Her Mile High Mates [The Hot Millionaires #4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (10 page)

“Your dad was right about this place,” Peyton said. “It’s a front for all sorts of illegal activities.”

Fabia gasped. “What sort of activities?”

“What do you know about its background?” Clyde asked.

“Well, I know the major financier is Russian, but that’s not so unusual. The Costas are awash with Russian money.”

“With good reason,” Peyton told her. “Ever since the fall of communism and the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has turned into the European equivalent of the Wild West. It’s every man for himself. Crime and corruption are the order of the day. The Russian Mafia rule the roost and are totally lethal.”

“Absolutely without conscience,” Peyton agreed. “They make the Italian version look like Mickey Mouse. Racketeering, selling off military hardware, contract murders, gambling, prostitution…you name it.”

“And let me guess,” Fabia said, intrigued in spite of her determination not to be taken in with vague explanations and half-truths. “This place was built on the proceeds from those illegal activities.”

“Spot on. They have to launder it somehow.”

Fabia wrinkled her brow. This didn’t quite add up. “Surely the Spanish government knew that, so why let them build?”

“Yes they knew, but when times were good and money was pouring into Spain faster than the banks could mishandle it, they turned a blind eye. They didn’t particularly care where it came from, just so long as it kept on coming.”

“But now,” Clyde said, taking up the story, “the government’s skint and looking for ways to refill their coffers. If they bring this operation down, they could legally confiscate all the Russian assets here at Tosca Brava. It would amount to a very substantial payday.”

“Then they’re too late. The place is already built, so they can’t prove the money laundering.” Fabia frowned, examining their faces. “Or can they? What am I missing here?”

“Yes, it’s built, but the Russians still have a majority shareholding and—”

“And use the casino to continue laundering money.” Fabia finally got the full picture.

“Not just the casino. The flying school is the only independent operation here. The casino falls under the general management, and David Field has overall control. The Russians couldn’t channel great wedges of dosh through the casino without him knowing about it.”

“Ah, so he’s been persuaded to turn a blind eye.” Fabia shrugged. “I don’t much like him, but if threatened by ruthless Russians, I guess that didn’t leave him with a lot of options.”

“He’s in it up to his grimy little neck,” Clyde said. “So are Anton and the marina captain.”

“Anton?” Fabia pondered on that for a moment, feeling a ridiculous desire to defend her boss of two weeks. “Why?”

“The Russians obviously got wind of David’s precarious personal finances and offered him an easy way to sort it. In other words, he turns a blind eye to the casino racket, persuades people he can trust to manipulate their figures so more Russian ill-gotten gains can be channelled through those areas, and David and his cohorts get their cut.”

“Tennis and the marina not having goods that need to be sold to equate to takings.” Fabia nodded. “Just like the casino. Yes, I suppose that would account for the figures Anton tried to make me read out.”

Clyde grimaced. “It’s worked for years—”

“But then my dad got suspicious and Sonia started asking questions.” Fabia bit her lip. “Oh hell, what has she done? Where is she? Do you know?”

“No, we didn’t tell her any of what we’ve just told you,” Peyton said. “Unfortunately, she overheard me on my cell phone, talking about the Russian involvement here, which put her on to us. She fetched up here one evening, asking all sorts of questions, but she didn’t mention your dad, so we had no idea why she was asking.”

“What reason did she give?”

“She said she’d noticed discrepancies in the tennis coaching figures and wondered what was going on. We didn’t buy that but didn’t want to encourage her involvement, and so we played dumb.”

“Why did Anton duck that meeting yesterday and send me in blind?”

“That’s what we can’t figure.” Clyde shrugged. “Perhaps he really was stuck in traffic.”

“All right, let’s leave that to one side for a moment.” Fabia paused to assimilate all she’d just learned and arrange her thoughts into some sort of coherent order. It wasn’t easy, because she couldn’t rid her mind of the image of Sonia being held by some thuggish Russian. Or worse. “What do you think Sonia did after speaking to you?”

Peyton and Clyde shared a loaded glance. “She’s pretty smart, your sister.”

“No question.”

“She’d probably figured out the Russian money-laundering angle for herself. She mentioned that she’d done a lot of research into the situation in Russia.”

“Oh, Sonia, you idiot!” Fabia shook her head. “I should have stayed with her.”

“Then you’d both be missing,” Clyde said brutally.

“No, I could have talked her out of it. I know I could.”

“She didn’t tell us why she was so interested, but knowing what we know now, she probably figured they wouldn’t think twice about killing two innocent people like your mum and dad if they got in their way,” Peyton said, still holding her hand, genuine-seeming sympathy in his tone.

Fabia gasped. “But she didn’t have a scrap of evidence.”

“If she’d been straight with us about your parents then we’d have found a way to stop her.” Peyton rolled his eyes. “Talk about David and Goliath.”

“She told me in an e-mail that she’d managed to translate some of Dad’s diary entries but wouldn’t tell me more until we met in person.”

“Where are his diaries now?”

“Still at their house.” Fabia paused. “Unless Sonia had them with her, which I doubt.”

“We’d like to take a look at them.”

“You’re welcome, but I doubt they’ll tell you much. His notes were cryptic, just the odd initial here and there that meant nothing to us. It was clear he was worried about this place and feared being found guilty by association because he was a shareholder. He was worried about any profits he took not being kosher.” Fabia shrugged. “Dad was as straight as they come.”

“Even if the Russians did kill your parents, there’s no way on this earth that they’d ever admit to it.”

“But let me guess.” Fabia shook her head. “She went after them anyway.”

