Vengeance Aside (Wanted Men 0.5)(68)
Over the past few days, watching Lukas with his family and friends, and even his staff that he was so nice to, had opened Dale’s eyes to what she’d been missing. A connection. She’d been behind her walls for so long, refusing to feel or hear or see those reaching out to her, that she’d forgotten the beauty in it. But now that she’d allowed Lukas in, because he was in, she wanted more. More of what he made her feel. For the first time in eight years, she wasn’t lonely, and it was wonderful.
“So? Where were you, you inconsiderate bitch?” Erika asked as she dabbed at her eyes.
Dale laughed and, taking a quick look around to make sure it was just the four of them, she put up her left hand. Four pairs of eyes bugged, and then the screaming started again. This time, there was nothing she recognized as actual words, just reaction to the rock she now wore on her ring finger.
As they hollered and gawked, Dale took another breath. She’d ask. The worst thing that could happen is they would say no. And that would be okay, considering the number of invites of theirs she’d turned down over the past year. Yet they continued to ask her to go shopping, to the movies and out for drinks, to concerts. The least she could do, she’d decided today, was ask them to her wedding.
“Magdalena?”
Peace flooded her at just the sound of his voice. She turned away from her crew and had to strain a little to see the door because they were holding her hand. Butterflies filled her tummy when she saw Lukas standing there in his charcoal suit, looking like the dominant mafia baddie he was. Milan and Yasha were behind him, and Patrik Ilyaev, Dale’s new bodyguard, was next to them. Patrik was more verbose than Lukas’s muscle, and Dale appreciated that since Lukas had told her Patrik would be with her every time she stepped foot outside the compound. She was confident they’d get along after they got to know each other a little better.
“Hey.”
The breathy word filled the room because it had grown silent. The girls were staring just like she was.
“Uh…” She took her hand back. “Do you have a minute to meet my friends?”
Lukas made his way over, but rather than smile and greet the girls, he slid an arm around her waist and kissed her forehead. There was something going on with him, but when she’d asked about it on their way into the city, he’d put her off.
“Sorry. I saw the floor full of uniforms and thought you were done with your girls.”
She shook her head and turned, knowing she now wore the same proud look on her face that Lukas had worn when he’d introduced her to his father. “Lukas, these are my friends, Erika, Elaine—she has a baby boy I’m madly in love with—and our twins, Peyton and Paula. Girls, this is Lukas, my fiancé.”
“Mr. Smells Amazing,” Erika said as she shook Lukas’s hand first. “Sorry. Can’t pretend this isn’t a shock.”
Lukas smiled, and after the others took turns saying hello, came back to claim her hand. That’s when she put her neck on the chopping block of life and hoped for the best.
“Uh, I wanted to ask you girls if you’re busy tomorrow evening. Farah said she’d be willing to rework the schedule, and, um, I was wondering if you might like to come to, uh, well…” Nerves made her laugh. Or maybe it was the sudden anticipation coming from the four stunned beauties in front of her. “Uh, yeah, so, we’re getting married tomorrow night, and I’m going to be the only one without guests. I’d love to share the occasion with all of you. If you can make it.”
Around a chorus of enthusiastic yeses, Lukas kissed the top of her head while murmuring what sounded like more of his quiet praise in Russian.
***
As Dale’s girls filed out to go to work, Lukas wished his gut wasn’t a block of ice, because he would have liked to thoroughly enjoy watching Dale teeter around on her new legs. She’d just put herself out there with her friends, and, even if she hadn’t admitted she was nervous about issuing the invite, he’d have understood what it meant for her.
Too bad there was more important shit going down tonight that made it impossible for him to truly appreciate the moment that had just passed.
His phone buzzed, and he took it out and brought it to his ear just as Samuel and Farah walked in.
“Yeah.”
“He just left his car. Take your brother and get the hell out of there before you fuck everything up.”
Lukas wanted to climb through the connection and throttle the sonofabitch running the show tonight. Maksim had no fucking idea what was at stake here.
Samuel did, though. “That Maks?” His brother looked grey around the gills as he switched to Russian.
Lukas nodded.
“Tell him if anything goes wrong, we’ll be enemies for life. I swear to God.”
“Do you two read from the same script?” Maksim drawled.
“He knows,” Lukas assured Samuel before saying into the phone, “Who’s where?”
With unconcealed impatience, because they’d already gone over this, Maksim told Lukas who he had stationed where in the building to monitor Garrett Dawson as the cocksucker fell into the trap they’d set using Dale and Farah as bait.
When Maks and Vasily had first come to him and Samuel with their idea this morning, Lukas had politely told them to fuck off. But then Vasily had revealed they’d found the first two women who’d been on Dawson’s list. Both had been Samuel’s bartenders. Maks and the crew he and Samuel had put together had found the girls’ remains in a storage unit Dawson had rented under his son’s name. They’d been dead six or seven days. Because Maks had worked out Dawson was zealously OCD, and he wasn’t moving past the next two names on the list to get to the other girls who were in plain sight—but being protected—he was convinced the guy would wait as long as it took to get through his list in the order it had been written. Which meant, their murderer was in hiding until Farah and Dale came back on the scene because they were his number three and four.