Secured by the SEAL Read online

  Only the cocktail waitress looked up and eyed him as he approached her table. He’d need to get a name out of her before the end of the evening...and the truth. If she were actively working against Sergei, he liked her already. He also liked the way her green eyes glittered and changed color with every passing emotion. And that hair, like a mass of sunshine.

  He slid into the vinyl booth across from her and extended his hand. “I’m Alexei Ivanov.”

  Those eyes widened, and her mouth formed an O. “You’re Russian.”

  “I’m American, born and bred. My parents are Russian.”

  “Is that why you’re sneaking around the club?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Are you KGB?” She put a hand over her mouth. “Is Sergei some kind of criminal?”

  Alexei toyed with the edge of the plastic menu. She was figuring this out a lot faster than he wanted her to, and he still didn’t know why she’d been hiding in Sergei’s office.

  He tapped the edge of the menu on the table. “The KGB doesn’t exist anymore.”

  The coffee-shop waitress parked herself next to their table, raising her brows and the coffeepot. “What can I get you?”

  Turning his coffee cup over, Alexei tipped his head across the table toward the other waitress.

  “Umm.” She ran her finger down the breakfast side of the menu. “Two eggs, scrambled, bacon and wheat toast...and coffee, please.”

  Alexei ordered some French toast, and when the waitress left, he hunched forward. “What’s your name, and what were you doing in the club after hours?”

  She searched his face as if trying to read signs there. “My name’s Britt Jansen, but the club knows me as Barbie Jones.”

  His pulse jumped. She’d lied to the club about her identity. Anyone who could put one over on Sergei had his respect.

  “And?” He circled his finger in the air.

  Once the waitress had poured the coffee and left, Britt dumped three packets of cream into her cup and watched the milky swirls create a pattern on the surface of her coffee. “I’m looking for someone.”

  “At the club?”

  “Yes—no.” She picked up her cup with a trembling hand and slurped a sip. “I’m looking for someone who worked at the club but doesn’t anymore.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I’m looking for someone who—” Britt leaned forward and whispered “—disappeared.”

  The one word, hissed at him in the nearly empty coffee shop by a woman clearly afraid, made the hair on the back of his neck stand up and quiver.

  “You’re looking for someone who worked at the Tattle-Tale, and you think the club holds some key to her disappearance?”

  “I do, only because Sergei told the police that my...the woman quit, left LA with a boyfriend.”

  “Maybe she did. She’s an adult, and people do quit jobs and move, sometimes without telling their friends.”

  Britt smacked the table, and his spoon jumped from the saucer. “She wasn’t just a friend. She was my sister, and there’s no way she would leave for parts unknown without telling me first. I tried to communicate that to the police, but they just shrugged their shoulders and said there was no foul play.”

  Alexei picked up his spoon and drew invisible patterns on the Formica tabletop. He had no doubt women in Sergei’s employ vanished occasionally, but usually not American women with families who’d notice their absence.

  “You called the LAPD when you couldn’t reach your sister?”

  Britt nodded, and her green eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

  “What did they tell you?”

  “First they told me I had to wait because she was an adult. When they did a welfare check at her apartment, they told me that while she had left some personal items at her place, it looked like clothes were missing and her car was gone. Then they talked to Sergei, and he claimed she’d told him after work one night that she was finished, leaving town with a boyfriend, and the cops told me it was over. They had no reason to investigate further.”

  “But you did. Is it just that she didn’t tell you she was leaving? Are you and your sister close?”

  “We...” Britt dragged a hand through her hair. “We weren’t that close. We’d just gotten back in touch.”

  “So she could’ve left without telling you.”

  “French toast and eggs.” The waitress delivered their food with a clatter of plates.

  Britt waited until the waitress ambled back to the couple at the counter. “She could’ve, but I don’t believe it. In the last voice mail she left me, she talked about being in trouble.”

  “What did the cops make of that?”

  She lifted her shoulders and poked at her eggs. “My sister had some financial issues—unpaid bills, delinquent rent. That’s what they interpreted as her trouble.”

  Alexei spread his hands. “You have to admit, the police make sense on this one.”

  “I know, and yet...”

  “What?”

  She patted a place right above her heart. “I know right here my sister needs me. I can feel it.”

  Alexei let out a breath and sawed into his French toast. Britt’s sister was a flake who took off, leaving her sister to deal with her debts. Although Sergei was a dirtbag, he probably wasn’t involved in the disappearance of Britt’s sister—other things, but not this.

  “What do you hope to discover skulking around Sergei’s office?”

  “I’m not sure. Personnel files, my sister’s name somewhere.”

  “It’s a dangerous game you’re playing. Sergei is not someone to cross.”

  “I know. I sense that, too. I’m pretty good at reading people.” She slumped back against the seat and broke a piece off the end of her bacon. “So, you don’t believe he had anything to do with my sister or even that she’s missing.”

  “I understand why you’re worried, but I can see why the police declined to investigate.”

  “Now it’s your turn, Alexei Ivanov.”

  “My turn?”

  “Why did you break into the club, how did you erase that footage and how do you know Sergei?”

