Chapter 31

London, England

Viktor hadn’t slept in days. All he could do was replay the files in his head, the files he’d erased. She had the copy, but he still had the originals from Cruz. He hadn’t replayed them since seeing the hurt in her eyes when she found out he’d seen them.

The woman had him twisted in knots.

His eyes caught on the news playing on the television that was usually hidden in the wall.

Jean Luc’s body had been found.

He had a vested interest in this particular news. It seemed the prime minister and president were doing a good job of ensuring the “car accident” remained just that. It was to their advantage, considering the information Viktor had discovered in the Frenchman’s bank vault regarding both men.

He hadn’t left London. He’d canceled more meetings and had been forced to wait for his rage to abate along with some of his fear for Sophia, at least from the threat Jean Luc had posed. There were still a great many worries for him where his woman was concerned.

Little did the news understand the two stories they were divulging were linked. Sick images of Jean Luc’s torture chamber were next in line for that particular media station. Pavel had located the old bunker the Frenchman had been utilizing in a field a mile from the man’s home. The authorities had been notified the day before, and bones had been found. Viktor would bet the place had been bleached clean of all of Jean Luc’s DNA, but that wouldn’t likely be discovered for a while.

Viktor’s lips curled at all that he’d learned. He couldn’t shake all of the worry. He wanted Sophia far away from all she’d gotten herself involved in. If the elite untouchables of her world learned they were being targeted, all hell would rain down on her group.

Her hurt expression still haunted him, but he wouldn’t regret putting her safety first.

There were always ties in crime. Someone could eventually divulge information, and that would leave Sophia and her friends vulnerable. He’d done his own detailed background searches of the men Jean Luc had had photographed as part of her group. Too quickly, he’d found the mercenary group purchasing his equipment through Daire. The man, Cade, was an old friend of Daire’s and had early access to everything Rath Tech Industries sold. Viktor had clenched his jaw when he’d gone through all the technology purchases in the last several years. He wanted to revoke the damned account and ban the man, but he’d kept his mouth shut. He would never divulge Sophia’s secret, even to Daire and Titian.

Fuck.

He’d been assessing every way this could go badly.

Even he had created a tie to her activities by hiring Cruz. He’d used the thief’s skills in the past and felt confident she would keep her mouth shut because he knew the woman’s secrets, but what would it have taken for her to have kept copies of the information she’d stolen? Jean Luc only logged theories; there’d been no real proof. But there’d been enough links to Sophia to make Viktor edgy. The fact that his woman had been recorded discussing murdering a man who’d died the following year was not something that made him fucking happy. She and her friends had even discussed the ledger and all the bad deeds they’d found. They thankfully hadn’t said anything more specific or damning, but it had been enough.

He ran a hand through the back of his hair. Had he known what was in that vault, he would have played things differently.

Viktor turned as the door swung wide and Ivan stalked in. “He’s here.”

Forde Alastair Beckett strolled in. The Englishman moved with the polished ease of an aristocrat, his carefree playboy façade firmly in place.

Viktor crossed to the wet bar. “Drink?” He needed to calm his agitation before dealing with the man.

“Bourbon. Neat.”

Viktor poured their drinks and stalked back to where Beckett had made himself comfortable on the couch.

Viktor set down the man’s drink and grabbed his tablet. After a moment of keying in commands to shut down the feeds in the room, he tossed it at Beckett. Everything in the room was disabled. Ivan would have swept the man for bugs, so that should suffice.

Beckett nodded, and his eyes grew colder. “What do you want, Mr. Popov?”

“I want Sophia.” Viktor paused to emphasize his next word. “Safe.”

The other man studied him closely before stating, “You look like hell, like you haven’t slept in days.”

Viktor grunted and raised his glass to take a drink. The two men sat in charged silence for a long while.

“You care for her.” It wasn’t a question so much as an assessment.

“Yes.” Viktor’s cocked brow made it clear he considered that obvious.

“And why are you telling me this?” Beckett asked.

“She won’t listen to reason.” Viktor practically growled the words.

If Viktor had to bet, he’d say the Englishman’s shout of laughter was genuine.

“You poor bastard. I get that you want her safe. I approve of your protecting her.” The way the man’s eyes went to the ongoing news report made it clear he suspected Viktor had killed Jean Luc.

Viktor only raised a brow until the man continued. If Beckett had been expecting a confession, he would be waiting a very long time.

“She won’t give it up. What we do is too important to her.” The Englishman seemed to debate with himself before continuing. “When she abdicated, her brother had guards lock her in her room. She found a way out because she’s intelligent. Don’t try to do what her brother did. Don’t lock her in a room and force her to be who you want her to be.”

Viktor’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Her brother locked her up? Like a fucking animal?”

Beckett nodded. “So he could marry her to Jean Luc and keep her away from you.”

