The Billionaire's Heir: Billionaire Obsession (Tycoon Billionaires Book 4) (12 page)

Ivan always loved to be proved right, but it was even more satisfying when he was proved right for a good reason. He was certain everyone was going to love Samira, and now he was going to show her it was true.

He carried Quin and held Samira’s hand as they stepped into the living room, where all the women had gathered for Amy’s low-key bachelorette party. It was cozy in here. The wooden floorboards were covered with soft rugs, and the couches were huge and comfortable. The upright piano in the corner was the same one Joseph had learnt to play on all those years ago – when no one would’ve imagined where his music would take him. The mantle above the fireplace at the far-end of the room was covered in framed photos of the family – the kids graduating, fun family holidays… and newer photos of Ivan’s brothers with their girlfriends – who were now all gathered here. Sarah – Dylan’s girlfriend – was sitting on one couch next to Amy – the bride-to-be, and Clara was sitting next to Ellie – Joe’s girlfriend – on the other couch. Mrs. Quinlan senior was sitting on an old favorite armchair, relaxing and enjoying her time with all her honorary daughters, as well as her real one.

They all stopped talking as Ivan and Samira halted inside the door.

“Ivan, it’s lovely to see you!” His mom leapt up and hugged him. “And who’s this little guy? And this beautiful young lady?”

Ivan had no idea whether Adam or Clara had already blabbed, but it was clear his mother wanted an official introduction.

“Mom, this is Samira – the woman I’ve been searching for all this time. And this is our son, Quin. Meet your grandson.”

“Grandson?” Mrs. Quinlan gasped with joy and reached out to take Quin from Ivan’s arms. With five grown-up children of her own, she was very maternal and loved kids, and Quin seemed delighted to go to her.

“Hello, young man,” she said, as he grinned at his grandmother. She transferred her affectionate gaze to Samira. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, sweetheart. We’ve heard so much about you. You’re very welcome in our home.”

“Thank you,” Samira said, turning on the meek act she’d learnt so well in Iran to cover up her wild side. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Quinlan.”

“Oh, you should call me mom.”

Samira’s eyes welled up with tears. “Thank you, mom. I’d be honored to call you that.”

Ivan glanced at Clara. “I take it my sister was unable to keep her mouth shut about how we ran off to Las Vegas and got married, then?”

Mrs. Quinlan’s face flashed with a confused smile. “No, she didn’t mention any of that…”

Ivan laughed. “Ah. Well, mom, Samira’s my wife. We got married in Las Vegas…”

“I hope we have your blessing, Mrs. Quinlan,” Samira said, nervously.

Mrs. Quinlan jiggled Quin on her hip, making him giggle. “Of course, sweetheart. I can see from looking at my son that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him. It’s nice to see he’s bothering to shave again! And this little one is a blessing on our entire family.” She glanced at her daughter and the three girlfriends. “I do hope he’s the eldest of many grandkids.”

The other women chuckled – some more nervously than others. 

“But, Ivan,” Mrs. Quinlan said, passing Quin back to his mother. “This is a male-free zone. You need to go join your brothers and your father in the den – where you’ll undoubtedly find them drinking beer and playing poker.”

Ivan kissed Samira. “Will you be okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” Amy called over. “We promise we’ll take good care of her.”

Samira smiled shyly and nodded. “I’ll be okay.”

Ivan winked at his mother. “And what about Quin? He’s male, so I’ll just take him along with me to the man-cave, shall I?”

Mrs. Quinlan stuck her arm between Ivan and Samira to prevent him from taking the baby. “No, we make exceptions for males as cute as this little one.”

“Alright. I leave you ladies to compare notes on which of
us
is best.”

Sarah scoffed. “Hardly, Ivan! We’ll be talking about work and politics.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, with a chuckle. He smiled at Samira. “I’ll take care of the suitcase, okay. I’ll put it under the bed.”

She nodded, not wanting to give anything away to the others. He kissed her and Quin, then he strolled back out to the hallway, heading in the direction of the den – but there was a knock at the front door so he wheeled back to answer it.

