Drake Sisters 05 - Safe Harbor

room had shifted from the Drakes to Prakenskii and both Hannah and Jonas felt it. Hannah intervened again.
    "I'm the one who owes you, Mr. Prakenskii. If you would be so kind as to tell me what your favor entails, I'll do my best to help you."
    "I would like an explanation—"
    "Don't. Don't ask," Joley said. "Please don't ask."
    "I gave you every opportunity to explain."
    "You haunted me day and night, tormented me. Made me angry. It isn't your business.
    It's stupid using up a favor from our family for such a trivial thing."
    " Trivial ." He stood up, and his rage poured into the room, white-hot, just as Hannah had said, a volcano erupting, so that the walls bulged out, unable to contain the red and black energy bursting into the room. The ground shifted and shadows moved over the mosaic tiles. Feminine voices cried out in eerie warning, rising from the floor and the walls.
    The Drake sisters leapt to their feet, and Jonas put his body between the women and the furious Russian. He looked at no one but Joley. The two of them stood, their gazes locked in a battle no one else was part of or could understand.
    "Stop!" Hannah glared at them. "Please sit down, Mr. Prakenskii." When he didn't move, she stepped closer. "Ilya. Please."
    Prakenskii slowly pulled his gaze from Joley's and took his seat. Joley shook her head as everyone else visibly relaxed and then she turned on her heel and left the room.
    The tension instantly lessened.
    "Please accept my apologies once again, Hannah," the Russian said. "I should have been more careful. I rarely lose my temper. I have no excuse." He lifted the mug of tea to his mouth, blew to calm the boiling liquid and took a drink.
    "I don't understand. Why are you so angry with Joley? Is she in some kind of danger?"

    Hannah forced her mind open, reaching—stretching—to catch a glimpse of the truth in him. She felt a barrage of emotions, the intensity nearly overwhelming, but just as quickly, he shored up his defenses and became as cold as ice.
    "Joley deliberately puts herself in danger."
    Hannah sank back into the chair and glanced briefly up at Jonas. Prakenskii believed he was telling the truth. She caught that as well as the accompanying temper pushed down deep. "What do you mean?" For a moment she could barely breathe. Was someone after her sister, the way someone had wanted her dead?
    Sarah opened her mouth but Hannah held up an imperious hand, effectively stopping anything she might say. Hannah never took charge and it shocked her sisters.
    Joley stepped back into the room, her dark eyes blazing. "You want to know about the pictures in the tabloid? Me with my latest lover?" She glared at Prakenskii, both hands on her hips, tossing her head so that her hair went flying in all directions. "It's publicity. The man is history already, so you don't need his name, but a photographer followed us to the house Tyson bought for Libby and caught us. Big deal."
    Prakenskii never took his eyes off her face when Joley made her declaration. A long slow hiss escaped and he stood in one fluid movement, with all the grace and predatory menace and deadly threat of a fully grown tiger. "When one calls in a favor, you tell the truth. I demand the truth and the name of this man who had his hands and mouth all over you."
    "What difference does it make who he is?" Joley's chin was up, her eyes throwing off sparks.
    "I would not want to kill the wrong man."
    "Whoa. Stop right there." Jonas jumped up. "You can't make threats like that."
    "It is a matter of honor." There was no emotion in his voice whatsoever. Prakenskii shrugged as if a life didn't matter at all to him.
    The Drakes looked at one another, puzzled, and then at Joley. She sucked in her breath. "Ilya," she began and then stopped, looking helplessly at Libby.
    Ilya Prakenskii followed her gaze and frowned. "You owe me the truth and I've asked for it. One of you needs to provide it."
    Hannah looked around at her sisters. "I do owe you a tremendous debt, we all do, but this is not my secret to tell. If it was, I would give you the information that you ask for, but I'm sorry, I can't."
    Prakenskii looked around the room at their faces. "I have asked that a debt of honor be repaid. You are refusing me?"

    Libby shook her head. "No, we're not." Color swept into her face, but she kept her gaze locked with his. "I was with Tyson at his house and someone wanted to harm him—us. The man took pictures of the two of us. I'm a doctor and I'm not used