Game Over (The Baltimore Banners Book 2) (16 page)

     He nodded then turned away, shuffling down the hall in his odd off-ice gait. Bobbi clenched her hands together and closed her eyes, forcing herself to stay seated, to not run after him. Minutes passed by before she trusted herself enough to stay in the office.

     She sat back and closed her eyes, allowing herself one more minute of despair, allowing herself to admit she had fallen in love with Nikolai Petrovich, allowing herself to grieve for something that should have never happened in the first place, for something that could have never been regardless.

     Bobbi ran her hand across her eyes and took a deep breath, then reached for her phone to call Denny.

**

     The coffee shop was busy, crowded with business professionals and tourists alike, a loud hum of conversation filling the small place with a din that nearly made normal conversation impossible.

     Denny flipped through the file she had given him, lines of concentration and disbelief creasing his forehead. He shuffled the papers, looking between two sheets, and shook his head.

     "You're sure about this?"

     Bobbi sipped her coffee, watching the crowd around them. "I don't need to be. The reports tie it up very neatly. There's no doubt about it—Toomey is your connection between Petrovich, Jacobs, and TBL. But that's it. There's no other connection, nobody else involved."

     Every spare minute of the last few days had been spent hacking into different accounts and records, spreadsheets, electronic transactions, emails...if it could be accessed through a computer, she had found it, gotten into it, and analyzed it.

     The distraction kept her other thoughts at bay, kept her from throwing paranoid glances over her shoulder, kept her from returning the long looks Nikolai gave her if she was anywhere near him. The distraction kept her from being near him more than absolutely necessary—which was still too much.

     "You've got one connection at least, and you've got the back-up you need to make it and prove it. What I still don't have is the why. What's behind the extortion? What hold could they possibly have over him to make him quietly go along with all of this?"

     Denny slipped the file into a business case and sat back in his chair. To anyone watching, he would seem just like any other suit in the place, ostensibly taking a quick break from work but not completely managing to let go all the way. He lifted his cup to his lips and sipped, his gaze cool and calculating as he watched her over the plastic rim. He set the cup down on the table then reached into his jacket and pulled out a small envelope. He placed it on the table between them.

     Bobbi stared at the slash of white against the table top and felt a sting of anxiety shoot through her. Her grip tightened on the cup. "What's that?"

     "Your 'why'."

     Bobbi tore her gaze away from the envelope and looked at Denny, searching his eyes for some hint, some indication, some sign to let her know that she shouldn't be feeling this numbing anxiety. His return gaze was cool, distant and completely blank.

     She reached out and gingerly slid the envelope toward her, hoping that Denny couldn't see the tremor in her hand when she picked it up. Barely breathing, she slid one finger under the flap and released the seal, then reached in and pulled out several pictures.

     All of them were of the same boy, about 10 years old, with huge blue eyes and a shy smile. They had obviously been taken in Russia—Bobbi recognized several Moscow landmarks in the background. Her heart raced and she no longer tried to hide her shaking hands as she stared at the last picture.

     A stunningly beautiful woman with dark eyes had a protective arm wrapped around the young boy, a haunted expression on her face as she appeared to look off in the distance, past the anonymous photographer. Bobbi flipped through the pictures one last time then placed them back in the envelope and pushed it back to the middle of the table. She raised her eyes to Denny, waiting.

     He took a sip of his coffee and nodded to the envelope. "Katerina and Dmitri Petrovich. Dmitri was 'kidnapped' eight years ago and placed into the care of the Ruskov Orphanage. His release was contingent on his father—Nikolai Petrovich—signing with TBL. The release is conditional, based on yearly renewals and fees. If Petrovich fails to agree to the terms, Dmitri is turned back over to the orphanage."

     Bobbi curled her fists in her lap, her jaw clenched with such force her teeth nearly shattered. Forget the horror of having your son's life threatened on a daily basis—she couldn't even imagine that kind of hell, knew that any parent would do whatever it took to stop it. No, that horror was bad enough.

     It was the other pieces that were slowly falling into place that made her want to run away.

     She looked at Denny, at his nonchalant posture as he sat there, smug and certain. The cool distance in his voice as he calmly explained the 'why'. And she knew, without a doubt, that he wasn't merely reciting facts he had only recently learned.

     "You son of a bitch. You knew. This whole time, you knew." Her voice was shaking with controlled fury, and she wanted nothing more than to reach across the table and choke him with her bare hands, to squeeze the life from him breath by breath. "Why? Why the elaborate game? Why drag me into it?"

