“What? No. Why are you in my office?” He started trying to wring coffee out of his dripping shirt cuff.
“Their network is huge.” I unfurled a roll of paper across his desk. It showed a complex tree diagram. “Just since last night, I’ve identified at least a hundred businesses that are likely owned by or part-owned by?—”
“Have youslept?”
“—the Aristovs, together with?—”
Halifax sighed. “The Aristovs are too big. I already have you working on the Irish and the Italians.”
“Since when did organized crime gettoo bigfor us to investigate?” I snapped.
Halifax gave me a warning look. “You know what I mean.”
“You mean it’s politically inconvenient because they have senators in their pocket.”
“I mean, we have limited resources and we have to pick our battles.” Halifax took a deep breath, and his tone softened a little. “You’re a good agent, Alison. But you’re not going to get anywhere with the Aristovs. No one ever has. They’re too smart, too careful.”
“I want to try.”
Halifax glanced through the glass wall of his office to the desks outside. “Where’s Hutchins? Goddamn it, is she late again?”
Agent Caroline Hutchins is the one close friend I’ve made since moving to Chicago from New York. She’s a single mom, and recently she’d had a run of being late for work because she kept getting stuck in traffic dropping her kids off at daycare. Unfortunately, Halifax is a real stickler for timekeeping, and he doesn’t care that she makes it up at the end of the day. “I saw her downstairs, sir,” I lied. “She was going down to Records.”
Halifax pinned me with a look. “Don’t bullshit me, Brooks.”
I swallowed but stood my ground. Caroline’s youngest kid, Jack, was born with a heart defect. He’s doing better now, but about a year ago, it was touch-and-go, and she went through it all on her own. The poor woman deserved a break. “I’m not bullshitting you, sir. She’s in Records. Now, Gennadiy Aristov...”
Halifax dropped into his chair, ran his hands through his hair, and groaned. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“No.”
“Even if youweregoing to go after the Aristovs, why would you want Gennadiy? Isn’t his brother, Radimir, thePakhan?”
I could tell I was wearing him down. “Yes, Radimir’s the big boss, but he keeps his hands clean, running their property business and being the public face of the family. It’s Gennadiy who runs all the illegal operations. And over the last year or two, as the Aristovs have expanded, he’s gotten more and more ruthless. Arson. Murder. Remember that gang that robbed the jewelry store last September? Well, they did it on Aristov turf and didn’t give the Aristovs a cut. Gennadiy stole the haul and executed all four of them.” I leaned in. “He gunned down six Mexican smugglers. He caught a guy stealing andcut off his hands!”
“I still don’t think?—”
“I’ve prepared a briefing,” I told him. “Shouldn’t take more than two or three hours.” I pulled my laptop out of my bag and fired it up.
Halifax put his hands up in defeat. “Alright.”He sighed. “What would you need?”
“Six good people and six months.”
“You can have three, and three months.”
Fuck.That was going to be near-impossible. “Thank you, sir.”
“And two of them have to be Hadderwell and Fitch.”
My heart sank. Hadderwell and Fitch are both less than a year from retirement, and they’re phoning it in at this point, doing just enough to make sure they still get their full pension. They weren’t going to love taking orders from a woman, either. But I forced myself to smile. “Fine. And can the third one be Caroline?”
Halifax waved me out of his office. “Fine. Take her.”
Yes!Caroline was outstanding at the sort of deep research we’d need to take Gennadiy down. “Thank you, sir. You won’t regret this.” I hurried out of his office before he changed his mind.
The first job was to understand who we were dealing with. I found photos of the Aristovs and pinned them to the wall. Gennadiy, the murderous crime boss we were focused on. Radimir, his older brother, with his three-piece suits and permanent icy scowl. Valentin, the younger brother, who was thought to be the family’s hitman. And then there was Mikhail, the brothers’ uncle, an older man who did most of the liaising with the rich and powerful and never went anywhere without his pack of Malamute dogs.
“Gennadiy Aristov?” Caroline twirled a lock of golden hair around her finger and blinked up at me nervously from behind her glasses. “I heard some guy once...displeasedhim and he beat him so hard, they couldn’t identify the body.”
