Explosive Engagement (16 page)

“Someone?” Garek repeated, one of his blond brows arching with the question.

“I suspect one of you,” Logan said. “Who else would he have willingly gone to prison to protect?”

Milek chuckled. “We were kids. We wouldn’t have gone to prison.”

“You were teenagers,” Logan said. “You may have been tried as adults. Garek was—”

“When we killed a man in defense of Stacy,” Garek finished for him. He turned to his sister. “How could you let him turn you against us?”

She flinched as if he’d slapped her. “All I want is the truth.”

“Dad didn’t tell you on his deathbed?” Garek asked.

“Your father didn’t tell her which one of you was with him that night—which one of you really pulled the trigger and killed my father,” Logan assured him. “So you didn’t have to try to hurt her.”

“I would never hurt
her,
” Garek said. “But I can’t say the same about
you.
”

“Garek!” Stacy yelled. But it was too late. Her oldest brother was already swinging.

Logan dodged the first punch. But Milek swung, too, and his first connected with Logan’s jaw, knocking him back. Then, enraged, they both jumped on him. Two on one wasn’t fair.

But Parker and Cooper had teamed up to fight Logan before, when they were kids, and he’d prevailed then. But his brothers hadn’t actually been trying to kill him.

The Kozminski brothers wanted him dead. And this wasn’t a fight that Logan was sure he could win.

Chapter Seventeen

Curses and grunts filled the air in which fists flew and blood spattered. Logan could have pulled his gun—could have fired at them to stop the assault. But apparently he didn’t want to kill her brothers.

Stacy couldn’t say the same of Garek and Milek. They piled on Logan, pounding. Panic and fear burning in her lungs, she screamed at them to stop. And then she pounded, too, hitting and kicking her brothers. She grabbed their hair and tugged, pulling them back. Pulling them off the man she loved.

“Stop it! Stop it!” she screamed, in such a panic that she hadn’t realized they’d already stopped.

Garek rubbed his head. “Damn it, Stace, you pulled out a handful of hair.”

“He’s my fiancé,” she declared. “I want to marry him.” And that was the truth.

“That’s the last thing
we
want,” Garek said, and he fisted his hands and turned back to Logan.

Milek had already climbed back onto her wounded fiancé, his arms raised to swing again. Logan wasn’t fighting them off; he had to be hurt. Maybe badly.

“It’s what Dad wanted!” she yelled. “Dad wanted me to marry Logan. Those were his last words to me.”

“What?” Milek asked, but he stopped fighting midswing.

“Why?” Logan asked that question. “Why would your father want you to marry me?”

She’d wondered that, too. She hadn’t understood what he’d been telling her.

“He admired you,” she said, and she dropped onto her knees next to her fiancé. He was bruised and his lip was oozing blood. But he sat up easily as if nothing was broken.

“He said you were a man of conviction. A man of integrity and honesty. That you fought for those you loved,” she continued. “He didn’t think I would be able to find a better man than you to marry.”

“Dad really said that?” Milek asked, doubtfully. “His last words were about Logan Payne?”

She nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Garek asked.

“Because it was personal,” she said. And she’d been embarrassed that her father had spent his last living moments matchmaking. Maybe that was why she loved Penny Payne so much; she reminded Stacy of her father. “And it had nothing to do with either of you.”

Garek snorted. “That was the usual for Dad. He was all about his little princess.”

She winced at her brother’s resentment. She had never heard it before. Could Logan be right about her brothers actually wanting to hurt her?

“He loved you both, too.”

Garek laughed. “Then why was he training us to be thieves? He brought us along with him on jobs.”

Oh, God, Logan had been right. “You were with him that night? That was why he never said anything? Why he served the sentence—to protect one of you?”

Garek laughed again—bitterly. “You didn’t know our father at all, Stacy. He started bringing me and Milek out on jobs when we were twelve so that if we got caught, we’d only go to juvie. If one of us had been with him that night, he wouldn’t have taken the rap for us. One of us would have taken it for him.”

Pain and disillusionment overwhelmed her and she gasped. Logan’s arm slid around her shoulders, and he pulled her tight to his side as if to protect her. He could save her from physical harm, as he had already so many times. But he couldn’t protect her from emotional harm.

“I knew you were willing to hurt her,” Logan said. “And you found the most painful way to do that.”

Despite his swelling eyes, Milek glared at his brother. “That was harsh,” he admonished him. “She didn’t need to know any of that.”

“But was it true?” she asked.

“It wasn’t so much that he forced us to steal,” Milek said. “It’s just what was expected of us as Kozminskis. Our traditional profession is jewelry thief—like Payne’s is law enforcement.”

