In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(3)

Wow, where to begin. Loafing like a slob, when he wasn’t sprinting through the park as if flesh-eating zombies were chasing him. Day trading. Reading Sveti’s anti-trafficking blog. Watching the flesh-crawling adventures she sometimes live-streamed on her viral v-log, following every peep of her Twitter feed. Watching her TED talk, about her own personal journey into anti-trafficking activism. On his computer, tablet, smartphone. Obsessively. Or staring at her Facebook photo gallery. Not that she’d friended him. He’d hacked her account.

“I’ve been evaluating my options,” he hedged.

“I hear you’re getting pressure to join the family business. Some big hedge fund, right?”

Sam was startled. He’d mentioned it in passing to Kev, weeks back. Now here was Miles spouting it back at him. He hadn’t thought they were so interested in his life. Hell, he himself wasn’t that interested in his life. “Yeah, some,” he admitted. “I’d rather slit my own throat.”

Miles’ eyebrow went up. “Why? Do you suck at it?”

“No, I’m good at it. But just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you should be doing it.” He’d gotten dangerously skilled lately at high-tech stalking, for instance.

“I hear you. I’ve got a few unspeakable skills myself these days.”

Miles sounded like he was veering toward the issue of his purported psychic powers, about which Sam really did not want to hear. He turned to go, then jerked back into the niche in the hall that led to the bathrooms. A phalanx of blood-chilling femininity was advancing down the corridor. Tam and Becca were frogmarching a struggling, squawking Sveti straight toward them.

“You . . . shut . . . up!” Tam snarled. “I’m not letting you do this!”

“I have shut up for years! I am done shutting up!” Sveti lapsed into some Slavic language or other, her voice shrilly impassioned.

“No, you are not,” Becca said in response to Sveti’s tirade. “He would kill you if you did that. Calm down, Sveti. Keep it together.”

“I will not be gagged, not again! I am sick of this. . . .”

Her voice swelled in volume and then faded as the three women proceeded past the niche without noticing them.

Miles peered around the corner. “Weird,” he said, in a wondering voice. “I’ve never seen Sveti freak out. Wonder what set her off.”

He took off in pursuit, and after a second, Sam did, too. Anything that could drive Sveti into a hot frenzy had something to teach him.

It didn’t take investigative skills to find the door. Sveti and Tam were bellowing at each other, Becca in between, bleating desperate entreaties to calm down. The two men slunk into the parlor. Nina and Aaro had rented a lavish nineteenth-century timber baron’s mansion for their reception, and Tam flipped on a wall sconce fashioned of stained glass that lit the ornately decorated room with a dim glow like firelight.

“. . . expect me to be silent while that man smirks in my face? He did business with Zhoglo! And heroin dealers, and meth cooks, and the filthy scum who traffic women and children for slave labor and organs and sex! And I’m supposed to sip my champagne and make nice?”

“I expect you to keep your head!” Tam yelled back. “Why this overwhelming need to attract attention from people who would kill you for an insult? You’ve already gotten death threats! What more do you—”

“Death threats?” Sam’s voice was sharp. “From whom?”

The three women swiveled their heads to glare at the intruders.

“Piss off, Sam,” Tam said, with a flap of her hand. “We’re busy, and we didn’t ask for your input. The man is everything that you say, of course. He’s also the groom’s father, so you have no business—”

“They were fools to invite me to an event where a piece of filthy mafiya scum is on the guest list!”

“They didn’t invite him!” Becca yelled. “He crashed, Sveti, with four big, armed thugs escorting him! So unless you want this party, full of your friends and their young children, to turn into a dangerous brawl at best and a shootout at worst, you will stick a f*cking sock in it!”

Sveti hid her face. He saw a flash of her shaking mouth, painted slut red. The gloss had worn off, but the matte stain lingered.

She caught his glance. “What are you looking at?” she snapped.

“Nothing,” he said. “So Oleg Arbatov crashed the wedding? That’s special.” And typical. This crowd liked to keep things interesting.

“He walked in twenty minutes ago,” Becca said. “Nick about had a heart attack. Aaro’s trying to psi-bully him into leaving. Nina’s working the charm angle. He wants to spend quality time with the twins. He’s sick of being put off. Benevolent old Grandpa Oleg.”

Sveti shot Sam a look that was bright with challenge. “You’re a cop,” she said. “Arrest the corrupt old goat. Throw him in jail.”

“I’m not currently representing the law,” Sam pointed out.

“Can’t you do a citizen’s arrest?” Miles asked innocently.

“You know how the system works,” Sam said. “If I don’t have evidence that’s admissible in court, what’s the point? If you want to provoke him into cutting your throat in front of witnesses, that would work. I could arrest him then. Your move, man. Feel free.”