The reporters turned to Mikhail for a moment, and he gave them one of his warm, engaging smiles, batting their questions away effortlessly. Radimir took the opportunity to pull me aside. I spoke before he could. “I know this is my fault,” I told him. “If I’d handed over Alison…”
But to my surprise, Radimir shook his head and scowled, then nodded to where Alison was watching from across the street. “I don’t like cops,” he told me, “But I can see how you feel about each other. Handing her over wasn’t an option, any more than I could hand over Bronwyn.” He glanced between Alison and me, then tugged his waistcoat straight. “But I need you two to stop Grushin before he does any more damage.”
I nodded, shocked. Then I locked eyes with Alison, and she gave me a little nod of support. I sucked in a breath, and this time, my lungs actually filled. For the first time, I realized I had someone I trusted to share the load.
But would it be enough?
48
GENNADIY
Alison went to work.First, she called her hacker friend in New York and asked her to look into the head of the gaming board, to try to figure out the hold Grushin had over him. Then she took over the dining room and started pinning names and photos to the wall, mapping out everything we knew about Grushin. My stomach knotted when I saw Yakov’s name there.How could he do this to me?
I watched Alison as she tapped away on a laptop, utterly immersed. Only last week, she’d sat in the FBI office looking up at pictures of Valentin and Radimir andmeon the wall, figuring outournetwork. Now she was working to save us.
She stood, crossed her arms, and stared at the map of names and faces. She began to do that thing where she rose up on her toes like a dancer and then sank back down as she thought, and I watched, hypnotized. Then she darted forward and added another detail. God, she was good at this. It was what she was born to do. But—my chest tightened—I couldn’t see any way that could work. Even if we managed to stop Grushin and clear her name, she couldn’t go back to the FBI if she was in my bed every night. And I couldn’t give up the Bratva any more than I could give up breathing.
Valentin appeared from the shadows, silent as always. “It’s eleven. You asked me to come get you.”
I nodded. I’d been worried that if he didn’t remind me, I’d let the time slip past and then put it off until tomorrow. That’s how much I was dreading this.
Valentin put a hand on my shoulder. “I could go on my own,” he offered.
I shook my head. “No.” My voice was raw with pain. “I need to be there.” I pressed my hand to his and turned to look at him.My baby brother.The guilt flared, and for a second, it cut through the anger, viciously sharp enough to steal my breath. I thought of Grushin, and the cops, and everything else that made me mad, whipping the anger faster and faster until that vulnerable center was hidden and I could breathe again.
I knew I couldn’t go on like this. The guilt got worse every day, which meant the anger had to whirl faster and hotter to block it out. Soon, the rage would destroy me: I’d pick a fight I couldn’t win and wind up bleeding out on the floor of some bar. I couldn’t take Alison down with me. But I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t deal with the guilt, couldn’t even talk about it. I couldn’t take that much pain.What am I going to do?
I sucked in a deep breath and pushed the feelings down inside. Then I nodded to Alison, and the three of us headed to the car. My problems would have to wait. It was time to confront Yakov.
As we drove, Alison filled us in on what she’d been working on. “I’ve been trying to find patients who used the clinic. I thought if we could find enough, maybe we could figure out which ones are regular patients and which ones are Grushin’s clients. But I could barely find anything.” She rubbed her eyes. “The only name I turned up was a guy called Clayton Tuxworth, a tobacco billionaire from North Carolina. There was a story on a gossip site about him visiting the clinic a year ago. His lawyers made the site take it down, but I found it in an archive. Hecouldbe a client, or he could just be someone with gallstones. No way of knowing. He’s, like, seventy, so it fits that he’d have health problems.”
I nodded. “Well done.” I tried to smile, but I couldn’t. Not with what I was about to do.
We pulled up at the docks, but it took me three breaths to summon the strength to climb out of the car. Then I focused on the control center in the distance and just went for it, head down and walking fast, because if I stopped, I was worried I wouldn’t start again. At this time of night, the docks were deserted and eerily quiet. We passed under the huge gantry cranes and then between the stacks of brightly-colored shipping containers. “Are you sure he’ll still be here, this late?” asked Alison.
“Yakov hasn’t left these docks before midnight in all the years I’ve known him,” I told her sadly.
Valentin gave me a sympathetic look. I’d asked him to come along as backup, just in case.
As we reached the control center, I glanced up at the roof, remembering all the times we’d sat up there in lawn chairs. Valentin looked around. “I’ll keep watch out here,” he told me.
My chest aching, I led Alison into the darkened building, then up the stairs to Yakov’s corner office. I slowed as we reached the hallway just outside and drew my gun. I nodded to Alison, who drew hers. For all I knew, Grushin could be in there with Yakov right now, or Yakov could know we were onto him and have a shotgun ready.
I took a deep breath...and opened the door.
Yakov was deep in paperwork, his gold-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose. When he saw me, he jerked upright, startled, then gave me a wide smile. “Gennadiy!” He turned to smile at Alison, happy but confused. “What’s going on?”
I blinked, stunned. Yakov was many things, but a good liar wasn’t one of them. Was it possible that...he doesn’t know?!The weight on my chest shifted, wanting to lift but not daring to.
Yakov noticed our guns. “Gennadiy? What is this?”
We moved into the office. “Yakov, we found out who tried to kill Alison. It’s Viktor Grushin.”
I was braced for him to pull out the gun he kept taped under his desk. Instead, he just...crumbled. His head fell forward into his hands,and he suddenly looked every one of his fifty-three years. “Blyat’,” he moaned. “Oh, God. Gennadiy, I had no idea he was behind all this.” He looked at Alison, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”
I felt myself slump in relief. “But why would you work with that piece of shit? After everything he did to the Bratva back in Moscow?”
“I had no choice!” said Yakov. “He came to me six months ago. He blackmailed me.”
