“Not my area of speciality but I’ve been looking at the books, and the publishing arm is denting the profits overall, but it also attracts investment and publicity, and as I say, kudos for the organization overall. There’s been a civil war, if you will, in the ranks of the board. This book was garnering a lot of publicity and making it harder to push to sell the publishing wing. It appears that someone from within the organization seeded the threats and sent them out in the hope the book would be pulled. Losses made, reputations damaged, and the publishing wing closed.”

Carolina lets out a low laugh. “That’s audacious but crazy. So many ways it could go wrong.”

“It has gone wrong,” I point out. “They’ve been discovered.”

“Not exactly,” Marcus answers. “We don’t know who is doing this. That’s why I’m here. To try to find out. The upshot is, however, that as things stand right now, there doesn’t appear to be a genuine threat. You need to stay on a bit longer, but you might be heading home soon, Reaperman.”

He grins at me and in that second, I know. He’s figured Carolina and me out.

“Yeah, maybe not. Remember the second threat I told you about?” I don’t even bother to call him on his shit stirring because I’ve realized something in the last few minutes as he was talking. I’m not going anywhere. Not unless Carolina tells me to. I don’t want to leave. Not here. Not this. Us.

I want to stay and see how this plays out. More, I want her to come back to Montana with me and visit and give us a chance to try at something without the spotlight of the media she’s always going to have on her here. I don’t know, though, if she’ll consider it.

“Yes, what is that about?” Marcus suddenly focuses. He’s not an idiot, and I have a lot of respect for him, outside of this crap he pulled, and I blame Andrius and Konstantin for that. Not Marcus.

“A dead do … rat was left on the doorstep a few nights ago, when I first started protection detail here.” Crap. I don’t look at Carolina, but I think she’ll have picked up on my slip. “I figured it was a warning sent to me, and the family, that even with protection, Carolina could be reached. It seems, particularly in light of what you’ve shared, it wasn’t related to the threat to Lord Henningborne. Carolina’s ex came around, and he thinks her colleague is stalking her. It makes it very different. Personal. Messy.”

“Yeah,” he blows out a whistle. “Very different indeed.”