Downstairs, Gennadiy told me that he’d called Mikhail and the rest of his family, and they were on their way. While we waited, his chef fed us steaming bowls of home-cooked tomato soup and toastedcheese sandwiches that were absolutely amazing, the bread crunchy and salty with butter, and the centers molten and dripping with strings of tangy cheese.
Bronwyn—Radimir’s wife—arrived first because she’d come straight from her bookstore, and I grabbed the chance to get to know her a little. She was American, too, and she and Radimir had only been together a matter of months, so she wasn’t used to the lifestyle, either. In fact, it was harder for her because she’d been a civilian with no contact with organized crime at all before Radimir had walked into her bookstore. “Aren’t you...scared?” I asked her in the hallway.
“Ofhim?” she asked. “Never.Forhim? All the time. But...the Bratva’s part of who he is. I figured I could fight it, maybe lose him to it...Or I could become part of it and be there for him when he needs me.” She gave me a brave smile. “It’s working...so far.” Then her smile faltered. “What happens next...we’re working on that.”
What happens next. Children?Was she wondering whether to bring kids into Radimir’s world? I tried to figure out how to ask, but, at that moment, we heard the other Aristovs arrive.
We hurried back into the dining room as Valentin walked in, silent and brooding, his eyes everywhere. Then Radimir, icily cold...until he spied Bronwyn and pulled her to him, taking both her hands in his and smiling at her with childlike joy. And finally, Mikhail arrived, surrounded by his dogs. For once, he wasn’t smiling. “Gennadiy said something about Viktor Grushin,” he told me. “Start talking.”
We all sat, and I slowly laid out what I’d learned: that Viktor Grushin was a former spy turned anti-Bratva cop, that he’d successfully smashed the gangs in Moscow and then faked his own death. I pulled out my phone and showed them the photo I’d taken of his new, fake identity.
“He’salive?!”Mikhail shook his head, visibly shaken. His dogs butted their furry heads against him to comfort him, and he absently stroked them. “I never thought…” He muttered something in Russian, and Gennadiy stood and brought him a glass of vodka, which he drained in one gulp. He sighed, staring at the floor while the rest of us exchanged shocked looks.
When Mikhail finally raised his eyes again, his expression was hard, his voice cracked and bitter. “Viktor Grushin,” he told me, “is not what you think.”
We all leaned in to listen.
“You said he was a spy,” said Mikhail, “and he was. But not some heroic James Bond. His specialty was overthrowing governments in the Middle East and Africa. Assassinating leaders, rigging elections, poisoning opponents. He stoked rebellions, started wars...people starved and died, just so our government could have another puppet leader. Grushin would do anything to complete his mission. When he finally came home, some idiot in the government thought it would be a good idea to put him to work dealing withus,with theBratva.But they didn’t understand the sort of man he is.”
Mikhail looked right at me and spoke slowly and carefully, so I didn’t miss a word. “Viktor Grushin,” he said, “didtake down the gangs, but not by becoming a cop. He did it by becoming worse than any of them. He became a predator who preyed on criminals.” He waved his hand at me. “You FBI, you think that the Bratva is as bad as it gets.Viktor Grushinis as bad as it gets. He had no code, no honor. He didn’t care about collateral damage. He gunned down entire restaurants, just to eliminate one person. He would snatch the children of gang leaders from their schools, and of course, the teachers would let him, because he was with the police. Then he would call the parent andbreak the child’s fingersover the phone until the gang leader came out of hiding, at which point Grushin would kill him and move on to the next. I once?—”
Mikhail broke off, his shoulders slumping. He gestured, and Gennadiy poured him another vodka, but Mikhail didn’t drink this one. He just turned the glass around and around in his hands, staring at it. “I once had a friend named Prokopy Ivakin,” he said quietly. “His wife, Katya...before she was with him, she and I—” He fell silent again, and Gennadiy and I looked at each other: he looked as shocked as me.
