To Tempt A Tiger (27 page)

“Oh, good,” Rose said, her sarcasm clear.

Alexis chuckled. “I know. I’m glad I’m not an elder. I would have tossed half of them through a wall by now.”

“We’ve gotten off track,” Vlad said.

He stopped by the door to the room he’d previously occupied, but Alexis waved them on.

“We’ve given you different rooms,” she said. “A suite this time. And for additional safety, the windows in the suite have had alarms added. The alarm is pitched to essentially disable any tiger nearby, which means it’ll hurt Zoe. That’s why we didn’t use them before. But we thought you’d prefer her ears ringing to another…attempt.”

“What will the sound do to me?” Rose asked.

“Nothing. You’ll be good. So you can keep Zoe safe until backup gets there.”

“Thanks,” Rose said. She hugged her daughter a little closer. “I didn’t want to be in the same room.”

“Back to Lei,” Vlad said as they continued to their new rooms.

“Outside of the argument over how to ‘name’ the crime, they’re also debating if Lei can be charged, period. He has lots of good excuses for his scent being in Jameson’s car, and plenty of ‘evidence’ that he didn’t have anything to do with Jameson’s decision or his own assistant’s part in the kidnapping. He claims he’s being framed.” She rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows he’s responsible, but proving it is…well, it’s impossible. Unless Zoe saw something useful?”

Rose shook her head. “We asked. She saw Jameson and a man with dark hair, but she never saw the second man’s face. She said she smelled them both. Will that help?”

“Given the excuses Lei’s come up with for his scent being there, and the fact that Zoe is so new to her shifter nature, I doubt it.”

“What does Zoe being new to her shifter nature have to do with it? Her sense of smell is excellent.”

“Lei will argue she doesn’t have the ability to parse out scent subtleties the way a non-hybrid shifter would. And because we know so little of hybrid biology, others will agree with this excuse. Still, it might be enough for them to dig more. Maybe.”

“You don’t sound very hopeful.”

Alexis shrugged. “Lei is smart and he set this up to protect himself from repercussions, creating enough plausible deniability to keep him safe.”

“How the hell
did
he set this up in such a short period of time? Without leaving a trail?” Vlad growled. “We weren’t even here a full day. He had to time it while Zoe’s status was still undefined. He had to have all his people in place to work fast. How could he do all that and
still
have alibies?”

Alexis stopped at a new set of doors. She frowned as she held the door open for them to enter the suit. “We’re wondering the same thing. The only possibility I can think of is that your brothers have something to do with it. We still don’t know where they are. Maybe they’ve been working with Lei, knowing you’d eventually
have
to bring Zoe here.”

Vlad stopped halfway into the room to stare at Alexis. Then he cursed. He cursed low and colorfully. Rose winced and looked at Zoe. Her eyes were wide and her lips pressed together in what looked suspiciously like a suppressed grin. Since it was the closest she’d come to a smile in the last twenty-four hours, Rose decided not to scold Vlad for his language.

After a solid minute of cursing, Vlad went silent and stared at the floor, his hands on his hips. He took a deep breath and looked up. “I should have known. I should have expected this. My brothers turning up after we thought they’d left Phoenix? They probably did that to drive us to the elders quicker. Sonofabitch, I knew getting here was too easy.”

“Vlad…” Rose wasn’t sure what to say.

He ran his hands through his hair and faced her. The anguish in his expression tore at her heart.

“I’m so sorry, Rose. I should have seen this. I should have anticipated. I
know
what they’re like, how they think.” He shook his head. “I thought I did. When they didn’t show up here after we did, I thought we were safe. I thought… It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t. Just don’t. You’ve done everything you could to keep her safe, to keep us safe. You aren’t omnipotent or psychic.”

“Guess I’m not as good a liar as I thought I was either. My brothers figured me out. Hell, my father might have known all along and told his favorite son. When I get my hands on Yuri, I’ll be sure to ask.”

The violence in his voice made Rose shiver with an edge of excitement she’d be embarrassed to admit to anyone but Vlad.

“We can arrange to bring them in,” Alexis said. “I’m sure the other elders would love to have an excuse to question them. But I have to tell you, Vlad, it’s unlikely they’ll be able to implicate Lei directly.”