“And because of that,” Garek said, “a Payne and a Kozminski should never marry. Dad was wrong about that, too.”

She had asked them before, but since they were actually being honest now—brutally honest—with her, she asked again, “Is that why you’ve been trying to kill him?”

Garek cursed. “We haven’t been trying to kill him.”

Logan grunted in protest.

“Beating the crap out of you is different than shooting at you,” Garek pointed out. “Besides, we don’t even own a gun.”

“Neither did Dad,” Milek said. “The only Kozminski who ever owned one is Uncle Iwan.”

“Iwan?” Logan asked.

“He wouldn’t try to kill you,” Stacy said. But her uncle had always been an enigma to her. Unlike her charming father, Uncle Iwan had always been quiet and withdrawn—as if fearful to speak up in front of his overbearing wife.

Garek moved and grunted. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

“But why?” Stacy asked. “To avenge our father?”

But according to the logs, he hadn’t even visited his brother that often. How close had they really been?

Milek shrugged. “That’s what I thought. That it must have been him shooting at Logan since we knew it wasn’t us.” But he spared his brother a glance as if he wondered.

Hadn’t Garek and Milek been together every time the shootings had happened?

“Maybe it wasn’t Logan he was shooting at or trying to blow up,” Garek said.

Stacy gasped. She and Uncle Iwan had never been close but... “Why would he want to hurt me?”

Garek mused, “Aunt Marta is really damn concerned about what our father told you on his deathbed. That’s because she doesn’t want to lose her meal ticket. She doesn’t want Uncle Iwan going to jail.”

Logan tensed. “You think your uncle was there that night? You think he’s the one who killed my father?”

“But why would Dad take the rap for him?” Milek asked.

Garek pointed at her. “So she would have a legal guardian. He’d been caught stealing. He was going to jail no matter what, and he didn’t want our mother getting custody. He wanted Uncle Iwan to take her. To protect her.”

Tears stung her eyes. “Do you hate me?” she asked her brother.

Garek leaned forward and cupped her face in his palm. “I love you. You’re my little princess, too, Stace. I would do anything to protect you. That was why I never told you about Dad. I wanted to leave you that fantasy you had of him being such a good man.”

“But he wasn’t?” Logan asked the question.

“He was a thief,” Garek said, and a trace of self-loathing replaced his earlier bitterness.

“But he wasn’t a killer,” Milek said. “Stacy has been right about that. He taught us how to bypass security systems and break into safes and vaults. He taught us how to use tools, not guns. He never wanted us to carry a weapon. He wouldn’t have had the gun that night.”

“But your uncle has a gun?” Logan asked. “You’ve seen it?”

Stacy nodded. “He showed it to me when I first came to live with him and Aunt Marta.”

Logan’s brows rose in surprise. “He showed a teenage girl a gun? To scare you?”

“To make me feel safe,” she said. “I had nightmares—because of what happened...”

“With our stepfather,” Milek said, as if wondering if she’d told Logan.

“The pervert,” he said—the bitterness all his now.

Garek nodded heartily in agreement. “He sure was.”

Logan’s arm tightened around her.

Garek added, “You’re safe now, Stace.”

But Logan shook his head. “She won’t be safe until we figure out who’s been trying to kill her.”

“And you,” Milek added, as if he cared.

How could men pound on each other one minute and bond the next? Even though she’d been raised with them, she would never understand them.

“I’m more concerned about Stacy,” Logan said, but even as he said it, he was easing away from her. “Can you guys keep her safe?” He stood up as if he was leaving.

She stood up, too—so quickly that she was dizzy for a moment. He grabbed her shoulders and steadied her. “Where are you going?” she asked. But she knew.

“I have to do this...”

“I know,” she said. “But I’ll go with you.”

“We can all go,” Milek offered.

Logan shook his head. “I have to do this alone.”

“That makes no sense,” Stacy said. “You don’t have to—”

“It was his father who died,” Garek said. “So he has to do this alone.”

For vengeance? Was he going to kill her uncle?

* * *

L
OGAN
WAS
MAD
enough to kill. But he was madder at himself than anyone else. Why hadn’t he more thoroughly investigated his father’s death? Sure, he’d been a kid when it had happened fifteen years ago. But since then he’d gotten a degree in criminal justice and then had become a cop before his quick promotion to detective.

He should have looked into it more—should have gone over the reports and the testimony with more scrutiny. He should have listened to Stacy.

