Chapter 22 - Who Wooed in Haste.

Justin was just about fed up with all these fake wedding plans. Even if he had really been getting married, he wouldn’t have put up with all this rigamarole. But to have to do it when the wedding was just a sham was ridiculous. 

“Da. I think a little more here,” Lucija instructed the tailor who pinched the fabric of the underarm seam tighter and accidentally poked Justin with a pin for about the fifth time.

“Ouch!” he yelled, jerking away from the annoying little man’s grasp and shrugging out of the suit jacket. “I’m sure that’s good enough. Nobody’s going to be looking at the underarm seams of my suit.”

“Especially not with Brian there,” Fake Daphne teased, playing her part while also trying to keep Justin’s spirits up. “He’s to die for, Jus. You didn’t tell me how gorgeous he was when you asked me to come along on this trip. But I’m pretty sure nobody will be looking at anyone else.”

That had Justin chuckling. “So, what am I? Chopped liver? Aren’t you supposed to be my Maid of Honor, not the head of the Brian Kinney Fan Club?”

“Sorry.” She pretended to look contrite for all of three seconds before she laughed and added, “but, seriously, Jus, if you don’t marry that man, I fucking will!”

Justin stepped out of the suit pants and handed them off to the tailor so he could make the adjustments to those, as well as the jacket, and then pulled his jeans back on. Lucija and the tailor were talking in Croatian so he couldn’t understand what they were saying. He hoped it wasn’t more plotting about how to stick him with additional pins. 

“If it means I can get out of the rest of wedding planning hell, you can have him,” Justin replied with a nasty glare at Lucija. “I doubt Brian is having to put up with being a fucking pincushion. I should have told Aleksi to dress him as the bride and I could be the groom.”

“Buck up, Justin,” Azaria cajoled, putting her arm around his shoulders and giving him a brief hug. Then, in a whisper, she added, “remember, you’re supposed to be the ‘happy bride’ here.”

“Fuck you,” Justin whispered back while donning a totally fake smile for Lucija’s benefit that didn’t match his words at all. 

“Very good. Antonio will make suit work and have to you by tomorrow. Your dress also, Ms. Daphne,” Lucija declared, coming over to collect her charges again. “Now, we look at menu for wedding dinner and then I show you chapel and party room and we discuss flowers and decorations. Then we go to spa so to make you both beautiful. Bride must look pretty, yes?”

“Handsome,” Justin corrected her. “And I’m not the fucking ‘bride’. I’m one of the grooms. If I was a bride, Brian would definitely not be pleased.”

“Yes. Yes. So sorry,” Lucija smiled facetiously back at him, clearly not meaning the apology even a little. “You come this way, please.”

Justin gritted his teeth and obeyed, trying to put on a good face while doing the rest of the inane wedding planning activities for the sake of the plan. He wasn’t happy though. And, after the twentieth time or so that one of Aleksi’s staff called him the fucking ‘bride’, he felt like punching someone in the face. But he didn’t. Because it was too late to back out. There was no way to get out of there, and away from Aleksi’s threats, without seeing this thing through to the end. 

Even the four hours they spent being treated like pampered poodles in the spa didn’t do much to placate him. He enjoyed the facial and massage, not to mention the sumptuous dinner and copious amounts of wine they were served, but even then he felt too uptight to really relax. Especially not once Cara and Petra arrived to join them. Listening to Cara telling him all about the fun Brian and ‘the boys’ were having out on Aleksi’s boat and on their tour of the city, just got him pissed off all over again. He hated being treated like the ‘little woman’ and being shuffled off, out of the way, with the ‘girls’. But, with Lucija hovering the entire time, her eagle eye never leaving Justin for more than a minute or two, he understood that the purpose of all this glam treatment wasn’t just to allow him to plan his wedding, but to keep him out of the way and under supervision. And, since he was supposed to be a timid little mouse who was too scared to stand up to Kacmar, he figured it made sense. 

But it didn’t mean he had to like it. 

