Torn Between- Seduced by the Billionaires Read online

  “We are doing no such thing,” Eddie said, clearly in control. “First, I was expecting the good doctor. I lured him here with Patrick Ladislao so I could talk to him. Second, he won’t even know who you are. Just kneel here beside me like a good little slave and he will think you’re just some kinky, forgettable bar girl.”

  “Well, if it isn’t the Bastard of Belarus!” A voice boomed from the bar corner nearest Eddie’s open office door. “Face me, you pig. Your time has come!”

  “For a guy who can’t speak English, Patrick’s doing pretty damn well,” Cami muttered bitterly from the doorway.

  “Sorry about that, love. He didn’t want to make small talk, and I thought it made that night much sexier,” Eddie said off handedly, taking a position by the door.

  “What do you want, Pavil?” Dr. Sovich sighed, his voice a deep rumble, like thunder in the distance.

  “I want you to pay for what you did. I want you to pay for killing my Nikolai.” Ladislao came out from the hallway, presumably from another of the private rooms, with a kitchen knife in his hands.

  “There is no money here for you. Go home before somebody sticks a gun your face,” Sovich said slowly, turning his back on the shaking, armed man. He lunged at Sovich, a woman screamed, then BAM!

  Andrew turned, clocking him in the face with a devastating right hook. The knife flew out of Ladislao’s hand when his head hit the side of the bar. Ladislao opened his eyes for a moment, then they closed. The sound of footsteps rushing down the stairs rang out. Steve and Harold appeared in the bar as the music cut off and everyone stared at Andrew.

  “Did you know he was a boxer in college?” Eddie whispered to Cami. She rolled her eyes.

  “Call this man a cab,” Andrew said to Harold brusquely.

  “Where should I send him?” Harold asked, pointing to the passed out Russian.

  “Wherever your boss brought him from,” Dr. Sovich sneered and walked toward Eddie’s private office. He stopped just long enough to look at the prone body of the inept hit man, and spit in his face.

  Cami ran to the back door, then around in small circles realizing she couldn’t exactly go walking through the streets of upper Grafton looking “the Gimp” from Pulp Fiction in a corset.

  Eddie unceremonious grabbed her collar, dragging her across the room, and sat down behind his desk, forcing her to her knees and plunging her head down in his lap. Sovich reached the door and stopped long enough for Eddie to catch his breath.

  “You wanted my attention?” Dr. Sovich asked, still sneering but looking away from what he thought was a private moment.

  Eddie pulled Cami’s head back and pretended to zip up his pants. He tapped her on the top of the latex mask and left her kneeling beside his chair, eyes focused on the floor. Leaning over he whispered, “Stay this way. See nothing, hear nothing.”

  Cami lowered her head further as a sign of obedience to let Eddie know she understood. She was suddenly sweating profusely and the mask seemed to be suffocating her. Still, she willed herself not to take it off.

  “Since you’re going to bust up my bar, I guess I could use some of your time,” Eddie answered, motioning for Dr. Sovich to sit down. “Close the door and come in.”

  The music began again and the party re-started.

  “I hope you pay Pavil something for being your bait, Dunning. He’s a fool, but even a fool has to make a decent living.”

  “Don’t worry about him,” Eddie waved his hand. “He got more pleasures this week than most men will in a lifetime.”

  Cami’s face flushed, and she stared even more closely at the floor. Sovich didn’t seem to care about her presence one way or the other. She was just a piece of furniture. Eddie opened a drawer to his desk and pulled out a folder much like the one that held Maralee’s evidence. This one was marked “Andrew Sovich” in English and seemingly Russian.

  “I want to make deal, Andrew. Simple as that.”

  “No deal with you. Not now. Not ever. We have discussed this before, da?”

  “Da. But I think I have some things to change your mind.” Eddie sat the folder on his lap. Cami took a peek and saw an 8x10 of a room. Men were lying bleeding on the floor, seemingly dead. Standing in the middle of the room with a gun in his hand was Andrew Sovich. Eddie took that picture and several variations of the same room and put them on the desk.

  Sovich shrugged.

