything, we won’t.”

***

Kali followed Gary up the wide staircase
to the second floor. They passed room after room until finally, Gary stopped
outside a door where another man stood. “I have to take this one to Miss
Helena’s room.”

The man nodded and let them pass to the
next door. There, Gary turned the knob and pushed the door opening, motioning
her inside. “You can find the clothing in the closet over there.”

She nodded and walked past him into the
big, lavish room. He closed the door behind her. She felt like an intruder into
this woman’s space. Whoever she was she certainly was spoiled. She wondered
then how better off she might have been if it was Alexi she’d gone for over
Victor. He was a very attractive man, more so that Victor. But then Alexi
wasn’t one of the men she had been in frequent contact with back then.

She smiled at the dressing table with expensive
perfumes on it and the open jewelry box with sparkling diamonds gleaming out at
her from it. She paused to pull out a diamond necklace and put it up against
her neck. Such beautiful things.
Victor bought you beautiful things, too,
Kal,
she told herself. Just because a man bought a woman expensive things
didn’t necessarily mean he loved her. No, more often than not it meant he
wanted to placate her. If that was the case in this instance, Alexi was likely
just another jerk with a lot of money. Of course some women liked it that way.

With a heavy sigh she put the necklace
back and went to the closet, pulling the double wide doors open. The lights
came on automatically. “Fancy,” she whispered under her breath.

What caught her eye made her breath
catch in her throat. “Oh my God!”

She couldn’t help the surprise. The
woman who claimed this closet had her own boutique and shoe store. She walked
in, slowly dragging her hand over the sheer fabrics and pausing to pull out
clothing whose color and fabric caught her eye. The woman had more little black
dresses than one could count. When she found one with a scoop neck she took it
off the rack and held it up to herself in the full length mirror. She didn’t
want to go too flashy. Instead, she wanted casual chic. After all, it was her
style.

She began undressing and when she got to
the bullet proof vest she groaned. There was no way she was getting away with
wearing that beneath a dress. She’d have to go without. When she was down to
nothing but her panties she slipped the dress over her head. Alexi was
observant. It fit like a glove and looked like it was tailor made to her
figure. She smoothed the bodice and turned sideways to see if the dress
flattered from all views. It did. It was long enough to be conservative, but
still short enough to be informal. Then she found herself a pair of stockings
and a pair of classic black heels to complete the look.

With her clothing dealt with, she went
to the dressing table and picked out a simple pearl necklace and matching earrings
then proceeded to do her makeup. Last, she dabbed a few drops of
Chanel No.
5
on her wrists and neck and looked at herself in the mirror. She cleaned
up pretty good if she did say so herself. There was no way Victor would guess
she wasn’t really with Alexi. Unless, as Brocco said, Alexi was working with
Victor. Of course she was still pretty positive that wasn’t the case.

She gathered her clothes together and
folded them, setting them on a chair with the bullet proof jacket on top. Then
she made sure to close the closet and left everything as she found it. Criminal
or not, she was still Alexi’s house guest and a guest into this woman’s
personal things. She didn’t make it a habit of being rude or careless. When she
was done and felt confident all was well, she stepped out of the room back into
the hallway to find Gary and the other man talking.

“Ah, are you ready to go back down?”

“No, first I want to talk to Amy. Alexi
said I could. She’s in here?” She calmly strode past the men to the door of the
room right next door and opened it. She gave them a quick, tight smile. “I’ll
just be a minute.”

Neither man stopped her.

When she saw her, Amy jumped from the
chair she was sitting in. “Kali!”

Kali took Amy’s hands into hers and
looked her over. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Alexi just wanted me out of
everything until Victor was caught, I think,” she said, looking Kali up and
down. “Nice digs, but what if you get shot?”

Kali motioned her to sit. “You might as
well get comfortable. Victor won’t be here until at last twelve-thirty,
possibly as late as one in the morning.”

“It’s twelve fifteen,” Amy pointed out,
directing Kali’s attention to the clock on the mantel.

Kali looked around. The room, like the
bedroom, was furnished lavishly, held a small bookcase of books and had a small
bar on the side. “What is this? Another living room?”

Amy lifted one hand and tipped it
gracefully as if presenting something, “This, my darling, is a ladies sitting
room.”

Kali laughed. “Nice.”

The laughter was short lived, however.
Amy was right. In this getup, she could easily be shot.

“Are you sure you can do this?” Amy
asked.

She shook her head and put on a brave
smile. “No, of course not. But do I have a choice? I can either let Victor make
me run forever or stand up to the bastard and make sure he’s put away for
good.”  

“Why don’t they have you in a bullet
proof vest?” Amy was going to bring it up until she answered and she knew it.

“About that. I had one, but it seemed
nothing I put on went with it. I’m going in without it. There is no other way
if we’re going to get Victor to believe I’m Alexi’s woman.” She shrugged and
gave Amy a half-hearted smile. “Eric is worried about you, but I told him not
to worry. I have no doubt Alexi will keep his part of the bargain.”

Amy frowned. “How can you be sure?”

“I like to think I’ve honed my
ass-spotting skills. While Alexi is no saint and he’s certainly not an
upstanding citizen, he does appear to have an honor code. And if I’m wrong
about that he is at least self-serving. It doesn’t serve him to harm you, any
of the FBI agents, or me. It does serve him to get rid of Victor and to please
the FBI in exchange for closing any current investigations on two of his
businesses. He has no interest in anything else.” She drew in a deep breath.
“Just in case things do go wrong though, you have to promise me something.”

She could feel the tears coming, but she
stopped them before they caused her mascara to run.

Amy nodded and gulped. “Anything. What
is it?”

“If for any reason I do get shot and it
looks like I’m not going to make it, make sure Brad knows that I love him.” She
choked back that last part and dabbed at the corners of her eyes, hoping the
mascara and eyeliner wouldn’t run.

Jumping up, Amy embraced her. “You’ll be
able to tell him yourself,” she said confidently, fighting back her own tears.

Kali nodded and sniffed. “Where’s a
mirror. I need to fix my makeup.”

Amy pointed to the wall behind her.

After finding a tissue, dabbing her
eyes, and blowing her nose, there was a knock on the door. “Time to go Miss.
Laura.”

“Good luck. Be careful and if there are
bullets, jump behind one of the couches. They seem really sturdy,” Amy called
after her.

Kali couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll try
to remember that.”

***

Brad couldn’t stand it. Here they were
watching car racing pretending nothing was wrong when Kali and Amy were in
danger. He looked over at Eric whose eyes seemed to be staring right through
the television.

Two agents had been left at the house
with them just in case. Whatever that meant. He dared Victor Kolk-whatever to
show up on his doorstep. He’d kill the bastard with his bare hands. Shoving his
violent fantasy aside, he grabbed the television controller and changed the
channel to a cooking show.

Eric turned to him but didn’t say
anything.

“Sorry, were you watching that?” he
asked, knowing damn well neither of them were watching television. One FBI
agent was playing games on his phone and the other was reading the paper.