“I agreed to that nonsense when I thought you’d be reasonable.” There was a distinct threat in his voice.
It was all Maestro could do not to go downstairs and lay down the law to Billows regarding his woman.
“What have I been unreasonable about?”
“I’m not standing outside arguing with you over this. Open the fucking door.”
“I’ll come down. We can talk in the lobby.” She lifted her finger from the intercom and hastily rushed over to the tiny closet to pull out a puffy jacket. “I’m sorry, Andrii, this won’t take long.”
“He sounds angry.”
“He almost always sounds angry,” she agreed.
“Will he get violent with you?”
Azelie shook her head. “I’ve known him going on seven years. Believe me, he knows if he did, I’d quit.”
Andrii didn’t want her to quit. That might trigger Billows into kidnapping her and forcing her into his training program for the women and teens he trafficked.
“I’ll just go downstairs with you and make sure he doesn’t treat you with disrespect.”
Azelie reacted exactly how he knew she would. “No, absolutely stay up here, Andrii. He won’t be pleasant to you if he thinks you’re dating me.”
Every cell in his body went on alert. “Why would Billows be ugly if he found out you’re dating me? Has he asked you out?”
Andrii was older than she was by a good ten years, but the age difference between her and Billows was double that or more.
“Not like that, not as in trying to take me to dinner. He just acts proprietorial over me. Not like a daughter or sister, just as if he owns me.”
She covered her clothing with the puffy jacket. “This shouldn’t take long, Andrii.”
A part of him felt like laughing at the firmness in her voice. She was dictating to him, insistent that she would face Billows alone. He recognized she was protecting him. She knew his inclination was to go with her and she didn’t want that. She knew Billows was a criminal. She might not know about the trafficking, but she knew his books were indicative of a very dangerous man. Andrii doubted if Billows would allow her to leave him. He’d traffic or kill her first. She knew too many of his secrets.
Azelie might be an introvert and a nurturer, but she was highly intelligent. She had to have realized she was in trouble with Billows. She made no attempt to quit despite his mood swings, mostly, Andrii was certain, biding her time, getting through school. She had to have an exit plan. He knew it wouldn’t work. Billows would track her down. He couldn’t afford for her to be out in the world, a possible informant to law enforcement.
Azelie took the lift down to the entrance. Andrii took the stairs. He was fit and he could move with both speed and stealth. He wasn’t about to leave her alone and unprotected with Billows. He’d gone from playing her to protecting her in two meetings. Even if things didn’t work out between them, he would see she was free of Billows.
Tonight, he wanted to see the interaction between the woman he considered his and her boss. The two had known each other for nearly seven years. If he was lucky, he would learn vital information, such as where the keys would be to the underground rooms and how to get inside them undetected. Code had gotten the blueprints for the three-story building, but Billows had managed to conceal rooms beneath the Adventure Club, which was beneath the Pleasure Train Club. Those rooms weren’t on the blueprints. Torpedo Ink knew the rooms were there, just not how to get to them.
Azelie had opened the door to allow Billows into the foyer. There were a couple of chairs in an alcove across from the stairs. As if she was wholly confident, she turned her back on her employer to lead the way.
From his vantage point, Maestro studied the man his club knew to be a huge cog in the trafficking wheel. He looked to be about forty-five. His hair was thick and sandy colored. Although he was slim, his suit showed off his physique, a man with muscle hiding beneath the smooth lines of his jacket.
Maestro had met him a couple of times, going to the Adventure Club, spending enough money and acting the dominant enough to be noticed. That had been the point. The owner came out to meet with the “big spender.” Maestro played up his Russian accent even though he rarely spoke with an accent. Billows had introduced himself and appeared friendly at the first meeting. In the second meeting he’d been more reserved and abrupt. At the third and last, Maestro had felt an immediate threat, as if two predators vying for top position had crossed trails and only one could survive.
“I’m not certain why you couldn’t have waited until I got out of class, Alan,” Azelie ventured, seating herself across from her boss.
“I told you it’s an emergency. I need you to fix the problem tonight. All you had to do to prevent my coming here was answer your damn phone.”
Maestro didn’t like his tone. The man sounded threatening, ugly even. It didn’t seem to faze Azelie. She looked at her boss calmly, not even blinking at the building tension between them. Maestro would have to always remember that his woman would hold her ground under any circumstances if she believed she was in the right.
“I told you that I have school tomorrow. I study before I go to class, particularly if there is going to be a test. I don’t always have my phone on me. I don’t during class, and I don’t when I’m studying. I watch children sometimes, and I rarely have my phone on during those times.”
“That’s bullshit, Azelie. You’re to be available whenever I need you.”
Azelie lifted one eyebrow. “We had a deal, Alan. In fact, I have it in writing, signed by you. School is important to me, and there wasn’t to be any interference with my classes or studies. I get your books done. I’ve never once failed you. I don’t understand the sudden emergency. If you somehow found out you’re going to get a surprise audit, you should have told me this afternoon. At night I study. You know that.”
“I know you get paid a hell of a lot of money to push numbers around.”
“Actually, I don’t. We talked about that too.”
He leaned forward. “What does that mean? I know how much you get paid.”
“I don’t get paid what a regular bookkeeper gets paid. If you had someone else doing for you what I do, you’d be paying them thousands.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, sat back, folded his arms across his chest and pressed his lips together, glaring at her. Maestro studied his expression. Billows didn’t like what Azelie had just revealed to him. He had to have known the going rate for a bookkeeper like Azelie. Basically, she cooked their books. She tracked down lost money for them. She laundered it into legitimate businesses. According to Code, she barely scraped by.
What the hell? It was impossible for Billows not to know what she got paid, but Maestro was a master at reading people—it was what kept him alive. Billows believed Azelie made far more money than she did. Did he have another bookkeeper? Was he setting Azelie up so it appeared she was skimming cash from the books?
“Let’s start over, Azelie,” Billows finally said. His tone wasn’t exactly conciliatory, but he clearly wanted her to be on the same page with him.
Azelie smiled at her boss and inclined her head—princess to riffraff. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes, but it illuminated the beauty in her face. Maestro didn’t like the satisfaction gleam creeping into Billows’ expression. A man training trafficking victims for the sexual assault that would end up being their lives should have been able to read the falseness of her expression. Either Billows was so arrogant he believed she was into him and wanted to please him, or he didn’t care enough to learn to read others. That made him stupid and even more dangerous, in Maestro’s opinion.
“I’ll see to it that you receive the proper amount of money for the work you do.” Billows sat back in the chair and regarded her with shrewd eyes.
To Maestro, the man looked cunning. There was a cruel edge to his mouth, and far too much interest in his gaze when he looked at Azelie.
“I don’t know why you aren’t receiving what you should be, but I’ll fix that immediately.”
