Page 24 of Stolen By the Billionaire
“You’re not safe. First, you held a knife to my throat and a gun to my head.”
“I explained those. You were never in any danger.”
“It doesn’t matter. You threatened my life, and now you want me to believe that you’re here to save me? Do I look like an idiot to you?”
“No,” he said, his voice low. “You don’t look like an idiot. You look like an overwhelmed woman who’s working her ass off, trying to keep this farm going.”
That knocked the wind out of her, and Sarah hung in his arms, limp, with hot streaks of wet leaking out of her eyes and her mouth flopping open. She put her feet back on the ground and sagged in his arms. She gasped, “I’m okay. I’m fine.”
“I’m not here to hurt you,” the guy said, his arms loosening enough that she could breathe a little more deeply but not enough to wiggle away.
“Cow patties!”
“Call your brother.”
“I can’t. I don’t have his number.”
“I do.”
She jerked her shoulders, still trying to get away from the guy. “First, I don’t believe that’s really my brother’s number. It’s probably for your associate, or your accomplice, or whatever you would call him.”
“He’s your brother.”
“And even if it was Logan’s number, Logan walked out on his family when I was a kid. My dad told me to never even take a call from him because he would lie and confuse me. He would probably try to contest the will or something to get the farm away from me because he’s older and a male, so he should have inherited it. My parents put a Dracula clause in the will, though. It’s unbreakable.”
“Logan will tell you he sent me to protect you because you’re in danger.”
“What would I be in danger from out here?” She flopped her hands like seal flippers below where he held her arms tight against her sides. “Are the chickens going to peck me to death? Maybe HowNow the Brown Cow might drown me in milk? Are you going to point your unloaded gun at the chickens and the milk bucket to ‘protect’ me?”
“You are in danger,” he said. “Your aunt Mary Varvara Bell has put out a hit on you. And it’s not unloaded anymore.”
An astonished laugh burped out of Sarah’s throat, sounding like a sob. “Aunt Mary is a historian. Historians don’t murder people. Gosh, you’re an idiot.”
“She’s the head of a crime syndicate. She took over the operation when Stanley Bell, your grandfather, died.”
“Bull hockey! Aunt Mary said she never had any contact with my grandfather because he was so terrible. She’s not like him.”
“Mary Varvara took over Stanley Bell’s Russian mafia family business in the usual way, ruthlessly, by killing your uncles and any other relative who pushed their claims.”
“You’re insane. My Aunt Mary teaches Russian literature. Her most malevolent threat is to give someone an F on their term paper. And I don’t have any uncles.”
“You used to. Your grandfather disowned your father when he moved to Iowa from New York, so you’ve never met the rest of your family.”
“They’re all dead. That’s what my dad told me.”
“More of them are dead now. You have cousins, and your brother lives in New York and is looking out for you.”
Relief rushed through Sarah, but she shoved it down. No one was looking out for her. Her parents were dead, she had no other relatives, and she was alone on the farm. “Stop.”
His arms relaxed around her just a little more, allowing her to gasp a deep breath like a sob.
Just a little more, and she could slip out.
The man said, “Logan found out that your aunt Mary Varvara Bell ordered the hit on you, and he sent me to protect you.”
“This makes no sense. You were here yesterday, threatening me to influence my Aunt Mary, the historian, who sends me history books at Christmas. And now you say my no-contact brother is concerned about my safety. This all smells like bull farts.”
“Yeah, it does. Look, Mary Varvara Bell is blackmailing me. I wanted to make her stop. I found you, her niece, and threatened you on the video call to get her to back off. I thought you must be a long-lost cousin of Logan’s. I didn’t realize he even had a sister.”