  “I’m doing a sort of...investigation.” Now that he’d determined Britt didn’t have anything on Sergei, he regretted inviting her into his world.

  “An investigation?” She crumbled more of her bacon between her fingertips, dropping it into her eggs. “Is that why you’re so quick to side with the police? You’re a cop?”

  “Something like that.” He had no intention now of telling Britt anything resembling the truth. She needed to get out of that club and go back to her life.

  “After I gave you my life story, that’s rather vague on your part.”

  “Just trying to protect you.” He took one of her hands in his and felt her wild pulse beneath his thumb. “You should quit the job at the club and go home. Wait for your sister to call you. She’ll probably contact you the next time she’s in trouble or needs money.”

  Britt jerked her hand away from his, her bottom lip trembling.

  “I’m sorry. I’m a jerk.” That same guilt he’d felt before lanced his belly, and he wanted to press his thumb against her mouth to stop the quivering.

  “You’re just telling it like it is, and you’re not wrong about Leanna.” Britt sniffed and dabbed her nose with a napkin. Then she dragged her purse into her lap and pawed at the contents inside. “There is something else. Can you read Russian?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe you can at least help me with this.” She waved a Tattle-Tale cocktail napkin at him. “I found it with my sister’s bills. I’m pretty sure she didn’t learn Russian while working at the club.”

  He held out his hand, and she dropped the napkin. It fluttered and landed in his palm. He flattened the napkin on the table. “It’s written in C
yrillic.”

  “Yeah, I have no clue.”

  Alexei ran his finger beneath the symbols, and when he reached the end of the note, he curled his fist around the napkin, crushing it.

  “What’s wrong? What does it say?”

  “You were right, Britt. Your sister is in very big trouble...if she’s even alive.”

  Chapter Three

  A chill raced through her body, leaving a pebbling of goose bumps across her flesh. She swallowed hard and met the unflinching gaze across from her, as Alexei’s blue eyes darkened to midnight.

  She started to speak, her voice raspy. She cleared her throat and tried again. “What does the note say? Who wrote it?”

  “A woman named Tatyana. She’s a victim of...rape, of slavery.”

  “Slavery?” Britt wrapped her hands around her coffee cup, trying to warm them, but little heat remained in the lukewarm liquid. “Who? Does she name her rapist?”

  Alexei released the crumpled napkin, and it fell to the table in a ball. “She doesn’t name names, but I think it’s clear who’s behind the human trafficking.”

  Britt smoothed out the napkin on the table and read the black-and-red lettering of the club’s logo in the corner. “The Tattle-Tale Club? Sergei?”

  “A good assumption.”

  “Why would my sister be in danger?” She flattened her hands against her belly to soothe the butterflies swirling inside. “D-do you think they tried something on her?”

  “I think they’re too smart to try to enslave an American with a family, but your sister must’ve known Tatyana. Maybe Tatyana was reaching out to her for help. If Sergei knew about the note, that would be enough to put Leanna in danger.”

  Britt chewed on her bottom lip. She and Leanna didn’t have much family to speak of—just each other, and they’d done a poor job of having each other’s backs up to now. She’d done a poor job.

  “I don’t understand.” The strange characters of the note blurred before Britt’s eyes, which were puddling with tears. “I work at the club of my own free will. I witnessed a bunch of women coming into work—some waitresses, some dancers—nobody forcing them.”

  Alexei drove his finger into the napkin on the table. “Maybe this Tatyana worked at a different place. They have more than one.”

  “They?”

  “Sergei’s family. They own a restaurant and banquet hall in Van Nuys. There could be other activity going on there.”

  “One of the other waitresses mentioned a banquet hall tonight.”

  Alexei’s lean jaw tightened, and Britt could almost imagine smoke coming out of his ears from the anger that kindled in his eyes. He’d done his research. He knew these people. Maybe he could help her find Leanna.

  “Is that why you were in the club? You’re investigating human trafficking?”

  He blinked once, his heavy lids shuttering the blue depths of his eyes. “No.”

  “But now that you know about this—” she poked at the napkin on the table between them “—you can bring charges against them. You can tell the police about my sister.”

  “Now that I know about this aspect of their operation, I can use it to further my own investigation. It’s not a good idea to involve the police at this stage. That will just alert Sergei and his family and drive them further underground. We don’t even know who or where Tatyana is.”

  Since she’d hit her own brick wall with the police, she wasn’t anxious to return to them for help. She’d rather put her money on this blue-eyed stranger who seemed to understand the seriousness of her sister’s predicament.

  Drawing in a breath, she folded her hands on the table in front of her. “If you help me find my sister, because I refuse to believe she’s dead, I’ll help you.”

  He raised one eyebrow. “You’ll help me?”

  Her gaze dropped to his mouth—no twitching or smirking. At least he hadn’t laughed at her. As she took in the soft sensuousness of his lips, at odds with the intensity of his face, she had a hard time dragging her gaze away from them.