Viktor was tempted to kill the king of Porenza.

“Where were you?” Viktor demanded to know.

Beckett’s eyes grew glacial. “I can ask you the same question. You love her. So where were you when she needed you?”

Viktor grew dangerously silent until the Englishman’s eyes glittered. Beckett had made his point.

Viktor swirled his drink before glaring back at the other man. “I’m surprised you haven’t asked about the vault contents.”

Forde tilted his head. “I assume you cleaned out the contents.” Sophia had confirmed they’d hacked the system when he’d given her the copies. He knew Cruz was so good, it likely looked as if the contents were still there to whoever had hacked the video surveillance through her group. The contents would have been dummied, of course, so that evidence of the bank breach would never be detected. It wouldn’t pay for a thief to advertise their skills and risk the bank altering their security features.

“And you’re not worried I have the originals?” It bothered Viktor how unconcerned the other man was to have that information beyond his control.

Viktor narrowed his eyes at the calculated grin Beckett gave him as he spoke. “Why would I worry? You will destroy it if you haven’t already.”

“So sure…” Viktor challenged.

“Very sure. As sure as I know you love her. Maybe even as sure as I am that dank Paris industrial buildings can be particularly hazardous to one’s health this time of year.”

Viktor stilled as he and Forde stared at one another for long moments. A thread of respect filled him while looking at the other man.

The Englishman stood. “I regretfully have to leave. She loves you, but hurt her, and I will not think twice but to bury you. I don’t envy you your grovel.” Beckett calmly set his drink on the glass coffee table before adding, “And check your mail.” He gave Viktor a pointed look before stating, “I’ve been protecting them all for far longer than you have.”

After Beckett left, Viktor instructed Ivan to get the mail. He needed to see exactly what the Englishman thought he had.

He couldn’t help the dangerous curve that lifted his lips. He very much doubted it was as incriminating as Beckett wished him to believe.

He hadn’t really thought Beckett would get Sophia to stop her actions. This meeting had been to assess the man. Jean Luc had had little on the ties Sophia’s group had to Beckett or that the girls had planned to see the aristocrat back when planning a damned Saudi prince’s death. The records had ended shortly after. So they must have changed locations to discuss their plans.

Jean Luc might not have had a lot of details on the Englishman, but he’d had enough.

Beckett had been right; Sophia wouldn’t stop. Viktor had replayed those videos in his mind far too many times to believe that she would. She’d been so sweet, so very idealistic and young, filled with compassion and the fire to do what she felt was right. That hadn’t changed. It had been in her eyes the last time he’d seen her. It had been written in with all the betrayal and hurt he’d seen.

Even if he were capable of forcing her to end this, she would never forgive him. That meant Viktor found himself in the unique situation of contemplating a position as champion to his princess… his queen. Because she ruled him without even knowing how much he would bend to have her and to keep her safe. No one had ever held that kind of power over him. Only Sophia.

He still wanted her nowhere near danger, but if she wouldn’t give this up, then she would be far safer with him watching over her.

*****

Sophia’s arms were shaking after pulling her body up the climbing wall in Riot’s home, all three stories, with challenging ledges that burned her muscles.

“Not fair,” Irina sniped from at least a floor below. Even with her long legs, Irina was still slower than Sophia and Riot.

Sophia winked at Riot. “Riot’s almost to the top already.”

“Don’t make me cut your safety cable when I get up there,” the heiress threatened as they watched her push her body to another foothold.

Sophia laughed, but she knew it still held that hollow note she’d had for days. She loved a man who knew her secrets and who might have killed for her. How could he ask her to give up her family and her purpose? Especially after seeing her history?

“He’s still in London,” Riot said softly as she made it to the top with Sophia. Her friend’s sympathy only made her hurt more somehow.

They lay there, the cables holding their weight, while waiting for Irina.

Sophia thought it was worse that Viktor had stayed in London, as if he were waiting for her to go over there and tell him she would give up everything that was important to her so that she could hop back into his bed. If that was what he thought, he was sorely mistaken.

She couldn’t do that.

“Give him time. All the information he got from Jean Luc’s vault had to have set him off. All the notes, all that planning to get to you. And those women…” Just thinking of the women in the macabre videos made her want to vomit.

“We have your back no matter what. He was an asshole. If you never want to see him again, he’s dead to us,” Riot said vehemently. “But I say give him some time. The man obviously cares about you. Deeply. He wouldn’t have gotten into that vault otherwise. And he wouldn’t have done what we’re all not talking about.” They weren’t talking about the fact that Jean Luc had ended up dead. It had been all over the news, and he’d been missing before that—a fact that no one had told her about at first.

“Forde knows what happened to Jean Luc?”

Irina’s eyes suspiciously moved to the handholds she’d already grabbed onto while making her ascent.

Sophia narrowed her eyes. “What haven’t you told me?”

