Spying Under the Mistletoe (Love Undercover #2) - Stina Lindenblatt Page 0,73
from him in years, after I left my family because of their…” They already know, Chloe. They already know your grandfather was the head of the mafia crime family. “Because of their criminal activities. I wanted none of that.”
“And he hasn’t tried to contact you since?”
“He used to send me birthday and Christmas cards, but that was about it. I didn’t even know if he was still with the family or if he had stepped away from it. He wanted to be a cop when he was a kid. I thought maybe there was a chance he’d done exactly that but decided not to contact me because things were too complicated.”
It was my favorite story I told myself whenever I’d missed Nikolai.
“I can guarantee he’s not with any police forces,” Agent Ramsey says. “Your grandfather was shaping him to be the new mafia boss. And that’s exactly what we believe he’s doing. He took over your grandfather’s role after Vadik Orlov was arrested. But he went underground.”
“We’re hoping you know something that will help us locate him,” Agent Foden says. “Or if he tries to contact you, we can attempt to flush him out.”
We’re hoping you know something that will help us locate him…
His words echo in my head like the bells of Notre Dame. They repeat themselves again and again and again until they fade away.
I look at Liam and Adam and Landon in turn and feel a frown forming on my brow. “But you’ve spoken with him recently.”
I catch the slight wince on Landon’s face.
The FBI has no idea Landon and his colleagues are helping Nikolai, that they’re the ones in contact with my cousin, not me.
They never wanted the FBI involved, but that’s precisely what happened.
Does this mean they could go to jail?
It’s Landon who answers my unspoken questions. “We haven’t spoken to him. We were hired to track him down through you.”
“Hired? Who hired you?”
“The FBI. We work with them from time to time, helping with some of their cases.”
When I was eight years old, I accidentally crashed my bike into my favorite climbing tree. My bike was totaled, and my arm landed in a cast. At the time, I’d felt like the tree had betrayed me.
The pain and sting of betrayal I’d felt is nothing compared to what I’m experiencing now.
I pull away from Landon. “You lied to me.” The words scrape my throat like sandpaper on fire. “You lied to me about who you are. You were using me all this time.”
I stand, sending Whiskey tumbling to the floor, and back away from Landon, almost tripping over Ava’s feet.
“Let me guess, you staged the attempted kidnapping so I would agree to be your girlfriend. Then you could use me to get to my cousin?”
This entire time I’d been kept on a short leash, all for nothing.
I’d poured out my heart, all for nothing.
I’d been falling in love, all for nothing.
“I bet all that stuff you told me about your old girlfriend was a lie, too.”
Landon shoots to his feet. “That’s not true.” His tone is hard. I don’t understand why he’s mad at me. He was the one who manipulated me, not the other way around. “Everything else was true. The only thing that wasn’t was who hired us. But I never said Nikolai hired us. That was all on you.”
“But you never corrected me when I assumed he was the reason for your sudden appearance in my life. You’ve had plenty of time to tell me the truth, but you didn’t. You kept stringing me along, making me think my cousin still loved me enough to hire men to protect me.” My voice cracks again, the fissure in my heart widening with each bitter word.
The only thing saving it from completely splitting in two is the knowledge that my father, stepfather, and Mark might not have stopped loving me like I’d initially believed. They were murdered.
But Nikolai…he was another matter.
I’d loved him like he was my brother, like he was my best friend, but in the end, he was the one who had walked away from me.
By choice.
25
Landon
I’m not one for feeling helpless. I’m a doer. A person who has to be in control of the situation.
But right now, a foreign sense of helplessness is winding its way around my heart.
It wasn’t supposed to go down like this. None of it was—including Chloe believing her cousin hired us to protect her.