  “That’s right.” She blinked and swept her hair back from her face. “I’m inside the club, and I plan to stay there. I can find out who Tatyana is and how my sister knew her. I’ll give you everything I have...and you’ll return the favor by using your resources to look for Leanna.”

  Steepling his long fingers, he said, “You’re putting yourself in danger by working at the Tattle-Tale. How do you know Sergei and Irina haven’t already discovered your identity?”

  “You have done your research. You know about Irina, too?”

  He waved one hand. “Answer my question, Britt.”

  Alexei didn’t have a detectable accent—after all, he was a born-and-bred American—but he pronounced her name with a long e sound, like Breet. She liked it. She liked everything about him.

  “For one thing, Irina doesn’t know me as Britt Jansen. Like I told you before, I’m Barbie Jones from New York, nice and anonymous.”

  “And if they do a search for Leanna Jansen, are they going to find her sister, Britt, who looks a lot like their new waitress Barbie?”

  “Leanna went by Lee, and we have different last names. She’s Leanna Low.”

  “She’s Chinese?”

  “Half. After my mother split from my father, she...ah...played the field. Let’s just say that the only reason she knew Leanna’s father was Mr. Low was because of Leanna’s features.” Britt flicked her fingers in the air. “But that’s another story.”

  “So the two of you don’t look much alike?”

  “Not to the casual observer. Believe me, Irina has made no connection between me and Lee-Low.”

  This time Alexei’s lips did twitch. “Is that why your sister uses the nickname of Lee?”

  “Yes.” She tapped her phone and skimmed through several pictures with the tip of her finger. “Leanna has a quirky sense of humor and lives kind of a Bohemian lifestyle.”

  She spun her phone around on the table to face Alexei. “That’s my sister. That’s Lee-Low.”

  “They’ll never guess you two are sisters, not by appearance, anyway.” He studied Leanna’s picture for a few seconds, running his finger down her sister’s tattooed arm. Then he smacked the table next to the phone. “Delete this photo from your phone and any others you have of your sister.”

  Gasping, she scooped up her phone and held it to her heart. “I can’t do that. I have so few pictures of her.”

  “Download them to your computer and then delete them. If someone at the club finds your phone, or snoops through it or even if you’re showing them something else and they see any pictures of Lee, you’ve blown your cover.”

  “My cover?” She grabbed his hand. “You’re going to take me up on my offer?”

  He shrugged quickly. “I figure you’re not going to leave that club just because I tell you to, so we might as well make this deal. I don’t want you putting yourself in harm’s way—no more skulking around. The cameras are going to catch you anyway. Don’t ask any questions about Tatyana or Lee, but keep your eyes and ears open.”

  She was still in possession of his hand, so she squeezed it. “I can do that. And you’ll help me find my sister?”

  “I will, and I’m going to start by searching through her belongings. Do you have them, or are they still in her apartment?” He drove the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Don’t tell me you’re staying in Lee’s apartment.”

  “I’m not that stupid. I did pay her past-due rent and a few months in the future...just in case she comes back, but I rented myself a little bachelor in West Hollywood. I left Leanna’s apartment as I found it, except for this.” She pinched the Tattle-Tale napkin between two fingers and then stuffed it into her purse. “Like I said, it was with her bills that I took with me.”

  “Have you been back to her place since?”

 
“No.”

  “Anything else?” Their waitress had returned with a coffeepot and their check.

  Alexei glanced at Britt, and she shook her head. “We’re good, thanks.”

  As Britt ducked beneath the strap of her purse, she watched Alexei peel off a few bills from the same wad he’d used to tip the Russian dancer. His strong fingers moved with deftness and confidence, and for the first time since coming to LA to look for Leanna, Britt was good.

  While Alexei had confirmed her worst fears about her sister, Britt now had someone on her side—a mysterious Russian American with acute knowledge and vast resources.

  “Let’s go, moya solnishka.”

  That was the second time he’d called her that. She had no idea what it meant and didn’t want to know, but Alexei Ivanov could call her anything and she’d follow him anywhere.

  * * *

  AS BRITT DROVE through her sister’s seedy neighborhood looking for a parking spot, she continued to keep one eye on her rearview mirror. Nobody at the Tattle-Tale had any reason to follow her, but she didn’t want to tempt fate. With that in mind, she drove around the block from her sister’s place and parked in front of a different, although just as crummy, apartment building.

  She exited her car and scanned the block, her gaze sweeping past an older couple walking a dog and a young Latino waiting for someone at the curb, his car idling and his music thumping through the open window.

  She didn’t even know what Alexei was driving. He’d walked her to her car in the diner’s parking lot and watched as she drove away. Maybe he had a gadget to materialize and then disappear. She wouldn’t put it past him after watching how he’d altered Sergei’s security footage from his phone.

  Hunching into her sweater against the gloomy late-June marine layer that had spread inland, Britt loped down the sidewalk. She turned the corner and made a beeline for Leanna’s pink stucco apartment building.

  She jogged up the steps to Leanna’s place on the second floor and held her breath as she peered down the row of doors leading to about six apartments. She stopped midway at Leanna’s door and inserted the key into the dead bolt first and then the door-handle lock.