Kilty as Sin Read online

  Kilty As Sin

  Kilty Romantic Suspense: Book Four

  Amy Vansant

  ©2019 by Amy Vansant. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by any means, without the permission of the author. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Vansant Creations, LLC / Amy Vansant

  Annapolis, MD

  http://www.AmyVansant.com

  Copy editing by Carolyn Steele.

  Proofreading by Effrosyni Moschoudi & Connie Leap

  CONTENTS

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Other Books by Amy Vansant

  Chapter One

  Six Months Ago

  Peter felt the man before he saw him.

  He, his buddy Dean and their boss, Volkov, sat stage-side at the Minty Minx strip club, watching a sleepy-eyed redhead loll through her pole routine. It wouldn’t have surprised Peter if she’d stopped to check her text messages in the middle of the dance. Though, he couldn’t imagine where she’d keep her phone.

  A redheaded stripper named Ginger. She hadn’t shown any effort picking a stage name, either.

  Nothing kept Dean from checking his phone. He’d been texting back and forth with someone since they arrived. Volkov only had eyes for Ginger. Peter spent half his time watching the girl and the other half staring off at the wall opposite her. Dean had found him the job with Volkov only a few days earlier, so he felt obligated to look grateful for the free trip to the strip joint.

  In truth, it wasn’t his thing.

  The job paid well—Volkov was some kind of Russian gangster, although Dean said he wasn’t connected to the real Russian mob—he was a lone wolf. Dean said that was funny because that’s what Volkov’s name meant. Wolf.

  Dean’s tone had implied it was the mob who didn’t want Volkov and not the other way around, but Peter didn’t care. He himself was a bit of a Russian mutt, on his mother’s side.

  The job had come just in time. Peter needed the money. He’d done three months in High Desert State Prison for drug possession with intent to distribute—though he’d had no intent to sell. The meth was all for him.

  He got clean in prison and, following his early release for good behavior, Dean said he could take over his job. The position watching over Volkov’s safe house came with room and board, so it solved all of Peter’s post-prison problems.

  Dean packed up and moved out of Volkov’s safe house two seconds after Peter walked through the door. “Good luck,” he’d said. Peter hadn’t loved his tone, or the little chuckle that followed, but he figured, how bad could it be?

  Free rent was free rent.

  Gaze following Ginger’s travels down the pole, Dean stood and slipped his phone back into his pocket. He slapped Volkov on the back and said something to him. Volkov nodded, his attention never leaving Ginger.

  A quick nod to Peter and Dean left. Peter glanced at Volkov. It seemed they’d be staying.

  Peter returned to watching Ginger rub her cheek against the pole. Not her rear cheeks, but her face cheek. It hit him as odd. He suspected she was trying to grab a quick nap.

  That’s when he felt a presence in the chair left empty by Dean’s absence. He turned, thinking Dean had returned, but it wasn’t his buddy. The man sitting between them now was taller and thinner.

  The man glanced in his direction, revealing eyes so light blue Peter wasn’t sure they weren’t white. A black edge rimmed those pale irises but Peter only caught a brief glimpse. He looked away as if Peter wasn’t worth considering.

  Dick.

  Volkov and the stranger began to talk. From the bits and pieces Peter could overhear, he couldn’t tell if the two men knew each other or not.

  “I like to take them home,” Volkov screamed over the throbbing music.

  “It would be nice to keep them and pull them out when you want a dance, huh?” said the man.

  Peter looked at the man, expecting him to be chuckling at his own stupid joke, but he wasn’t. He stared at Ginger with those crazy white eyes. Serious as cancer.

  Something made Peter’s neck shiver and he bunched his shoulders against the cold.

  “It’s harder than you think,” said Volkov, laughing.

  Peter relaxed a little. The fact that Volkov laughed made everything seem more normal.

  Except…

  He’d been at Volkov’s safe house for two nights. Someone had torn out the main bathroom and refashioned it as an empty, windowless oversized closet. The room gave Peter the creeps, both because it reminded him of his cell back at High Desert and because it just wasn’t right. He’d asked Dean what it was for and Dean had said, “It’s Volkov’s. You want the job or not?”

  So, he’d let it drop.

  “Basements make good sound dampeners.”

  Peter looked at White-Eyes again.

  What did he just say?

  Peter couldn’t shake the uneasiness creeping along his scalp. He was no women’s libber—he’d made his share of off-color jokes. But something about the way Volkov and White-Eyes were talking about captive women—it sounded more like a scientific discussion than banter.

  It sounded more like a plan.

  Peter tried to concentrate on Ginger’s freckled breasts, but a sudden, inexplicable vision of himself digging a basement through the hard Nevada caliche filled his brain. He had an abrupt urge to leap up, buy pick axes and shovels, and start digging.

  For Ginger.

  As he watched the girl sway to the music, Peter realized he wanted to put Ginger in the hole.