He was assaulted with a worried thought that this could be Langdon or his associates coming for their drugs, but he pushed it away. Surely it would take them longer to track him down than that... unless Jake had betrayed him. But he wouldn’t, would he?

Ivan really had no idea what to do with the drugs yet, but he wanted to get Adam’s wedding out the way smoothly before making a plan to go back and confront Langdon…

He opened the door and was surprised to see Jake leaning against the doorframe, smoking a cigarette. “Hey, big brother.”

Ivan’s muscles tensed, ready to pick him up and throw him off their property. “You agreed to stay away from my family until I had the chance to check your intentions. It’s Adam’s wedding tomorrow – you need to leave right now.”

Jake dropped his cigarette to the doorstep and ground it out with his boot. “I’m not here to cause you any trouble. But I do need to talk with you.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“I thought we’d been through this, Ivan… Langdon confessed to me that he still has Samira’s passport – but that’s not the worst of it. Can I come in? Please?”

Ivan stepped out the way. “Alright, come into the kitchen. But if anyone sees you, you tell them you’re just a buddy of mine, right.”

“Sure.”

Ivan led him through to the kitchen – where the suitcase was still sitting on the kitchen table – now with the lid tightly shut.

“Where’s Samira?” Jake asked.

“With the other women. Like I said, it’s Adam and Amy’s wedding tomorrow, so we’re celebrating. And I’m keen to join them. What’s this all about?”

“Right. Look, I’ll be totally frank with you. Langdon wants Samira dead.”

Ivan froze, letting this sink in. He realized Jake probably
was
still on his side – otherwise why would he be sneaking behind Langdon’s back like this? Ivan gestured to the suitcase. “Actually, we’ve got bigger problems than that.”

Jake’s jaw dropped open. “Didn’t you hear me? He wants her dead!”

“No one’s hurting Samira – not while I’m living and breathing. But look…”

Ivan unzipped the suitcase and showed him.

“Holy shit,” Jake said. “I knew those cases were full of something shady, but this is unbelievable.” He gazed severely into Ivan’s eyes. “You know he’ll be after your blood when he realizes this is missing? And the guys he’s working for will be after
his
blood if they find out.”

“I know.” Ivan ran his fingers through his hair. “So why does he want Samira out the picture? Is it because of the drugs?”

“No. It’s because of some insurance claim. And he wants
me
to do it.”

“To kill her?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But what insurance? What the fuck’s going on?”

“He’s been stringing Samira along all this time. Apparently his other wife had a life insurance policy, so he killed her for the money – but he couldn’t show
her
body to the cops, obviously. So he disposed of her somehow, then he found Samira and convinced her to pretend to be his wife. My guess is he wanted to make it look like an accident – then he could claim for the insurance on ‘Mrs. Langdon’, right?”

Ivan stared at the kitchen floor – his heart thumped hard in his chest. “Jesus... That does make sense though… Samira said she was certain the bank by the creek didn’t crumble by itself the other day. She said maybe someone had set her up… But I had no idea Langdon had actually been setting her up to
kill
her.”

“Well, there you go. I guess he was just biding his time for the next ‘accident’. Then you showed up.”

Ivan clenched his fists, trying to contain his fury. “And he’d have plenty of eye-witnesses at the ranch who knew her as Mrs. Langdon, so he could cash in on the insurance policy for the
real
Mrs. Langdon…”

“Exactly. And in the meantime, he was using her as a drugs mule, knowing she’d do anything to stay in the country and protect her child. He’s pretty smart really.”

Ivan grimaced. “What happened to the real Mrs. Langdon?

“I’d hate to imagine.”

Ivan’s mind raced with questions – as well as desperate relief that he got to Samira just in time. “But I don’t understand – why does he now want
you
to take care of this?”

