Page 99 of Desperate Victory
“But you are still the pakhan,” I said, testing the term.
“Or I can just be Margareta. You and I could be friends, Lainey.”
“Why?” Bodhi asked, the question landing into the silence with a crack like a gunshot.
“For a great many reasons, Mr. Cavendish, not all of which you’ve earned the right to know or even ask me. Rather than play this game of two steps forward and one step back, let’s address directly the reason you were invited here tonight.”
My heart fisted in my chest.
“Andrea?”
Chapter
Thirty
ADAM
Margareta Waldemar. At this point, I wasn’t entirely certain if I should be impressed or infuriated. The woman turned up everywhere. Since discovering her connection to King—he killed her son—and how it related to her interest in the rest of us, I’d been wary.
Having her popping up everywhere in Manhattan and Long Island had been one thing. She had connections and ties there. She’d been entrenching herself. Carving out a space of her own amidst the elite. For the most part, she seemed to be on our side.
For the most part.
Her appearance here? This hot on the heels of her showing up at the funerals? Not something we could just overlook. There was so much more to Margareta Waldemar than we’d already uncovered.
Maybe too much more.
“Andrea?” Lainey’s soft exhalation of our sister’s name had me shifting closer, ready to intercede between her and Waldemar. Bodhi put himself a half-step in front of her and Ezra locked his free hand to Lainey’s.
I’d never fault his protective instincts, even when he was committed to winding me up. Like me, Milo moved a little closer too. We weren’t just closing in around Lainey, but erecting the barrier to Waldemar.
“What do you know about Andrea?” Lainey’s question snapped me back into the room.
“Not as much as I would have liked,” Margareta admitted. Her snowy white hair was styled in a to her shoulder bob, with a part on the side that gave it a razor-sharp effect.
The dichotomy of edginess blended almost too neatly with her aura of power and authority. The charm and charisma this woman possessed made her infinitely more dangerous than even I originally suspected.
It was so easy to overlook her as the major threat in the room. But that was exactly what she was…
“Be more explicit,” Bodhi said abruptly. “If you don’t mind, Mrs. Waldemar. I think Lainey would appreciate the directness and I know I would.”
Agreed. Though I said nothing. I watched for the trap. There had to be one. Why else was she here? Leopold had put her on notice back in New York. We hadn’t informed anyone other than a select few of our destination.
Now, here she was.
“I didn’t know that her father had made arrangements to sell her,” Margareta said, this time she took a sip of her own wine and then crossed the room to take a seat in a wing-backed Queen Anne chair. The eclectic mixture of old world and new suddenly made more sense.
It had shades of her home in Queens. A place where she seemed as comfortable baking in the kitchen as she was ordering an assassination. Since I’d seen her do both at the same time, it didn’t surprise me like it once had.
“Harper Reed was a detestable man,” Margareta continued with nary a flicker of apology to me. Not that I needed one. I wholeheartedly agreed with her. My father had been a complete bastard. “I did not suspect that even he would have done this. The girl is a child…”
“We were all children once,” Bodhi commented. While I was aware he was just drawing her out, his cavalier tone irked me.
“Yes, some of us are still children,” Margareta said, meeting Bodhi’s gaze with a kind of equanimity that I could envy. Bodhi wore murder face, whether she was aware of it or not.
A perfectly pleasant mask that promised he could turn on a dime. I’d seen what he’d done to my father. I didn’t envy Margareta’s chances should she truly aggravate him.
Ezra was right about one thing. Cavendish might be insane, but he was on our side and I’d take that every damn day of the week.