  Not any hole.

  The hole he dug.

  Peter rubbed his hand across his head as if he were trying to raise a genie from his skull.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  He’d never had thoughts like that in his life.

  Peter felt a movement at his elbow and turned to see White-Eyes standing to leave.

  Thank god.

  As the thin man moved away, he banged into Peter with his right arm. His flesh was hard. It felt as though someone had bumped into him with a bat.

  Peter glanced at Volkov. The Russian watched Ginger.

  Peter did the same.

  After a bit he felt better. He pushed the image of himself digging holes from his mind and spotted Volkov hand Ginger a stack of money. Not stripper money. Real money. Ginger nodded, talking with Volkov.

  Peter couldn’t hear what they were talking about.

  It didn’t hit him as odd when he found himself driving Volkov and Ginger back to the safe house. He’d hoped he’d be dropping the two of them off at Volkov’s real house, but the Russian had muttered the address of the safe house to him as he and the girl slid
into the car.

  Peter heard the two of them mumbling as he drove. Ginger wasn’t a giggler. Her personality didn’t perk up off stage, either.

  When they arrived at the safe house, Ginger wandered into the kitchen mumbling something about sparkling water.

  ‘Cause she’s so fancy.

  Volkov opened the linen closet and pulled out a black tote bag Peter had never noticed before. Volkov took the bag into the cell room, before leading the girl to the bag and shutting the door behind them.

  Peter stood there, staring at the closed door, unsure what he was supposed to do while his boss had sex in a jail cell with a stripper. On either side of the cell room were bedrooms. Why would he take her into the empty cell?

  When the screaming started, Peter turned up the television and sat on the sofa. The walls of the cell were hard, like cement, and the door had been reinforced with strips of thick wood, but Peter could still hear the screaming.

  It didn’t sound like sex screaming.

  Every so often the door would rattle, as if someone had thrown themselves against it.

  Peter turned up the volume again. After another ten minutes he grabbed the bottle of vodka from the kitchen. He wasn’t supposed to drink, but...it’s not like it was meth. He poured himself a large shot and then another.