Peyton topped up her glass. Fabia thanked him, vaguely surprised that she’d drunk a full glass of wine without even realizing it.

“Have you noticed the large house, set by itself on the bluff?” Peyton asked.

“Yes, it’s pretty hard to miss. Who owns it?”

“It’s not-so-affectionately known as the Kremlin and is just as impregnable. The owner is the lynchpin of the money-laundering operation here. His name’s Dimitri Asimov. He comes and goes at will, but no one, absolutely no one, gets through the gates of that place unless they have legitimate business there.”

“You think Sonia tried to?” Fabia willed them to deny it but was already sure that she must have. It would be so typical of her hotheaded sister.

“In retrospect, she probably did. She mentioned that she’d met one of the guards in the bar.”

“What good would that do her?” Fabia asked, sighing with a combination of frustration and annoyance at Sonia’s naiveté. “Was she hoping for a written confession?”

Both men shrugged. “We left for Seville just after that and—”

“Just a moment,” Fabia said, glaring at first Peyton and then Clyde. “You said Sonia overheard you talking on your cell about the Russian scam here. Why would you have been doing that?”

An elongated pause ensued. Fabia continued to glower at them as an unspoken communication appeared to flash between them. It was Peyton who spoke.

“Because we’re not just flying instructors,” he said.

“Then what are you?”

Peyton hesitated. He absolutely shouldn’t be talking about this. But he already knew that he would—to hell with the rules of confidentiality. He’d tell her enough to dissuade her from pursuing the Russian angle. No way in the world would he let Fabia run headlong into danger in the way that Sonia obviously had. His conscience wouldn’t allow it.

Nor would his heart.

He’d only known Fabia for a day, but she’d affected him profoundly in a way that no other woman ever had. Sure, he’d wanted to fuck her, but he’d wanted a hell of a lot more than that, and still did. All these years, he’d been skillfully avoiding relationships. Now he desperately wanted to be a part of one. The stifling feeling he usually felt when a woman got too close didn’t put in an appearance, which told him all he needed to know. Fabia Brook was a tantalizing enigma, and he wasn’t about to let her slip away from him anytime soon. But she wasn’t the type to be satisfied with trite explanations and half-truths. Now that he’d finally found her, he wasn’t prepared to insult her intelligence and risk losing her again.

He glanced at Clyde. He was looking at Fabia with a combination of concern and protectiveness written all over his face. Unless Peyton missed his guess, he felt exactly the same way about her, which made up his mind for him.

“It’s kinda complicated,” he said, still playing for time.

She folded her arms beneath her breasts, her features arranged into a mask of firm determination. “In your own time.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Peyton exhaled a long breath. “I’ll tell you what I can, but it won’t be everything.”

“You’re here to sort out the Russians.” She quirked a brow. “I thought your explanation for how you two teamed up was a bit trite, but surely—”

“Tell her,” Clyde said. “After what she’s been through she deserves to know, and I reckon we can trust her.”

“You can. You absolutely can. I don’t care about renegade Russians. I just want to find my sister.”

“Clyde and I were both in the military. Him in the UK and me in the States. We got selected for special duties that involved both
nations. Secret stuff that required our flying skills and balls of steel—”

“He doesn’t do modesty,” Clyde said in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood.

“What we did then isn’t germane to this situation. It’s just background.”

“It’s how you really met?”

“Right. When we left the service, we did find this place and decide to team up and give it a go. We’d done more than our share of the James Bond stuff and just wanted an easy life.”

“So what went wrong?”

“Interpol decided we might be useful folks to have on the payroll.”

Fabia looked sceptical. “They just happened to know where you were at a time when they needed you?”

“You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave, to quote a phrase,” Clyde said, grinning.

“We did a few little jobs for them in the region, nothing particularly taxing,” Peyton said, topping up their glasses again. “Then they came to us about three months ago with the story of Asimov. They’ve decided to go after him big time—”

“So it’s not the Spaniards who want him?”

“They do, because they’ll be able to confiscate his property, but Interpol want him for a whole raft of reasons. They’re hoping that he’ll give up the really big guns—nasty people who are spreading their ill-gotten gains worldwide—in exchange for a lighter sentence.” Peyton shrugged. “Can’t see it myself, but I just do as I’m told.”

“When it suits him.”

“Interpol’s responsible for organized crime when it crosses international borders, and they want this guy badly.”

“If he’s so well protected, how can you help?”

“We figured out that David Field had to be involved. From what we heard at the monthly meetings, it didn’t take us long to finger the other people he’d dragged into it.”

Fabia frowned. “So let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re gonna put pressure on Field to give Asimov up.”

“Yep. We figure there’s got to be a shed load of dirty money coming through the casino soon.”

“We reckon it’ll be during the gala on Friday,” Clyde put in.

“If we know in advance, the powers that be can swoop.”

“Would Field actually know in advance?”

“He would have to. He has total control over this place, remember.”

Fabia paled. “And Sonia’s put herself in the middle of all this?”

“I sure as hell hope not,” Peyton said. “But I can’t think of any other reason why she’d just up sticks and disappear like that.”

“We have to get inside that house you call the Kremlin.” Fabia, clearly agitated, stood up and paced. “I
know
she’s still alive. They must be holding her in there.”

Peyton and Clyde shared a glance. “Even if they are, we’d never get past the gates.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Show her,” Clyde said. “I’ll stay here and finish cooking dinner.”

Peyton pressed a button on an intercom and spoke to someone in the hangar.

“Push out Oscar Bravo,” he said abruptly.

“Will do,” said a disembodied voice.

“Come on.” Peyton reached for Fabia’s hand and headed for the door.