  “You don’t think these shots are anything special, but I assure you the people who signed your VISA to work in the US might find them a bit disturbing. You’ll get sent back to Russia to stand trial and poor Ty-Ty will be left without his precious golden goose.”

  Dr. Sovich leaned back, took a breath, and laughed out loud.

  “Is this all you have, Dunning, some snapshots from years ago? Those pictures are not news. My babushka probably has a set. That was investigated by politsiya and closed. US government has no reason to care.”

  “What about him?” Eddie said, pulling a picture of a terrifying looking Russian man wearing dark glasses and a side holster with a gun. “Do you think he has a reason to care where you are?”

  Eddie closed the folder before Cami could see the last few pictures and placed it on top of the desk out of eye view. He continued speaking to the doctor in a calm, steady voice.

  “What about him, and him, or him? Any of them might want to a chance to speak with you, like I gave Mr. Ladislao?”

  Sovich laughed again, a boisterous, in-your-face guffaw.

  “You want to invite the mob to your fetish bar? Go ahead. They would kill you even before they killed me.”

  “Yes, you’re probably right. But, before they killed me, or you, what do you think they would do to her?” Eddie placed one more photo on the table with a snap. Sovich sucked his breath in and put his hand on top of the picture.

  “How did you…”

  “Yes, you know, don’t you? You know what they would do to a beautiful innocent like her. When they were done with her, if she lived through it, she wouldn’t even be human anymore,” Eddie hissed, his eyes narrowing.

  Silence ruled for a few moments. Cami bit her lip. This was a side of Eddie she never imagined.

  “I will take your deal,” Sovich said, quietly.

  Eddie pulled the pictures back into the folder and held his finger up to his mouth. He reached down and patted Cami on the head, then picked up the phone on his desk and rang The Wine Loft.

  “Send Harold down,” he said and hung up. Sovich didn’t move. He just stared at the floor. Finally he lifted his head and looked at Eddie with eyes that seemed much older than his years.

  “Glasnost is dead,” he said.

  “Seemingly so,” Eddie replied, distracted as Harold walked through the door. He pointed at Cami still kneeling by his side. “I have some business to do, Harold. Drive this girl back to my house, will you? She’ll keep till later.”

  Harold nodded and took Cami by the arm, leading her out of the room through the front, helping her up the stairs. Cami looked starkly out of place in the upscale wine bar whose menu bore a drink named after her, and tried to melt into the wall by the stairwell. Harold grabbed his keys, then helped her out the door to his car.

  “One of the first things Steve and I noticed when The Spreader Bar opened was that we need some kind of hall or entrance separator,” Harold said conversationally as if none of this seemed strange to him. He held the passenger door open for her, then got in the driver’s side. Cami let out a deep sigh, her feelings and confusion overwhelming her.

  “You can take that mask off now, Miss Hill. No one will see you,” Harold said, backing out of his space. “Besides, those always look so hot underneath.”

  “How did you know?” she asked, reaching behind to try to find the zipper. Harold graciously leaned over and took if off for her. She shook her head, happy to be free from the stifling latex.

  “Eddie’s never been very monogamous, but right now he only has eyes for you,” Harold said, staring straight ahead.
His button down shirt and tie seemed a dire contrast to Cami’s vinyl outfit and he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. Nevertheless, tears began to form in the corners of her eyes.

  “Can you just take me home?”

  “Certainly,” he answered softly.

  “Mr. Jennings, I am…I am so embarrassed,” she confessed as the tears fell. He reached over and popped open the glove box to reveal a pack of tissues.

  “Don’t be. I don’t judge.”

  “This isn’t me. I don’t know who this is. Or who I am,” she started. She wanted to spill everything inside her in some sort of dashboard confessional, but the reality she would be sitting across from him in a meeting at Dyes Industries in two weeks kept that from happening.

  “It’s my experience, Miss Hill, that where Eddie Dunning is concerned none of us are who should be or who we are. He is a master wheeler dealer, and we are all simply cards to be dealt.”

  “You have a deal too?”

  “I have a deal, you have a deal, all God’s children have a deal with Eddie Dunning.”

  “Tyler doesn’t,” Cami ventured.