Sure, her brothers were right that she had idolized—or rather idealized—her father. But even they had had to admit that he wasn’t a killer. He’d never even carried a weapon on him. So where had that gun come from? The gun with which Logan’s father had been killed?

Had it been one of Iwan Kozminski’s? If so, he must have replaced it with the gun that he’d showed Stacy. To reassure her and stop the nightmares? Or to scare her?

Her uncle wasn’t the loving male figure her father had been. Even from behind bars, her father had tried to protect her—so much so that he’d been willing to take the rap for another man’s murder. Sure, he hadn’t been the completely innocent man Stacy had believed him to be, but neither had he been the monster Logan had considered him all these years.

Did Stacy consider
him
a monster? And not just for keeping her father in prison but for what she was afraid he might do to her uncle? He wouldn’t kill anyone except in self-defense. He could have pulled his gun on her brothers and saved himself the split lip and bruised ribs that throbbed with pain. But Stacy loved her brothers so much that she would never forgive him taking one of their lives.

And she’d saved him. She’d fought at Logan’s side instead of against him. She’d acted like his partner, like his wife. Maybe he should have let her come along today. But he trusted her aunt and uncle even less than he trusted her brothers.

As they’d been the night before, the gates to the Kozminskis’ estate stood open, as if they were expecting him again.

Had Garek or Milek called ahead to warn their uncle?

He reached for his holster to make sure his gun was easily accessible. Then he parked the SUV and approached the three-story brick mansion.

Suddenly the front door opened and Iwan stepped outside with narrowed eyes. “What are you doing here?” he asked nervously.

“Were you expecting someone else?” A long black car pulled through the open gates. And Logan noticed the suitcase Iwan Kozminski pulled behind him. “You’re leaving town?”

“I—I need to make a business trip,” he replied.

“What exactly is your business, Mr. Kozminski? I’ve never been told what you do for a living.” He assessed the impressive house. “But you must do it very well.” He hadn’t been caught like his brother had been. Or maybe he’d just run faster...

“Who’s here?” a female voice asked. Marta Kozminski stepped out of the foyer, a drink in her hand. “Oh,
you...
” She swirled the ice cubes and stared down into the liquid as if unable to meet his gaze.

He had no warrant. No legal way to keep Iwan from leaving the country, which was what he was certain he was doing, so Logan asked, “Can you take a later flight? I’d really like to talk to you.”

“I can’t imagine what we have to talk about,” Iwan replied. “We barely know each other.”

“And yet we’re going to be family,” Logan reminded him.

“I don’t understand why his niece would ever marry you,” Marta said. “That girl has always been strange, though.”

Because she’d been self-sufficient? Because she cared more about people than money? He bit his tongue to keep from uttering those questions. But he couldn’t stay silent. “She’s an amazing woman.”

Iwan sighed and waved off the car. “I’ll take a later flight.”

Marta shook her head. “You don’t have to talk to him. He’s not a police officer anymore. He’s not really even family.”

“I will be,” he promised her.

She flounced back into the house. Probably to pour another drink. Iwan stepped back to escort Logan inside. He wondered if he should have brought backup. Not Stacy or her brothers but maybe his brother. His family deserved the truth about their father’s death, too.

But that was why he hadn’t called any of them. He didn’t want to say anything until he knew the entire story. He didn’t want to bring up all that pain and all those bad memories until he’d found the person who was really responsible for their father’s death.

“What do you want to discuss with me?” Iwan asked as he led the way through a marble-floored foyer to a darkly paneled den. “Stacy’s brothers?”

“Those hooligans,” Marta snarkily remarked from where she stood at the bar, pouring herself another drink just as he suspected. She glanced up and pointed toward his face. “Did they do that to you?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Animals...”

He wasn’t so sure about that anymore. Maybe their pounding on him had addled his brain, but he had actually begun to trust them—or he never would have left Stacy in their protection. But what if that had been a mistake? An even bigger one than coming here without backup?

“They love their sister, though,” he said. He had to convince himself of that or he would rush back to make sure she was all right with them, that they hadn’t hurt her.

“Maybe too much,” Marta said. “Since they went to prison for her.”

They had been willing to do time to keep her safe; they wouldn’t have let their father do time for their crime. Robert Cooper had to have seen someone else that night.

“Their father went to prison for her, too,” Logan said.

“He went to prison for killing your father,” Marta heartlessly reiterated. “How could you have forgotten that?” Obviously she didn’t want him forgetting.

“That’s the crime he was convicted of,” Logan agreed. “But it wasn’t the one he committed.”

Iwan studied him. “I didn’t believe my brother could ever take a life, especially the life of a policeman. But I thought
you
were convinced of his guilt.”