Free Nautier and Wilder by Lora Leigh Page B

his men, and would be their contact during the transaction. Which meant Andre couldn’t
     get rid of him, as much as he would love to.
    Marcel was fucking untouchable until the agreement Rudy had made with the Russian
     family was completed. If the other man disappeared, then the suspicious, highly paranoid
     Russian might just slip the leash his own son had on him, and strike out at the Genoa
     family. They couldn’t risk that.
    Pulling the van into place, Andre glared at the back entrance of the hotel, willing
     Dennis to hurry, to complete the theft of the girl’s belongings quickly.
    “A fucking Mackay,” Nate sighed beside him then. “What are the chances?”
    What
were
the chances. For a man that didn’t believe in coincidence, he was suddenly being
     given supposed proof that they existed.
    “The chances are pretty much fucking nil,” he growled. “After we get back, find out
     why she’s here, and start tying up loose ends. I want to know every fucking move she’s
     made, everyone she’s talked to, and every breath she’s taken since she made the decision
     to come to the city alone. Dawg Mackay is too fucking paranoid to let one of his sister’s
     travel here without a baby-sitter. And Timothy Cranston would die and go to hell before
     he’d let one of them travel anywhere alone without a shadow.” He turned and glared
     at Nate. “I haven’t found her shadow yet. That means, she doesn’t have one.”
    Nate’s expression hardened. “Someone playing with us again?”
    “That’s what my gut’s telling me.” Andre made the realization in a flash. “Someone’s
     definitely playing with us, and I want to know why.”
    * * *
    The planner Jed had scrawled his number in lay on the table next to the door, where
     Piper had thrown it after having to force herself not to call him. Again.
    She wanted to call him.
    She wanted to rail about the decision to travel to New York alone, and she wanted
     to curse Eldon Vessante to the pits of hell, and she needed someone to listen to her.
     Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of anyone she could call whom she could trust to
     keep the details to themselves.
    Even Amy, the friend whose sister had given her a ride to the train station, couldn’t
     be totally trusted. If Amy even suspected Piper might be harmed, or had been, then
     she would call Dawg in a New York minute.
    Amy might not know Dawg. She may not have a very high opinion of him after some of
     the stories Piper had told her about his protectiveness, but Amy had become a good
     friend over the past few years. She returned to Somerset each summer just to see Piper’s
     new designs, and over the course of those visits, they had become close.
    Besides, Amy also trusted her sister, Gypsy, and Gypsy was a female version of the
     Mackay men. Pure military, tough, and suspicious. She would convince Amy to call the
     Mackays, if she didn’t just call Natches herself.
    The only bright spot in the night was that she had been able to get a ticket on a
     train departing in two hours. It would put her in Louisville five hours later, and
     from there the price for a rental car home wouldn’t give away the fact that she had
     been in New York City.
    Dawg would have pups if he ever found out she had traveled there alone. He was so
     damned protective and controlling of his sisters’ lives that he had even fully vetted
     their roommates at college. She and her sisters had become so disgusted over the choices
     he had given them that they had opted to just share an apartment together.
    Piper hated it.
    She hated having to look over her shoulder at every party she went to and every event
     she attended. Even worse was how often her dates and potential lovers looked over
     their shoulders.
    The few men Piper had actually considered sleeping with had run so damned fast once
     they’d realized who she was related to that there hadn’t been a chance of finding
     out whether they were as compatible as she had