  “That’s why Eddie hates him,” Harold confided, pulling into her driveway.

  “Please tell Eddie I wasn’t feeling well,” she said as she exited the car.

  “Tomorrow is Sunday and both bars are closed after 6:00. Come by at 6:30 and I’ll have your clothes and things you left at Eddie’s for you,” Harold said. Before she could thank him, he drove away.

  A stiff drink, a hot bath, and some soul searching later, Cami was surprised and frightened to hear the doorbell ring. She didn’t know if was going to be a furious Eddie, a murderous Sovich, or even Tyler wanting a goodnight kiss. She looked out the peephole to see it was the last person she expected and the one person she needed most.

  “Goddess, I’m dying out here. Let me in!” Maralee leaned on the doorbell a second time. Cami opened the door to see her friend standing there with her hands full. A box of donuts in one and a bottle of wine in the other.

  Cami opened the door and took the gifts, a huge smile of relief on her face.

  “I hate it when we fight,” Maralee said.

  “Me too,” Cami replied. “Let’s get drunk, eat donuts, and not talk at all.”

  “Agreed.”

  ***

  Cami waited until the last customers drove away from The Wine Loft before pulling her car up the drive. She sat in the parking lot a few minutes more thinking the same thoughts that had nagged her all morning long. She remembered Tyler telling her how he had placed everything he owned and held dear in the trust of three things: the cure, Dr. Sovich, and her. Two of the three were corrupted by Eddie Dunning. It was all up to the cure.

  “Hello, Miss Hill. It’s nice to see your face tonight.” Harold smiled warmly as Cami walked into the empty bar and brought her a large glass of Merlot. Steve waved at her from the bar and motioned for her to come over.

  “A lot of people have been asking us about that homemade wine your friend brought,” Steve said. “Can we get some more?”

  “I’ll ask her,” Cami smiled back. The shame and fear she felt walking in melted away until Harold pointed toward the stairs.

  “Your things are downstairs,” Harold said. “There is also someone who wants to speak to you alone. Take your wine. If you need anything, just holler. We aren’t far away.”

  Slowly Cami walked down the steps, trying to figure out the best way to approach Eddie and explain herself. As she got near the bottom she could see the lights were on. She walked into the bright room that wasn’t half as interesting in the light as the darkness and looked around. At a far corner table, staring out the window with a drink in his hand was Andrew Sovich.

  “Every time I see you, a light appears,” Cami said walking toward him, her wine glass shaking to reveal her fear. “The day I met you, I thought you were an angel.”

  “I’m no angel,” Sovich said, encouraging her to sit down. “As I am sure you know now.”

  “Well, my friend Maralee would say you have a special gift of light,” Cami mumbled as he nodded.

  “I know it was you, yesterday. I know you know it was me, too.”

  “Oh,” Cami stared at the ground, shame rising in her face again. Damn Harold and Steve for setting her up.

  “I ask Mr. Jennings to help me contact you privately. He thought this was safest. Eddie drove Pavil to DC to airport and is staying there tonight.”

  “I’m sorry about Patrick…er…Pavil…and whatever that was about. I’m, well, I’m sorry for everything, Dr. Sovich.” Caught in the crossfire of her own emotions, Cami didn’t know whether to slap Sovich for betraying Tyler or hug him because she knew exactly how he felt.

  “We need to warn Tyler, Miss Hill. Dunning will not stop until Dyes is finished.”

  “I’ve noticed that,” Cami replied bitterly. “I don’t know what’s in your deal, but not telling Tyler was a big part of mine.”

  Sovich looked up from his drink and stared straight into her eyes.

  “I cannot tell you my deal,” he said heavily. She nodded. She understood. Cami didn’t want to talk about her deal either.

  “Can you tell me one thing? Yesterday, when you agreed to take his deal, you said something was lost. What did that mean?”

  “Glasnost,” he mumbled looking as if he was about to break in half under the weight of his own guilt. “Glasnost is lost. In Russian it means you can see through it. Honesty like a glass door you can see through. Glasnost is the honor of being honest and um…trans…”

  “Transparent,” Cami helped. He nodded.

