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“When did you have time to get this?”
“I commissioned it about five minutes after I had the idea to go talk to your father. It’s not a complicated piece—it didn’t take the jeweler long to create.”
Maybe not, but it has me feeling all complicated.
“Pretty sure of yourself, Huntsman.” I smirk.
“I’d say more determined than sure.”
“Go,” I tell Rafael, from tiptoe, as I reach for a kiss, “so you can come back. I’m already craving that midnight snack.”
38
RAFAEL
When I get to the caves, Marco is seated in a comfortable chair at a table in the center of the well-lit room, looking every bit the aristocratic pretty boy. Hard to tell from his appearance that his family was shunned by high society almost a century ago. His great-grandfather was a thief too.
The bastard has a water bottle in front of him, and he isn’t cuffed, which rankles me, even though I ordered it this way. It’s more than he deserves. He has his wife to thank for our hospitality.
“Rafael,” he says grimly, “what’s this about?”
I nod at the guard who’s standing watch, and he exits as I take the seat across from Marco.
“Does Valentina know you had me dragged here against my wishes?”
Against my wishes. What a fucking pussy.
“She didn’t hear it from me. I don’t burden her with the business of men.”
He rolls his eyes like a teenage girl. “What the hell is going on?”
I don’t respond immediately, because I want him to sweat. Neither Lucas nor Tamar could come up with anything conclusive. There’s no question all roads lead to him, but they didn’t have enough time to travel each of those roads, picking up rocks to see what was underneath. But we couldn’t give them any more time. With Valentina’s life potentially at risk, the stakes were too high to wait until we were certain about him.
“So it’s all true. This is where you bring people to interrogate them.”
You’re getting the royal treatment, asshole. “This is a cave where we age Port. It’s not where we bring prisoners. And this isn’t an interrogation. If you were being interrogated, you’d be chained to the chair or strung up from the rafters while my knife and I peppered you with questions. You’re here for a conversation.”
He snickers. “A conversation. Right.”
Despite the fact that his great-grandfather was a war criminal, Marco has always lived a soft, sheltered life. I once heard Valentina refer to him as a gentle soul. But I never bought that line. Marco is an opportunist. It might be an unpopular opinion, but he’s never given me any reason to believe otherwise.
Because he’s been so sheltered from my world, he’ll be questioned a bit differently. We always look for tells during an interrogation, and often they’re more honest than the words we elicit. But the types of men we question have usually learned to control and manipulate their emotion and their reactions—at least until the torture begins. Marco has not.
I want to see his expression when he learns about the account. That will tell me a lot.
I pull out a copy of the application and place it on the table in front of him.
“What’s this?” he asks, squinting at the paper.
“It’s a bank account opened in Valentina’s name.” I take the account statement and set it right next to the application. “Someone withdrew money from Premier accounts to fund this account.” I point to his name on the application. “You’re the beneficiary.”
The moment the pieces fall in place, the anxiety slides off him in large sheets.
He looks me straight in the eye, cool as a cucumber. “I had nothing to do with that account or the withdrawal of Premier funds. Nothing.”
He’s telling the truth.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
