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
