Page 26 of Prince of Control (Bratva Heirs #1)

Chapter Eighteen

Lara

I huddle with the members of Baranov House in the kitchen.

It’s five in the morning, and no one has slept.

I made espresso and steamed milk for everyone with the Italian espresso machine they have.

The police searched every room in the house, possibly looking for drugs or drug paraphernalia, but they also seemed to be doing wellness checks on anyone who seemed inebriated.

Leo, Alex, and Feliks followed them around like silent guard dogs waiting to be sprung.

Except their owner wasn’t here to command any action.

The house feels completely different without Baron’s quiet authority. I didn’t realize until his absence how much his control brings a sense of safety. Without him, everything feels unsteady. Adrift.

Scary.

I don’t like the idea of Baron being down at the police station. Not one bit. Once again, it seems like he sacrificed his own comfort, safety, and pleasure in exchange for taking any pressure or stress off everyone else.

Except I do feel the strain.

I want him out. I want him safe. I want to know why they’re harassing him when he worked so hard to keep everything above-board for this party.

“Should someone tell Lili?” I ask. She left the party at some point and went home. She knows nothing about her older brother being taken into the police station.

“Let her sleep,” Leo says immediately, like he’s already thought it through.

It seems like Baron’s not the only one with protective instincts when it comes to Lili Baranov.

“Explain the American laws to me again,” I say to Leo.

“He wasn’t arrested when they left. They just took him in for questioning. If they don’t have enough on him to charge him with a crime, they can’t hold him for more than forty-eight hours without bringing him before a judge for probable cause.”

I shake my head, still not understanding what it all means.

“I’m going down there,” I declare, standing. “To break him out or bail him out or whatever.”

Anders’ phone beeps. “It’s Baron.”

We all crowd around.

Did you take Melinda home last night??

Ander’s face turns pale. “Shit. Something happened to Melinda? Oh God.” He quickly types back:

No, you said you needed me to shut the party down, so I called security to escort her to her dorm.

They want you to come to the station for a statement and DNA swab as soon as possible.

Anders rises to his feet, looking wobbly.

“I’m going with you,” I say firmly. “I don’t care if I have to wait at the police station for forty-eight hours. It’s better than sitting here not knowing what’s going on with him.”

Leo also stands. “Me too. I can pull security footage of her leaving, in case it helps.”

Fifteen minutes later, the three of us walk into the small Whisper police station, where the cop at the front desk immediately leads Anders back, ignoring me and Leo.

Leo starts working on his phone, pulling up camera footage from the front porch of the house. His face is grim. “I hope nothing happened to Melinda,” he says tightly.

“Are you friends with her?”

Leo shakes his head. “No. But I would feel terrible if anything happened to her leaving our party. I’d feel responsible, and Baron–”

He stops.

I try unsuccessfully to swallow. “What about Baron?”

Leo catches the intensity in my voice and looks up from his phone, where he’s still working while we speak. “There’s nothing between them,” he says dismissively. “I don’t mean that. But Baron has a hard time with people getting hurt on his watch.”

There it is again—another reference to this protective aspect of Baron and a hint to an underlying trauma that caused it.

“What happened to him?” I ask quietly.

Leo sends me a quick look, then shakes his head. “Not my story to tell.”

My pulse quickens simply at hearing I’m right–there is a story. But I respect Leo’s boundary. He’s right–Baron should share it with me. I hope he can.

Leo’s phone buzzes, and he responds to something.

“Fuuuuuuck.” He runs a hand through his hair.

“What is it?”

He hands me the phone, which is open to the New York Times app, with “Breaking News” at the top.

The headline reads “Daughter of Vice Presidential Candidate Gabe Tracy Drugged and Assaulted at Thornecroft Party.”

I suck in a sharp breath, ice sluicing through my veins. “But… that didn’t happen. Did it?”

Leo shakes his head. “Definitely not. This is Titan House fucking with us.”

I see doubt on his face, though. “Would another society house go to such lengths just because your parties are better?” I ask doubtfully. “They wouldn’t assault a woman, would they?”

A muscle jumps in Leo’s jaw. “Well, she’d be the one to pick if they wanted to be sure we get permanently closed down and prosecuted.”

He muses some more. “Or it could be her father’s political opponents trying to make him look weak.” He shakes his head. “No, that doesn’t make sense. It has to be a set-up to get at Baron and our house.”

He returns to his phone, scrolling through video footage.

