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“He’ll have the bubblegum,” Havel said, speaking for Kris.
It surprised her that Havel knew Kris’s preferences, but she was grateful to him for being kind to her son… even if he hated the mother.
Havel settled Kris into a seat across from Leeza, then sat next to her, handing her a water bottle.
Leeza took it and untwisted the cap with shaking fingers as she straightened. When she struggled to crack the seal, Havel took it from her and opened it, handing it back.
She hesitated for a second, looking at him.
“It’s not drugged.”
She gulped deeply, trusting him. If there was one thing she knew about Havel, it was that he didn’t lie. If he’d drugged the water, he would have told her, then forced her to drink it anyway.
When her thirst was satisfied, she leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. Her head was clearing enough that her brain was working again. She had been abducted and was in a tenuous situation. She needed to use her head if she was going to get herself and her son out of this.
“So what happens now?” she asked, her gaze on Kris.
“We go home and you get ready for the wedding.”
“Wedding?” She moved her eyes from her son to Havel. “Whose?”
“Ours,” he said grimly, but when he turned his head to meet her gaze, his expression was triumphant, as though he’d been waiting for this moment. “Yours and mine.”
CHAPTER THREE
The Plane arrived in Prague in late afternoon. Leeza stood with Kris, who was looking around blearily, but with interest, at Havel’s team as they prepared to leave the plane. Kris was exhausted after everything that had happened, but he was getting back to his normal self. Curious, quiet, and independent.
Leeza felt like a high-profile prisoner as Havel escorted her off the plane with two of his men in front and two behind. When his leather coat lifted, she could see his tattooed knuckles wrapped around his piece. As they walked down the steps to the tarmac, his gaze swept the area, searching for any signs of an ambush.
“I don’t have people waiting out here to attack you,” Leeza said dryly.
Though she’d gathered a crew of gangsters and mercenaries while working as the Phantom to revive her birth father’s organization, they’d scattered and gone into hiding when Krystoff Koba had fallen and Jozef took over.
“Jozef has enemies,” Havel grunted.
“Yeah, me,” she said darkly. “Isn’t that why he’s dragging me back to Prague?”
Havel’s expression was glacial as they stopped next to the waiting car, Havel towering over her. “I suggest you work on your humility before we arrive at the mansion. Your cousin isn’t pleased with your performance as the Phantom.”
Leeza refused to let Havel intimidate her with his height. She narrowed the space between them, her body almost brushing his and dropped her voice. “He killed my parents. Why would I care what he thinks?”
Havel dropped his head a few inches and for a heart-stopping second, she thought he was going to kiss her again. Instead, his breath brushed her lips as he said, “Krystoff was not your father and he never treated you like a daughter, so don’t pretend you care about his death. Your mother was a sociopath who used you to elevate the Koba name. Besides your sister, Jozef is the only one who gives a shit, so I suggest you start caring what he thinks. Your life is in his hands and like I said, he’s not happy.”
What about you? She wanted to cry out. There was a time when you cared about me too.
After sticking his head in the car, Havel straightened and glared at the driver who was standing beside the car. “Where the fuck’s the car seat I told you to bring?”
The driver looked like he was going to piss himself and Leeza couldn’t blame him. Contending with an angry Havel was akin to facing off with a raging Grizzly. “Sorry, Boss.”
“Don’t be fucking sorry,” Havel growled, his hand straying to the pocket where he kept his cigarettes, then stopping and clenching before dropping back to his side. The telltale outline of a cigarette package was gone. “Fix the fucking problem. Now.”
Leeza watched Havel with bemusement. If her current situation wasn’t so serious, she would laugh at the huge, tatted-up gangster shouting for a car seat.
As the driver took off in the car, leaving them standing on the tarmac surrounded by Havel’s team, Leeza murmured, “You quit smoking?”
Havel grunted but didn’t further acknowledge her question.
She wondered why he quit. During the brief few months they’d dated, she’d hinted at him to quit, telling him it was bad for his health. He’d laughed her off and told her it was part of the lifestyle. Gangsters smoked, drank, took drugs, and generally enjoyed a monied lifestyle of debauchery. While Havel and Jozef made an effort to keep themselves and their teams of mercenaries away from the excesses that characterized the world of organized crime, they knew how to enjoy themselves.