     "We haven't been able to make a concrete connection in eight years. Suspicion and guesswork, but nothing concrete. And we couldn't get anyone to talk. Not one single word. Extortion of Russian hockey players is nothing new, but nobody talks about it. I needed someone on the inside who could get close, who would know what to look for without having too many details."

     Chills ran through Bobbi as Denny continued explaining, his voice detached as he calmly drank his coffee and watched her.

     "I suspected Toomey was involved but I wasn't sure. When the personal assistant position became available, it was a perfect opportunity, and you were the perfect choice."

     "I was your patsy."

     A frown crossed his face as he shook his head. "No. You went in and accomplished in two months what we haven't been able to do in eight years. You got close to Petrovich, you made the connection. Thanks to you, we almost have enough to get these guys."

     She didn't miss his use of the word 'almost', and she felt despair mix with her rage. "Almost?"

     "I didn't expect you to set up house with a married man, but it makes what we need so much easier." Denny continued to study her, something very much resembling a smirk of disapproval and judgment in the depths of his eyes.

     Bobbi looked away, down at the envelope on the table between them. Setting up house with a married man. Nikolai was married. He had a son. He had a wife in Russia.

     And for a short time, he had a mistress here in the US. Her. And he had claimed to love her. In Russian, of course, not knowing she understood. Is that how he rationalized it?

     She pushed the ugly reality away, knowing she couldn't focus on that now, knowing she couldn't afford any distractions. Not now.

     "What do you need?"

     "For Nikolai Petrovich to make a formal complaint. No trial, no testimony, no publicity. Just a complaint. We have Katerina and Dmitri in custody already. If he files a complaint, we bring them here and make sure the extortion ends."

     "Wait. You have them? Where? When?"

     "They've been in protective custody for a week now."

     "You damned self-serving son-of-a—"

     "Easy Bobbi. You're close to making a scene."

     She lowered herself into the chair, her breathing as harsh as if she had just run a marathon. "You're no better than those doing the extortion." Denny lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. Of course he wouldn't care. Not if it meant reaching his goal. The ends justified the means. It had always been that way with him.

     She was a fool for forgetting that.

     "Will you do it?"

     Bobbi stared down at the envelope, the image of huge blue eyes fresh in her memory. The boy's eyes. Nikolai's eyes.

     Clenching her jaw, she stood, not caring that the chair almost toppled with the force she used to push it back. She leaned across the table, her face inches from Denny's, her fury clear in her burning eyes.

     "Yeah, I'll do it. But after that...after that, don't ever come near me again. I'm done." She turned and started walking away when she heard his cool voice call after her. She stopped but didn't face him, could sense his presence behind her and knew he had stood and walked after her.

     "That's fine but I think I should warn you—you still need to watch your back until this is over."

     She froze at how casually he reminded her of the supposed threat, then tossed him a curt wave over her shoulder and walked out.

     Numbness, pain, or anger.

     Bobbi wasn't sure which was better. Her emotions had been through a hellacious roller-coaster ride of all three in the past twenty-four hours, and she was still trapped on what seemed to be a never-ending ride of misery.

     For now, the anger was front-and-center. Anger at Denny for his games and for his callous disregard when it came to using people to reach an end. Anger at herself for once again falling into the trap of believing him.

     Anger at Nikolai. No, not just anger. Anger, hurt, betrayal. Fury. She was still having a hard time believing that she had so completely fallen for his lies. That he had lied so thoroughly and convincingly to her. He was married. With a son.

     How could he be married and have said all those things to her? How could she have let herself believe him? How could she have let herself fall in love with him?

     No. She was
not
in love with him. It had been a heavy infatuation combined with off-the-charts lust but it was
not
love. She wouldn't let it be.

     God, how could she have been so stupid?

     Then again, it wasn't like she was the best judge of character. Just look at her marriage with Denny, at her failure to see beneath the surface.

     "Dammit." Bobbi ran her hands through her hair and over her face, desperate to just put everything out of her mind. Right now, she wanted the numbness. She didn't want to feel anything, not when she had to meet Nikolai in less than five minutes to accompany him to his interview.

     Accompany. Even that was a joke, this whole façade of acting as his personal assistant. For how much longer?

     Until she could talk to him, convince him to make a formal complaint. And she had no idea how to do it, especially since they hadn't said more than a few words to each other over the last several days. If only it could be as simple as walking up and talking to him, asking him, convincing him.

     Who was she kidding? She didn't even want to see him.

     Nikolai was married.

     Bobbi blew out a deep breath and grabbed her bag, made sure her gun was secure in her shoulder holster, and walked out of her closet office. The interview was going to be held here at the practice rink, just off the ice. Why it couldn't have been scheduled after Sunday night's game—the Banners last game of the season—she didn't know.