When they were finally released from the spa, though, Justin decided that enough was enough. Lucija ushered them through the main lobby, clearly intent on herding them all onto the elevators. Justin, however, wasn’t ready to head to bed. Not alone, at least; he wanted to check in with Brian before he did anything else. The sharp-eyed Lucija immediately noticed that he was dawdling and tried to grab his arm to help hurry him along. 

“You know what? I’m not tired yet. I think I’ll just hang out down here in the lobby and wait for Brian and the others. Or maybe I’ll join the bachelor party? I could use a drink,” Justin stated, stepping back so as to evade Lucija’s outstretched hand.

“No, no. You can not!” Lucija sounded almost panicked at Justin’s proposal, but then she caught herself and plastered a replacement smile on her fake lips. “Is bad luck for groom to see bride before wedding, yes? You must not do bad luck. You go to room now and rest so you pretty for tomorrow. I will have Kava send up a bottle of best wine for you to your room.”

Justin was half a second away from arguing with her - and probably blowing his cover in the process - when both Cara and Azaria swooped in, each of them looping their arms through one of his. 

“That sounds good to me,” Cara opined with a smile for Lucija. “Besides, we’ll have plenty of time to party the night away tomorrow, after the wedding.”

Azaria chimed in, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m still a little jet-lagged. I think an early night might be a good thing. We can put on a movie and relax with a good bottle of wine and take it easy. What do you say, Justin?”

“Fine,” Justin conceded with poor grace, letting the two undercover agents lead him towards the bank of elevators. “But I still want to at least talk to Brian beforehand. I want to say good night.” Lucija nodded her head, as if agreeing, although he doubted she was serious about following up on that promise. “And I don’t care what Aleksi or Lucifer over there says, I’m not sleeping alone tonight.”

“Of course you won’t, Bestie,” Fake Daphne replied with a giggle. “I’ll stay with you. It’ll be just like old times. We can have a pajama party.”

Justin tried to glare at her, because she wasn’t the one who he wanted to share a bed with that night, but when he saw the sinister glare that Lucija was leaving them with, he swallowed the words and meekly complied, letting himself be led off to his doom. 

“No offense, Daph, but we’re not twelve anymore and I prefer my pajama parties naked.” 

“We can do naked. Right, Cara?” Fake Daphne answered with a giggle that Cara shared.

“Yeah, no. Thanks anyway, but neither of you have the naked parts that I want at my party,” Justin corrected them, finally chuckling a little himself. 

“Good thing Brian does, right?” Azaria said, adding in a wink. 

And, since Lucija had followed them into the elevators, Cara kept up the jokes about the wedding, adding in, “Well, if you’re marrying him, he ‘better half’ the right parts, am I right?”

They all groaned at the corny pun. The women kept up the bad marriage puns all the way up to Justin’s room and the joking at least got Justin into a slightly better frame of mind. He was still anxious about what was supposed to happen the following day, and he didn’t like being kept away from Brian, but at least he wasn’t worrying all alone. These two very capable women had his back. 

He just hoped that, together, they’d be enough to bring down Aleksi Kacmar.

Beks had been lurking around the lobby and ground floor offices most of the day. She wasn’t sure how much help she was going to be to Cara and the rest if Aleksi wasn’t even going to take the time to meet with her. The thought had been that she might be able to get the mafia boss talking even if he was less than forthcoming when he spoke to Justin. So far, though, she’d mostly just been cooling her heels and playing interference with that idiot Michael Novotny.

Still, she’d done the best she could. She’d stopped in at Aleksi’s office as soon as they’d arrived and had managed to leave one of Cara’s miniature listening devices stuck to the bottom edge of Kacmar’s secretary’s desk before she was told that he wouldn’t be able to see her that morning. She would have preferred to put the bug in Aleksi’s personal office, but didn’t know when or if that would happen. She’d also left a couple of the bugs in various other places around the hotel that she thought might provide some intel; one disguised as a pen had been left at the front desk, another in the meeting room she had seen him exit with one of his goons, hoping that it was a room he used often. 

