But so could I.
42
ALISON
The next morning,as soon as the banks opened, I marched into the manager’s office and flashed my badge. “I need to see the transactions on this account,” I told him, showing him the number of the account that had paid the assassin. “Right now.”
Normally, I would have filled out some forms, connected to a database, and dug into the accounts without ever leaving my desk. But using official channels would light up big red flashing alerts that I was suspended and my access had been revoked. I was hoping the old-fashioned approach would work: I’d even stopped at a store and bought a new pant suit so I looked more like an FBI agent again.
I was in luck: the manager’s eyes went wide with fear when he saw my badge, and he couldn’t cooperate fast enough. He even brought me a cup of coffee while I looked through Grushin’s transactions. My badge might scare men away, but it has its uses.
My good mood evaporated when I started looking through the transactions. I had to check twice, thinking I’d miscounted the zeroes. The bank account was supposedly for a private medical clinic on the edge of town—obviously a front for whatever Grushin was actually doing. He was using it to launder money, dumping in funds and claiming they came from patients. But it was theamountof moneythat shocked me. There were two to three deposits every week, each between two and five million dollars. Grushin was bringing in about half a billion dollars a year.What the hell is he doing?I wished Caroline was there to bounce ideas off.
I arrived back at the mansion mid-morning and found Gennadiy just coming out of the shower. He’d been at the casino all night and had just come home to change his clothes. I sat on the four-poster bed, watching him dress, while I told him what I’d found out. “He’s making hundreds of millions, and it looks like he’s been here for at least a year. What’s he selling? And how did we not notice it at the FBI? And why does he want so much money, anyway? Mikhail said it’s power he really craves.”
Gennadiy shook his head as he pulled on a forest-green shirt. “I don’t know. It’s…” He rubbed at his eyes. “Troubling.”
I was trying to think, but it was hard not to be distracted. Shafts of warm sunlight from between the drapes lit up patches of his smooth, caramel skin and slid over the hills and valleys of his abs. I watched longingly, as his body slowly disappeared under the shirt, like watching a stripper in reverse. He fastened his cuffs, then moved on to the buttons. But he was operating on no sleep and had three buttons done before he realized the first one was in the wrong hole. “Blyat’!”he muttered.
I walked over and stood in front of him, dwarfed by his big body. I gently pushed his hands aside and started redoing the buttons for him. “You need to rest,” I told him.
“I’ll rest when all this is done.”
Hmm.That sounded a lot like somethingI’dsay. I’d never seen a workaholic from the outside. I finished the buttons and then laid my palms on his chest in a way I hoped was comforting. He scowled down at me suspiciously, and I swallowed: I felt like a mouse, trying to calm a grumpy bull. But I was determined to help him. “You...work a lot,” I said gently. “Harder and harder. Building the business,destroying your enemies. I think...you’ve got this anger inside you, and it drives you.” I looked down at my ruined leg, thinking of my parents, my missing childhood. “I know what that’s like. But with you...it feels like the anger isn’t fading, it’s getting worse.”
Gennadiy cocked a brow.So?
I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to make him mad. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, but I wouldn’t get anywhere if I got him riled up. “What is it?” I asked, so quietly it was almost a whisper. “Where does it come from? Maybe I can help.”
He grimaced and started to say something: to snap at me, maybe. But he bit it back. Then again, and again, he bit it back. He took a deep breath and then took my cheeks in his hands and looked down at me. My heart lifted: he was trying so hard to make this work. “Thank you,” he said. “I know...I know that you mean well. But it isn’t something I can talk about.”
He leaned down and kissed me, soft and tender, and I felt myself melt at the revelation that he could be so gentle. But I also recognized it for what it was: a way of changing the subject.
He broke the kiss and headed for the door. “I have to go. There’s some problem with a gun shipment. But I’ll try to look into Grushin’s phone number, too. There’s a hacker I know?—”
I put my hand up:stop.“You have enough to do. Let me take this. I know a hacker, too.” I sighed, thinking. “Plus, I really need to check in with her boyfriend.”
43
GENNADIY
Before I left,I found Valentin and asked him to start surveillance on Grushin’s front business, the medical clinic. Then I headed across town, but almost immediately, I got stuck in traffic. Crawling along was even more frustrating than usual because, with my car totaled, I was having to drive Radimir’s big Mercedes. None of the controls were where I expected them to be, and I felt clumsy and useless. I missed my BMW.
I glared at the bumper of the car in front.I don’t have time for this!I felt like I was trying to keep about a hundred plates spinning. We had to find out what the hell Grushin was up to and stop him. But I still had the casino to run and countless other operations to manage, and they all seemed to be hitting problems at the same time.
And then there was Alison.
Just thinking of her made my whole chestlift.After months of watching her flit around in my rear-view mirror and the edges of my vision, she was finallymine.I was almost drunk on it: I wanted to spend all day, every day, with the warmth of her body against mine, breathing in the scent of her hair.
And yet...we’d been togetherone day,and already, I was fucking it up. As soon as she’d asked about the anger, I’d shut down.This iswhat I get for falling for an FBI agent.She’d figured out that there was something broken in my soul. And now she knew she was onto something, she’d never let it go. Those cop instincts ran bone-deep in her, and she was at least as stubborn as me.
She was right. The anger was driving me, and it demanded more violence, more territory, a bigger empire, every day. I was pushing too hard: muscling in on the cartel’s supply lines last month was probably why they tried to kill me at the jazz club. I knew this path only ended one way, with me lying dead. But…
I couldn’t stop. Stopping meant letting the anger slow and fade, and I couldn’t do that, for the same reason I couldn’t talk to Alison about it. I didn’t want to face what was underneath the anger.
I shook my head and cursed. The trafficstillwasn’t moving. I was burned out and cranky from lack of sleep, my head was throbbing...I need coffee.And I was right beside the entrance to the Conroy Mall. I could go in and get a caffeine hit, walk around in the air-conditioned coolness for a few minutes, and maybe clear my head. It wasn’t like I was getting anything done sitting here.
Five minutes later, I was wandering through the mall, coffee in hand. I’d asked for a triple shot, and the caffeine was roughly massaging my brain awake. Maybe that’s why I had the revelation. I looked around at the people, and I finally knew why I’d always liked the place.
