I knew it was just one way. She was hurting, and she needed someone, and I could help her, just for a moment. But…
But deep inside me, there was a cold place, like some windswept, barren island that’s never touched by anyone because the ferocious storms all around it keep everyone at bay. Just for a second, that place felt...connected. I remembered crying myself when I heard my mother was days from death and I wasn’t allowed to visit her. I squeezed Alison tighter and, for a second, itwasn’tjust one way.
Then I released her, turned, and stalked off into the rain without looking back.
16
ALISON
“Watcha reading?”asked Caroline, walking in from the break room with two mugs of coffee.
I snapped the paper file shut. “Nothing!”
Caroline passed me my coffee, and I thanked her, my cheeks heating.Why am I embarrassed?I’d been reading about Gennadiy, which was exactly what I wasmeantto be working on. Except…
Except I’d been reading about his early life. It was a few days after Master Sun’s funeral, and I’d managed to get hold of a file from Russia’s social services. Gennadiy’s momhaddied of cancer. And Radimir, Gennadiy, and Valentin had spent their teens locked up in a borstal in Vladivostok: I hadn’t been able to find out what for, but the place sounded pretty grim.Is that what set him on this path?
Was I starting to feel sympathy for him?
My phone rang, and I grabbed it, glad of the distraction. It was Nate, a Chicago PD homicide detective I’d worked with a few times. “You’re on Gennadiy Aristov, right?” he said by way of greeting.
I sat up straighter in my chair. Seizing the bags of cash had put me back in my boss’s good books, and impounding millions of dollars' worth of stolen cars had made the FBI lookgreat.But I hadn’t been able to tie either of them definitively to Gennadiy, and I was stillnowhere near being able to arrest him. I only had a few weeks left. If Nate had a tip, I wanted it. “Yeah,” I said eagerly.
“Well, I’m looking at a picture of him right now. Found it on a guy we just arrested who works for the Barroso cartel. Also in his pocket was a ticket to the Low Low Blues and Jazz club: that mean anything to you?”
My eagerness evaporated. “Gennadiy goes there,” I said. I knew his routine by heart, now. “Nine O’clock. Every Thursday.” My heart started slamming in my chest. It was Thursdaytoday.
“Figured you should know,” said Nate sagely. “You take care, Brooks.”
I ran to Halifax’s office. He was on the phone, but I wasn’t waiting. “The Barroso cartel’s going to take out Gennadiy tonight.”
Halifax sighed. “I’ll call you back,” he told the phone. Then, to me, “What?!”
I told him about the man Nate had picked up. “The only reason a member of the cartel is carrying around a picture of someone is if they’re going to assassinate them.” I’d tailed Gennadiy into the jazz club a few times, and it was the perfect place for an ambush: twisting hallways and lots of shadowy places for an ambush.
“Well, Chicago PD caught the guy, so it’s over, right?”
I leaned over his desk. “No! The cartel will know their guy was arrested. They’ll send someone else.”
Halifax just looked at me.
“Sir, we have to stop this. They’re going to kill him.”
Halifax picked up a pen and started playing with it. “We don’t know anything for sure.”
I felt my jaw drop. “You don’twantto stop it.”
“What would you have me do? Put agents’ lives at risk to protect a Bratva boss? This is the guy we’re trying to bring down, Brooks!”
“Bring him down, not—”—my voice cracked—“killhim!”
“We’re not killing anyone,” he said testily. “But honestly, if these assholes want to wipe each other out...I’m not shedding any tears.” He frowned at me. “Have you forgotten about the bodies we keeppulling out of Lake Michigan? He’s a killer. Maybe karma’s finally catching up to him.”
It was like someone had slapped me awake. Gennadiywasa killer. I’d known that, at the start. At some point, had I forgotten?
“Don’t interfere,” Halifax told me. He narrowed his eyes, watching me. “Brooks? That’s an order.”
I nodded quickly. “Of course, sir.” I walked back to my desk on legs that felt numb and waxy.Does Halifax suspect? Suspectwhat?I haven’t done anything wrong. I want to bring Gennadiy down. I just?—