“One night,” Mikhail continued, “Grushin and his men came for Prokopy. They interrogated him, trying to get all his contacts. He wouldn’t talk so...Grushin took Katya and…”—Mikhail’s voice became savage—“he raped her, in front of her husband. He didn’t stop, even when Prokopy talked. And afterwards, he shot them both.” As he knocked back the vodka, I thought I glimpsed tears in his eyes. My chest ached for him.Oh, Mikhail…And at the same time, I was cringing at how I’d hero-worshipped Grushin.
“I didn’t know any of this,” muttered Radimir, sounding sickened. “I heard talk of him but not...the details.”
“The three of you had already left for America, thank God,” Mikhail told him. “Grushin is one of the reasons I followed you.” He sighed and continued. “What the government didn’t realize was that a man like Grushin wasn’t going to take down the gangs for a paltry government salary. He’d been close to Crown Princes and dictators for too long; he wanted to be rich...but even more, he wanted power. The whole time he was crushing the gangs, he was stealing their money, taking over their operations. He didn’t create his own gang: that would have been noticed. He operated like a parasite, using blackmail to control people high up in the remaining gangs, and no one ever knew who the traitors were until it was too late.” Mikhail pinned me with a look. “Viktor Grushin is the one man the Bratva fear, the one man we hate more than the cops.”
Everyone sat in stunned silence for a moment. “What happened to him?” asked Gennadiy.
Mikhail sighed. “He amassed so much money and power, andkompromaton important people, that the government got scared. Rumor was, they were going to have him killed. When I heard he’d died of a heart attack, I thought that’s what had happened.”
“But he wasn’t dead at all,” I whispered, stunned. “He must have known the government was coming for him, so he faked his death. Got a new identity and came here.”
Mikhail nodded. “And if he’s in this city, and he has people in the FBI, then he’s building a new network, right here in Chicago.”
“He doesn’t want anyone to know he’s alive,” said Bronwyn. “Hismole at the FBI probably keeps watch on his file. When they saw you digging into him, they alerted Grushin, and he tried to take you out.”
“And he tried to framemeto get me out of the way,” said Gennadiy. “Because he doesn’t want the Aristovs interfering in whatever he’s doing in Chicago. He’s out there, somewhere, getting stronger every day. Soon he’ll be too strong to stop.” He looked meaningfully at Radimir. “We’d never even have known Grushin was in the city, if not for her.”
Radimir leaned forward. “We helped you,” he told me. “Now it seems you can help us. Whatever Grushin’s doing, it’s a threat to us. We need to find out what he’s up to and stop him. Then maybe we can clear your name, too.”
I realized Valentin was looking at me, too. All of them were. I swallowed… and nodded slowly. It felt like I was stepping through a mirror, into a backwards world: I’d run to Gennadiy, a cop who needed a criminal for protection. Now the criminals had a mystery to solve...and they needed a cop to solve it.
I thought hard. Then, “If we can find the assassin Grushin sent to kill me, maybe we can get him to lead us to Grushin,” I looked at Mikhail. “You told me Grushin doesn’t have a gang of his own, so who did he send to kill me in my apartment?”
Next to me, Gennadiy tensed. I could feel the vengeful anger throbbing from him. “The men who shot up my car were Russians. Looked like mercenaries.”
“Which means he probably hired a Russian hitman, too,” said Mikhail.
I turned to Valentin. “That’s your area. Think you could figure out who?”
Valentin was silent for a moment. I could tell he was still hurting: whatever anniversary was tomorrow, it cut deep. But then he seemed to steel himself, and he nodded slowly. “There’s a bar where all those guys hang out. I can take you there. Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”
I thought about it. It had been dark, and he’d been wearing a ski mask. “Maybe,” I said uncertainly. “He’d sure as hell rememberme.”
“We’ll be right there with you,” said Gennadiy, and slipped a protective arm around me. I flushed, but a warm bomb went off in my chest. Mikhail caught my eye and gave me anI told you solook. Radimir, though, frowned coldly at me. Working with me was one thing, but an FBI agentin his brother’s bed?I wondered if he’d ever trust me.