  Peter carried the bottle back to the sofa.

  ~~~

  Peter opened his eyes. He’d fallen asleep. He looked at the cell door to find it cracked open.

  “Volkov?”

  He must have left.

  The bottle of vodka sitting on the table beside him was nearly empty. Was he supposed to be keeping watch?

  I hope I’m not in trouble.

  Peter turned down the television and stood, staring at the cell door. He crossed the four feet to the entrance and was about to peek inside, when the door swung open. Ginger stumbled past, pushing him, nearly knocking him over on her way toward the front door. Her face was swollen and covered in blood.

  She pushed open the screen door and ran out of the house, screaming. A second later Peter heard the screeching of tires and a thump.

  The screaming stopped.

  “Go see.”

  Peter jumped. Volkov stood behind him, his body naked but for a pair of wrestling shorts, his tattooed skin glistening with sweat and blood.

  “What?” he asked. His mind felt like a seized motor.

  Volkov grabbed and squeezed his arm before pushing him towards the front door. “Go find her.”

  Peter followed in Ginger’s footsteps. People gathered in the road outside the house. A man stood over the form of a red-headed girl, her twisted body illuminated in the headlights of his Impala.

  Ginger’s left leg bent at an unnatural angle. Her body was covered in scrapes. She wasn’t naked, which struck Peter as the oddest thing of all.

  “She came out of nowhere.” The man hovering over her repeated the phrase over and over. People around them announced they were calling 911.

  Peter turned and reentered the house. He found his boss in the cell room.

  Volkov had thrown on one of Peter’s t-shirts. In his hand hung a bucket, orange sponge floating in the murky water. The room looked as it always did, but for the smell of disinfectant.

  Volkov thrust the bucket at him. “Dump this down the sink and put the bucket underneath.”

  Peter took the bucket and did as he was told. The water appeared light red against the white sink as it swirled down the drain.

  When he returned to the living room, Volkov tossed his t-shirt at him. He had slipped back into the black oxford he’d been wearing at the club.

  “I wasn’t here,” said the Russian.

  Peter nodded.

  Volkov pushed past him, walking through the kitchen towards the back door, pausing in the porch off the back. He tapped his toe on the ground and then looked back at Peter.

  “Tomorrow go out and get some shovels and pick axes. Things to dig.”

  Peter nodded. “Puttin’ in a pool?”

  He wasn’t sure why he’d said it.

  He knew they wouldn’t be digging a pool.

  Chapter Two

  Broch cocked his head as he passed Studio Twelve. It sounded as if thunder bounced inside the huge metal building. Curious, he opened the door and let the cacophony wash over him.

  Applause.

  Not thunder at all.

  People haein a guid time.

  Broch wandered in and stood behind two men posted at the top of a set of stairs leading down to a stage. The men turned as he entered and, recognizing him as a fellow Parasol Pictures staffer, nodded. Both their attentions dropped to his kilt and then darted away.

  Broch straightened and pushed out his chest.

  Aye. That’s richt. It’s a kilt day.

  Catriona had been trying for weeks to crack his pattern of kilt-wearing days vs. pants-wearing days, but truth be told, even he didn’t know what inspired him to don the kilt in which he’d arrived in the twenty-first century. Maybe he felt a little extra homesick on the days he wore the kilt. Who could blame him? He’d moved five thousand miles and nearly three centuries from ancient Scotland to modern day Los Angeles. He’d traveled from cool, green countryside to cold metal, hot sand and burning pavement. He liked the sun well enough in small doses. The palm trees were pretty, and of course he loved Catriona—but he deserved to be a little sentimental for his homeland once in a while.

  On wistful days he wore the kilt. Then there were the days he wore the kilt for no other reason but to send Catriona into a tailspin wondering why he’d worn the kilt.

  This was one of those days.

  It made him chuckle thinking about her eyes widening at the sight of him, her lips pressing into that adorable little sandwich of frustration...

  She made a mistake letting me ken she wis trying tae figure mah pattern.

  But as eager as he was to saunter by Catriona, at the moment, he couldn’t take his attention from the television show being filmed below him. He watched the four women gabbing from their flower-print sofa perches, white lights trained on them from the scaffolding above. He could hear their voices over the speakers in the room. The path leading to them, down wide stairs, was lined with people sitting in plastic chairs.

  The clappers.

  No, Catriona called them something else—

  The studio audience.

  Broch recognized the women below him from the television in his apartment. It fascinated him to see them in real life, full-sized and truly alive. While he’d come to understand the concept of television, it still felt a little like magic to him. Even Catriona had been unable to explain to him how the picture-box worked exactly. Something about images beaming through space—

  “Who else has a love problem they’d like to share with us?” asked a tiny Asian woman from her corner of the sofa.

  Niko. Broch remembered her name.

  A woman from the audience stood and worked her way through the crowd to the stairs as the others clapped and hooted. She approached a standing microphone not far from the stage and tucked an errant hair behind her ear.

  “My husband won’t stop leaving his bath towels on the ground.”

  In unison, a grumble rose from the crowd and Broch watched the largely female audience nod their heads as if they, too, suffered the same towel-dropping husband.

  Broch scratched his chin, trying to remember where he put his bath towel that morning.

  Oan the hook oan the back o’ the door.

  He’d assumed that’s what the hook was for. Maybe this woman’s husband didn’t know where the towel hook was?

  “Dae ye hae a hook?” he asked aloud.

  Heads in the audience turned to him. The woman complaining about her husband followed the stares of the others and turned to peer up at Broch.

  “Oh my,” said one of the talky women in their microphone It echoed through the studio as giggling rose from the crowd.

  “What’s that sir? Can you come this way
a bit?” asked a heavyset black woman from her spot beside Niko. She flashed long violet-painted nails at him as she motioned for him to come forward.

  Broch recognized her as TeeTee. She was his favorite. She’d made him laugh out loud in his apartment.

  “Me?” he asked, placing a hand on his chest. He wore his new favorite t-shirt, white with the printed image of a shaggy brown Highland bull in the center of it. Catriona had bought it for him. He’d thought it might be lucky and here he was, singled out by TeeTee.

  TeeTee motioned to him again, nodding. “Come down where we can see you better.”

  Broch wandered down the stairs toward the mic. The woman standing there stepped away so he could take her place, but as he moved in, she slipped her arm around his waist.

  “Is he my parting gift?” she asked.

  The studio exploded with laughter.

  TeeTee rolled her eyes. “No, you cannot keep that man. You go sit yourself down.”

  Cackling with laughter, the woman smacked Broch on the butt before making her way back to her seat. The audience erupted with giggles a second time as Broch jerked, shocked by the feel of a hand on his posterior.

  Broch hooked his mouth to the side. He’d had to take a class on sexual harassment for his job with the studio, and in the training video, when the man patted the woman’s behind, warning alarms had sounded.

  “Now, you were saying, sir?” prompted TeeTee, flashing the ass-paddling woman one last disapproving glare.

  Broch faced forward and cleared his throat. He glanced to his left and then his right.

  It felt as if everyone was staring at him.

  “Em... Whit?”

  His voice boomed over the speakers and he snapped back his neck to look skyward. He leaned toward the mic again.

  “Hullo?”

  His voice echoed through the studio and he grinned, singing softly.

  “You’ll take the high road and I’ll take the low road,

  And I’ll be in Scotland afore you.

  Where me and my true love will never meet again,

  On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond—

  Ho, ho mo leannan

  Ho mo leannan bhoidheach...”