Page 167 of Lethal Obsession

I run for the door. Lars doesn’t so much as look at me, simply stands aside. His eyes are on Mickey, and the bleak fury in them terrifies me far more than Mickey’s rage ever could.

“Lars.” I falter at the door, looking between him and my brother.

“Go, Ofelia,” he says in that same chilling tone. “And don’t let him push you away, because he’ll try.” His eyes cut briefly to me without softening in the slightest. “You make this right,” he says coldly, “and leave your brother to me.”

I reach the deck at a run, but Alexei is nowhere to be seen.

“Where is he?” I round on Benny and Lourdes, both white-faced with shock by the bar. Instead of answering, Benny tilts his head to the water below, and I look over the deck railing just in time to see Alexei, his rigid figure unmistakable despite the wig and glasses, standing behind the controls of a high-powered speedboat. The sound of the engine drowns out my voice when I call his name, and seconds later, I’m leaning over the railing, staring at his back as he races the boat at breakneck speed toward the Sicilian coastline in the distance.

Fuck.

Ignoring Benny and Lourdes, I race downstairs and grab the first crewmember I can find. “I need to go ashore.”

The man shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Miss Borovsky, but Mr. Petrovsky gave very explicit instructions that you were not to follow him. Please don’t,” he adds, as I turn to the next crewmember. “Mr. Bellini and Mr. Andersson have also given clear orders that nobody is to leave the yacht without their express permission.”

“What about him?” I yell, pointing to Alexei’s fast-disappearing figure. “I don’t see you stopping him.”

“I have my orders, Miss Borovsky,” the man says stiffly, “not a death wish.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I run along the deck to the sliding door Lars recently closed. It’s tinted, so I can’t see inside, but I couldn’t care less if they’ve pulled guns on each other at this point. I pound on the glass until Lars wrenches it open, his eyes fierce.

“What,” he snarls.

“It’s Alexei.” I’m too worried to care about whatever was going on before the door opened. “He’s taken a boat to shore. I need to find him, Lars. Now.”

“Oh, Christ.” His entire demeanor changes instantly. Pulling out his phone, he hits a number. “Jack.” His voice is low and terse, and completely devoid of his trademark humor. “Yes, it was him. No, he doesn’t have any security—yes, Jack, I fucking know, okay? For fuck’s sake,” he says impatiently, “just listen for a minute. I know Alexei. There’s no fucking chance he’ll come back with you. And you’ll likely lose at least one of your men trying, probably more. Yes, I’m aware the men are all Tier One operators,” he goes on, raising his voice over the litany of objections even I can hear coming down the line. “It won’t fucking matter, believe me. I’ve seen Alexei like this before. I’d go ashore myself and get him, but I’ve got things to sort out here. You’re going to take Ofelia.”

Oh, thank God.

Normally I’d take Lars’s hand or step into his arms for one of his enveloping embraces. But just as I met a version of my brother earlier that I hadn’t seen before, now I’m meeting a Lars I never even knew existed.

“Get dressed,” he orders me curtly. “I mean cover up, from head to toe. Keep the wig and glasses on, add a headscarf. Do everything you can to disguise yourself. Jack is going to take you ashore personally. Yes,” he snaps into the phone, “you fucking are, Bellini, or you’ll wish you’d stayed working for your father in New Orleans. And you,” he says, glaring at me, “will obey Jack’s orders, no matter what they are. If he tells you to get back in the boat, you get back in the boat. No arguments. Got it?”

I nod impatiently, pushing past him into the cabin, where a white-faced Mickey is standing rock still. “Ofelia—” he says unsteadily.

“Get the fuck out of my way, Mickey.” I wrench open the closet and pull some of Lourdes’s clothes from the hangers inside, throwing them on without any consideration for appearance, then race past my silent brother back onto the deck, where Lars ushers me down to the docking jetty, still barking orders into the phone.

“Jack’s men have eyes on him,” he says as he hands me into the boat. “Hang on,” he says to whoever is on the other end. Covering the receiver, he looks directly at me. “Be careful,” he says tersely. “This is bad. Really fucking bad, Ofelia. Do you understand?”

“Do I know how dangerous Alexei is when he’s hurt?” My voice is shaking, but I can’t do anything to stop it. “How he’ll do anything—including murdering someone right in front of me—to convince me that every vile word my brother just said is true? Yes, Lars, I fucking get it. Now you need to get out of my way, before you find out exactly how dangerous I can be.” I turn to the grim-faced dark-haired man at the controls. “You’re Jack Bellini, right?”

He gives me a curt nod.

“Well, Jack, we need to fucking go.” I tug the rope out of Lars’s hands and turn away from him, staring toward the distant coastline.

Jack pulls the accelerator, and we surge forward, bouncing across the waves.

I turn back as the yacht begins to shrink behind us. Benny and Lourdes are leaning over the railing, their faces taut and pale, yelling something I can’t hear.

Lars and Mickey, however, are nowhere to be seen.

“We’re bypassing the port authorities,” Jack yells over the wind as we race toward the shore.

“We can do that?” I look around, half expecting someone to stop us.

“We can.” He grins. “My family is one of the oldest on the island, and respectfully, every bit as dangerous as yours. Nobody will stop us.”

We reach the shore in minutes. Jack leaps onto the jetty and pulls me up behind him. He nods at several men discreetly stationed around us. “These men are part of my own team. I like to keep work and family separate.”