I thought of Gennadiy’s arms around me, by the grave.I just...
I tried to work, but I kept glancing at the clock in the corner of my computer screen. 6pm. 7pm. The office cleared and, as usual, I was the last one there. 8pm. Gennadiy always went to the jazz club just in time for the start of the main set at 9pm.
I looked at my phone.I can’t.I’d be in serious, serious trouble.
The clock reached 8:30pm.This isn’t right.Weren’t the FBI meant to protect people...even Bratva? Maybe Halifax had been doing this so long, he almost didn’t see Gennadiy and his family as people anymore. Hadn’t I felt the same way just a few months ago?
8:45pm.
“Fuck,” I told the empty, dark office. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” And suddenly I was up and running. Out of the office. Pounding down the stairs. Out into the street.Payphone, I need a payphone.Except there weren’t any payphones anymore.Fuck.
I ran to the first person I saw, a guy in his twenties, and flashed my badge at him. “FBI! I need your phone!”
He handed it over, gaping. I’d tapped Gennadiy’s phone so many times by now that I knew his number by heart. As I punched it in, the clock on the phone read 8:55pm.He’ll be driving. What if he doesn’t answer? What if he’s early and he’s already inside the club, and it’s too late? What if he’s lying dead?
“Yes?” said Gennadiy suspiciously.
“Don’t go to the jazz club!” I blurted. “The Barroso cartel has sent someone to kill you!”
He was silent for a few seconds. When he spoke again, he sounded shocked...and just a little vulnerable. “Thank you.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I ended the call. Then I handed the phone back to the guy I’d snatched it from. He was looking at me in adoring wonder. “That’s the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me!” he told me, and wandered off.
I slumped against a lamppost. I could finally breathe again, and it made me face up to just how scared I’d been. I hadn’t just been doing the right thing.
I... cared about him. And I hated him even more for that.
First thing the next morning, Halifax called me into his office. “I talked to Chicago PD,” he said, his eyes boring into me. “No reports of any trouble at that jazz club last night.”
I stood in front of his desk, chin up. I had my hands clasped together behind my back so I wouldn’t nervously twist them. “I guess you were right, sir. The cartel didn’t send another assassin after all.”
“I checked the security cameras at the club. Gennadiy’s car pulls up a few minutes before nine.” His voice was shaking. I’d never seen him so angry. “But he leaves without going in.”
Fuck.I tried to make my voice sound innocent. “Sir, I?—”
“Save it, Brooks!” He yelled, loud enough to make the window shake. “I know what you did, I just can’t prove it!”
I was very glad I hadn’t used my own phone.
“I can’t fire you, but I can throw you off the case. I’ll take over the team for the final few weeks.” He lifted a thick file from his desk and almost threw it at me. “Go back to looking into the Cantellis.” He shoved a second, equally thick file at me. “And the O'Donnells.”
My stomach dropped. “Sir?—”
“Don’t push me, Brooks! Be glad you still have a job!”
I turned and slunk out of his office, my eyes prickling. How had everything gotten so messed up?
17
GENNADIY
I heardher before I saw her. The snarl of her bike’s engine, rising and falling as she dodged through traffic, had become her theme song in my mind. At first, my shoulders had tensed in anger every time I heard it coming up behind me. Now, it made something in my chest wake andlift.
She came into view, leaning into the corners as she wove through the early morning traffic. She was so graceful when she rode: more than once, I’d nearly driven into another car because I was too busy watching her flex and bend and grip the bike between her thighs in my rear-view mirror.
I was watching her from the top of a small rise in Lincoln Park. In a few hours, the grass would be full of kids and picnicking families, but at seven in the morning, we had the place all to ourselves. It was a bright, clear day, and we had an uninterrupted view out over the sparkling blue of Lake Michigan.
She braked to a stop beside my BMW, pulled off her helmet, and marched into the park. She stopped about six feet from me, watchful and cautious.Is she scared of me? Or scared of what might happen?