     Bobbi pushed through the swinging doors into the rink, nearly running into George Toomey. Her steps faltered and she side-stepped to avoid hitting him, a chill going through her as he stopped to look at her.

     "Ms. Reeves, good afternoon. I see that things are all set for the interview, excellent work." He shifted his weight and her eyes dropped to the briefcase in his hand, then drifted upward to his face. His expression was open, almost jovial.

     Genuine? Or an act?

     It didn't matter because Bobbi didn't trust him, knew him for what he really was. An extortionist, a thief. Possibly a kidnapper. Worse? Not that she'd been able to discover so far, but that didn't mean anything.

     She pasted a smile on her face and nodded, not letting her real thoughts and feelings come through. He couldn't suspect anything, no matter what. Not until she got Nikolai to cooperate.

     "Yup, all set. I was just heading out there myself." She nodded in the direction of the ice, her eyes never leaving his face. He smiled again then stepped past her, disappearing through the doors. It wasn't until she was completely certain he was gone that she turned and walked toward the ice, toward Nikolai and his interview.

     Any hope that this would be a pleasantly well-attended event, with plenty of onlookers, was quickly dashed when Bobbi stepped up to the boards. The practice had ended long enough ago that the other players were gone, that all the well-wishers and autograph seekers had left. Besides herself, there were only three other people in the rink: Nikolai, a leggy red-headed reporter, and a photographer. The reporter was shamelessly flirting with Nikolai, standing close enough to give him a full view if he chose to look down at her low-cut blouse. For some reason, he chose not to, instead standing stiffly against the boards, his attention focused on the stick in his hands.

     She must have made some sound because he turned toward her, and her heart jumped at the quick smile that appeared in his eyes when he saw her. Appeared, then quickly died when she did nothing more than give him a curt nod.

     He had lied to her. He was married.

     She kept repeating that to herself as she got closer, allowing her anger to grow, allowing it eclipse any other thought and memory and emotion that may have wanted to take hold. She was only here to do a job, and she wanted nothing more than to finish it so she could put this whole ugly mess behind her. To forget. To reach game over, so she could be done with it.

     She took a deep breath and stepped closer, dropping her bag on the bench near the outside boards before walking over to Nikolai. She made sure to stop a safe distance from him and gave her attention to the reporter.

     "Sorry if I'm a little late."

     "Who are you?" The red head's voice was cool, her distaste obvious as she raked her eyes from Bobbi's unruly waves, down her black blazer and wide-leg trousers, to her chunk heeled black boots and back up. Bobbi knew she had just been sized-up as potential competition and immediately dismissed as inconsequential.

    
Sweetheart, you have no idea.
Bobbi pushed both the thought and the irrational spurt of angry jealousy out of her mind. A warm hand closed over her shoulder and squeezed, and it was all she could do not to jerk away from Nikolai's touch.

     "She is my—"

     "Personal assistant, Bobbi Reeves." She cut him off before he could finish, because she had no idea what he had been about to say, how we would have introduced her.

     She stepped away from Nikolai's touch, not caring how it looked to either him or the reporter, and motioned to the ice. "I understand you also want some pictures of Nikolai for the article. I've been asked to remind you that he does have another obligation in an hour, so time is limited."

     She felt a perverse satisfaction as the reporter started stammering her indignation, but quickly pushed that feeling away as well as she stepped off to the side and out of the way. Whatever ideas the red head may have entertained prior to speaking with Nikolai, she quickly pushed them to the back and went immediately to professional mode.

     Bobbi stood off to the side and watched, one eye on the progressing interview, one eye on her watch. Nikolai didn't have another engagement scheduled, not formally and not that he would have known about. But she had decided to put an end to this now, to get it over with as quickly as possible.

     To move on and to forget.

     The interview portion had obviously concluded. The photographer followed Nikolai onto the ice, pointing in different directions, issuing instructions as he posed Nikolai for different shots. The click of the camera echoed off the ice, then the photographer motioned for Nikolai to skate around the boards, obviously wanting some action shots.

     Bobbi watched him, watched the power and grace in his moves. She let her eyes follow him, drift over him, allowing herself the final guilty pleasure of just watching him.

     His height and his build. The play of muscles under the pads and jersey. She remembered the smooth tautness of warm skin over hard muscle, the contained strength as he held himself over her, held her. The dark shaggy length of his hair, now damp with the sweat of practice, surprisingly soft under her touch as she ran her fingers through it.

     His square jaw, now covered with early afternoon stubble, giving him an air of danger, of pure masculine sex appeal. His full lips, quick to smile, eager to please. And the startling blue of his eyes, flaming with passion or icy with anger.