After that, though, she hadn’t had much else to do. She’d loitered in the lobby, watching from afar as Kacmar’s assistant, Lucija, led Justin and the rest of the wedding party around. She’d made a point of being nearby wherever Justin was, just in case she was needed, but hadn’t heard or seen anything helpful in the process. By dinner, when Kacmar and Brian still hadn’t turned back up at the hotel, she was feeling pretty useless and was about to call it a night. 

Just as she was finishing the glass of white wine she’d been nursing at the bar, however, she got a text message from Kacmar himself. 

‘Serjay has job for you. Meet him in my office. Ten minutes.’

“Finally. Something to do,” she mumbled to herself. 

Before she followed directions and headed to Aleksi’s office, Beks took a quick selfie - making sure to angle her phone so it would show the hallway that led to the resort’s administrative offices behind her - and sent the pic to a number that had been put into her contact list under the name, ‘Auntie M’. She added the pre-arranged code message, ‘Having a great time in Split. Off on another adventure. Wish you were here.’ Hitting ‘send’ on the message, she squared her shoulders and tried to get herself mentally prepared for what was to come next. Mercury, the Interpol agent in charge of this operation - aka Auntie M - should have their ears on and be listening in on the conversation. Hopefully, this was what they’d been waiting for; it was her job to get Aleksi Kacmar to spill his plans so they could arrest him and get the hell out of there. 

Unfortunately, Aleksi wasn’t anywhere in sight when she arrived at the office. The hulking brute who acted as one of Kacmar’s enforcers and bodyguards, Serjay, greeted Beks instead. She had barely had time to take a seat in the chair across the desk from Serjay - taking the opportunity to surreptitiously stick one of the FBI listening devices she’d been supplied with under the arm rest of the guest chair - before Aleksi’s thug handed her a note written on Kacmar’s personal stationery. 

All it said was: ‘Continue surveillance of subject. Same hourly rate as before. Pictures from bachelor party required.’ 

‘I don’t understand,” Beks asked the inscrutable Serjay. “Why does Kacmar need me to continue my surveillance of Kinney? I got him here for you already. What more can he need?”

“Information is never wasted,” Serjay replied cryptically in a heavy Russian accent but almost perfect English. “You never know when you’ll see something that will prove to be of value in later negotiations.”

“So, blackmail?” Beks surmised. Serjay didn’t respond to her prompt, though, his face not showing any emotion at all in reaction to the accusation. “Fine. But, I still don’t understand. What kind of surveillance do you expect me to get here? Kinney is surrounded by his fiance and family. How is any of that going to help Kacmar?”

Serjay shrugged noncommittally but answered by saying, “perhaps there will be something worth photographing at Mr. Kinney’s bachelor party this evening. You never know.”

“Isn’t taking pictures of a drunk guy at his bachelor party low even for you guys?” Beks replied dismissively. “And what if I say no? I didn’t sign on to help Kacmar procure kompromat against Kinney. I did my job back in the States; I got Aleksi the background info he needed on Kinney, which was what we originally agreed to. That should have been it. I only agreed to come to Split to help make sure that Taylor and Novotny were kept in line until they arrived here. I thought my job was done once I handed them into your hands.”

But when Serjay just continued to stare at her with those unblinking, ice-gray eyes, she felt a cold prickle crawl up her spine. 

She didn’t even need him to say the words that followed to know she was being threatened. “Your job, Ms. Beckestany, is done when Mr. Kacmar says it is done. Not before. This is not negotiable. And, should you choose to decline the engagement, I believe Mr. Kacmar would have something to say to the Pennsylvania Bar Association about your former work; I’m to understand there is documentation of your association in several, shall we say, less than legal undertakings. So, if you want to retain your license and continue to practice law in the future, I think it would be wise not to disregard Mr. Kacmar’s instructions. Don’t you?”

Beks blanched but, instead of making her scared, the barely veiled threat just pissed her off. If she hadn’t been committed to bringing Aleksi Kacmar down before, she definitely was after hearing that crap. Knowing that the extortion attempt was on tape gave her a little bit of smug satisfaction. Not that that alone would be enough to bring down a YACS crime boss, but it was a start. Now, to get the rest of the goods on the guy.

