Trusting A Stranger

“Because I trust you. There are few people I could say that about.”

Luke said nothing, simply stared at the man he’d considered a friend and was no longer sure he should. Would a true friend make such an outlandish request knowing the great personal cost to him? Or was it the sign of a friend that the man would trust him to help this woman?

As expected, it didn’t take Viktor long to rush in to fill the silence. “Obviously I know you aren’t married and I doubted you would be involved in any kind of relationship that would prevent you from agreeing to help us.” He raised his brows, as though prompting Luke to prove him wrong.

Luke tipped his head in acknowledgment. It was hardly a secret he hadn’t been involved with anyone seriously since Melanie’s death.

“I also knew you would not be able to stand by and watch an innocent woman die when there is something you can do to prevent it.”

“Even if that were true, this hardly seems like a situation any sane person would get involved in. People who try to help her don’t seem to last long.”

“I know we are asking a great deal—” the woman said.

“Yes,” he returned coolly. “You are.”

She flinched and clamped her mouth shut.

“You’re asking me to commit an illegal act, place my entire life and career in jeopardy, and for what? What exactly am I supposed to get out of this?”

Her face flushed to a bright red, and he belatedly realized how that might have sounded. Did she think he was demanding full marital rights if he agreed to be her husband? He almost wondered how she would respond if he were that kind of man. Then again, if he were, he doubted Viktor would have brought her here in the first place.

Indeed, his purported friend hardly seemed to have noticed the possible implication. “You can help an old friend save what’s left of his family,” Viktor said fervently. “We may not share blood, but you know better than anyone that blood is not a requirement for family. My father thought so, too. He lost his life protecting hers. I can’t let his sacrifice be for nothing.”

The desperation in the voice of the typically charming, carefree Viktor Yevchenko left no doubt his friend meant every word. For just a moment, Luke felt a small part of himself relent ever so slightly.

The rest of him managed to hold fast. He wasn’t about to buy their story without checking into it. He couldn’t imagine why an old friend he’d known and trusted for years would come to him with this outlandish proposal unless it were true, but then, the whole situation had been thrown into his lap so suddenly and without warning that he hadn’t even had a chance to process it.

“I’ll need some time to think about it.”

“Think quickly,” Viktor said. “Time is one thing we don’t have much of.”

With a terse nod, Luke rose to his feet, more than ready to remove these two from his home and get to dealing with the troublesome issues they raised. If only he hadn’t invited them in to begin with.

Picking up his cue, Viktor and the woman stood, as well.

They made their way back to the door in silence. Luke pulled the door open and waited.

Viktor stopped first before passing through the doorway. “As I said, she is like family to me, Hubbard. You of all people know what it’s like to lose family. That’s another reason I came to you.”

Although he wasn’t about to let Viktor see it, the remark hit home, just like the man must have known it would, damn him. “I’ll be in touch,” Luke said stiffly.

Luke saw Viktor barely manage to tamp down his frustration. With a tight nod, his supposed friend stepped out the door.

And then there was one…

Karina started to follow Viktor, only to stop in front of Luke.

He braced himself for whatever emotional appeal she might offer. The tears. The sobs. None of which would work. He wasn’t about to be manipulated.

Instead, she simply met his eyes, her own bleak and tired. “Thank you for your time,” she said softly. With that, she moved to join Viktor.

Luke remained where he stood and watched them make their way to the vehicle parked in front of his home. The woman walked with her head up, but her shoulders still seemed to sag, her posture defeated. As though she’d given up. As though she already believed he’d made the decision he damn well should, but somehow hadn’t.

Suddenly realizing how long he’d been standing there, he forced himself to close the door. It didn’t rid him of the image of that look in her eyes, nor the slump of her shoulders as she walked away.

Troubled, he moved down the hall toward his office. He needed more information. Like it or not, it appeared he had a decision to make.

Even as part of him suspected he’d never had any choice in the matter at all.

Chapter Two (#ulink_a10ad1fd-cab1-57a1-a0e6-2c53f23ef27b)

At 6:58 a.m., Luke placed an order for two coffees with the barista at the counter. Two minutes later, he was seated at a table at the front of the coffee shop, two paper cups in front of him, when Darren Jensen walked through the door, on time as always.

He must have spotted Luke through the front window, as intended, because he headed straight toward him without scanning the room first. Jensen was already reaching for one of the cups even before he started to pull out the open chair. “For me?”

“Of course. Thanks for meeting with me.”

“It’s the least I can do. Anybody who drives in from Baltimore first thing in the morning instead of making do with a phone call is pretty much asking for a face-to-face, don’t you think?”

“I had some business in Washington,” Luke said mildly. It was the truth. He would have business to attend to, one way or another, whatever Jensen told him.

He watched the man take a long swallow from his cup, pushing back a twinge of impatience. As would be expected for someone who worked for the government, Jensen’s suit was less expensive than Luke’s own, but the man was still as immaculately groomed as he’d been when they’d been colleagues at the same law firm years earlier. Pursuing an interest in public service, Jensen had later gone to work for the State Department, making him an excellent source for exactly the kind of answers Luke was looking for. They’d always been on friendly terms, if not outright friends, and remained cordial after Jensen’s career change. If it was a friendship, it was the best kind, one where the only favors asked were professional or informational.

Not incredibly personal, he thought, his mind returning to the subject that had occupied his thoughts for nearly twenty-four hours now.

No, he would quite happily do without those kinds of friends.

As soon as Jensen began to lower his cup to the table, Luke spoke. “What do you have for me?”

“Nothing good. Is your firm thinking of doing business with Solokov? Because if you are, I’d think again.”

“He’s that bad?”

“Men in today’s Russia don’t stay as rich as Solokov without help from friends in high places and ones in low ones. And these aren’t the kind of friends you’d want to get on the wrong side of.”

“So he has government connections.”

“And mafia ones. Nothing I can prove concretely, but that’s what the talk around him indicates, and there’s too much there to just be rumors. Like most of the oligarchs who made their fortunes after the fall of the Soviet Union, Solokov knew how to play dirty, and he played to win, with plenty of backing from those friends I mentioned. In today’s economy, especially Russia’s, many of those Russian billionaires who rose up in the past few decades have lost most, if not all, of their fortunes, especially if they fell out of favor with the government. Not Solokov. He might have taken a hit, but he’s still standing.”

And if he had taken a hit financially, he would be even more protective of what he had left, Luke deduced. “Which brings us to Dmitri Fedorov.”

Jensen nodded. “Formerly of Solokov’s employ, currently six feet under. Turned up about a month and a half ago. Murdered.”

“Any word who’s responsible?”

“None officially. But considering how badly he’d been tortured, it definitely wasn’t random. And when a high-level financial manager for a very rich man turns up dead in the condition he was found in, most people are going to be casting a suspicious eye in his boss’s direction.”

“Including the police?”