Yuri stopped pacing. “Do you think he’ll attempt to shut down the entire Sitka Trading Company?”
“In a sane world, no. But nothing about this is sane.” Alexei tapped his fingers on his desk, staring down at one of the maps that lay half buried under his other papers. “We need to reroute our ships. None of our vessels can dock in Sitka unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“Uh, are you forgetting we have a warehouse stuffed to the gills below us?” Sacha tapped the heel of his boot on the floor. “What are we supposed to do? Let the textiles, grain, and lumber rot?”
“Once the RCS releases theAurora,we’ll fill it with as much cargo as we can and move it to Juneau. The warehouse there has plenty of space, and there’s no RCS office—or governor—in Juneau who will know the second one of our ships reaches port.”
“I feel like Governor Caldwell will just station an RCS worker in Juneau and keep doing the same thing.” Yuri tugged at his coat sleeve, as if he was itching to do something more productive than talking.
“Then maybe we stick only one ship on our Alaskan routes. That way they’re searching the same ship over and over. They’ll have to tire of it at some point.” Alexei shifted some papers that were covering the edge of the map and stared at it for a moment longer, trying to parse out the best course of action for the five ships their trading company owned. “I have a meeting with the governor tomorrow to discuss three of our contracts. I’ll bring up the sudden rash of searches and see what he says.”
“You think a conversation is going to stop the searches?” Yuri rolled his eyes. “Sometimes I think you’re smart, and other times I swear you’re an imbecile.”
“Wait. You have a meeting with the governor? To discuss our shipping contracts?” Sacha raked a hand over his light brown hair. “I thought we had another eighteen months before those renewed.”
Alexei tried to ignore the heavy sensation filling his chest. “We do.”
“There’s only one reason the governor wants to meet.” A muscle pulsed at the side of Sacha’s jaw. “He’s going to take those contracts from you.”
Yuri stiffened. “He can’t. Governor Trent already signed them. They’re good until 1890.”
Sacha crossed his arms over his impossibly large chest. “I’ll bet you every last dollar in my bank account that Governor Caldwell will find a way to void them. He’ll come up with a reason that’s technically legal, something he can send back to Washington, DC, that looks good on paper, and no one who reads his report will care enough to ask any questions.”
Yuri took a step closer to Sacha. “I’ll take you up on that bet.”
“No, you won’t. Sacha will win, and then I’ll have to spend Thanksgiving listening to you whine about losing all your money.” Alexei shoved a hand toward the wooden chair he’d contemplated throwing through the window before his brothers had joined him. “Now sit down and help me think of some ways to solve this problem.”
Yuri stalked to the chair and sank into it, his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest. “You really think our best option is to rework the shipping routes?”
“For the time being, yes. Until we can come up with a way to get Simon Caldwell removed from his governorship.”
“Oh, that sounds like a great plan.” Sarcasm dripped from Sacha’s voice. “And just how are we going to get Simon Caldwell removed?”
“We wait for him to mess up. You know he will.”
“I agree with you there. He’ll certainly mess up. He probably already has.” Sacha turned to look out the window at theAurora. “But the man’s brother found a way to distribute falsified navigational charts for six months and got away without so much as a conviction, let alone spending time in prison. Simon Caldwell could mess up as governor a hundred times over, but I doubt we’ll ever be able to pin anything on him.”
“Sacha’s right,” Yuri said from where he slouched in his chair. “We’re not going to get him removed. Their family is too powerful.”
Alexei picked up theHalcyon’s shipping manifest and turned it over in his hand. It recorded every last detail about the cargo the ship had carried to Sitka, down to the ounce. He kept meticulous records, as did every other business owner of repute. It was imperative to the successful operation of the business.
Politicians were the same way. Records of everything had to be maintained, and half the time those records would be looked at and scrutinized by a dozen other people. That meant there were records of everything the Caldwells did, whether Preston as manager of the Alaska Commercial Company or Simon as the new governor. There were records somewhere, even if some of their activities skirted the law. The question was, how did he get his hands on them?
“I disagree, Yuri,” he finally said. “The Caldwells are powerful enough to be dangerous, but they’re not powerful enough to get away with everything. If we were to find irrefutable proof that both Simon and Preston were doing something illegal, irrefutable proof regarding something Washington, DC, cares about, then we could take that evidence over to Secretary Gray directly. He would feel compelled to do something about it.”
“And just how are we going to find evidence?” Yuri pushed himself out of the chair.
“We need to figure out where they keep their ledgers and get our hands on a few of them without anyone noticing.” Alexei narrowed his eyes at Yuri. “Tell me, how’s Rosalind doing these days?”
Yuri narrowed his eyes right back. “What’s Rosalind got to do with anything?”
“She’s Preston’s daughter. If her father is doing something illegal, she’s going to know about it.”
Yuri snorted, then gave a dismissive shake of his head. “I wouldn’t be so sure. Have you seen how he treats her? She’s like a caged bird. Exotic and beautiful but utterly helpless.”
Alexei rubbed the back of his neck. He’d seen Rosalind with her father only once in the privacy of their own home, on the night they went to Caldwell’s house to confront him about the false navigational charts. The memory of how poorly Caldwell had treated his daughter caused the spot between his shoulder blades to itch.
“So have you talked to Rosalind lately?” he pressed. “Has anything changed now that her uncle is living in their mansion?”