“Fine. Tell me what you want and where to go,” Beks relented. “I’ll get your dirty pictures of Kinney for you. But I doubt they’ll do any good. You guys don’t know Kinney. He’s pretty fucking shameless.”

“Perhaps,” Serjay replied with an ice-cold smile. “But, while he may be comfortable with public displays of his homosexuality, how do you think his public would react to pictures of him with a woman?”

“Veronique, bring my good friend, Brian, more drink,” Aleksi commanded. “He must more relax. This is party. Have much fun.”

Brian shook his head at the idea that anything he’d experienced so far at his so-called bachelor party would be considered ‘fun’. He’d been too busy the last twenty minutes trying to fight off the women that Kacmar had thrown at him to have any kind of fun. And it was getting old. Really old. What part of ‘I’m Gay and I like men’ was so fucking difficult for Kacmar to understand? Brian would have to drink a whole fucking hell of a lot before that would change. 

“I don’t think I need anything more to drink, thank you anyway,” Brian tried to curtail the party plans. “I don’t want to be too hung over to enjoy my wedding tomorrow, right?”

But Aleksi just waved him off and directed a stern look at one of the women who’d been climbing Brian like a tree. Veronique got up and scurried away towards the private wet bar at her boss’ behest. That left Brian with only the one remaining woman to fend off, though, so at least that seemed like a momentary reprieve. 

“The wedding is for the woman,” Kacmar explained dismissively. “Only thing for men like us to worry about is wedding night. So long as you can jebati the little woman, that is all what matter.”

“Maybe you straight guys can get away with that,” Brian replied, getting annoyed all over again by Kacmar’s constant insinuations about Justin being a bride or a woman. “But I’m pretty sure my future HUSBAND will kick my ass if I show up drunk to the ceremony.”

“This is more reason to switch to other team!” Aleksi expounded. “You need woman you can control. Who like discipline. Not other man who make you kastrirati. Turn you into kucence. Is better have woman you can control. Like this . . .” 

By way of example, Kacmar took hold of a hank of the long blond hair of the woman who’d been wiggling erotically in his lap and pulled it hard. The woman let out a small whimper of pain as her head was pulled backward but she didn’t put up any other resistance. Brian scowled. He’d thought he couldn’t hate Kacmar any more than he already did, but watching the man’s casual cruelty to this woman made the seething anger in his heart burn even hotter. Fucker.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone else around to back up Brian. Michael and Ben had gone out onto the dance floor a couple of songs back. Even Greg was busy being distracted by another of Kacmar’s girls just then. There wasn’t anything Brian could do to help the woman Kacmar was manhandling. Plus, he didn’t want to give himself away; they still hadn’t found the evidence the FBI and Interpol needed to bring this fucker down. So, he bit his tongue and simply looked away, adding this newest abuse, and the man’s latent homophobia, to the list of things he would get revenge on Kacmar for.

But his musings on Aleksi’s clearly abusive nature were disrupted just then when the girl who’d been sitting passively next to him a minute before jumped up as if to climb into Brian’s lap and, in the process, accidentally knocked the arm of the other woman so hard that the glass of scotch she’d been bringing back to the bachelor boy was sent flying. A string of angry Croatian words followed and Kacmar seemed to forget the woman whose hair he’d been pulling in favor of yelling at the woman in Brian’s lap. That woman - Brian thought it was the one named ‘Laura’ - quickly replied in an apologetic tone and her companion hustled back to the bar to procure another drink for Brian. 

“Do not drink or eat. Nothing. Is drugs,” the woman whispered as she buried her face in his neck, pretending to be ashamed of her mistake. “Aleksi want to get you very much drunk and drugged and take pictures. Use pictures against you.”

“Got it. Thanks,” Brian whispered back. Then he made an effort to stand up, pushing the woman off his lap in the process, but without dumping her on her ass. “How about we go dance instead of just sitting around here.” 