“Why?” Rose asked. “If they went to him with information on Zoe…”

Alexis glanced at Vlad. “If any of Vlad’s brothers could directly implicate Lei in this crime, they’d be…” She trailed off as she looked at Zoe, resting her head on Rose’s shoulder. “They wouldn’t be walking around anymore.”

Vlad’s head came up. “Do we know if they are?”

“They haven’t been found yet.”

“Why do that?” Rose asked. “If they were working with Lei, why would he turn on them?”

“If they could directly implicate him, he wouldn’t want to leave that kind of loose thread hanging, no matter what. Even if things with Zoe had gone as he’d intended, I wouldn’t hold out much hope for them.”

“Wouldn’t
they
know that?” Rose said. “Why would they work with him, knowing he’d go after them?”

“If we get the chance to, we’ll ask,” Alexis said. “My guess…he worked with Petrov, Vlad’s father, so the brothers might assume he held the same radical beliefs and would be supportive of their goals. They might not have realized he’d protect himself above any cause or ideology.”

“My father was prepared to do anything for his cause,” Vlad said. “He knew going after my sister would eventually earn him the ultimate punishment. He was a fanatic, and he indoctrinated my brothers with that same philosophy. Yuri in particular. It gives them tunnel vision. They probably thought Lei held the exact same convictions.” Vlad closed his eyes for a brief moment, then looked at Alexis. “We need to find them. We need to know…”

When he didn’t finish, Alexis just nodded. “I’ll see it’s taken care of. One way or another, we’ll find them.”

Rose kissed the top of Zoe’s head. Though they’d tried to be vague, Zoe was hearing things Rose would have preferred she didn’t. Too late now and not much she could do about it. Sadly, Zoe was going to have to know it all one day. They’d have to teach her how to protect herself against… God, against everyone.

Rose had hurt every minute of every day while Zoe went through more than a year of painful episodes. She’d prayed for the pain to go away and sworn anything else would be better. As she hugged Zoe, she was thrilled to know the pain would no longer be a part of her life but heartbroken that alleviating that pain meant Zoe had been dropped into this violent world, a world where she was in danger just for being born. It sucked.

Rose’s every instinct screamed to fix it, to make things right and safe for her daughter. But the world wasn’t safe and nothing was “fair.” She’d just have to do the best she could. She looked at Vlad, knowing in her soul she wasn’t going to be doing that on her own. He’d be there with her. No matter what happened between them personally, he was committed to protecting their daughter. Knowing this made her love him all the more.

Alexis broke into her thoughts. “I have to go, but the elders will be voting on Zoe’s status in the next hour. Lei has been removed from the vote because his current position is in question. While they might not be able to accumulate evidence to convict him of a crime, the fact that some of his employees were involved gives them the right to keep him from voting. Unfortunately, that means there’s only eight of them, which leaves the possibility of a tie open. We’ll have to wait and see what happens. In the meantime, relax and rest. We’ll have some dinner brought up—with someone I trust. I’ll be back later with an update.”

She turned to leave, but Rose stopped her. “Thank you. For everything. This new world is…difficult. It’s nice to know someone else in it who I can trust.”

Alexis smiled. “I have your back. And hers.” She grinned at Zoe. “Rest. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Once the door closed behind her, Zoe finally let Rose put her down. “You want to explore the room?” Rose asked her.

She nodded, taking Rose’s hand. They went through the two-bedroom suite, checking the huge en suite bathrooms, making sure everything was to Zoe’s approval. She stayed well away from the windows, a move that made Rose’s heart ache, but otherwise, she didn’t seem nervous or scared. When Rose walked back out to the living room area, Zoe willingly stayed behind in their bedroom to go through her backpack, making sure her blanket had made the room transition.

Rose walked into Vlad’s arms, hugging him tight. She didn’t know what to say about his brothers, whether to hope they were alive or had been murdered by the bastard elder. Part of her didn’t want the threat of their fanaticism hanging over Zoe, but without them, it didn’t look like bringing Lei to justice would be possible. Both options seemed cold, though, when compared to what Vlad must be feeling. Like them or not, they were his brothers, his blood relations. She didn’t have siblings of her own. She couldn’t understand what it was like to lose one—even one you didn’t get along with. Would he mourn them? Would he care?

