I groaned and crumpled. I didn’t even have to turn around to know it was her.
Finn looked over my shoulder. “You brought a tail?” he demanded, furious. “A fed?”
“I thought I’d lost her. She’s...annoyingly persistent.”
“Fuck this. C’mon, boy.” He started to lead his greyhound away.
“Finn, wait!”
He turned and jabbed a finger into my chest. “Deal’s off. Come back when the feds aren’t crawling all over you.” And he walked away.
Chyort! I hurled the bottle of whiskey at a wall. Radimir was going to be pissed, and it was all her fault. I finally turned, and there she was, casually leaning against a wall. She glanced towards Finn and made her eyes go big with mock concern. Oh, did your meeting not go well?
I marched over to her as hot, dark rage spread through my chest. “Why are you doing this?!” I snarled in her face.
She gave a quick little intake of fear as I loomed over her, but then glared up at me, blue eyes gleaming. Even through my anger, I was grudgingly impressed. “It’s my job,” she told me.
“Bullshit. No one’s this devoted.” I searched her face. “This isn’t just about a theater, is it?”
For a second, her eyes flickered. There was something else driving her. I leaned closer, scowling down at her...
And then I blinked in shock. Turned and marched away, shaken. Just for a second there, I’d glimpsed something. What was driving her wasn’t some noble, idealistic cause. It was hate.Anger.
Just for a second, it had been like looking in the mirror.
I climbed into my car and slammed the door. Then I ran a hand through my hair and scowled, calming my breathing. It didn’t matter if we were somehow alike. All that mattered was, she’d gone beyond annoying. She’d become an actual problem.
You want to play, Alison?I threw my car into gear.Fine. We’ll play.
8
ALISON
August
Goddamn him.
It was three in the morning, and I was on a Coast Guard patrol boat, hanging onto the rail as a summer storm made the deck heave under my feet and then drop away sickeningly. Three coast guardsmen with boat hooks were hauling a dark mass over the rail. It fell to the deck and rolled to a stop under the beam of my flashlight. A body, wrapped in chains. “You think your guy did this?” asked one of the guardsmen.
I nodded. “You were right to call me.” Technically, Caroline had been on call, but I hadn’t been about to drag her away from her kids in the middle of the night, so I’d taken it. As the boat headed towards shore, I sighed. We’d check for clues, but Gennadiy wouldn’t have left any. He never did.
I was into my third and final month of surveilling him, and I still didn’t have anything concrete. In that time, there’d been three murders, one bank robbery, four more cases of arson, and countless gun deals I knew involved him, but I didn’t have any hard evidence.He was too smart, too careful. He never used his own gun, the one he was licensed to carry. The only time we’d ever found bullets from it was when he’d fired it in self-defense at Radimir’s wedding. I was desperate. If I didn’t get a win soon, my boss would close down the operation. I was working sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, and my only breaks were to visit Master Sun, who wasn’t doing well. He was seventy, now, and in the hospital, fighting cancer. It was heartbreaking: we’d sparred at least twice a week for over ten years. He was the closest thing to family I had.
When I got back into my car at the docks, I turned off the interior light, made sure no one was watching, and then screamed long and loud, hammering my fists on the steering wheel. Then I sat there panting in the darkness, utterly drained. In all my years in law enforcement I’ve never encountered someone I couldn’t bring down. I was starting to doubt myself. Am I just not good enough?
I’d never felt this way about a target. At home, I had a life-sized martial arts training dummy, and it was Gennadiy’s arrogant face I saw when I punched and kicked it. But afterwards, when I fell into bed and tried to sleep...Gennadiy’s face came to me then, too. Those high cheekbones and that full, sinful lower lip. I knew his face better than any lover’s. I knew every tattoo on every one of his fingers. I’d started daydreaming about what he looked like under his suit, guessing the shape of his pecs and abs from when the wind plastered his shirt across them.
I knew I shouldn’t be attracted to him. But there was something about the way his lips tightened when he scowled; the way he walked, like he was crushing his enemies underfoot. I kept remembering the feel of him against me when he had me imprisoned in his arms. There was something about all that seething, angry power that was magnetic. I could still feel the heat of his cock as it swelled against my leather-clad ass…
I frowned at myself in the rear-view mirror. Focus!Viktor Grushin, the Russian cop who’d become sort of my hero, would never have been weak like this. I’d read everything I could find on his successes:he’d busted over twenty Bratva gangs in Moscow, although the articles were always frustratingly vague on how he’d done it. What I did know was, he hadn’t done it by moping...or fantasizing about his target.
I took a deep breath, then threw my car into gear. It was almost four am, too late to sleep. Might as well make an early start.
Later that day, I finally got the break I needed.
Her name was Monica Aiken, and she worked for a small freight company. The cops had picked her up for speeding and found enough coke in her car to put her away. She’d told them she had information that she’d trade to make the charges go away. And then she dropped the bombshell: it’s about Gennadiy Aristov.
He’d visited their freight company and arranged to ship some crates from New York to Chicago. They were being delivered to one of Gennadiy’s front businesses, a bathroom supply company. They were arriving in the dead of night, and Gennadiy was meeting the truck personally. I’d known Gennadiy was bringing guns into the city for months; I just hadn’t known how. This is it! This is how I catch him!
