Page 46 of When He Lies
“I have connections to all sorts of interesting individuals. I believe in having a wide net of friends and acquaintances. Why limit yourself?”
Ryan’s head cocked. “Am I your friend?”
“No.” Very definite.
His eyelashes flickered. “That hurts.” His hand slid away from her.
“Know what else hurts? Being threatened with arrest. I am about ninety-five percent sure that friends don’t go around threatening to arrest friends.” A deliberate pause. “That’s something that enemies do.”
“Ahem.”
Their heads turned toward Jezebel.
She smiled at them. “I fear that we have gotten off topic.”
Potentially, they had, yes.
“I am aware that you did not kill Alexei Morozov,” Jezebel stated with no emotion in her voice. “Ryan told me exactly what happened in those stables.”
Goosebumps rose on Simone’s body. It took all of her self-control not to lift her hand and touch the small cut on her neck as she remembered just how close her own death had been.
“However, Frederick is not aware of Ryan’s true identity. Frederick has it in his head that you are responsible for Alexei’s murder.”
“Not murder.” Simone had to point out this important distinction. “Ryan was defending himself. Defending me. Alexei intended to torture and kill us both.”
Jezebel nodded. In silence, she studied Simone for one beat of time. Two. And… “You are a ghost, Simone,” Jezebel accused.
She’d been called worse.
“But I am very good at digging into the pasts of ghosts.”
“And here I thought the CIA was powered by spooks. That is the term for CIA operatives, isn’t it? Spooks?” Simone knew good and well that it was the term.
Jezebel sipped her tea. “I will uncover your past. I will find your sins. You do not want me as an enemy. You want me in that wide net of friends and acquaintances you mentioned before.”
“Ah.” A nod. She could read the writing on the wall. “You’re about to offer me a deal. I thought a deal might be coming, when I was given the fancy new clothes. I figured if I was going to prison, you wouldn’t bother with the designer labels.”
“Work with us,” Jezebel said. Not an offer. More of a statement. “We are after some very dangerous, very bad individuals.”
Okay, so…time to drop her act and dispense with the bullshit. “You mean men like the one who supplied Frederick with that amazingly gorgeous Fabergé egg?”
The silence in the sitting room was suddenly very, very thick. Actually, the only sound she heard was Harry’s loud swallow. The click cut through the room.
Simone tucked a still wet lock of hair behind her ear. “I’d say the Fabergé was worth at least thirty million. That’s a very conservative estimate. And seeing as how it was created for the Russian Imperial family, it really only makes sense that it was passed down through Russian hands.” She pursed her lips. “Frederick has such an impressive distribution network left over from the textile business that his family once operated. It would be incredibly easy for the right—or, sorry, in this case the wrong—person to use that network. But you have to pay in order to play in this world. Everyone understands that rule.”
Surprise and what might have been satisfaction flashed on Jezebel’s face. “You’ve met the man pulling the strings.”
The man currently keeping Frederick’s business empire up and running? “Our paths might have crossed once or twice.”
“Fuck,” Ryan breathed. She’d managed to surprise him.
“Frederick liked for me to be in his business meetings. I speak Russian, and he wanted to make sure that no one was trying to trick him.”
“You speak Russian?” Harry asked. His first question since she’d come in the room.
She’d literally just said that she did, but Simone replied, “It’s on my resume, so, yes, I speak it. I also speak French, German, Italian, Spanish, and a wee bit of Mandarin Chinese. Just so you know, I think the Mandarin is by far the hardest. Tones have so many meanings there, but I’m working on it. Pitch can just be tricky.”
“You met the man who is controlling Frederick?” Ryan seemed to force the question through clenched teeth.
