Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“Don’t apologize.” I grin. “I was thinking pretty much the same thing myself.”
“Will he be ok?” Justine asks.
“Yeah. The doctor said it didn’t leave any lasting damage. Anyway, your cars are here, and I just came to see you both out.”
We say our goodbyes and the two women leave the house. I close the front door and go back to the living room to find Dr. Singh smiling.
He hands Viktor two pills.
“An antibiotic and a painkiller. Take those now and then get this filled in the morning and take the full course,” he says as he writes on a prescription pad.
“I’ll go and get you some water,” I say.
33
AMELIA
I hurry to the kitchen and grab a glass and fill it with water. I go back to the living room and hand Viktor the glass. He takes the pills as Doctor Singh packs his things away.
“I might be on the move for the next couple of days,” Viktor says to the doctor. “So, email me a copy of your invoice so I can deal with your payment wherever I am.”
I can read between the lines. Viktor will be living in another one of his properties until his men track Igor down, and while he trusts the doctor’s medical skills, he’s wary enough not to tell him where he’ll be staying.
Dr. Singh nods his understanding and says his goodbyes. I see him out and go back to the living room.
“Shall I help you upstairs so you can rest properly in bed?” I ask.
“Not yet,” he says. “There are a few things I need to deal with first. First, I need to call Lenny and find out what the fuck went wrong here and where the hell he’s disappeared to.”
“Can’t that wait until you’re feeling better?”
“No,” Viktor says harshly, then sees my expression, and softens. He gets to his feet, wraps his good arm around me and kisses the top of my head. “There are some things that simply must be dealt with tonight, Amelia. I’m fine, I promise you. This meeting is likely going to be pretty dull if you want to go upstairs and get some sleep. I’ll come for you later.”
I shake my head. I’m not leaving Viktor’s side for even a moment. He squeezes me a little tighter, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows I won’t be talked out of this one. Then he releases me and picks up his phone and speaks to someone in Russian. I go sit on the couch and wait for him to finish his business.
Viktor moves to the dining room and comes back with a bottle of whiskey and four glasses. He pours four decent amounts and hands one to me, taking one for himself. Lenny arrives as I take my first sip and feel the burning heat of the whiskey in my stomach.
Lenny sits down in a chair opposite us and picks up a glass. He drains it, refills it, then he sits back in his seat and sips it thoughtfully.
“My apologies for my absence in the last hour,” he says.
An hour? It feels simultaneously more like five hours and only five minutes have passed.
“I called in a team,” he continues, “and we’ve been scouring the perimeter of the estate. We found the breach. The intruder…”
“Igor Volkov,” Viktor supplies.
“Igor Volkov? Ah that makes sense,” Lenny says.
Does it? Seemingly it does to him. He probably knows a damned sight more about this whole Igor thing than I do.
“He made a hole in the fence, cleverly replacing the section he had cut out so there was no visible change to the fence. No one could have spotted that with the naked eye if they didn’t know what they were looking for. Even knowing we had a breach, it was difficult to find, and eventually, we found it by pushing on each section of the fence until we found the loose part. The hole has been repaired.”
Viktor nods his head thoughtfully.
“That’s good,” he says. “But my main concern right now is what went wrong. With regards to the hole, I will take your word for its sophistication and why it might have been missed. But when there was a breach, why the hell didn’t you and your team come up to the house immediately?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Lenny says. “This wasn’t a spur of the moment attack. It was carefully orchestrated and has likely been planned for a while. I wasn’t on duty, but as you know, an alarm sounds at my place if there’s a breach in security. The alarm sounded and I attempted to access the CCTV, but it was down. And when I called the gate, there was no answer. I tried the mobile phones of the guards scheduled to be here but I got no answer from any of them, so I rushed down here. I was a little further away than you and when I called you to stay away, I was still a good five minutes away.