The woman smiled and nodded at him, allowing him to take her hand and lead her out onto the dance floor. Brian saw Michael laughing at him over Ben’s shoulder as he took the woman in his arms and began to slowly turn her around the dance floor, completely ignoring the fast paced disco-beat of the music that was playing. Fuck the music. And fuck Kacmar. It was time Brian figured out exactly what the fuck was going on.

Bending down so his face was partially buried in the woman’s hair, Brian raised his voice just loud enough so that it would be heard over the loud music but hopefully wouldn’t carry too far, and said, “talk to me. Tell me what the fuck is going on. Who are you?”

“My name Laura,” she answered. “I was the one supposed to come to you in America. Before your boy took my plane ticket.” Her voice faltered and Brian took the opportunity to gently spin her around to cover up the fact that she was clearly upset. When he had her back in his arms, she continued her story. “Aleksi is not a good man. He very angry at me for losing ticket. This wedding . . . Is all a set up. All part of plan to use you and your American company. You understand?”

“Not really,” Brian replied, pretending to hold Laura closer so they could continue their clandestine conversation. “Why me? Why Kinnetik? What does he want from me? And how does my wedding fit into things?”

Laura pretended to laugh and rose to her tiptoes to leave a flirty kiss on Brian’s cheek while she continued her story. “Aleksi needs American base for US operations. He think he can use you for this. Use company. I was supposed to come to US and set this up for him. He did not know you were pedercina. It mess up his plans. Now he try to use boy instead.” 

“Why are you telling me this? Why are you trying to help me?” Brian asked. 

“Aleksi is bad man. Very bad. You are good and kind man. I see in your eyes. Not deserve problem like this.”

“Thank you. I appreciate you trying to help me. And thanks, too, for the warning about the drinks. I’ll try and find a way to repay you for this, Laura,” Brian replied.

“Meet me in maids’ closet, third floor, near your boy’s room, after party,” Laura said, kissing his cheek again before returning to the VIP area.

Aleski had wandered off with the blond-haired bimbo by that point so Brian decided to join Michael and Ben for a dance. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed Beks standing off to the side and taking pictures of the dance floor with a camera. He pretended not to see her and just kept on dancing. When the other woman, Veronique, came to join them, pushing a fresh drink into Brian’s hand, he accepted it without comment and then proceeded to dump it out on the floor when the woman wasn’t looking. He continued to dance off and on for the next hour or so, either with one of the two girls who’d been assigned to him or with Michael and Ben, letting the exercise burn off most of the nerves he’d been feeling all day. He supposed there were worse ways of spending the night before one’s ‘wedding’, although he was still uneasy about having been separated that long from Justin. 

When Brian hadn’t seen Aleksi for a while - thinking his host was probably off somewhere schtupping the blond behind his wife, Petra’s, back - he figured it was a good time to make his escape. He looked around the bar and the VIP area, noticing that Laura had apparently already left. With a nod towards the corner where Beks was still lurking, Brian quietly slipped out of the club and headed towards the elevators. 

He stopped in his room and grabbed a hoodie, putting it on just in case anyone saw him. Then he made his way down to the third floor via the back stairs. When he emerged from the stairwell, he found himself in the back hallway at the far end of the wing of guest suites. The maids' closet on this end of the floor was separated from the guest hallway by a doorway, so that guests never saw the resort staff; Brian only knew about this particular detail because Aleksi had explained the set up to him when they’d been discussing the resort’s amenities during one of their earlier marketing meetings at Kinnetik. He was glad now, though, that he’d paid such close attention to all those pesky little details. 

Making sure he wasn’t followed, Brian pressed the button on his phone to start the audio recording function, made sure the FBI listening device that was disguised as a cowry shell bracelet was still in place on his wrist, and then quietly slipped into the maids’ closet closest to Justin’s door. 

“Laura,” he whispered quietly into the relative darkness of the tiny room. 

“I am here,” she answered, coming out from behind the shelves.

“Okay. You got me here, Laura. So, what can you tell me about Aleksi’s plans,” Brian pressed. 