     Much as they were now as he slid to a stop in front of her, the glass of the boards between them. He tapped the blade of his stick against the glass, shaking it, his eyes holding hers.

     She shook her head and looked away, her face heating with the knowledge she had been caught staring. Remembering.

     He's married, she told herself. Remember
that.

     She turned away from the boards, giving him her back, and looked down at her watch, surprised to see that the allotted time for the interview was nearly over. The photographer was packing equipment away, and the reporter was still leaning against the boards, watching Nikolai with a mixed look of feral hunger and appreciation on her face.

     Bobbi looked closer, half expecting to see drool against the glass, then stopped herself. How could she blame the other woman for doing exactly what she had just done?

     That didn't mean she had to like it, and a small petty part of her allowed the jealousy to further fuel her anger. She stayed where she was, far enough away to be out of the way, and let the anger simmer and grow, let it push every other emotion out of her.

     Nikolai finally stepped off the ice. He looked over at her, took a step in her direction then stopped as the reporter and photographer blocked his way. Bobbi watched, saw Nikolai push back his impatience as he answered a few more of their questions before they finally left.

     And then it was just the two of them, alone once more in the rink. Nikolai shot her a look she couldn't read as he threw his stick to the floor and sat on the bench next to his gear bag, his fingers tugging at the skate laces. Bobbi walked slowly over, knowing that now was the time, knowing that she should just get everything out and be done with it.

     "You are mad with me."

     She didn't say anything, just stood off to the side and watched as he unlaced the skates with short jerky movements. He paused and looked up at her, his expression unreadable, then shook his head. Whatever he had been ready to say was interrupted by the muted sound of a ringing phone. Bobbi automatically looked down at hers even as Nikolai dug through his bag and pulled his out. He jabbed at the screen with one blunt figure and answered it, his voice short.

     He waved his hand at her, getting her attention, and motioned for something to write with. Bobbi swallowed back her impatience and reached for her own bag, pulling out the small notepad and pen. She tried handing it to him, but again he motioned to her, wordlessly asking her to write something down. Bobbi clenched her jaw and clicked the pen, then looked down at him expectantly, waiting.

     The conversation continued in a rapid mix of English and Russian, a slight vacant smile on Nikolai's face. Bobbi realized he was talking to one of his teammates, discussing a party the team was throwing after their last game. Bobbi figured somebody must have finally made the arrangements, because Nikolai was repeating the directions out loud.

     She hastily scrawled the notes on her pad, no longer looking at Nikolai, unreasonably angered at having to do even such a small task as jot down directions for an event she wouldn't even be attending. The party was in a few days' time, so she was sure Nikolai would be taking his beautiful wife. Of course he would. Because Bobbi would do her job and convince him to cooperate. He would be reunited with his family by tomorrow night, and she could move on with her own life.

     Because she
would
do her job. Right now, as soon as he got off the damned phone.

     Bobbi loosened her grip on the pen, surprised at how tightly she was holding it, surprised at the white-knuckled clenching of her fist. She breathed in deeply then let it out slowly, pushing her anger back to a more manageable level. The roar in her ears faded, and she finally realized that Nikolai was no longer talking on the phone. He was leaning back on the bench, the phone held loosely in his hand, his head cocked to the side as he stared at her.

     "You wrote directions for me." His voice was low, flat, almost as if he was trying to figure something out.

     "Of course I did. That's what you wanted me to do, isn't it?"

     "These directions. I would like to see them. Please."

     Bobbi swallowed back her frustration and ripped the sheet from the notepad, then stepped closer and handed it to him. She had to resist the urge to shove the paper in his face, and settled for tossing the pad and pen back into her bag instead.

     An eerie quiet settled over Nikolai as he stared at the paper, and Bobbi wondered what was suddenly so wrong. He looked up at her, then back down at the paper. Without warning, he crumpled it in his fist and turned toward her, anger flaring in the depths of his eyes.

     "You took the directions down. You wrote them."

     "Yes, Nikolai, I did. That's what you wanted me to do, that's what I did. Why are you having such a problem with this?"

     "Because I do not understand." He smoothed out the crumpled sheet in his hand and stared at it, then looked up at her again. "I was speaking in Russian. But these directions, you wrote them. I see you write them but...you do not understand Russian."

     Bobbi's entire body froze. From her heart to her mind, every thought and movement were completely frozen. He was wrong, he had been speaking in English. She wouldn't have—couldn't have—done something so careless. She glanced down at the sheet in his hand as she remembered the conversation, remembered her anger, remembered the sound of his voice talking in rapid English.