The Mogul And The Muscle

As if to remind me of that fact, four more armed men filed into the room. Bobby turned and plastered a douchey smile on his face while a man in an exquisitely tailored suit walked in.

The boss man.

I’d never seen him before, but I didn’t need to know his name to know he was in charge. People in power often had a look about them. They moved a certain way, as if they had utter confidence that their every word would be heeded without question.

If this guy was the head of the Russian mafia in Miami, he was probably right.

He stopped, his eyes moving from the contract, to me, to his henchman, then to Bobby. “What’s going on here?” His Russian accent was obvious, although he spoke English well. “Why the delay?”

“Sorry,” Bobby said. “I’ve just been having a little chat with my Cami. She’s ready to sign.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Cameron,” Inda hissed.

“I’m not signing that.”

The boss man—he hadn’t offered his name, so I didn’t know what to call him—stared at me, his face expressionless. He had slicked-back salt-and-pepper hair that was long enough to curl at the back of his neck. Thick beard, mostly gray. And blue, blue eyes, as icy as a glacier.

He was terrifying.

“Of course you’re going to sign it,” he said.

“How much is he paying you?” I asked. “Maybe we can come to an arrangement.”

Was I really going to pay off the Russian mafia to get me out of this situation? Yes, I probably was. Depending on his terms.

The corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re very beautiful, aren’t you? Had things been different, I would have loved to do business with you directly.”

“Why can’t we? Nothing is final until the signatures are dry.”

“Cami, just sign it,” Bobby said, lowering his voice. “Then we can let you go.”

The boss man didn’t take his eyes off me. “We’re not letting her go.”

“What?” Bobby asked. “Yes, we are.”

“No. That’s not possible. She and her little friend are loose ends. I’m afraid the lovely Ms. Whitbury is going to suffer an unfortunate accident.”

“You’re going to kill her?” Bobby asked, his voice rising. “Hold on a second. You never said anything about killing her.”

“It’s not your concern,” he said.

“Yes it is. I need her. She saved the company from going under. I need her to run it.”

“We’ll find a suitable replacement,” the boss man said.

“That’s why you’re doing this, isn’t it?” I asked, ignoring Bobby’s reddening face. “It’s not about what he’s paying you. If he owns Spencer, and you own him, suddenly the Russian mafia has an aerospace empire.”

“No, that wasn’t the deal,” Bobby said, taking a step toward the boss man. The henchmen all closed in and Bobby held up his hands. “Okay, okay, I get it. But you did not tell me you were going to kill Cameron.”

The boss man’s phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket. “Yes? Understood.” He pocketed his phone and turned to Bobby. “I have to take care of something. I’ll be back.”

Bobby watched, open-mouthed, as the boss man and two of his men walked out of the broken-down hotel suite. Four stayed behind, with three of them taking up positions near the door.

“What are we going to do?” Inda whispered.

“I don’t know.”

The fourth henchman pulled a knife out of his pocket and came toward me.

“Wait,” Bobby said, holding out a hand. “Just give me a second to talk to her before you do that, okay? I want to make sure she’s going to cooperate. Trust me, I’ve got this. We’ve been friends since second grade.”

The henchman hesitated for a second, then put his knife away. He went back to stand with the others.

Bobby glanced around then leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “Cami, I swear to god, he never said anything about killing you. You were supposed to sign and then they’d do the bag on your head thing and dump you somewhere so you could get home.”

“Well, you hired the fucking Russian mafia, so I don’t know what else you expected.”