Laura quickly explained to him what Aleksi’s plan had been. He had meant to send her to Brian as a bride. She was supposed to have ingratiated herself into Brian’s life and found a way to get access to Kinnetik’s accounts and computer records. Once Aleksi had control of Kinnetik, he would direct Laura how to use the company as a front for Kacmar’s people to buy and sell US real estate as a way for them to launder the dirty money from their criminal enterprises. 

“Do you have any proof of all this?” Brian asked when Laura had finished. “Is this in writing or . . . I don’t know . . . Is there any way to pin this on Aleksi? Because, as it is, this whole thing sounds pretty far-fetched.”

“No. I’m sorry. I’m not important enough to know more. This is only part I know because it is what Aleksi told me I would do when he send me to you as your bride,” she admitted. Then she added, “I am glad your boy took ticket and came to you instead of me . . . I see you together when you arrived this morning. I see how you look at each other.” 

Laura smiled up at Brian and her eyes had a softer glow in them than before. 

“My older brother was like you and Youstin. Josip was such a kind boy. So sweet and good to our mother. But he loved another man.” Laura swiped at one lone tear that had escaped while she was speaking before she continued. “This secret got both Josip and his lover killed. I was a child at the time. I could not save him. But I see in your eyes the same kindness they had, and, when I see you and your Youstin together, I see the same. I see love.” 

Then Laura’s voice got stronger, more defiant, and she looked Brian directly in the eye as she continued. 

“I can not help Josip but I CAN help you. I will find out what Aleksi plans and warn you. Okay? First, though, you must promise me . . . I can not stay here if I do this thing. Aleksi would hurt me. Hurt my family. I want to take my mother and leave this place. Leave all the bad memories,” she told him. “You will help with this, please?” 

Brian didn’t answer, but he nodded his head, acknowledging her words. He really wanted to trust her but was still wary. He had no idea who to trust in this crazy situation. And even if he wanted to, he didn’t know if he could help this woman who seemed caught up in Aleksi’s machinations. It would all depend on the law enforcement folks who were really running this show, wouldn’t it? But, regardless, Brian would help Laura if he could. Somehow. Provided they all got out of this in one piece.

“I’ll do what I can, Laura,” he promised with a squeeze to her shoulder. “Tell me how to get a hold of you so, if I find a way out of this, I can contact you.”

She told him her mother’s phone number, advising him that her mother would always be able to get her a message. 

“Thank you, Laura.” He smiled at her and typed the number into his phone. “Now, one more thing. Is there a way I can get in to see Justin? I hate that we’ve been kept apart all day. I need to make sure he is okay.”

Laura looked around the room. She spotted a clean maid’s uniform on a hanger and a pile of the decorative pieces of fabric the hotel used as bed scarves to drape over the foot of the beds. She held up one of the uniforms to Brian, looking amused as his eyes widened. 

“NO,” Brian commented. “No way. I am NOT going to dress up as a maid.”

“You wear this. You use pass key. We cover your head with scarf. Go in door behind kitchen in his room,” Laura answered “So long as none of the watchers see you too close, no one will question maid going into your boy’s room. Is good. You can see your boy then, yes?”  

Which is how Brian Kinney ended up sneaking into Justin’s suite dressed as the world’s ugliest and tallest maid, his head and face hidden by a scarf, and pushing a hospitality cart to help with his disguise. As soon as Cara and Azaria saw him they burst out laughing so hard that Azaria fell off the couch. Justin managed to get a hand up to cover his mouth just in time to prevent him from saying anything more. Brian merely held his finger up to his lips to prevent them from saying anything out loud that might be overheard by Aleksi’s goons and then flipped Cara off when she still couldn’t completely stifle her giggling. Then Brian quickly handed his phone to Cara, pointing to the icon on the screen showing the recording he’d just made and pushed the two women out of the room through the connecting door to Azaria’s suite. 

The moment he had the door closed behind the two women, Brian pulled off the fabric that had been strangling him and leaned over to whisper into his blond’s ear, “I believe you ordered bed service, Sir?” adding a flirtatious wink and a curtsey in his little maid dress. 

“Oh, Brian! Get over here you nut,” Justin whispered back, pulling his private maid over to the bed with him so he could get all the servicing he’d been missing out on the rest of the day.