“Because he’s getting desperate – and he thinks I still work for him. Suddenly
you
know Samira isn’t Mrs. Langdon – which fucks up his entire plan. Now I guess he wants her dead before she blabs. Or perhaps he just wants revenge on her for wasting his time before moving onto the next poor girl.”

“Do you think he owes a lot of money to someone? I mean, why would anyone go to those means?”

“He said he has debts, but he didn’t say to who. Maybe he owes money to the drugs cartel for losing an entire suitcase full of coke.”

Ivan gazed blankly at him. “Yeah, yeah, very funny…” He grabbed his phone. “I’m calling the cops.”

Jake folded his arms across his chest. “Not so fast, Ivan – you’ve got a suitcase full of cocaine and an illegal immigrant in your parents’ house, the day before your brother’s wedding. Don’t you think we should leave them out of it for now, huh?”

Ivan lowered the phone and opened his mouth to argue, but his father strolled into the kitchen. “Ivan, what are you doing out here, son? We’re waiting to start the poker – we’re supposed to be celebrating Adam’s last day of freedom.”

Ivan transferred his attention to Jake, who was glaring furiously at Quinlan Senior as if he was about to attack.

Quinlan Senior followed Ivan’s gaze, then offered Jake his hand. “Oh hi. I don’t think we’ve been introduced. Friend of yours, Ivan?”

Ivan understood why Jake was furious with his biological father for what had happened. But Adam’s special weekend had already had enough drama – thanks to Ivan. He needed to contain this. He braced himself to jump in if Jake was planning to blurt out the truth. 

He watched tensely as Jake moved his hand toward Mr. Quinlan’s. Then he wrapped his fingers around his father’s hand and shook it in a daze, seething under the surface.

“Uh, dad,” Ivan said. “This is Mr.… er…”

“Jake,” he said. “Jacob.”

Quinlan Senior chuckled. “Jake Jacobs?”

“Ah, yeah.”

“Funny name. Your parents obviously didn’t like you much.”

Jake’s expression surged to barely-suppressed fury. Ivan coiled his muscles and opened his mouth to intervene. But luckily his mom strolled in, humming a little tune to herself.

“Oh, hello boys! I didn’t mean to interrupt – just grabbing a bottle of wine.”

Quinlan Senior wrapped her in his arms. “Come here my lovely lady!”

Ivan rolled his eyes at their public display of affection, but he was glad the tension had been defused. His father nuzzled his face into his mom’s neck making her laugh. They’d always been openly affectionate, but tonight they’d been drinking and they were in the pre-wedding party mood.

Mrs. Quinlan gazed at her husband like a pussycat. “Are you sure we’re allowed to
see
each other before the wedding, my darling?”

Mr. Quinlan laughed. “You’re thinking of Adam and Amy, love.
We
can see as much of each other as we like!”

Mrs. Quinlan giggled girlishly. “Oh good…”

Ivan smiled and shot Jake an apologetic look. They’d always been like this in front of his friends. Not that Jake was his friend…

“And who’s this?” Mrs. Quinlan asked, eyeing up Jake. She fell serious and frowned. “You look familiar. Are you Kathleen’s boy, all grown up?”

“No ma’am,” he muttered.

“This is Jake,” Ivan said. “And he was just leaving, right Jake?”

“Well, I…”

Mrs. Quinlan clapped her hands. “Oh, I insist you stay for the wedding. A friend of Ivan’s is a friend of all Quinlans! The boys are doing poker and beer in the den – I insist you stay for that.”

Jake opened his mouth to argue, but Mr. Quinlan intervened with a chuckle. “You’d best do as she says, son – you’re very welcome to join us. But before that, my wife and I are going to spend some time alone!”

He wrapped his arms around Mrs. Quinlan and led her out into the hallway, making her laugh. Ivan waited for their voices to fade before turning to Jake. He was staring at the empty space ahead of him where his estranged parents had just been standing.

“You okay, Jake?”

He shook his head, seemingly humbled and stunned.

“Say something.”

Jake dragged himself back to reality and gazed into Ivan’s eyes. “They seem so nice.”