  “Yes. Since I was a boy I have believed in Glasnost. Now I am hiding in this deal. I have lost it.”

  “I would think you lost it some time ago,” Cami didn’t know what kind of value system Dr. Sovich had, but murdering three people was a lot worse than lying to your boss in her book.

  Andrew smiled and put his big, warm hand on top of hers.

  “I cannot tell you my deal. But I can clear up why I took it, if you would like.”

  “I’d like that very much, Doctor.” Cami said, leaning back in her chair and taking a drink of wine.

  “In Belarus I had family, a beautiful family—wife, daughter. Adriana, my wife, had cancer of ovaries, she passed away when my daughter was only three. Katya was a good mix of us. She was so smart like me, and so beautiful like her mother. She was my light.”

  Cami nodded, imaging a little, blonde Dr. Sovich in a dress, doing calculus while styling a doll’s hair. The mental image made me smile for a moment.

  “The mob,” he continued. “There was a rival gang trying to take Belarus from the control of the Red Savages, the mob. One day, the rivals decided to target the village leaders to create fear. They left bombs at the city hall, the hospital, the university, the politsiya, and the school. They wanted to kill the governess of the school. But the bomb was unstable. It went off before the others. On her way to the office to take a note that she was supposed to see the dentist that day—Katya hated the dentist—she tripped over the package that was in the doorway and it exploded.”

  “Oh my God,” Cami said, her face pale and her mind reeling with the horrible scene in her head.

  “She died instantly, along with a clerk and another girl. But the girl and the clerk had normal parents, not star scientists. Instant can be a blessing, yes?”

  “Yes,” Cami agreed. An instant death did sound like a blessing.

  “Because of that, the other bombs were found and there was no more death. Politsiya said she was a hero. But that is not true. She was a child. My child. Who fell in a doorway.”

  “I’m so sorry, Dr. Sovich.”

  “Later, the mob called me to come to a house. They said they had news about who killed Katya and wanted me to take it to the politsiya. When I arrived they told me to hold a gun, for my safety, then they showed me the men were dead in the room. They were the gang members who set the bombs. One of them was Pavil Ladislao’s
son, Nikolai.”

  “Mr. Ladislao trained under you? In biochemistry?”

  “Who told you that? Dunning? He is as good at lying as he is finding! Pavil is a dock worker, want-to-be mobster. As you can see, he is not a very good hit man. He followed me from place to place, asking for money. He is no one.”

  Cami nodded, terribly hopeful Eddie hadn’t disclosed her moon gathering activity with Mr. Nobody to Sovich.

  “The mob wanted me to make poisons for them. To find ways to kill. I told them I would not. They showed me pictures of me with the gun in the house. The gun used to kill had my fingerprints on it. They threatened me. I laughed at them. ‘My Katya, my Adriana both gone,’ I tell them. ‘Kill me. It is a mercy.’ But they gave the pictures to the politsiya. I told them my story. I had Glasnost then, and honor, and they believed me. They arrested some members of the mob.”

  “How did you end up here?”

  “I went into hiding in Moscow, working on medicines. But I knew I needed out of Russia. I let some scientists know I wanted to go to America. The businesses came running. Dunning had all this research about me, he said I should come because he could protect me. But, he knew more about me than the mob! He was too much like them. Then I met Tyler. I knew he was a nice man, and a gentle man. He offered to let me work on the cure—every scientist’s dream. So I told him about Glasnost and I told him everything. He said he would build an apartment in the lab for me, and I would be safe. He is a good man.”

  “He is,” Cami nodded, her own sense of guilt nearly consuming her. Sovich leaned over and grabbed her hand.

  “We must warn him, Miss Hill. There is something he doesn’t know. I tried to tell him, but he won’t listen.”

  “He knows Eddie is gunning for him. They’ve been at that forever. Tell me something first. Who was in the last picture? The woman Eddie threatened to expose?”

  “My other daughter. She is not mine, really. But a young woman, so much a child in her heart just like Katya. I must stay quiet to protect her. To lose her would kill me. I love her. That is why I took the deal, Miss Hill. We must protect the ones we love, yes?”