“I’m not sure how to feel about my brothers right now,” he said as if reading her thoughts.

She pulled back and frowned up at him. “Could you tell what I was thinking, or are we just thinking the same things?”

“Your scent is too full of complicated emotions right now for my tiger to separate them. And no, I can’t exactly read your mind, even though your scent gives away your emotional state most of the time.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “But it’s an obvious topic. They may have set up our daughter to be kidnapped and…” He glanced to the bedroom and didn’t finish the sentence. “Yet if they’re alive, they could testify against Lei. If they’re dead, they’re no longer a threat but Lei likely goes free.”

“And they’re your family.”

“That’s… I wish I could say that matters less. I don’t want it to matter. We’ve never been close. I’ve spent my life pretending around them and never letting them know the real me. The only family member I was close to was my mother. It makes my feelings for my brothers complicated.”

“Will you be upset if they’ve been killed?” She asked quietly, not because of Zoe’s excellent hearing, but because the topic seemed too somber for anything louder.

“Yes. And no.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ll know when we find out.”

She cupped his cheek, failing to come up with words of comfort. So she kissed him instead.

“You kissing! Silly,” Zoe said as she walked into the living room dragging her blanket.

The sound of her voice, sing-songy and happy, did Rose’s heart good. Zoe had been through so much, Rose couldn’t help but worry how this would affect her.

“Do you like when I kiss Vlad?” she asked her daughter.

“Ha! It’s silly.” She launched herself at them and hugged both their legs.

“Could have been a worse answer,” Vlad commented dryly as he settled a hand on Zoe’s head.

Rose chuckled. A knock on the door interrupted the moment. Vlad patted her back and went to answer. Rose pulled Zoe close.

Vlad stepped back to let Alexis in, and Rose frowned. “Is something wrong? You literally just left.”

She motioned to the corridor. Rose looked around her to see a vaguely familiar man standing outside the door. It took a minute to place where she recognized him from—he was one of the elders’ assistants, though she couldn’t remember who he was or which elder he belonged to. Not Qiang’s assistant, though. She remembered that much. Someone else’s.

“What’s going on?” Rose asked.

“They want to see you and Zoe. Alone.”

“No,” Vlad said flatly. “They don’t go anywhere without me.”

Alexis didn’t even blink at his outburst. “Told you so,” she said to the man in the corridor.

He edged to just inside the doorway, but when Vlad glared, didn’t step any farther into the room. “The discussion is private, Ms. Callaghan. And you haven’t…claimed Vladimir yet,” he said. He glanced quickly at Zoe before pointedly looking away and keeping his gaze very obviously on Rose.

“I’m claiming him as my escort,” she said. “He comes with us or Zoe and I stay here. What do they want anyway?”

“I am not at liberty to discuss such things.”

Rose narrowed her eyes on the man. He shifted his gaze to the side, managing to look mildly embarrassed and annoyed at the same time.

“Fine. We’ll go. But Vlad is coming with us. And I’m not going in there unarmed.”

That got Alexis’ attention. “They aren’t going to let you bring a gun into the meeting hall, Rose. Not with just you and the elders in there.”

“Will Lei be there?”

Alexis nodded.

“Then I’m not going into that room without a weapon. That’s the deal. They don’t think I’m fast enough to shoot them anyway. If they’re so damned confident, this shouldn’t bother them.”

Alexis opened her mouth, then closed it. She pressed her lips together for a moment before saying, “Wait here. Give me a minute to see what I can work out.”

When she stepped back into the corridor with the assistant, she closed the door behind her. As soon as they were alone again, Rose went to the room she and Zoe had been given. She pulled the handgun out of her backpack, where she’d stored it before coming back into the compound, loaded and checked it, ensuring the safety was on.

She wanted her daughter to feel safe again, and if it meant Rose had to walk around armed to the teeth to ensure the tigers stayed away from them, she’d do it.

When she returned to the living room, she said to Zoe, “Remember what Mommy and Grandpa and Granny taught you, Zoe? What do you do around guns?”

“Don’t touch. Only for grownups.”

“Good girl. I’m taking this with us to help keep us safe, but it’s not a toy, so I don’t want you grabbing at it, or messing with it in any way. Okay?”