Riot sighed. “Forde had Jen discreetly tag one of Viktor’s men. Ivan, I believe. You said you wanted to stay out of the loop, so don’t look at me like that. James tracked the man and got into his phone. Forde has video of them taking Jean Luc to an abandoned building in France. Viktor arrived moments later.”

Sophia’s head swam. She’d actually worried about Viktor, about the implications, but it was her people who had that damning piece of information. “That’s why Forde wasn’t worried about Viktor knowing.” Viktor had either killed Jean Luc or had him murdered, and she was bloodthirsty enough to be grateful the man was dead.

“Viktor had to have watched all those videos. He’d have seen what Jean Luc did to those women,” Riot pointed out.

“And the news is all over the location of several serial murders. It’s the same place. We can only hope the bastard’s DNA is found in there. I’d hate to think the piece of shit died with his reputation intact. But you’re safe. There are no other women being tortured,” Irina stated as she climbed a few holds from the top of the wall. The heiress was breathing heavily, which normally would have made Sophia and Riot laugh and taunt her, but Sophia could barely muster any emotion other than pain and sickness, not with the seriousness of the conversation. “Bottom line, Sophia,” Irina continued. “He watched all those videos, read all the logs, he knew you were in danger, and he took care of it. That he rabidly demanded you quit means he’s still freaked out that you were targeted. It’s a proven fact that worrying makes men assholes.”

Sophia bit her bottom lip. “I know. But you didn’t see him. He won’t relent, and I won’t be controlled ever again. And I won’t give this up. If he tries to force the issue…” She didn’t want to think about what he could do to get her to stop. She sucked in some air, thinking of Forde’s own incriminating information. Her stomach rebelled at how badly things had turned out. If only it could have ended happily, but the look on Viktor’s face had made it clear he was not the man she could attempt a happily ever after with. “I can’t believe everything that happened.” Fate had obviously been working against them. “Jean Luc only had that information because of a freaking fluke. No one else would have ever put together the people we targeted from the ledger with a few videos of us as kids wanting to kill a prince. Even us admitting to breaking into the dean’s office on that one video still just amounted to kids talking.”

She took a deep breath before continuing her frustrated rambling. “Those video confessions wouldn’t necessarily lead anyone to believe three teenage girls had grown up to be vigilantes. A princess and two wealthy heiresses? No. Only someone as obsessive and sick as Jean Luc would have studied all that information and found those links.” Was she trying to convince herself what she was doing was safe, as if maybe that would sway the man she loved? She closed her eyes. His words and the way he’d demanded control over her had killed something inside her. Her friends thought it could eventually work. Maybe they wanted some hope for happily ever afters, even though it seemed so impossible to have with all their secrets. She wasn’t sure.

“I still can’t believe the bastard wove together such tiny details to set us up. That was beyond calculating,” Riot said, shaking her head.

It had been one thing that Jean Luc had figured out what they were doing, even though he hadn’t been sure how and who’d worked with them. But he’d known he would be on the list and had lain in wait to set them up at every turn. That was scary. He’d been too smart.

Jean Luc had been waiting and watching for months. He’d detected the moment their people started following him. The club in Paris had been a setup… her planting the bug probably hadn’t been foreseen. But the rest had fallen right into his expectations. He’d known they would send men to La Couronne after the ledger page he’d purposely given the Belgian. It had all been a ruse to get more information on her group. He’d guessed they would look into Fahd’s friends as well.

Jean Luc had set up video cameras everywhere he’d assumed her people would go, gaining images of Cade, Kate, and the others. With that, he’d dug into their operatives’ histories. It had all been logged. Obsessive had been too tame a word for the thoroughness involved. Individually, the pieces of information had been circumstantial, but he’d been trying for more damning proof of what she was doing in order to force her to what? Marry him? So he could control her? The thought alone made her shudder with revulsion.

Irina finally made it to the top with a little whoop that made Sophia smile.

“Wow, I feel a thousand years older. Glad you could make it,” Riot ribbed.

Sophia was finally free to be with her real family. This should be a good moment, but she was letting her heartache kill it. Irina, Riot, and Forde had closed ranks around her after she’d abdicated, and Sophia had needed that. “I don’t want to talk about Viktor anymore,” she stated with force. For days, they’d talked, and it wasn’t getting easier.

“Booze or carbs? Pick your poison, ladies.” Riot’s options forced her to grin.

“Booze,” Sophia voted.

“You need to get out of this house. You think you’re up for that tonight?” Irina asked her seriously.

“Yes,” Sophia agreed, more for them than herself. She needed to be seen again before the photogs grew restless and attempted to scale the walls. She could smile for the cameras. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t donned a mask for years.

Going out with her true friends was something she should have been excited about. It meant she was truly free. Yet the pleasure of the thought never came.