“Here, look.” He shows me the video of Anders escorting Lara out to a security cart–one of the open-air electric carts the campus security patrol in.

He gives her a kiss before helping her into the back seat then stands and watches as the cart drives away.

“Did she look drugged to you?” Leo asks.

I shake my head, drawing in a much-needed breath.

Leo has evidence. Everything is going to be okay.

He stands and walks up to the counter. “I’d like to speak to the person in charge of the Melinda Tracy case,” he says, showing the screen of his phone. “I have time-stamped video evidence of her leaving our party.”

Baron

They grill me for what feels like hours. I don’t second-guess not calling my mom. If I get formally charged, she’ll probably kill me for not bringing her in immediately, but for now, I’m cooperating. For Melinda’s sake.

Finally, they tell me I’m free to go. “Your wife is here to pick you up,” the detective says.

Surprise pours like warm liquid into my chest. “She is?” I ask stupidly.

Lara came.

It’s early morning, which means she probably didn’t sleep.

Which means she cares.

My wife is here to pick me up.

No words have ever meant more to me.

“Don’t leave town,” the officer warns me.

I nod and walk out to the lobby of the small police station.

Another dose of warm liquid floods my limbs when I see her. Lara surges up from a waiting chair to meet me. She’s in a pair of teal sweatpants with branding down one leg and a pale cropped pink t-shirt, fitted tight around her braless tits.

“ Malyshka ,” my voice sounds rough. I stumble toward her. “You came.”

She meets me halfway, throwing her arms around me. I catch her waist, lifting her off the floor for a long, tight embrace.

My eyes smart.

Leo stands nearby, and Anders emerges from the interrogation room, looking haggard.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say, and the four of us walk out.

When we’re safely in Leo’s SUV, I say, “I don’t know what the fuck just happened. They said Melinda was drugged and sexually assaulted at our party.”

Anders looks like he’s going to be sick. “Can you take me to the hospital, Leo? I need to see her.”

I nod. “Yeah, me too.” I reach for and squeeze Lara’s hand. “Is that okay with you?”

Her brows lift in surprise, but she nods.

“I showed them the video of her leaving the party, clearly not drugged ,” Leo fills us in. “And I verified that I personally saw you and Anders in the house the entire time after she left.”

“Thank you,” I say quietly.

“I told them I’d comb through all the footage from the party to find everything with Melinda in it. I can find footage inside the house of Anders after she left, and Lara was your alibi.”

I turn to look at Lara, suddenly sick.

She nods. “They questioned me, and I told them we were together during the last hour of the party.”

I grind my teeth. One thing I would never wish for is my wife being interrogated to corroborate my story.

“They questioned you? I’m so sorry, Lara.”

She lifts her chin. “I volunteered.”

Another wave of warmth washes over me. I bring her hand to my lips and kiss the back of it. “I’m sorry,” I murmur again.

“Not everything is under your control, Baron.” She holds my gaze steadily with her blue one, and it feels like I’m somersaulting. “You’re not responsible for all the bad things that happen in the world.”

“I’m a prime suspect,” Anders says tightly from the front seat. “They’re going to find my DNA all over her. But it was consensual.”

“Of course it was,” I say. “She’ll tell them that when she wakes.”

He turns to look at me. “Dude, what if she doesn’t remember? She was covered in marks–everyone’s going to think I’m some kind of heinous sexual predator.”

That’s when it becomes crystal clear.

“This was all a setup,” I say, working it out in my mind as I speak.

“Everyone knows or thinks they know that we have a dungeon. It might also be known that Melinda Tracy frequented it last year. Maybe that she frequented it with me.” I dart an apologetic glance at my wife, but her face remains sympathetic.

“So someone roofies Melinda at the party and maybe calls for help, and the police find her drugged and covered in bruises with someone’s DNA all over her,” Leo finishes.

“Exactly. It has to be setup, or they wouldn’t have shown up at our party looking for me. I never said one word to her the whole night,” I say.

“What if it was that guy I thought roofied Lili?” Leo asks.

I shake my head. “He had a flask of vodka. That was a coincidence. Or your gut telling you something bad was going to go down.”

“Who found her and called for help?” Lara asks.

“I don’t know. The newspaper article didn’t say anything about how she was found,” Leo says.

“ Newspaper article?” I shove my fingers through my hair. “This went nuclear fast. Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Leo says. “I got a New York Times breaking news alert on my phone. That’s how I knew to look for the security footage.”